What you (Christians) think of Atheists

Ayersy · Nov 12, 2010

ivebeenshown said:
Well, it is what it is, is it not?

'God' is the great I AM, the eternal One, the greatest of the great, which surpasses all. How you view the way this being expresses itself is one thing, but to deny its existence is... ignorant.

Always was, always is, always will be.

What does the atom tell you? And the quasar? We cannot grasp the innermost and outermost boundaries of reality, which are the Alpha and the Omega of space and time. I believe all religions from ancient times are varied expressions of this one supernatural truth, seeing as they all share many expressions in common. I just happen to believe the Alpha and the Omega was manifest in the flesh as Jesus of Nazareth.

It's not ignorance, I once believed too, you know. Having looked around, I just cannot see any way in which any benevolent deity can exist. It doesn't make sense, and apologists are only full of rubbish cop-out excuses such as "His ways are higher than ours!" and "Well, you don't know!", which just makes it even more convincing to me that it's all just a comforting thought, which humans are desperate to keep alive, especially if they profit from it.

razeontherock · Nov 12, 2010

The way you say "having looked around" is the perfect picture of never having come to Faith within the context of being of the age of reason and accountability.

oi_antz · Nov 12, 2010

ToHoldNothing said:
What God says seems to vary by time and place anyway, as well as persons. Though the whole determining factor of whether the person is insane or inspired is honestly speculative, since there doesn't seem to be much agreement on orthodoxy beyond a majority rule with the minority being regarded as outright blasphemers or heretics with no possibility of them possessing any value or truth.

So that's a no then?

ToHoldNothing said:
You said the only correct choice was your particular brand of Christianity, correct? Or did I misread?

I think you misread:

Originally Posted by ToHoldNothing
One could say that theism isn't proven more than atheism, which Antony Flew noted was the basic presumption we all start with. Theism is a conclusion we reach by particular observation of data as reflecting a certain pattern. Ignorance is not the same as stupidity. Saying that one gets out of ignorance is not unique to a Christian, since anyone believing anything different than what they originally believed means they became less ignorant.

Right. That is your decision to make as much as it is mine. What exactly is the problem that makes you want to argue about it?

.. I don't see anything there saying that my "brand" of Christianity is the only correct choice, all I said is you and I have exactly the same right to choose what to believe.

ToHoldNothing said:
Who says I'm denying Jesus Christ wholly? I deny his alleged divinity, I don't deny historicity or the value of his existence thereof as a historical figure that started a cult of sorts that fragmented and evolved into a certified religion of sorts.

Well again, I never used the word "wholly", but if you don't accept Him as who He claims to be then you are denying Jesus Christ at least to some extent, which means you don't fully accept Him, which in turn means that you think you know better than He does. This again is your rightful decision to make, and I wouldn't want to argue with you about it. You're obviously a big boy making big decisions all by yourself.

ToHoldNothing said:
And again, you seem to presume too much about atheism. Antitheism or contratheism might be claiming you shouldn't respect the creator, but atheism only says there probably isn't a creator, that doesn't directly insult anyone but a staunch and zealous believer such as yourself

Fair point, and I might refer to my very first comment on this thread where I said "Some forms of atheism are particularly harmful", and I do understand that some atheists don't set out to preach against God. I'm not picking a bone with them when I speak against those who do.

ToHoldNothing said:
Even Christianity has faults by its misuse. And in its essence, there is the argument by Kierkegaard that it is innately offensive, but that is admittedly more esoteric. If you can't admit the basic imperfection of your faith, you appear to be wound a bit too tight and attached too strongly to what is admittedly a matter of asserting the truth of something in uncertainty, albeit in a context not everyone is involved in necessarily, e.g. God, sin and the like

Well wound too tight or not, if you begin to say the Christian God is not perfect or that atheism somehow compliments Christianity, then you're the one introducing offensive comments and as someone attached to Jesus Christ as a son and brother, indeed I will correct you when you make a false assertion. The imperfections in the faith are not the fault of God or Jesus, but those who don't have the full understanding of truth that only God and Jesus can have. So your claim of "imperfect faith" applies to any person with a belief, why do you suggest that the faith of Christianity is imperfect when it is obviously humans that are imperfect rather than the faith itself?

oi_antz · Nov 12, 2010

ToHoldNothing said:
Did I ever claim to have scripture to justify it or even argue that I would support my claims with scripture?

