***The Official Atheist and Christian Friendly Discussion***

[ArchAngel'73]

If you haven't always existed, you can't. You can't be half eternal.

Maybe part of me is eternal, my soul.

Maybe I have been around since the beginning of time but in different forms.
Maybe it was I who slew the Beast when he was in dragon form.
I am a god on this Earth, for God told me so, as He has told all of humanity.
One way or the other, no matter how much pain, torture, and suffering is imposed upon me by others I will always come back.
I truly believe I will never die.

and because of those beliefs my friend, I already am eternal.

[thedickus]

I've never met you before so I have no idea what your belief system is, or which side of the debate you're on. But what I am gathering from these posts is that you don't believe that the Bible is the inspired, inerrant word of God. If that's the case, I suppose that there's no point to me quoting Scripture to you since you'll always have a fault with it. If I'm wrong in my assumption, please say so.

Life long agnostic atheist here. I don't believe in any god, but I can't say I know for sure, no one can either way. If there was a god and the bible was his/her/its inerrant word, I'd still have problems accepting it based on the fact that there are so many errors in it. That doesn't mean that I don't know the bible. You can quote bible versus to me all day. I can quote 'em right back and often tell you what earlier myth it came from. Kind of like how the new testament and Jesus' miracles are just a rebranding of old testament jewish myths. As I tell people I grew up southern baptist, but overcame it.

[supramax]

Maybe part of me is eternal, my soul.

Maybe I have been around since the beginning of time but in different forms.
Maybe it was I who slew the Beast when he was in dragon form.
I am a god on this Earth, for God told me so, as He has told all of humanity.
One way or the other, no matter how much pain, torture, and suffering is imposed upon me by others I will always come back.
I truly believe I will never die.

and because of those beliefs my friend, I already am eternal.

The soul is an invention of the thought process and your belief is a continuity belief; one of the many takes on reincarnation. Thought mistakes process for entity and the game begins.

How come, after all those incarnations, all the lives and deaths, you haven't been to Heaven, yet? WTF, man!

[OldFartTom]

Yep, I believe that!

The soul is an invention of the thought process and your belief is a continuity belief; one of the many takes on reincarnation. Thought mistakes process for entity and the game begins.

How come, after all those incarnations, all the lives and deaths, you haven't been to Heaven, yet? WTF, man!

But before I experienced God and became a Christian, I believed exactly the above

[thedickus]

To roughly quote Romans 10:9 We're told that a person is saved if they have faith in their heart and admit Jesus is their saviour. It doesn't say that it is earned by obscure knowledge and a certain amount of study. (This is not saying people aren't then obligated to read the Bible as a consequence).

But this is not what Jesus preached. Jesus preached in repentance, not salvation. He never claimed to be the son of god or god. Jesus was jewish, he believed in keeping the laws of Abraham. He would've thought that calling himself god were blasphemous. This was was Paul preached, and it is completely different than what the remaining 11 preached. Paul never met Jesus, he didn't know what Jesus taught.
I don't mind people putting human logic above faith. Faith can cause people to only pray that their child will be cured, human logic can cause people to take their sick child to a doctor. Faith is belief in something without the lack of proof, or worse yet in spite of proof to the contrary.

[2nd_chance]

Life long agnostic atheist here. I don't believe in any god, but I can't say I know for sure, no one can either way. If there was a god and the bible was his/her/its inerrant word, I'd still have problems accepting it based on the fact that there are so many errors in it. That doesn't mean that I don't know the bible. You can quote bible versus to me all day. I can quote 'em right back and often tell you what earlier myth it came from. Kind of like how the new testament and Jesus' miracles are just a rebranding of old testament jewish myths. As I tell people I grew up southern baptist, but overcame it.

Well I suppose if you’re right we’ll both end up in nothingness. But if I’m right, I’ll go to heaven and you’ll go to hell.

And you can quote the Bible all day but it doesn’t mean you understand it.

[supramax]

But before I experienced God and became a Christian, I believed exactly the above

You experienced a projection of your beliefs, just like a Hindu experiences Krishna or a Muslim whatever the **** they project. The rest of what you said is an old and moldy bull**** debating ploy. Those things are perceptions, not beliefs.

[ArchAngel'73]

The soul is an invention of the thought process and your belief is a continuity belief; one of the many takes on reincarnation. Thought mistakes process for entity and the game begins.

How come, after all those incarnations, all the lives and deaths, you haven't been to Heaven, yet? WTF, man!

