Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Hey you athiests...

Yep.

AS, you are again descending to your tired and useless tactics. Either you do not understand "faith" or you refuse to deal with even its most basic nature. Of course, you are free to call it "gullibility", but many excellent and erudite folks understand and apply faith as a lofty and sublime factor - entirely different from the gullibility you profess. No one is trying to shift a "burden" for there is no burden to shift. That is one of the fascinating and sublime facets of faith.

The above gentleman did not deride you in religious terms or ask or express a wish for you to disprove any particular theistic claims. He merely observed the differences between the bases for his position and the bases you express for yours, and he did not claim to prove anything. He acknowledged that he has no burden - therfore there is none to be shifted. He simply invited you to "go ahead" and prove your position on the basis of what you claim to hold. He is not arguing - he has told you to go ahead and argue if you wish.

Faith in an omniscient/omnipotent/everlasting God is a huge and powerful thing - it changes certain lives in ways beyond simple description. If a person does not understand or exercise that, discussions such as this can be be difficult, frustrating and even futile.

Even that is not justification for sleazy tactics.

uh, oh no. no way in this world to fully define god. even the ancient hebrews, very close to moses, and the others can do that. it's impossible. but god is a "metaphor" for the reality in which we find ourselves. just remember, we don't know from whence we came, where we are, not where we are headed next. but, we're doing our best to make sense of where we are at this moment. can we agree on that?

You can't "prove it to yourself"
That's just psychobabble that ignores reality

I'm raising the Bull $hit flag too. I'm a believer but its not my place to push my beliefs on anyone and I don't know anyone outside the Baptist Church who does either, lol...

My best friend doesn't believe in god. but believes in ghosts. He doesn't try to prove to me that ghosts exist and I don't try to prove to him that nothing exists.

We do come up with some good one liners about religion that get a "You two shut the f u c k up!" from his wife.

Than instead of saying "God", why not just say, "We don't know." Why the need to substitute a supernatural being in the place of "I don't know"?

Just because someone's right on one subject doesn't mean they are not totally wrong on another. Look at all the atheist who are Marxist.

I guess you've never met a Pentecostal, nor any of the Millerites, i.e. Jehovah witness, 7th day Adventist etc.

CCCC,

I'm well aware of the implications of Faith. Faith is a believe held despite a lack of evidence, or in the face of evidence to the contrary. Gullibility is "related to credulity, which is the tendency to believe unlikely propositions that are unsupported by evidence."

As for how you belief has affected your life, what I care about is, is this belief true, or is something else, such as a placebo effect, or positive selection bias at work.

As for who has the burden, Ace made the postive claim, (God exist), so he has the burden. Anyone who understand the example of Rustles Tea Pot knows why this is the case. I would expect a man of your education to be well aware of this, so again, as is the case with most apologist, it is you skirting the issue.

So, you believe Adam and Eve were real people, but the story of Original Sin is figurative, and not literal. When creating Man, God created them in his own image, but in doing so, made them the natural ally of Satan?

Is that an accurate summary of your position?

He knows me and I am what you might refer to a Pentecost, as in a Spirit filled Christian.

Scott, your not like any of the Church going, born again, evangelical Pentecostals I've know. But, than again, there's a couple of reasons for that.

I might call it sanity but some here who know me well might argue wit me.

I ana Spirit filled tongues speaking kind of guy i just usually keep it to myself. There is a time and a place for most everything.

Any HONEST scientist, when confronted with a Creation - all that there is - would either adopt a default position of SOMETHING or SOMEONE must have started this and thus deserves to be called God, or........

He would readily see that since the "Creation moment", by its nature, can never be observed or duplicated and thus is not a fit subject for Science.

Only an arrogant, ego driven Humanist would argue that there simply MUST be an explanation for Creation other than a Creator even though that explanation DOES NOT EXIST.

Antelope Sniper finds it more to his liking to shoot holes in posts submitted by the Biblialators than to respond to posts such as mine. He knows that if he continues a dialogue with me that he will finally have to admit to some sort of "first cause" for all that there is,ie Creation, but he can't refer to that "first cause" as "God".[we have come to that point before, you see]

It's scary to consider that the "first cause" might take a personal interest in him, but not be impressed by his intellect.

No that's not accurate at all. I thought you had read the Bible. God didn't make man an ally of Satan. Man did that himself when he decided to obey Satan rather than God.

What I think about original is too much to discuss in this format.If you say that original sin means we are all born as sinners destined to Hell then I don't exactly believe that with a slight distinction. To say we are all born to Hell would mean that innocent children would suffer Hell without being saved. I do not believe that.

What I do believe is that because of Adam's sin we are all born with the propensity for sin. We will all sin,and whenever we reach an age of accountability,or you could say the age that our choice to sin becomes our own, then that sin has destined us to Hell.


No one can enter Heaven who has committed sin. Jesus is the only man never to have committed sin.Jesus having been born of God's word and not by the seed of Adam ,did not have that propensity for sin as do natural born men.

The only way to enter Heaven is in Jesus. To be saved is to be married to Jesus, to become one with him. When a person is one with Jesus the attributes and nature of Jesus is bestowed upon the person who is one with him.

I hope that makes sense. I tried not to use words the Christian completely understands but the unsaved may not,like redeemed and justified,made righteous.

The idea of an intelligent, universe-creating god "just existing" is far more difficult to explain than the universe itself "just existing". Intelligence is one of the most complex things we are aware of in the universe. To assume the existence of a being who is so intelligent that it can design an entire universe, as well as micromanage the personal lives of billions of people on earth through prayer, would require an enormous amount of explanation, which you have not offered.

lol

So the universe and intelligent life can 'just exist', but a divine awareness who created all of it could not...?

No...... it is not. In fact, your statement borders on being ridiculous.

Neither proposition is understandable. Both are beyond our comprehension.

But..... if I accept the first proposition on faith, the second is explained. The reverse is not true.

A "just existing" universe raises more questions than it answers and does not even merit consideration.

Which is more complex, the Universe or the entity you propose to have created it?