To Super Kal,
Super Kal said:
then why are you still here?
I'm still here because I've found that I can indeed hold intelligent conversations with individuals on this board, like Stlizzy, Kalixx, and now recently Amira. Because they have thoughts behind their words, and because they make me think about old things in new ways or think about new things all together.
I'm still here because I wish to continue conversation with these three, and possibly more. They may say something that could totally break the ice with me and allow me to see God for the first time.
I'm still here because I admit I might be wrong.
Super Kal said:
It's completely obvious to me that you just don't want to hear our side of it... your heart and mind are closed, because if they weren't, you'd actively want to see and hear the truth and unconditional love that Jesus has and wants for you.
You have damn near insulted me. Read what I have just said to you above. Are those not the hallmarks of an open mind??? Just because I don't accept faith and don't accept everything you say, just because I can tear holes in your logic, doesn't mean I'm closed minded.
But I shall reposte: Is there anything I can say to you that would convince you that God isn't real?
Super Kal said:
It hurts and deeply saddens me to see you live this life of a lie... that's what Satan wants. He wants you to actively doubt and hate everything that our loving Father has for us.
Life as a lie? Excuse me, but I lead my life as honestly as I can. I refuse to tell lies except for certain circumstances, just ask that friend I told you about who I saved from suicide. Sometimes she would ask me things in the middle of a suicidal thought. I refused to lie, and so I told her, "I don't think we go anywhere, I think we just rot in the ground." I told her that I thought suicide was a very stupid idea. You know what? She's alive today because I told her what I thought to be was truth; she's alive because at least ONE person in her life didn't tell her that he would pray for her. I actually did something. She'll tell you the same.
Super Kal said:
I ask you... as a former atheist... please, if just for 10 seconds, drop all conceived beliefs of this world and just cry out to Him. I can't guarantee He'll do the same thing He did with me, but if you truly call out to Him with everything that you are, if it's His will for you, He will reveal Himself to you.
I tried that for much longer than 10 seconds. I tried it when I was a child. I tried it again when I was an adolescent. I tired it again when I was a teen, a young adult, an adult. But to humor you, I'll try it again right now...
...I guess it'd his will for me to be an atheist.
I forewarn you: If you insult me like that again, this conversation will be terminated.
To His By Grace,
His By Grace;39792 said:
Hi there. Sometimes I can't help but get involved in these conversations. I'm not sure if anything I have to say will be helpful, but as I type I am asking the Holy Spirit to anoint each word for His glory and for Him to testify of Himself as only He can do. You see, we as humans, are really powerless without Christ to tell you, convince, convict of sin, or accomplish anything that needs to be done. But, we have someone within us who knows you intimately because He made you. He won't force Himself on you, for He has complete love for you, but He has provided a way to heaven for you through His sacrifice on the cross.
You can be a good parent and still show yourself to your child while not forcing yourself onto your kid. I don't think it'll be that hard for a god to say, "Hey, you, kid. I'm here. 'Sup?" I can still choose to love him or not after that.
His By Grace;39792 said:
You may be a good person, but there have been times when you, like all of us, have done mean things, dishonest things, lacking integrity.
You are correct. I'm not perfect and I'll never claim it.
His By Grace;39792 said:
You have broken God's commandments, so you aren't okay.
And this is where your argument starts to fall apart. You've yet to prove the existence of God, so I can brush aside the 10.
His By Grace;39792 said:
He can forgive you and is ready to do that. He promises never to leave you. Once you accept Him, you will feel Him because He comes inside you and puts His seal upon you. Have you ever been in a room before and almost felt like someone else was in there with you?
Sure, who hasn't. But it doesn't mean it was God.
His By Grace;39792 said:
Has anything ever happened to you and you couldn't explain it with human facts?
Not that I know of. I did see a UFO once in the Berkshire's of Massachusetts. It was this bright, bright white light just before dawn, moving silently across the sky. It was brighter than the moon, just a little smaller. It truly scared me.
It took me over a year to figure out what it was: The International Space Station. It was reflecting the light from the sun off it's solar panels, and because it was just before dawn, it was in line-of-sight of the sun while we were in shade.
Moral of the story: Don't assume something. Just because you don't know what it was right then doesn't mean that it is supernatural. This would also stop the God of the Gaps from popping up: "We don't know what it is therefore it must be God." Horrible logic, that is.
