The Light Of The World --William Holman Hunt
Posted on 02/07/2016 10:35:14 PM PST by TBP
Everybody needs some sort of morality, but sans a definite God, has nothing to pin it on in the end except where he or she happens to have been placed by “fate.”
The result of sticking to this to the bitter end will be to commit oneself to a universe that is committed to doubt, and this will be an all pervasive doubt. In fact it sounds downright satanic. Funny that we hear about hell in such terms.
There’s nothing like the universe to bring you down to earth.
Shade of His hand, outstretched caressingly?
Ah, fondest, blindest, weakest,
I am He Whom thou seekest!
- Francis Thompson
“For You have formed us for Yourself, and our hearts are restless till they find rest in You.”-St.Augustine of Hippo
Because even though you don’t believe in Him, He believes in you.
I called myself an atheist for almost 30 years. Then one day, I wasn’t anymore. It wasn’t that I discovered God or he discovered me. It was just that I finally understood who the voice in my head really was.
Maybe just the chronically well-behaved atheists.
32not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them," declares the LORD.
33"But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days," declares the LORD, "I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.
34"They will not teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, 'Know the LORD,' for they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them," declares the LORD, "for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more."
A number of atheists who set out to disprove God, became so convinced of His existence and presence that they became very effective in carrying His Word....
If they truly do not believe in God’s existence then why all the anger? Many of them seem to waste of huge amount of time (in a life that’s finite and short by their own estimation) being angry with a non-existent entity and in trying to convince others to not believe as well. That’s not to say they aren’t entitled to their supposed disbelief. It’s only that their disbelief is not to be believed.
Acts 9:4-5
And he fell to the earth, and heard a voice saying unto him,
Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? And he said, Who art thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest: [it is] hard for thee to kick against the pricks.
Everyone should read the Holy Scripture, then maybe read all of Augustine's anti-Pelagian writings, and then work your way to Luther's Bondage of the Will and Calvin's Institutes. a'Brekel's "A Christian's Reasonable Service" is good too, as well as any sermons by Jonathan Edwards.
The notion that you will be held accountable for your actions in the afterlife is a hard one to shake. I can guarantee that it it keeps many atheists in line, whether they admit it or not. Also, if you life is ever threatened, you will appeal to G-d.
Well Ms. King as Carl Jung said, “God is present like it or not”
atheists deny the existence of God? What ever happened to the definition that they don’t believe in a God?
It’s not the same thing.
>>Everyone should read the Holy Scripture, then maybe read all of Augustine’s anti-Pelagian writings, and then work your way to Luther’s Bondage of the Will and Calvin’s Institutes. a’Brekel’s “A Christian’s Reasonable Service” is good too, as well as any sermons by Jonathan Edwards.
When I became a Christian, I asked people what I should do. Many said “read the whole bible”. Some said to read the 4 gospels. One said to read John and Romans and then come back and we’d talk.
I did and we talked. I had questions and he pointed to other books of the NT to read, so I did. After a while, he handed me his old copy of “Mere Christianity” and said , “this will pull it all together for you”.
It did. Since then, I have read the whole bible a few times, along with Luthers Bondage and the Institutes, along with many other books on theology. I wouldn’t send a new Christian off to read Mere Christianity first, but I certainly would not send them off to read that list that you spouted until they were mature in their faith. See Hebrews 5 and 1 Corinthinans 3.
Most atheists I’ve met are very liberal even when they think they are conservative. They are self-proclaimed atheists because their social crowd tells them to be, yet, they don’t fully believe they are.
From ACTS 26:14
‘Elizabeth, Elizabeth, why do you persecute me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.’
OK, for the purists, I know he was talking to Paul, but this fits.
BEAT me to it!
Atheists I’ve talked to say that belief and/or faith is liberal thinking while it’s the various religions that are conservative.
The Light Of The World --William Holman Hunt
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