Posted on 07/14/2014 12:30:09 PM PDT by Kaslin
I cannot understand how atheists are able to ignore the spiritual realm as if it doesn’t exist. They explain away miracles and supernatural events as if these thousands of occurrences over many years are all just random. I’ve had hundreds of answers to prayer in my life, but atheists tell me they’re all coincidences.
One of the most frequent arguments I hear against my faith is that I believe in God because I’m “weak” and need some kind of support. Really? Me? Weak? I may be horribly flawed, but I wouldn’t describe myself as weak, after all the loudmouthed articles I’ve written, which I take a lot of heat for every week. I am flawed just like anyone else, prone to sin and doing things that don’t measure up to God’s standards of holiness, so why would I want or need some religion that tells me I can’t cheat, lie, etc., ever?
Although I was raised in a Christian home, I’ve discovered that it’s not easy living a Christian life. You’re never going to be very cool or popular; for the most part, Hollywood and being a musical star with their scanty clothing and drug-using lifestyles is off limits for Christians today. As the culture becomes more and more degenerate, it’s a daily battle to not cave in to it - to obey God rather than man.
I love science, and I love to debate, so I’ve spent many years reading books about Christianity, evolution and related subjects by scientists and brilliant academics. Many like C.S. Lewis, began their quest for truth as atheists seeking to disprove Christianity, but changed their minds the more they researched. I understand that most people believe in God based on faith alone, but I wanted to give intelligent reasons for the faith I held. Josh McDowell and the late Dr. D. James Kennedy have been two of the most influential thinkers in this area for me.
After years of reading all I could on the subject, I discovered that a few interpretations of certain Bible verses over the years may have reached relatively minute differing conclusions. Maybe the earth isn’t literally 6,000 years old, it may be older (2nd Peter 3:8 says that one day to us is like 1,000 years to God), and that the Bible was actually very forward thinkingwhen it came to women’s equality. It’s fascinating that Jesus first appeared to a woman, Mary Magdalene, after his resurrection, telling her to go tell his disciples that He had risen. Even basic Biblical doctrine, no matter how conservative/fundamentalist, disagrees here.
It doesn’t matter how many billions of Christians there are in the world, nor how intelligent and well-read they are, the other side keeps insisting we’re all brainwashed and need a crutch. The Christian faith is being pushed out of the public sphere more than ever today, as liberals in most parts of life - academia, government and the judiciary - try to squelch it. At the same time, Christians are standing up for Christ against powerful opposition, pushing back, often after great personal sacrifice.
There is a devout Satanist movementout there, which actively engages the dark side of the spiritual realm, including Satan and demons, and it is growing in size. How do atheists explain that away? Satanists hate God, and want to defeat Him, but they at least don’t try to pretend the supernatural world doesn’t exist, because they don’t ignore it. Explain away tarot cards, wiccans, and ouija boards “rationally.”
The intellectual Christian C.S. Lewis, who many - including myself - consider the greatest writer of all time, next to the Holy Spirit-inspired writers of the Bible, was a devout atheist for many years until he couldn’t escape the evidence any longer. He has said he was he was brought into Christianity like a prodigal, "kicking, struggling, resentful, and darting his eyes in every direction for a chance to escape … That which I greatly feared had at last come upon me. In the Trinity Term of 1929 I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England.”
Lewis had been a close friend of the science fiction writer J.R. Tolkein - Lewis also wrote many brilliant sci-fi books, including the Lion, the Witch and Wardrobe Narnia series - and started an Inklings intellectual discussion group with Tolkein at Oxford. Tolkein was ecstatic to see his friend convert, although he would have preferred he choose Catholicism over Anglicanism. Lewis remained neutral when it came to sectarianism.
It reminds me of the liberal and atheist commentator Kirsten Powers on Fox News, who recently became a Christian. She toldChristianity Today, “I'll never forget standing outside that apartment on the Upper East Side and saying to myself, ‘It's true. It's completely true.’ The world looked entirely different, like a veil had been lifted off it. I had not an iota of doubt. I was filled with indescribable joy...The horror of the prospect of being a devout Christian crept back in almost immediately. I spent the next few months doing my best to wrestle away from God. It was pointless. Everywhere I turned, there he was. Slowly there was less fear and more joy. The Hound of Heaven had pursued me and caught me - whether I liked it or not.”