His By Grace;39792 said:
Well, there are plenty of people that have, and I don't mean this money or fame stuff you see on television. I'm talking about in the real, everyday experiences of life. Anyway, there's a song that I would like to quote to you because every time I hear it, I have tears come to my eyes and I want to raise my hands in worship. I'm so happy and feel so blessed that I am a part of the family of God. Tim Sheppard sings it and it's called "Love Reachin' ". It goes like this:
(To any reader who wishes to read it, please refer to the original post. Just trying to save space.)
There are plenty of people who once believed the world is flat, that Scientology works, that seizures were caused by demons, that the plague was caused by Jews, that Comets brought bad luck. Strength in numbers means nothing. Please, give me a real argument to work with.
His By Grace;39792 said:
(You can hear a sample of it at timsheppard.org web site. It's so beautiful and worshipful. He's like a Christian Michael McDonald.) I sure hope you find Christ. That is my prayer for you. He wants you. He's waiting for you. Won't you come to the cross? There's plenty of room.
I'm not a fan of country, but I read it nonetheless. I can't say I felt anything from it, probably because I don't believe in God. I do thank you for sharing it with me though.
To Letsgofishing,
Letsgofishing said:
Your a child of God and inside you know that.
Do you have any idea how ignorant that sounds? Here, let me give you a taste: "Deep down inside, your the pony of the Invisible Pink Unicorn! You know that and you feel that!" Do you? Nah, I don't think so. But you see how ignorant that is, right?
Don't you think that if I felt like I was the child of God, we wouldn't be having this conversation? Stop resorting to ignorant claims or I'll sick the Purple Oyster on you. He doesn't like pony's of the IPU, and he wants you to live at the bottom of the sea with him.
Letsgofishing said:
We'll praying that one day you will return to God and find true happiness.
God bless you
There's been a study done. Praying is bad for your health. But don't believe me, look it up yourself. Here's a good starting point:
http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/06-04-05.html
You have to scroll down a bit. Oh, and btw, the study was funded by the Templeton Institute. That should mean something.
To Amira,
Amira;39820 said:
Dear Remagoen,
First of all, I have to apologise. I had never heard the terms "weak atheist", "strong atheist" or "agnostic atheist" before, so I decided to look them up. It is very strange though, because I do research on something that is very closely related to religion, agnosticism and atheism (and no, it is not bad research
). I suppose, these are not terms or definitions ever used in the scientific community of which I am a member or outside it for that matter. (I live in Europe, perhaps they are more commonly used in the US?) Therefore, perhaps I should define what I mean by atheist and agnostic more clearly. Atheist is someone who does believe in god(s) of any kind. Agnostic is someone who is not absolutely certain about if there is or is not a god (or gods) and may lean towards not believing in god(s). Therefore, by this definition, the terms are mutually exclusive. (See OED.) I am sorry if there was a misunderstanding. These are tricky matters.
The weak/strong terms have only recently (matter of a year or two, I think) entered into the American lexicon, and it was coined by evangelicals, if I remember correctly. The terms, to me at least, seemed logical enough to adopt, and so I've went with it. Wikipedia has a decent explaination of it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism
Just scroll down to the definitions and distinctions.
You say, "Atheist is someone who does believe in god(s) of any kind." I assume you meant "doesn't"? (Also, you mention that you live in Europe. Is English a second language? If so and if that is the only mistake you have, pat yourself on the back! VERY good job!)
I can never be 100% certain that there is no God(s), which sounds agnostic to me. However, with the information I've had on hand so far, I've decided there very likely isn't one, which sounds atheistic. From that, I only mashed the two words together in hopes that they would complement one another, but it seems they didn't. You mention something later though with has bearing on this, so I'll continue this thought in a moment.
Amira;39820 said:
I did not say you necessarily care, but a lot of people do care, because the negative connotations of the term are considered reflections of how atheism is seen. However, this makes me wonder... If you are an atheist and proud of it, why did you title this thread as "I don't want to be an Atheist"?
Because if I am an atheist, I won't be going to heaven any time soon. In the course of these conversations though on this forum, my mind has opened a bit and I've already changed some of my stances. One of them being that if there even is a heaven, do I want to go there? When I started this thread, I wasn't able to say that I was proud, but I wasn't ashamed either.
Amira;39820 said:
Knowing everything is of course impossible (besides which there are lots of things of which we know nothing or very little), but the difference between atheist and agnostic or a religious person is not the amount of knowledge, as I am sure you agree. It is that an atheist believes that regardless of everything what they may not know there is no god. An agnostic, however, thinks that there may be a god or there may not be a god - or even have a leaning one way or the other - but think that we just cannot know, at least not based on any current information we have. A religious person on the other hand believes that there is proof of god (also without knowing or hearing everything that may possibly convince them otherwise).