The existence of the soul has neither been proven nor dis-proven TMK. Therefore, imo, it is open to interpretation.
As a footnote, I've done 4 drug tested bb'ing comps and love squatting over 400 lbs.. In my experience, when the body and the mind give, the soul takes over.

I have been to Heaven. I keep choosing to come back here. God needs someone to do His dirty work.

[thedickus]

Well I suppose if you’re right we’ll both end up in nothingness. But if I’m right, I’ll go to heaven and you’ll go to hell.

The flawed argument you're making here is known as Paschal's Wager. The flaw here is that we can both be wrong and both end up in hell, just not the one that you're worried about.

And you can quote the Bible all day but it doesn’t mean you understand it.

As can you.

[supramax]

The existence of the soul has neither been proven nor dis-proven TMK. Therefore, imo, it is open to interpretation.
As a footnote, I've done 4 drug tested bb'ing comps and love squatting over 400 lbs.. In my experience, when the body and the mind give, the soul takes over.

I have been to Heaven. I keep choosing to come back here. God needs someone to do His dirty work.

Just because thought invented it, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Thought has vast powers of illusion and illusion is a reality.

[2nd_chance]

The flawed argument you're making here is known as Paschal's Wager. The flaw here is that we can both be wrong and both end up in hell, just not the one that you're worried about.


As can you.

I realize you feel very intelligent about a subject you don't believe in, but you're not making any arguments that I haven't heard before. I'm glad you admit you could be wrong. You have an argument and I have an experience, which is backed up by 50,000 hours of study. I'm thankful for your input in here.

[Payton1221]

But this is not what Jesus preached. Jesus preached in repentance, not salvation.

Me thinks you're confusing John the Baptist with Jesus. Jesus tells Nicodemus in John 3:16 "For God so loved the world, that He gave His one and only Son, so that whoever believes in Him, will not perish but have eternal life."

He never claimed to be the son of god or god.

"Don't you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father." (John 14:9)

Oh that's right. This is from one of the many books that you summarily dismissed as not being inspired

[ChazWood]

It's to do with the arising of self consciousness and the resultant duality.

If you haven't always existed, you can't. You can't be half eternal.

The soul is an invention of the thought process and your belief is a continuity belief; one of the many takes on reincarnation. Thought mistakes process for entity and the game begins.

How come, after all those incarnations, all the lives and deaths, you haven't been to Heaven, yet? WTF, man!

You experienced a projection of your beliefs, just like a Hindu experiences Krishna or a Muslim whatever the **** they project. The rest of what you said is an old and moldy bull**** debating ploy. Those things are perceptions, not beliefs.

Just because thought invented it, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Thought has vast powers of illusion and illusion is a reality.

It must be freakin' awesome to have it all figured out. You should totally write a book! I can help name it if you want. I've got some ideas for the title.

[OldFartTom]

You experienced a projection of your beliefs, just like a Hindu experiences Krishna or a Muslim whatever the **** they project. The rest of what you said is an old and moldy bull**** debating ploy. Those things are perceptions, not beliefs.

Whether we agree or disagree on what I experienced and the nature of it, nothing in that comment was a debating ploy and not designed to try win an argument, I think we are at very different opinions and unlikely to change from a few posts. My comments were genuinely at face value and uncynical, not trying to debate or win any argument. I was literally just stating what I believed, no ploys no ego

[supramax]

It must be freakin' awesome to have it all figured out. You should totally write a book! I can help name it if you want. I've got some ideas for the title.

I'm just stating observable facts.

[supramax]

Whether we agree or disagree on what I experienced and the nature of it, nothing in that comment was a debating ploy and not designed to try win an argument, I think we are at very different opinions and unlikely to change from a few posts. My comments were genuinely at face value and uncynical, not trying to debate or win any argument. I was literally just stating what I believed, no ploys no ego

You're saying that you believed that thought mistook process for entity and I'm saying you're full of ****.

[thedickus]

"Don't you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father." (John 14:9)

Oh that's right. This is from one of the many books that you summarily dismissed as not being inspired

In fairness I summarily dismiss all o.t. and n.t. books as not being inspired, including all the ones that didn't make it into the canon, like the Apocalyptic Gospel of Peter, the Gospel of Judas, etc. Along with the Book of Mormon, The Quran, The Tanakh, The Talmud, The Seven Valleys and the The Four Valleys, The Tipitaka, The Vedas and the Upanishads, The Agamas, and The Kojiki. Out of curiosity how many of those books do you dismiss as not being inspired by god? The Tipitaka may be a bad example as buddhism is more of a philosophy than a religion. Buddhists and jainists don't really bother me. Aside from having to divert traffic occasionally around a self-immolating monk what trouble do buddhists cause?