No you didn't but I specifically said to you if you want me to respect what you think you'll have to give me the words of God, I don't think you have any right to tell me that your wild ideas are worth considering, I've had my own fair share of wild ideas and I'm well past the point of believing the opinions of a mortal creature.

ToHoldNothing said:
Having a choice to believe hardly seems valid if there's only one beneficial choice and nothing even relative to it that isn't basically a person willfully condemning themselves to this hell you speak of.

When did I speak of hell? Jesus speaks of hell, perhaps you should take the matter up with him? The choice is yours to make regardless of how you see it, but you aren't going to draw close to God through fear, only through love. I don't know why you take a negative view on what is essentially a positive promise to the righteous - do you really prefer the prospect of being a sinner than a saint? In which case your sins which impact others unfairly certainly ought to earn you a place in the flames of remorse. I don't sympathize with or condone sin you know

ToHoldNothing said:
To be clear, I don't see Jesus as claiming to be a savior in the sense of being God's incarnation in any significant fashion that isn't potentially a literary flourish on the part of the author of John in particular.

He asked His disciples who they say He was and they said He is the Christ, son of God. He didn't rebuke them, He said they are blessed for having had this knowledge revealed to them by the father. I guess if you don't share this opinion you might want to ask God why He hasn't revealed this knowledge to you, or investigate whether He has and you've simply denied it.

ToHoldNothing said:
Your argument doesn't follow. Just because I don't fully followJesus doesn't mean I think I am wiser than he or even in any way superior. We're all just people searching for the truth in some sense. Jesus just happened to gather followers that would martyr themselves for him..like a cult, which I emphasize yet again.

Well you either submit to Jesus or you don't, doesn't bother me though, you've got all the same information anyone else does, you've got to make your own decision for whatever reason you have to want to make that decision.

ToHoldNothing said:
Your genuine problem is with antitheists and contratheist then, not atheists perse.

They are still atheists.

ToHoldNothing said:
Faith can be misused just as reason can; if you want to deny that, be my guest.

I don't deny that.

ToHoldNothing said:
You can't even relatively admit that atheism exists alongside your theism and thus you are related to it, even if in some sense you are the "superior" partner in the relationship, it doesn't follow that there is any automatic presumption of theism to be philosophically honest.

I don't accept your assertion that atheism has something worthwhile to offer Christianity, that's all. It exists alright, but not for any benefit to Christianity!

ToHoldNothing said:
I claim the faith of Christianity is imperfect for a variety of reasons, primarily the notion of gaining any sense of self worth from outside oneself instead of within oneself. But that's another discussion/topic entirely.

Are you saying God exists only within the Christian? That's not a Biblical perspective you know.

razeontherock · Nov 12, 2010

ToHoldNothing said:
To be clear, I don't see Jesus as claiming to be a savior in the sense of being God's incarnation in any significant fashion that isn't potentially a literary flourish on the part of the author of John in particular.

Wow, I haven't seen anything like this come out of you before, but it sure explains a lot. What about the "literary flourish" of the same John, aka John the Theologian in Revelation? In order to make your statement here you're missing WAY too much to try to cover in a thread like this ...

ToHoldNothing said:
I claim the faith of Christianity is imperfect for a variety of reasons, primarily the notion of gaining any sense of self worth from outside oneself instead of within oneself.

This would be another one of those many, many things you can't "see from the outside." What do you consider to be the sense of self-worth of a Christian?

oi_antz · Nov 13, 2010

ToHoldNothing said:
Then why even read the Bible? Of course, you'd take the ad hoc inspired scripture path to avoid any critique of the fact that you're reading translations of translations of translations to find the supposed salvation of Jesus Christ, otherwise known as Iesous Christos or Yehoshua Masiah from what I recall. Every writer of the bible was a mere mortal, so don't patronize me with that crap and then make the authors of your holy book free from criticism and bias. Forgive me, but I think even a believer of your faith should at least be able to defend your position apart from "I believe it and it makes me feel good, so there"

Well yes, God has produced the Bible as His testimony to earth about who He is and who Jesus is. I subscribe to it and believe it, if you have wild ideas then good for you, for me I have found a much more fulfilling truth in God's word and I've become wary of the lies that pop into our minds out of no-where.

