The difficulty of talking to Atheist

[Colter]

......"Though reason can always question faith, faith can always supplement both reason and logic. Reason creates the probability which faith can transform into a moral certainty, even a spiritual experience. God is the first truth and the last fact; therefore does all truth take origin in him, while all facts exist relative to him. God is absolute truth. As truth one may know God, but to understand — to explain — God, one must explore the fact of the universe of universes. The vast gulf between the experience of the truth of God and ignorance as to the fact of God can be bridged only by living faith. Reason alone cannot achieve harmony between infinite truth and universal fact.

Belief may not be able to resist doubt and withstand fear, but faith is always triumphant over doubting, for faith is both positive and living. The positive always has the advantage over the negative, truth over error, experience over theory, spiritual realities over the isolated facts of time and space. The convincing evidence of this spiritual certainty consists in the social fruits of the spirit which such believers, faithers, yield as a result of this genuine spiritual experience. Said Jesus: “If you love your fellows as I have loved you, then shall all men know that you are my disciples.”

To science God is a possibility, to psychology a desirability, to philosophy a probability, to religion a certainty, an actuality of religious experience. Reason demands that a philosophy which cannot find the God of probability should be very respectful of that religious faith which can and does find the God of certitude. Neither should science discount religious experience on grounds of credulity, not so long as it persists in the assumption that man’s intellectual and philosophic endowments emerged from increasingly lesser intelligences the further back they go, finally taking origin in primitive life which was utterly devoid of all thinking and feeling.

The facts of evolution must not be arrayed against the truth of the reality of the certainty of the spiritual experience of the religious living of the God-knowing mortal. Intelligent men should cease to reason like children and should attempt to use the consistent logic of adulthood, logic which tolerates the concept of truth alongside the observation of fact. Scientific materialism has gone bankrupt when it persists, in the face of each recurring universe phenomenon, in refunding its current objections by referring what is admittedly higher back into that which is admittedly lower. Consistency demands the recognition of the activities of a purposive Creator.

Organic evolution is a fact; purposive or progressive evolution is a truth which makes consistent the otherwise contradictory phenomena of the ever-ascending achievements of evolution. The higher any scientist progresses in his chosen science, the more will he abandon the theories of materialistic fact in favor of the cosmic truth of the dominance of the Supreme Mind. Materialism cheapens human life; the gospel of Jesus tremendously enhances and supernally exalts every mortal. Mortal existence must be visualized as consisting in the intriguing and fascinating experience of the realization of the reality of the meeting of the human upreach and the divine and saving downreach." UB 1955
​

 

[JGG]

An atheist believes there is no God.

Psalm 14:1 says: The fool has said in his heart, "There is no God."

Perhaps you're a little confused about what wisdom is.

Actually what Psalm 14:1 says is: The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good.

Psalm 53:1 says this: The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. Corrupt are they, and have done abominable iniquity: there is none that doeth good.

Psalm 5:5 says: The foolish shall not stand in thy sight: thou hatest all workers of iniquity.

It is logic and reason that tells me what this scripture actually says. It is experience which allows me to predict how you'll respond to it. You agree that your God hates atheists?

 

[Aldebaran]

It is logic and reason that tells me what this scripture actually says. It is experience which allows me to predict how you'll respond to it. You agree that your God hates atheists?

Logic and reason tells you what it says? For me, it's my own eyes that tells me what it says. All I have to do is read it to see what it says.

God loves humanity. Jesus died for all of humanity so that any member of humanity can, at their choosing, accept that gift of salvation. That doesn't sound like hate to me. Does it sound that way to you?

 

[JGG]

Logic and reason tells you what it says? For me, it's my own eyes that tells me what it says. All I have to do is read it to see what it says.

God loves humanity. Jesus died for all of humanity so that any member of humanity can, at their choosing, accept that gift of salvation. That doesn't sound like hate to me. Does it sound that way to you?

This scripture, part of which you yourself quoted and presented as fact, literally says otherwise. Do you agree with your quote or not?

 

[Aldebaran]

This scripture, part of which you yourself quoted and presented as fact, literally says otherwise. Do you agree with your quote or not?

My quote? I don't see a quote in my post. All I did was tell you the basics of what is written. If you disagree with what I said, then point it out.

 

[JGG]

My quote? I don't see a quote in my post. All I did was tell you the basics of what is written. If you disagree with what I said, then point it out.

Yes. Post #89 you quoted part of Ps. 14:1. Whether I disagree ot not isn't the point. I'm asking if you agree with it. Do you agree with what is clearly written in the book of Psalms?

 

[Archaeopteryx]

An atheist believes there is no God.

Psalm 14:1 says: The fool has said in his heart, "There is no God."

Perhaps you're a little confused about what wisdom is.

I'm not sure that one should be looking to the Bible, a book that advises against wearing garments made from two different fabrics, for wisdom. Then again, perhaps if one takes a critical approach one can extract some wisdom from it.

 

[Colter]

I'm not sure that one should be looking to the Bible, a book that advises against wearing garments made from two different fabrics, for wisdom. Then again, perhaps if one takes a critical approach one can extract some wisdom from it.

That was practiced long ago but it is retained in the scriptures because at the time the practice wad considered sacred.