[Payton1221]

In fairness I summarily dismiss all o.t. and n.t. books as not being inspired, including all the ones that didn't make it into the canon, like the Apocalyptic Gospel of Peter, the Gospel of Judas, etc. Along with the Book of Mormon, The Quran, The Tanakh, The Talmud, The Seven Valleys and the The Four Valleys, The Tipitaka, The Vedas and the Upanishads, The Agamas, and The Kojiki.

I appreciate your candor. As Christians, we're called (Mt 28, aka the Great Commission) to lovingly share the gospel which literally means "good news," which, if true (and I believe it is true), is very good news that a sinner--which we all are--can be forgiven for our sins and then spend eternity where the troubles of this world are no more). May I ask your motivation for spending so much effort on this thread? I could understand a post or two to share your experiences, but you're obviously passionate about not believing the Passion of Christ ;-)

[Cantplankwell]

I am pretty simple person. I want to ask a "Christian" this question:

So lets say there is a "God", just as the bible lays it out.

You more or less live an entirely Christian life, in the sense of following the ten commandments and all of that...but you dont "believe"...you have not accepted Jesus etc..even though you live in a culture where it is wide spread.

Or you perhaps you live in an very isolated culture, where you had no very little or possibly no exposure to Christianity, during your time your cultural code and way of living is entirely Christian like


In both instances do you still go to hell when you die?

[7Seconds]

I am pretty simple person. I want to ask a "Christian" this question:

So lets say there is a "God", just as the bible lays it out.

You more or less live an entirely Christian life, in the sense of following the ten commandments and all of that...but you dont "believe"...you have not accepted Jesus etc..even though you live in a culture where it is wide spread.

Or you perhaps you live in an very isolated culture, where you had no very little or possibly no exposure to Christianity, during your time your cultural code and way of living is entirely Christian like


In both instances do you still go to hell when you die?

John 14:6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the father except though me.”

John 3:16 For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life

Not believing in Jesus would mean you’d ultimately perish.... i.e. hell. Accepting Jesus as Lord and Savior is the way to God. No one can get to God unless they go through Jesus. If you choose to not accept Jesus then you’re saying you don’t want God and thus you don’t want to spend eternity in heaven with Him either.



ETA: not a Christian by the way but that’s the answer I usually get when I ask.

ETA:: didn’t fully read your post. The ignorance aspect seems to have a little more of a grey area. Many seem to find it as more of a reason to minister.

[thedickus]

I appreciate your candor. As Christians, we're called (Mt 28, aka the Great Commission) to lovingly share the gospel which literally means "good news," which, if true (and I believe it is true), is very good news that a sinner--which we all are--can be forgiven for our sins and then spend eternity where the troubles of this world are no more). May I ask your motivation for spending so much effort on this thread? I could understand a post or two to share your experiences, but you're obviously passionate about not believing the Passion of Christ ;-)

Odd that you didn't ask any of the christians that keep replying to my posts why spend so much effort on this thread. If I'm not going to believe in something I want to make sure I know exactly what it is that I don't believe in. I'm constantly shocked by how little christians actually know about the bible or the historical teachings of Jesus. I've asked several christians what religion do you think Jesus was? I laugh when they say "Why christian of course!". As in all of my dealings with christians if I can't fully convert them into atheists then I at least want to fill their head with enough actual truth and facts that will give them doubt on their deathbeds. That's all any atheist can really hope for.

[7Seconds]

As a non-believer I am pretty fascinated with the idea of heaven and hell. Personally I don’t believe there is a clear answer to the question in the Bible of what happens to believers and non-believers after death.

What there is instead is 2000+ years of theological debate over the issue. The contours are there in scripture - the Lord's people get to be in His presence, have eternal life, worship Him forever, while those who are not the Lord's people do not get to be in His presence and things accordingly will not go well for them.

The more I read and learn and contemplate, the more I think of heaven and hell as more abstract than they are given credit for. I have read that what happens to the soul after death is something incomprehensible to human beings while in the world, so God (or those writing scripture in the name of God) uses a lot of different pictures to give us glimpses and ideas of what it's like, but the reality is impossible to come right out and say in plain terms.