I'm not sure I understand what you're saying. Are you saying that knowledge is equal but divided among groups? If so, I can't agree totally with you, but I certainly see your reasoning behind it. However, because some knowledge isn't true (the world is flat, for instance), I would have to ask you back: Is it really equal?
Amira;39820 said:
In addition, you can think about the aspect of collective knowledge (just to ponder...). Although you cannot personally know everything that may prove or disprove the existence of god, you know something and other people know other things. What do you know together? What can you learn from discussing with other people? And as far as knowing if there is or is not god, if someone happened to come across all the right knowledge to know the answer for a fact, I am sure it would be out in a second.
To me, the idea of collective knowledge has it's ups and downs. It makes sense where, say, I would know items A through M while you know N through Z, and together we know the whole alphabet of items. We could combine our knowledge to get a complete view of the universe around us. That's the positive half of CK.
The downside is that it assumes that all of our bits of information is true, and it's clear that not everything any of us knows is 100% factual. Therefore, how do we know my K and your Q is actually as they appear? More, there are some things that even the whole of humanity don't know. Assuming we go with the scientific version of the creation of the universe (for argument's sake), we have not a single idea of what happened before the Big Bang. So it could be said that I'm missing items D, E, and F and you're missing W, X, and Y. So just comparing notes won't help us.
However! You still do bring up a valid point. Proper discussion with two or more open minds can certainly brings us at least one step closer to knowing what we seek. Comparing notes would still be a useful tool to understand things, with a grain of salt, of course.
As for being out in a second, oh yeah... It definitely would. Only problem is that it's happening too often already and most of them are fakes of misunderstandings. A shame.
Amira;39820 said:
By-the-by, many atheists say they may be wrong, so admitting that alone does not make one any less or more atheist.
Now to return to that through from before. I know, but it just felt to me that if I say, "I'm an atheist," it also sounds like I'm saying, "That's it! I have discovered that there is no God and it's final." It sounds closed-minded. If I added agnostic to it, I thought it would "open it up" a bit to show I still have an open mind, but I'm standing on this side of the line. But clearly, they do contradict.
Do you think there is another way I could call myself an atheist while still saying that I admit there might be a God?
Oh, and I'm not one to do something just because others do...
Amira;39820 said:
I do not think an agnostic really has any faith (unless not knowing/believing we cannot know is one), so they would not try to strengthen it. Agnostic must not be confused for someone who wants to believe in god or is unhappy being an agnostic. In my opinion an agnostic is the closest of anyone to not having religion or a world-view based on a belief. Atheism is (as well as religion) are largely based on belief (albeit, actually scientifically proving there is no god would be quite a task indeed...), but I do not think atheists have to try not to have faith, they just do not.
Having an open-mind is a very good thing indeed. However, if you are proud to be an atheist and are not confused, but just have an open-mind, I once again must wonder about the title of the thread...
I disagree. Atheism is the lack of belief.
As for the title, I already explained that.
Amira;39820 said:
I think it is possible to find your place without choosing sides. You (not you personally necessarily) should not just choose an ideology to define who you are, you should choose an ideology that feels right to you, when you are ready. Anyway, I think you will find that your ideology will change and grow with you (and if you are a teenager, trust me, I am an oldie compared to you, been there, done that).
In any case, it's good that you are thinking about these things anyway, a lot of people don't.
That's what I meant. I didn't mean for it to sound as if I was shopping for personality traits, I meant I was exploring who I was inside and trying to find the words to make sense of what I found. I saw other people who were this or were that, when I had no idea what I believed or thought. I had no lens through which to view the world, no viewpoint which I could make decisions upon. I guess you could have called me a formless blob of thoughts with no order.
My exploration brought order to myself, and from that lack of chaos within, I was able to form opinions about the world around me. This exploration wasn't limited to my atheism, but to many other things. It was the introspection that finally showed me how my constant lying stopped myself from knowing my true self. Since then, I've limited my lies to only lying to save a life or for the safety of someone else. If I didn't do my homework because I was watching TV, I told my teacher I didn't do my homework because I was watching TV. Why lie? It's pointless without proper reason.
I'm rambling, sorry. No, my atheism isn't finite, and that's why I'm here. I'm not done looking inside, and I hope to never be. I'm 23, btw, and thank you for the compliment.
To Thunder1,
Thunder1 said:
I think anybody can be depressed, we are all just humans .
Cool. Because, like I said, I'm I'm fine. However, it's changed since then. I'm quite good!