Much of the time I think very much true. It's things of the Spirit which awakens the reality of spirit or spiritual things.
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Much of the time I think very much true. It's things of the Spirit which awakens the reality of spirit or spiritual things.Atheists fail to understand that believers don't become believers because they go to church a lot or listen to very charismatic preachers. They believe because of experiencing highly improbable events that common sense insists can not be attributed to blind coincidence alone.
Problem is they spin off all sorts of crazy sounding rhetoric to make it seems that 2 + 2 = 5. They train their students in universities that their unreasonable position is justified and if others don't tout the line they'll give them a failing grade. Many are deceived for to admit they've spend untold thousands of dollars going into debt to have worthless ideas planted in their heads is unquestionably hard to take. It's not easy to admit you've been duped.Unless they can discuss everything on the basis of 2 + 2 = 4, they are floundering ducks.
The formula that's worked for me is Love + Gratitude + Compassion + Listening = 37 years of marriage.Of course, they are going to tell you that life is all about 2 + 2 = 4 so I am going to ask them what formula I have to put into practice to be able to love my wife?
Perhaps kiss + kiss = lips.
And *another* supposedly holy book clearly states that the cosmos was created from a milky ocean stirred by the Hindu gods. Krishna's speech to Arjuna clearly establishes him as the supreme being.
Another tells us that God is from Planet Kolob, and black skin the result of a Divine curse.
Yet another tells us Hailie Selassie is the messiah, hiding until the final battle that will squash "Babylon", that is: the western world.
There is nothing that sets Christianity apart from any other religion or ancient myth, whether people still believe in it or not.
I would hope that it lies in the drive to help those in need, the homeless, the hungry, those with no medical access, the mentally challenged, the troubled families, social justice...None of those alternate religions have an historical foundation. The evidential supremacy of Christianity is demonstrated in the incarnation
They consider their sacred texts to be as grounded in history as you believe yours. Few of them are thoroughly ahistorical, and many reference or were directly involved with historical events and sites.None of those alternate religions have an historical foundation. The evidential supremacy of Christianity is demonstrated in the incarnation
I would hope that it lies in the drive to help those in need, the homeless, the hungry, those with no medical access, the mentally challenged, the troubled families, social justice...
They consider their sacred texts to be as grounded in history as you believe yours. Few of them are thoroughly ahistorical, and many reference or were directly involved with historical events and sites.
There is no disputing the historicity of the Buddha, Mani, Muhammad, Baha'ullah, or even Joseph Smith or L. Ron Hubbard. It's the extraordinary claims made *about* them that can and should be called into question - and the same goes for your religion.
*you* taught all major religions?
And yet you embrace a thoroughly unfounded claim to Christian exceptionalism?
Let's talk plainly, then.
For the sake of the argument, let's take the historicity of a Jesus of Nazareth who was revered as the messiah and got executed by the Romans for granted. He lived, he preached, he died, and his followers turned his death into the spark of a new faith.
Still , that does not turn the miraculous events attributed to the man retroactively into historical fact. They are just as unsubstantiated as the belief that Mohammed traveled to Jerusalem and the heavens on a miracle steed, that the historical Buddha emerged from the womb capable of speech and sprouting flowers in his footsteps, or that Joseph Smith could translate foreign languages with the help of a seeing stone (just to mention a few).
There is *nothing* substantiating the virgin birth or the risen saints walking the streets of Jerusalem on the day of the crucifixion, earthquake and eclipse included. The case for all of these supposed events is exactly as weak as that of other religions.
Yes, Hinduism's mythology is mostly placed in a remote, mythical "Before"
- but the same goes for early books of the Bible, even when they reference some real places. The geological record (along with virtually every other scientific discipline) clearly establishes a global flood and an ark saving all animal species in the middle east as utterly ahistorical. Local natural disasters may have inspired the tale, but whatever happened: it wasn't what we find in Genesis.
Which gives us around 7 billion images of God.
You cannot see any difference in the historical credibility of the different claims, as someone who taught all the major religions I know that is not true. Hinduism especially is practically devoid of all historical legitimacy and even Islam is a social construct regarding the actual person of Mohammed. If you want to make a claim for equal credibility for another religion then make it specific and we will take it case by case.
I could not generalise like that the atheists I know are a mix of ignoramuses and smart alecs who think they know it all. Some are people who genuinely do not care to ask the right questions in the first place while others have come to sad and hopeless conclusions after much effort. There is a massive difference between a Marxist, Nietzschean and a modern Liberal - Evolutionist.
We are gifted with answers to the major questions. Having accepted Christ it is an easy thing to accept the package of beliefs which he supports. Some Christians have thought this through and others not. An atheist is someone who has rejected something not necessarily found a new centre. Many are broken and incoherent. The predominant atheist view today would be a naturalistic liberalism focused on "scientific evolution" and on "choice". But in practice many atheists are not that consistent.
The smart alec atheists I know will have answers like Big Bang, Abiogenesis and then macro evolution to the basic origins question. But there is no scientific proof for these theories, there is only acceptance on the basis of explanatory power. We believe that the Creation event was a supernatural one and as such it has no analogy and cannot be explained by what we can observe and especially since the world has been broken by flood and by fall. Believing in a God of miracles changes everything. But even within the modern atheists terms of reference there is good reason to doubt their worldview is anything more than a faith position.
I don't think it's that foolish to think that so much of the stuff that is observable seems to be doing things without some kind of life force or personality.
to take it a bit further is to say that the birth of the universe was also the result of the same basic stuffs of lifeless processes of reality that surround us.
"I cannot wrap my mind around the idea of how lightning might possibly come to exist naturally, so it's CLEARLY a supernatural weapon hurled by a deity." Creationist "logic" in a nutshell.Well spoken. In fact, to be an atheist requires more faith than to be a Christian. I just can't believe that out of nothing came everything like POOF and there you are. The creation story where God crafted everything out of next to nothing requires less faith. Especially as there was total order to creation.
Well spoken. In fact, to be an atheist requires more faith than to be a Christian. I just can't believe that out of nothing came everything like POOF and there you are. The creation story where God crafted everything out of next to nothing requires less faith. Especially as there was total order to creation.
I guess when you don't want to know the truth you create your own reality to fit your idealization of mankind as the be all and end all of reality.
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