Do athiests actually ask what is truth? Or I refuse to believe your truth? (Page 4)

ewarner1: Reasons to believe in God? No shame in life, no fear in death. Good reasons. I can live as if everything is a miricle, or nothing is. A world view that has me hold to being an unusually intelligent monkey (or not so intelligent) on a cosmic accident with no purpose beyond my own pleasure and procreation only to be snuffed out like a candle, does not seem so cool to me.

ewarner1: BoredBeyondBelief, foolishness is part of being human, it is true that the fool says in his heart that there is no God. I have acted foolishly many times, as I am sure have you. The bible does not hold much respect for human wisdom, but seeing what we do in our world I do not find it hard to agree.

ewarner1: Colinian, no it is very true I don't have an open mind at all, I have a closed mind, a mind that has decided for God and against no God. I am open to hear arguments though and have learned things, even in these posts, that are valuable. I have been curious about athiests claims to be open minded though, they seem as closed as I frankly. What we see is not an exchange of ideas for the most part, we have a clash of ideas.

StuckInTheSixties:

ewarner1 says:
"I don't have an open mind at all, I have a closed mind"

Well, at least he's honest. That's unusual for a religious zealot.

I'm tempted to pick all of your statements apart, but since the last two posts were addressed to those other guys, I'll defer to them, and only dismember the first post.

ewarner1 says:
"Reasons to believe in God? No shame in life, no fear in death. Good reasons."

No, those are no reasons at all. Those are platitudes, and cheap ones, at that.

ewarner1 says:
"I can live as if everything is a miricle, or nothing is."

What you call "living as if everything is a miracle" others might call "living according to a delusion."

ewarner1 says:
"A world view that has me hold to being an unusually intelligent monkey (or not so intelligent) on a cosmic accident with no purpose beyond my own pleasure and procreation only to be snuffed out like a candle, does not seem so cool to me."

Two comments on that little sermon:

First, whether or not it's "cool" is relative to your frame of reference. Personally, I think it's really cool to be fortunate to be "an unusually intelligent monkey (or not so intelligent)" on what you call a "cosmic accident" (that's debatable). And I agree that the part where we get "snuffed out like a candle" isn't so cool, but many things aren't cool. Death is one of them. But again, that depends on your frame of reference. If they buried me like I'd like, the worms and other organisims converting my corpse into excellent fertilizer would be cool for them, and whatever benefited from that change. They decide what's cool for their frame of reference, just like you and I do for ours.

Secondly, it's rather closed-minded and arrogant (not to mention ignorant) of you to assume that anyone not sharing your religious values must, but nature, have "no purpose beyond [their] own pleasure and procreation."

StuckInTheSixties:

(laughs)

I like the image of playing lawn darts in Heaven.

ewarner1: I have read two books recently about heaven, one is called Heaven is Real, the other Thirty Minutes in Heaven, I would bet most of you would never consider reading it, or believe it if you did, meaning from people who died went to heaven and came back. Both certainly died, I do not think there is much doubt about that. No lawn darts in heaven but is sounded like a pretty awesome place to me and very different from your images. Heaven is like a party, but with no hangovers or work on Monday morning. And maybe there are lawn darts somewhere? Always liked them myself.

Bored Beyond Belief, no I do not have the wrong God, to be a child of God is to have no fear in death, I know this because I do not fear death, that simple (I have some concerns about how I die however) your comments about my daughter are "pretty in your face" by the way, but they are real questions and deserve real answers I guess. God is a God of choice and hard as that is for me to accept it is true for my daughter as well. We were not created to be robots. Jesus said decide.

In my life poor choices resulted (and still do) in poor results. I don't study I get a bad grade, I drink and drive, I get a ticket or worse (I had a serious drinking and drug problem), I insult the huge jock, I get my head busted. As in life, so in death, what you choose decides your path.

StuckInTheSixties:

ewarner1 says:
"... people who died went to heaven and came back. Both certainly died, I do not think there is much doubt about that."

To the contrary, I would dispute that. You're playing fast and loose with the meaning of death. If they died, they'd be dead. They're not zombies, are they?

kettle: As long as a person is revived after having been declared clinically dead for minutes and even hours, the incident is called a near death experience (NDE). There has been researched a lot on this phenomenon and most memories from NDEs are of a non-religious nature. It also emerges that religious people seem to remember things that they expected to meet in the afterlife and their memories are thereby colored by their belief.

