Is that your defense for the Bible account of origins?
Sure, although I view it as mostly allegory anyways. That is my defense of it, even though I nevertheless don't believe the bible is accurate in any regard, I do view a nonliteral interpretation as more valid than a literal one. While I don't know if I will ever attain belief or not, I strongly doubt that I would ever become a biblical literalist.
If you chose to accept the Gospel - you would be a born again Christian -
It is that simple.
It is not, I can state that from personal experience. More than 7 years of trying, yet failing, to believe are all I need to know that belief is not something one can change in a day, on a whim. You can think me a liar for being a physical example of how belief doesn't work the way you think it does, but I know the truth that I embody through experience. Belief. Is not. A conscious choice.
I can't even willfully change the standard of evidence I require to have belief. You can't either, just try to do it. Make yourself believe something you currently don't through willpower alone. Chances are, you'll be fully aware of willfully lying to yourself.
What are you talking about?
In the Bible "not everyone who SAYS Lord Lord will enter the kingdom of heaven - but rather it is the one who DOES the will of My Father that will enter" Matt 7.
"It is not hearers of the Law that are just before God - but the DOERS of the Law WILL be justified" Rom 2:13
Why don't you actually choose to "read the book"?? OR is it your claim that the choice to "read" is also beyond you at this time?
Why do you think I haven't read the bible? I have read it, although it has been a while since I have read the whole thing consecutively. Also, how Catholic of you, to bring works into this. My mother personally believes that belief is not even a factor in getting into heaven, but rather, those that live good lives get there regardless of belief. It's a nice sentiment, I suppose, but I am a seeker of belief, and even if you convinced me that the bible claims that living a good life is more important than belief, it wouldn't make me think the content of the text was true.
Whether or not I believe is unrelated to whether or not I view the text as moral or fair.
There is an atheist "hotline" -- "The Hotline project" and the one who heads that up - helping atheists be "happier atheists" - reported last year on a talk show interview - that I happened to hear - that the most common call from atheists was "fear of hell" and it did not matter how many decades long the person had been atheist - the statistic held up.
How odd, if true. I don't fear that which I do not believe in. Then again, how many atheists would call such a number? Perhaps it was fear of death in general, rather than hell. I don't know, because I am unfamiliar with your source. The statistic doesn't apply to me, though. I most certainly fear death, but hell I do not.
Because in John 16 God the Holy Spirit - informs us that He "convicts the WORLD of sin" not just Christians. And in Romans 1 even the pagans are "informed" in that manner that those who do such things as they are doing are incurring judgment.
No duh. Do you think atheists are such because they think they can escape judgement that way? Literally, if you believe you will be judged, that means you aren't an atheist... unless you believe in reincarnation or something. Which I don't, and even if I did, I view reincarnation as essentially the same as nonexistence, because I view memories as key to being who you are, so it would not comfort me in the slightest.
Your idea is silly. I don't even know any atheists that claim they are such because they want to sin or some other such nonsense. Personally, I restrict my life more than the average Christian, in that I won't have sex until marriage, I cannot drink alcohol because it is toxic when combined with a medication I take, and the only naked bodies I look at are diagrams in my anatomy textbook, and they make me uncomfortable. DX why must the body displaying the respiratory system have genitals?
The only thing I regularly do that would defy biblical law, is work on the weekends. College has a heavy workload, and I am a science major.
Then I have good news for you. What will happen as we are told in Rev 20 - is that you will be resurrected and then judged and then cast into the lake of fire - to be tormented with "fire and brimstone in the presence of Christ and of the angels" (Rev 14:10) - but that event will not last forever because God will "destroy BOTH body and soul in fiery hell" Matt 10:28 - so then the oblivion you mention will be there even if your view of atheism is wrong and the Bible is right.
Why would I find that to be good news? I thought I made it clear that I fear oblivion more than anything else. Fear will not make me believe, at most, it could try to make me fake it, but I don't want fake belief.
I have been a member of multiple churches before in the past, though none currently.
You have carefully chosen a strategy guaranteed to get you oblivion "no matter what".
Except I didn't choose to be an atheist. By choice, I would be a general theist, if not a Christian. If I were Christian, I would most likely be Catholic, or perhaps Methodist.