So are we talking about a concept that's difficult to articulate or a concept that is continually retconned to fit the needs of believers at the time? Thus it never makes full sense because it was never a congruent thought to begin with?

Being a non-believer I would embrace the latter. A believer would lean toward "difficult to articulate", in the same way that it would be difficult to describe three-dimensional space to a two-dimensional being. If a God exists like the one described in the Bible, it's perfectly reasonable to believe that God exists in a whole different kind of way than His creation.

[OldFartTom]

You're saying that you believed that thought mistook process for entity and I'm saying you're full of ****.

Could be... But I've seen others make the same mistake and more objectively (rather than subjective for multiple people) I've seen the same "mistake"/experience used to be miraculously healed and cause the most astonishing "coincidences" to happen. I avoided saying "miracle" as I know you'd pull me up on that : )

All this debate in particular with yourself and thedickus hits the key problem about knowledge having limitations. You're both well educated, intelligent, knowledgeable and don't have Faith. More knowledge isn't going to help.

I personally maintain that you can't logically prove God exists to anyone or Faith, and also that you also can't do the reverse. So there's no facts I can tell you that "proves" this. All that can happen is if you experience God yourself then you'll know. The obvious question to that very unhelpful statement (sorry) is how can that happen? Well, we all manage to distance ourselves from God and make it harder for us to hear, although some of us are spectacularly better than others, but we're all guilty. All I can say is that if you open your heart and ears and ask (sometimes it also happens to people who really didn't want it!) then it'll happen, when I can't tell you, but at some point...

[supramax]

Could be... But I've seen others make the same mistake and more objectively (rather than subjective for multiple people) I've seen the same "mistake"/experience used to be miraculously healed and cause the most astonishing "coincidences" to happen. I avoided saying "miracle" as I know you'd pull me up on that : )

All this debate in particular with yourself and thedickus hits the key problem about knowledge having limitations. You're both well educated, intelligent, knowledgeable and don't have Faith. More knowledge isn't going to help.

I personally maintain that you can't logically prove God exists to anyone or Faith, and also that you also can't do the reverse. So there's no facts I can tell you that "proves" this. All that can happen is if you experience God yourself then you'll know. The obvious question to that very unhelpful statement (sorry) is how can that happen? Well, we all manage to distance ourselves from God and make it harder for us to hear, although some of us are spectacularly better than others, but we're all guilty. All I can say is that if you open your heart and ears and ask (sometimes it also happens to people who really didn't want it!) then it'll happen, when I can't tell you, but at some point...

Not 'could be', but definitely. You were bull****ting and using one of the weakest debate ploys, ever and for sure, you don't even know WTF 'thought mistaking process for entity' even means. All you're doing in the above statement is expanding on your original bull****. I'm not going to waste time debating your delusional nonsense.

[Payton1221]

You more or less live an entirely Christian life, in the sense of following the ten commandments and all of that...but you dont "believe"...you have not accepted Jesus etc..even though you live in a culture where it is wide spread.

Or you perhaps you live in an very isolated culture, where you had no very little or possibly no exposure to Christianity, during your time your cultural code and way of living is entirely Christian like

As far as the first question goes, let's say you only have one son but many grandkids. For whatever reason, you've elected to split your inheritance up so that all of the grandkids will share in the inheritance with one stipulation: they must have a loving relationship with your son. If one of your grandkids was a fine, upstanding member of the community but purposefully chose to not have a relationship with your son (no talking, no visits, NOTHING), isn't it within your right to withhold his or her share of the inheritance just as you stipulated?

Regarding the second question, there's a passage in Romans 2 (verse 15) that says "They (those who were never given an opportunity to know and accept Christ) show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts sometimes accusing them and at other times even defending them." An omniscient God will know how to address this.

The problem with much of our discussions is that the bible says we are the creatures and we have finite minds. The God of the bible is the Creator with an infinite mind. It comes down to faith. Either you accept the bible by faith or you don't. But I would argue any other belief system including the belief that we're here by accident and that somehow the earth went from no life to simple life (biologists now know that there's no such thing as "simple" but ...) to intelligent life. If you don't believe in any creator of any kind, then you must take it on faith that a progression from nothing to one in which you and I have the ability to discuss this on an internet message board occurred randomly. If we had witnessed real, significant macroevolution since Darwin postulated his theory those many years ago, Christianity would be dead IMO. And as I posted earlier, where is the evolution in light of the major ecological changes that have occurred since the industrial revolution. Why are so many animals extinct? Why aren't they evolving in a macro way?