ToHoldNothing said:
You're no saint and I'm hardly an absolute sinner either. You think too much in black and white and it's degraded your thinking to the point that you honestly have so much contempt for me, it's spewing from the words you type.

You're completely right! I didn't come along to argue with you, I've been continuously on the defensive to your comments and I'm getting sick of it, I'm pleased you noticed! I had only one point to make to you and it's taken how many posts of polymorphism in the process? You're here to push your opinions on others, I only came to you to correct you on one opinion in particular. I'd appreciate if you would quit with the attacks.

ToHoldNothing said:
Heaven is hardly a good thing to me, it's just as temporary and attached to sensual pleasures or praise or goods of the mind. All these things pass away and the fact that you want eternal beatitude and happiness makes me disappointed that people honestly can't see past their own wants and needs and think of the possibility that eternity of anything, even if it exists, is hardly ideal or desirable on account that we lose appreciation of things if they just hang around us forever. In fact, the inverse happens, we become addicted

And how do you know what heaven is or whether it's good?

ToHoldNothing said:
The Christ wasn't necessarily understood in Jewish context as God's incarnation, since that's more or less blasphemy by saying God shares its power in any way with anything.

No comment, it's just another attempt of yours to make an argument.

ToHoldNothing said:
Again, your radical dualistic thinking disappoints me, since honestly, you're hardly absolutely devoting your life to Jesus. You have other things to do, so unless you're an isolated monastic, you're always going to be proverbially serving two masters in some sense.

I don't know what to say to that, you seem to be fishing for a response and I'm getting sick of it. Don't you have something better to do than accuse others of being insufficient in their religion?

ToHoldNothing said:
They're nontheists, the distinction between that and atheists is a matter of status of reason. A child is an atheist sequentially and then becomes a nontheist if they haven't yet chosen to believe in God in some sense

Even so, this topic is about Christianity and Atheists. That covers any form of nontheist you might think of.

ToHoldNothing said:
You hardly affirmed it, so it doesn't seem like you've said anything about faith in terms of its potential misuse as a tool.

Doesn't matter, I don't come around here to do that, I come only to contribute to the correction of incorrect assumptions.

ToHoldNothing said:
It may very well have existed long before Christianity ever came to exist in the historical form we're familiar with, so in a sense, Christianity is posterior to atheism.

Maybe if you think atheism is true, otherwise if you think Christianity is true then you know God was with us from the very beginning.

ToHoldNothing said:
When did I imply that? There are plenty of theistic perspectives, ranging from Judaism, Christianity and Islam, as well as Sikhism and Baha'i among others. You can count Deism and Pantheism too if you want, along with Zoroastrianism and Wicca.

I guess I just misunderstood your comment.

razeontherock · Nov 13, 2010

ToHoldNothing said:
you're reading translations of translations of translations

Ignorance. I've got different versions taken right from the original, I have a friend with many others, and we have posters right on CF who make their own and make them available. I usually come to expect better than an argument from ignorance from you; we have lots of people here for that

ToHoldNothing said:
You're no saint

You know that should be considered flaming, right?

razeontherock · Nov 13, 2010

ToHoldNothing said:
Revelation is even more ful of literary flourish of various kinds. The metaphorical path is far more appropriate for such a drug induced hallucination or what would otherwise be viewed as virtual madness as a result of eating bad mushrooms.

The author John is referred to as "John the Theologian" for a reason. Here you create your creed; what you don't understand, disparage. It's not becoming.

The point you were trying to make, since you forgot it while foaming at the mouth, was that Jesus never claimed to be Savior or Lord. Nothing could be further from the Truth, and this is the best way you can make your supposed "point?" Very telling.