Why would I chose to believe something so bleak? I don't benefit emotionally from it at all.
What evidence do you have that you read the Bible accepted the Gospel - chose to be born again -- but then "did not believe"??
Well, I read the bible, did the prayers, went to church regularly with different churches over the years, have actively prayed for belief to this day, and yet, I am not a believer. So, my life is the evidence for me. I don't really care if you trust me on that or not, but as long as you assume I am lying, any advice you have is going to fall short of the mark. Besides, if I was lying, obviously I wouldn't care about your advice at all anyways, so any that assumes I am somehow wrong about how belief works is pointless, regardless as to whether or not I am telling the truth.
I don't expect you to trust this random atheist on the internet to be honest, so ultimately, I don't care if you disregard all that I have said in regards to my personal journey trying to find belief. I just would rather you not waste your time on arguments that I will not only find meaningless, but patronizing.
Is it your claim that a big wad of dust and gas will eventually "turn into a rabbit" if you wait long enough?
Anything can be made to sound silly, with the right words. You follow a god that would curse a fig tree for not having fruit out of season, when said deity made it that way, and could easily make it have fruit at any time. Seriously, look it up, it's in the bible (if you consider Jesus to literally be god in the flesh). Lots of humorous moments are in the bible, actually, it's just that a lot of them go unnoticed because of the diction.
Just because being an atheist seems unreasonable to you, doesn't mean it seems ridiculous to me, even with your pathetically weak argument. But, I have no desire to defend it either, seeing as I don't want to be an atheist, and I most certainly do not want to make you or anyone else become one. I'd feel terrible if I destroyed anyone's belief in god/s.
Is it your claim that flowers will 'naturally paint the Mona Lisa all by themselves -- since you never met Leonardo da Vinci ? -- whom you never met nor met anyone who met?)
Since when do flowers have anything to do with paint? Most paints are made out of crushed minerals and oils, I don't know of any made from flowers. Furthermore, paintings don't form without human intervention, but flowers do.
We know historically that Leonardo da Vinci painted it, because the documents for the request still exist, and the man liked it so much, he kept the painting.
All life is proof that there is a God - that is the easy part. No piles of dirt and gas will ever turn into a horse.
Horsehead Nebula
http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/52238main_MM_image_feature_89_jw4.jpg
but, I mostly bring that up in jest. Sorry, but just as a cave isn't inherently evidence of a mining operation, life doesn't bear the signs of something that must have been created. It could have been, but nothing about it suggests that was the only way life could have come to be. Even if it was, that wouldn't mean it was created by the deity you believe in, and the existence of deities would raise far more questions than it would answer. Any argument for life needing a creator applies to said creator.
Even your own atheists peers on this board say that is not true. They claim that they used to be Christians until they accepted blind faith in evolutionism. So also did Darwin, Dawkins, Provine, Meyers claim the same thing.
Many atheists were theists at some point in their lives. In fact, this is true for most of them. But, not all. I am well aware that I am not the typical case. You can think I am a liar if you want, but I am and always have been, an atheist. I wasn't raised to be either; I wasn't indoctrinated into atheism any more than I was into theism.
So then "we were just not supposed to notice"??
You do realize that, even if every single atheist you have been exposed to prior to this point was, at one point, a theist, that wouldn't make it so for every single atheist that exists, right?
I think your objectivity on that point is transparently flawed for that specific claim.
What, that I am a lifelong atheist? Sorry, but I am, and while I am fully aware that I cannot in any way prove that to you, I know my own mind better than you do, so don't try to claim that a lifelong atheist is impossible. I have never, at any point in my life, been a believer in any deity or deities. I have read the bible, and other religious texts as well. I constantly have to reread parts of the bible to keep up with some of the people on this site, because I haven't memorized it by any means (and I swear, it seems like some people have).
Yet, you antagonize this seeker by claiming dishonesty? Does it hurt you so much inside, that belief can be a struggle for some people, that you refuse to accept that it can be so? Because I feel no obligation to prove myself to you, and I do not exist to challenge your faith or that of any other person. I am a real person. All I have said is true. I know it, because I have lived it, and continue to live it. That you refuse to accept that, doesn't invalidate my life, it just means that your advice is tailored to a perspective that makes it unable to help me.
But I understood your point.