StuckInTheSixties:

Right. Being "declared" dead isn't being dead. Having your life functions cease doesn't mean death until they've ceased long enough so that they don't resume. I suppose if you want to be REALLY safe with the definition of death, it would be when decomposition begins.

Unless you're a zombie.

It's interesting, and not surprising, that the religious tend to dwell on these "dead but then came back" kind of anecdotes. It provides some sort of vague suggestion of life after death, which is, of course, the keystone of nearly all religious beliefs.

ewarner1: There is a clearly documented case of NDE when a person who "died" described a copy of Huckleberry Finn that had sat on top of a cabinet covered in dust forgoteen and unseen, it could not have been seen from anywhere but above the cabinet. Your explanations do not fit this, you can look it up if you like.

ewarner1: I have read the bible many, many, times. It is the start of each of my days. I teach Sunday school, a bible study for adults and on religion at the local college. I am not sure what bible tidbits you are referring to but I promise you they will not suprise me and make me gasp and say, how can I believe in this stuff! There are some passages in the bible that challenge me, the vast majority in the old testemant, very few in the new. When I read the bible as an athiest, for a class, I thought this is the most extraordinary thing I have ever read, so much so I had to put it down because it made me so uncomfortable.

The verse that stuck with me was, "A far as the east is from the west, so I have seperated your sin from you."

You say that I turned to religion to answer questions about persistent issues and you are absolutely correct, no athiest thought could break the power of drugs, alcohol, deciet and horrible memories, but God could and did. no athiest thought could show me my life had value, that there was a purpose for me, that I was loved, and valued, but God could and did.


You like asking questions so I have two for you. Are some actions right and some wrong or is it just a matter of percpective?

And, what is the value of human life?

StuckInTheSixties:

Hahahaha! No. If you're going to make a claim of such a thing happening, the onus is on YOU to provide the readers with an easy reference, rather than requiring them to "look it up."

YOU look it up, and then present it.

That's the way that civil arguments are conducted. If you can't, or aren't willing, to provide references to claims you make, so that those references can be examined, you have no right to expect anything other than that your claim will be dismissed and ignored.

Your argument, dude. YOU must back it up.

CoIin: Are some actions right and some wrong or is it just a matter of percpective?

Let me guess, an action is "absolutely" right if commanded by God? But wait, Yahweh is not the only candidate out there. Looks like we're back to relativism again.

Anyway, let's grant for argument's sake that Yahweh exists and he is the only god. Why are you not out killing people who work on the Sabbath?

The LORD then gave these further instructions to Moses: 'Tell the people of Israel to keep my Sabbath day, for the Sabbath is a sign of the covenant between me and you forever. It helps you to remember that I am the LORD, who makes you holy. Yes, keep the Sabbath day, for it is holy. Anyone who desecrates it must die; anyone who works on that day will be cut off from the community. Work six days only, but the seventh day must be a day of total rest. I repeat: Because the LORD considers it a holy day, anyone who works on the Sabbath must be put to death.' (Exodus 31:12-15 NLT)


By the way, there's a long list of other folks to be stoned to death. Why are you not doing this? It's absolutely right to do so and absolutely wrong not to do so. No doubt you'll mention the "new covenant" of Jesus. So God changed his mind? What was I saying about common sense again.....

CoIin: P.S. Doesn't the idea of an omnipotent, omniscient creator making deals with, um, human dudes seem a bit weird to anyone else? Or is it just me?

Gotta go. I'm in negotiations with an amoeba.

ewarner1: Yes, I would mention the New Covenant of Jesus, you called that right. I am commanded to love my neighbor, forgive all of the time, put others before myself, pick up my cross daily, all that stuff. A basic understanding of Christian doctrine would show you that Jesus changed a lot of things, as the bible says he would when he came. That is not to say that some things in Exodus do not challenge me, they do.

So a question for you, are some actions simply wrong, no matter what, for example sexually assaulting children or is it morally realative, we all make up are own truth?

CoIin: So God did change his mind?

I'm not convinced there is any absolute "right" or "wrong". Many actions are abhorrent to the vast majority. Then we have the borderline issues like abortion...Anyway, we have absolute laws (yes, human laws) so what's the problem?

Want me to list examples of sexual assault in the Bible?....

StuckInTheSixties:

So ... um ... what happened to the Huckleberry Finn / dead guy reference?