We don't need to rely on "just" John to know this, although if there was ever a single mortal source to rely on for something like this, he'd be the one to pick. Care to compose a quick bio? One of those surnamed by Jesus 'Sons of Thunder,' the Disciple Jesus loved, the one entrusted to the care of Jesus' Mother, the one who outran Peter to the empty tomb, the Revealer, the Disciple to live longest, the only one to die of natural causes, and the Theologian. Yup, he's the best single mortal source.

What about Isaiah? You're completely missing his significance, to say nothing of Enoch, Moses, Elijah, and the list goes on ...

and let's not forget THE FATHER.

That last one by itself would be game, set, and match btw

ToHoldNothing said:
So you don't consider your being created in God's image as the primary reasoning behind your self worth?

Nope. You're so far off not even good mushrooms could account for it. I was created in my (earthly) Father's image. Says so on my birth certificate. My Mom was there, and she vouches for him still, to this very day. Strong family resemblance, across cousins too so I think they're telling me the truth about that even though I honestly don't remember that part of it.

Whoops, I was supposed to be proving your point; sorry, but truth prevented that.

razeontherock · Nov 13, 2010

ToHoldNothing said:
Are you created by this God you believe in or not?

No. Neither are you. Good to see you recognize Scripture proclaims Jesus as Lord and Savior, and He knew it all along, even as an adolescent. His Mom taught Him about that to be sure, but which one of those 2 do you suppose taught the other more about it?

razeontherock · Nov 13, 2010

I did. No is too hard?

oi_antz · Nov 13, 2010

ToHoldNothing said:
God being with us from the very beginning doesn't constitute Christianity in its historical form as being with us from the very beginning. At best you have recourse to argue for natural or primeval theism of sorts, not Christianity, because well, Christ wasn't exactly there as a martyr on a tree.

The rest of your reply doesn't deserve my reply, however you seem to disregard the whole history of the Holy Bible on this point saying in effect that Christianity only began with Jesus Christ. In fact, there were believers before the times of Abraham, which contribute to the belief that God has been with us since the beginning of time. As an additional matter of fact, when Adam and Eve were expelled from Eden, they didn't lose faith in God, He has been with us since the very beginning of time, even before the first human was made.

Supreme · Nov 13, 2010

MOD HAT ON

This thread has just undergone a massive clean up. Please remember, non-Christians can browse this thread, but according to the Exploring Christianity rules, they certainly cannot post or debate in it if they are no the OP. Thank you.

MOD HAT OFF

mulimulix · Nov 13, 2010

Supreme said:
MOD HAT ON

This thread has just undergone a massive clean up. Please remember, non-Christians can browse this thread, but according to the Exploring Christianity rules, they certainly cannot post or debate in it if they are no the OP. Thank you.

MOD HAT OFF

I understand the rules, but if it is okay with the Poster (i.e me), can it be allowed? I was enjoying the discussion going on

Supreme · Nov 14, 2010

mulimulix said:
I understand the rules, but if it is okay with the Poster (i.e me), can it be allowed? I was enjoying the discussion going on

Nope. If you want to debate, this is not the forum for it. This forum is for genuine seekers and genuine questions about Christianity, all in good spirit; it is not for Christians to debate non-Christians.

razeontherock · Nov 14, 2010

So Mr OP, where were we?

mulimulix · Nov 14, 2010

razeontherock said:
So Mr OP, where were we?

I think I've got everything I need out of this thread. Thanks to all who participated.

elopez · Nov 15, 2010

I have mixed feelings about atheists. A lot I have encountered come off as hostile and misinformed of what they are talking about, while the other half are very respectful, educated people. I guess I could not say what I think about atheists as in one generalizing statement.

BanoffeePies · Nov 23, 2010

Just like any other group of people, you get nice ones and horrible ones.

razeontherock · Nov 23, 2010

Interesting username there. Banff is a place I'd love to ski, and while I don't often eat pie I'd hate to find they have fees for it ...

WilliamPMiller · Dec 6, 2010

I was one of you until about 6 months ago. I think atheists are just a bit lost, that's all They are normal humans who haven't been given our gift yet

What you (Christians) think of Atheists

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