Why do I need a “crutch?” I don’t. I only believe in God because the evidence is so overwhelming; as someone with half a brain, I can’t ignore it. I guess if I wanted to live a self-centered, hedonistic life, ignoring others around me who are suffering, I could ignore all the signs that Jesus/God/Holy Ghost exists. I’d love to sound like the “scientific, morally superior and super cool” one to all my peers, and spend most of my time partying and bettering myself, without doing anything for others in need. What an easy life that would be, especially if I were to become the typical narcissistic Hollywood star with all the fans. Who wouldn’t want that? But that’s not where the evidence leads; claiming otherwise is really ignoring all the evidence - which, as the opposing side ironically says about us, isn’t very scientific, but instead, “narrow minded, judgmental and condescending.”
How does it make sense to get something from nothing?
There is a scientific principle of cause and effect. Since we logically fit into the effect category, why could we not allow our Cause to be called God (however that term might be understood)?
Like...
Or this...
...and this one is completely random...
I love that! Where did it come from?
But the 'key' is whether or not we are listening, or willing to accept the answer.
Just made it up, as much as anything is ever made up.
how do you figure condescension?.
The articles point was atheist assigning less than honorable reasons to people of faith for there faith.
Guess what I agree some are just we or afraid..and some view God as a cosmic wishing well.
But some are seeking answers..seeking truth...so there is both noble in and ignoble reasons for faith.
but if you look at my post I also atheist have both noble and less then noble reasons for their beliefs on god of the lack of one.
Yet you seem be offended by the concept in any atheist mark might have less then noble reasons for their belief.0
What? Your beliefs are not to be examined and questioned the same way that others people beliefs are?......seem rather dogmatic?
News flash: most atheists, like myself, don’t go around trying to talk other people out of their faith, or belittling them for it
...maybe...but your most notable exponents, the likes of Hitchens and Dawkins, are/were excessively obnoxious in their positions, and clearly delight in tossing ridicule around...
...and this is what people see when the topic of atheism comes up...
News flash: most atheists, like myself, don’t go around trying to talk other people out of their faith, or belittling them for it.
...the above post that you are responding to, was not made by me...
He meant that God was no more real than a fiction, like a flying spaghetti monster. It's supposed to be a snarky put down of the faithful. I wonder at times how they feel after saying something like that, and I pray for them.
My experience here is that sometimes the answer is "Yes", sometimes it's "No" and other times it's "Wait."
It's not easy to discern "Wait" from "No" but it's possible. It just requires patience. All things in His time, not ours.
“I have found that they often have a very adolescent mindset, even if they are well into their 30s, 40s, and 50s. Some can be very intelligent and articulate, but speaking with them is like speaking with a bright teenager who “knows everything.” And they love mockery.”
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Yes, that is an apt description of many atheists. It is also true of many “true believers”. As for myself I would never attempt to try to prove the existence of God by reason, I regard it as being impossible, at least for me. On the other hand I can’t think of anything more hopeless than someone who thinks he can prove the NONexistence of God. I can’t prove the NONexistence of Leprechauns. The extreme difficulty of proving a negative is the reason why, in civilized nations, the burden of proof is on the accuser, I would hate to have to prove that I did NOT participate in a murder on, oh, let’s say the fourteenth of September 1967. I have absolutely no idea what I really was doing on that date, I am reasonably certain I didn’t kill anyone but how would I ever prove it. In short, anyone who claims to be certain that there is no God is so deluded as to be incapable of reason.
You might enjoy reading this, by Stefan Molyneux.
It’s also on YouTube
Against the Gods? A Concise Guide to Atheism and Agnosticism
https://freedomainradio.com/free/#atg
I plead guilty as charged.
Interesting read. That sort of line of argument is just the sort of thing that tends to get the backs of the religious up, though, so I don’t bother using them. I may be convinced that religion is false, and possibly even harmful (while conceding that it does have its benefits, too), but the faithful don’t and won’t see it that way. You can’t argue them out of their faith (and I have no particular interest in doing so), so I just don’t go down that road.
I do believe that the declared atheists of the world still have a lot more to fear from the faithful than the other way around. I’m not particularly bothered by what other people choose to believe (at least as long as they don’t use it to justify interfering with my rights, which they often do), but it seems to drive the religious crazy that there are those of us who don’t buy into their faith, and they ascribe all sorts of attributes to us to try to explain it to themselves (or intimidate us into believing with them).
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