If we had a book of what passed for science and reason in 1500 BC it may look just as silly.

 

[Colter]

A consideration of Jesus' use of parables for teaching publically.

"The parable provides for a simultaneous appeal to vastly different levels of mind and spirit. The parable stimulates the imagination, challenges the discrimination, and provokes critical thinking; it promotes sympathy without arousing antagonism.

The parable proceeds from the things which are known to the discernment of the unknown. The parable utilizes the material and natural as a means of introducing the spiritual and the supermaterial.

Parables favor the making of impartial moral decisions. The parable evades much prejudice and puts new truth gracefully into the mind and does all this with the arousal of a minimum of the self-defense of personal resentment.

To reject the truth contained in parabolical analogy requires conscious intellectual action which is directly in contempt of one’s honest judgment and fair decision. The parable conduces to the forcing of thought through the sense of hearing.

The use of the parable form of teaching enables the teacher to present new and even startling truths while at the same time he largely avoids all controversy and outward clashing with tradition and established authority.

The parable also possesses the advantage of stimulating the memory of the truth taught when the same familiar scenes are subsequently encountered." UB 1955​

 

[variant]

That was practiced long ago but it is retained in the scriptures because at the time the practice wad considered sacred.

If we had a book of what passed for science and reason in 1500 BC it may look just as silly.

It's just as antiquated to call people wise simply because a holy book says so.

 

[keith99]

It's always funny to see someone try to address an atheist with a Bible passage.



http://www.christianforums.com/t7841907/#post66313994

I suppose it does make it difficult to talk to us.

But, to do such a thing makes one question if they understand the nature of our disagreement.

Hetta does not seem to have any problems talking to us. Nor do several others. Hetta is just the one who is so obvious in the last couple of pages of this thread.

Perhaps it is that she does not insist that the conversation has to hang on her interpretation of Scripture.

 

[variant]

Hetta does not seem to have any problems talking to us. Nor do several others. Hetta is just the one who is so obvious in the last couple of pages of this thread.

Perhaps it is that she does not insist that the conversation has to hang on her interpretation of Scripture.

Well that's fine, the point I was making is that the people having trouble speaking with Atheists are the ones who wish to assert unshared assumptions.

 

[Colter]

It's just as antiquated to call people wise simply because a holy book says so.

That's true, holy books aren't documents of perfection, and unlike science, religion doesn't really have a technique for discarding old antiquated ideas to everyone's satisfaction.

 

[variant]

That's true, holy books aren't documents of perfection, and unlike science, religion doesn't really have a technique for discarding old antiquated ideas to everyone's satisfaction.

On this, we agree.

 

[Eight Foot Manchild]

That's true, holy books aren't documents of perfection, and unlike science, religion doesn't really have a technique for discarding old antiquated ideas to everyone's satisfaction.

Correct. They are certainly not the same.

Science has an epistemological framework and demonstrably reliable methods for gleaning facts about reality.

Religion has no epistemology whatsoever, and has gleaned zero facts about anything.

 

[Colter]

Correct. They are certainly not the same.

Science has an epistemological framework and demonstrably reliable methods for gleaning facts about reality.

Religion has no epistemology whatsoever, and has gleaned zero facts about anything.

In religion we glean an understanding of the spirit, we grow in grace and the dimensions of love. We grow in wisdom and faith, we become more resigned to the reality of our God and less attached to the illusions of security in the material world. I stop short of calling these "facts" in the same way science uses the term, but these realities are very real to the religionists.

 

[Colter]

Paper 103 - The Reality of Religious Experience | Urantia Book | Urantia Foundation

 

[Eight Foot Manchild]

In religion we glean an understanding of the spirit

No, religion asserts understanding. You don't actually possess it.

We grow in wisdom and faith

No, religion asserts wisdom. You don't actually possess it.

I stop short of calling these "facts"

Good, because they're not. They are, at best, exercises in imagination.

 

[Chany]

In religion we glean an understanding of the spirit, we grow in grace and the dimensions of love. We grow in wisdom and faith, we become more resigned to the reality of our God and less attached to the illusions of security in the material world. I stop short of calling these "facts" in the same way science uses the term, but these realities are very real to the religionists.

To quote Nietzsche:

"A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything."

A major part of the epistemological basis of science (and most of philosophy) is the problem of discerning our personal, subjective experiences with objective reality. Anyone can feel things and say they understand they know the way the universe works, but I also know many people conflict on this universe and that people often get the nature of reality just wrong, much like the insane do.

The question emerges: how can I differentiate between subjective opinion and genuine reality? The only way is to, at some point, generate a tangible effect upon the world in a clear way or to extrapolate from already accepted facts through careful reasoning.

Merely feeling a bunch of emotions does not prove anything beyond the fact that you feel emotions. Just because you connect those feelings with something else does make it the origins true unless you have something tangible to back it up. Merely getting a bunch of people together who connect their feelings to the same thing doesn't change anything; it just adds more people to the mix who can't back up their claims.

Unless there is something to distinguish your claims from either being true or false, then your claims are pretty much subjective, and should be dismissed as such.

 

[znr]

I find talking to atheists to be very easy. Now, forcing an athiest to believe, that's another thing (we should not aspire to be doing).