What too many people do is that instead of believing that they were created in God's image they create a god in their image (God would or God wouldn't FILL-IN-THE-BLANK). This is a stumbling block to many.

Odd that you didn't ask any of the christians that keep replying to my posts why spend so much effort on this thread.

It's because of the Great Commission, as I wrote.

I'm constantly shocked by how little christians actually know about the bible or the historical teachings of Jesus.

Uh, yeah. Me too. I had an assistant at work who was in her 60's and was a lifelong Catholic. She couldn't even recite John 3:16


I want to thank everyone who has participated in such a friendly manner. I know that Christians are commanded to "make disciples," but my experience has been that the vast majority of people who are in their 30's or older (and many younger) are closed to the idea and the exchanges typically devolve quickly into something terrible. This thread has, for the most part, not followed that pattern.

[Wayne Evans]

I want to thank everyone who has participated in such a friendly manner.

I agree.

Although I've stated my take back at the beginning and have no affinity for any religion or the evangelizing of it I think it's almost miraculous that it's fared this well in it's resurrection.

I do hope it stays that way.

Carry on....

[thedickus]

Uh, yeah. Me too. I had an assistant at work who was in her 60's and was a lifelong Catholic. She couldn't even recite John 3:16

Don't be too hard on her, Jesus would've missed this one too. Considering his first recorded saying was in Mark: "This is the time of fulfillment. The kingdom of God is at hand. So repent, and believe in the gospel."
You'd think that if Jesus truly thought that he was the son of god and that whoever believed in him would have everlasting life, he'd of led with that.

[Payton1221]

Don't be too hard on her, Jesus would've missed this one too. Considering his first recorded saying was in Mark: "This is the time of fulfillment. The kingdom of God is at hand. So repent, and believe in the gospel."
You'd think that if Jesus truly thought that he was the son of god and that whoever believed in him would have everlasting life, he'd of led with that.

No, this is what YOU (and maybe even I) would have done but Jesus did the will of the Father, and God knew when it was best to reveal Jesus's deity.

Do you have kids? If so, when they were little did you occasionally tell them things that they couldn't understand at the time but you understood? As adults, we don't like that. We want to know everything, but that's not possible here on earth. Even the father of the convulsing son in Mark 9 had doubts as he tells Jesus "I believe [but] help me overcome my unbelief."

[thedickus]

No, this is what YOU (and maybe even I) would have done but Jesus did the will of the Father, and God knew when it was best to reveal Jesus's deity.

Do you have kids? If so, when they were little did you occasionally tell them things that they couldn't understand at the time but you understood? As adults, we don't like that. We want to know everything, but that's not possible here on earth. Even the father of the convulsing son in Mark 9 had doubts as he tells Jesus "I believe [but] help me overcome my unbelief."

What?? Jesus and god the father are one and the same. Are you honestly telling me that a megalomaniac like Yahweh/Jesus would hesitate to unleash his power or let people know his diety? He murdered every inhabitant, spare a handful,
of the Earth by flood. Destroyed a couple of cities by fire and told Pharaoh to let his people go, when he didn't Yahweh/Jesus unleashed the angel of death upon Egypt killing every first born male, including Pharaoh's son. If I had unlimited power to kill and sentence people to an eternity of torment simply for not believing in me I'd do a much better job of showing people I exist. To quote another great fictitious sage, 'With great power comes great responsibility.".

Edit: Sorry that probably comes off as a little on the unfriendly side. Not my intention, but not sure how to stress the evil that god does without comimg off as confrontational, my wife tells me I need to work on that and I try. I don't always succeed but I try.

[OldFartTom]

Not 'could be', but definitely. You were bull****ting and using one of the weakest debate ploys, ever and for sure, you don't even know WTF 'thought mistaking process for entity' even means. All you're doing in the above statement is expanding on your original bull****. I'm not going to waste time debating your delusional nonsense.

That's not phrased in the spirit of this "friendly" thread? But let's just agree to disagree and leave it.

... but not sure how to stress the evil that god does without comimg off as confrontational, my wife tells me I need to work on that and I try. I don't always succeed but I try.

If you're an atheist of sort (agnostic atheist) then logically I'd expect you not to believe in a
tyrannical evil YHWH. If you were a Christian I don't see it plausible that you'd believe the account of the tyrannical evil YHWH either.
It just feels like you're investing a lot of emotional energy to battle against it. Why?