There are no gods

[Rose]

An interesting three part video of one mans journey from being a Christian to Atheism.

[CWH]

An interesting three part video of one mans journey from being a Christian to Atheism.

What I saw in the videos are fools.

An interesting same double passages from Psalms:

Psalm 14:1
For the director of music. Of David. The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” They are corrupt, their deeds are vile; there is no one who does good.

Psalm 53:1
[ Psalm 53 ] For the director of music. According to mahalath. A maskil of David. The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” They are corrupt, and their ways are vile; there is no one who does good.

There are also many amazing testimonies from Atheist to Christians, Alleluia!

http://www.biola.edu/news/articles/2...712_ordway.cfm


God Forgive them for they know not what they are doing.

[Rose]

What I saw in the videos are fools.

An interesting same double passages from Psalms:

Psalm 14:1
For the director of music. Of David. The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” They are corrupt, their deeds are vile; there is no one who does good.

Psalm 53:1
[ Psalm 53 ] For the director of music. According to mahalath. A maskil of David. The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” They are corrupt, and their ways are vile; there is no one who does good.

There are also many amazing testimonies from Atheist to Christians, Alleluia!

http://www.biola.edu/news/articles/2...712_ordway.cfm


God Forgive them for they know not what they are doing.

Just because you quote words from the Bible that were written by men, doesn't make it true. When the Bible was written men believed in all sorts of foolish things we know today to be false, so plucking out words from an ancient book with nothing to back them up means nothing.

Rose

[Richard Amiel McGough]

What I saw in the videos are fools.

An interesting same double passages from Psalms:

Psalm 14:1
For the director of music. Of David. The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” They are corrupt, their deeds are vile; there is no one who does good.

Psalm 53:1
[ Psalm 53 ] For the director of music. According to mahalath. A maskil of David. The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” They are corrupt, and their ways are vile; there is no one who does good.

That's interesting Cheow! We also have this verse:

Matthew 5:22 But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire.

Therefore, we have this syllogism:

Major Premise: Christ in the Bible says whoever calls someone a fool is in danger of hellfire
Minor Premise: You and the Bible say unbelievers are fools.

Conclusion: Christ and the Bible say you and the Bible are in danger of hellfire.

Now on a more serious note - your comment is exactly the kind of comment to which Christ was referring. You merely called people fools without showing that they were fools so your comment is only hurtful and not helpful at all. That's mere name calling. If they said something foolish, you should expose it as such. As it is, your comments are empty and meaningless. That suggests neither truth nor the spirit of God is living in your heart.

There are also many amazing testimonies from Atheist to Christians, Alleluia!

http://www.biola.edu/news/articles/2...712_ordway.cfm

God Forgive them for they know not what they are doing.

Thanks for the link. I'll check it out. Unfortunately, there have been a lot of Christians willing to lie about their past, saying that they were "atheists" when in fact they were merely unbelievers. I'm talking about famous people like Lee Strobel and Frank Morison the author of Who Moved the Stone. Charisma said he was an atheist who was trying to prove the resurrection false but couldn't and so became a believer. That is entirely false. Morison began with a very high regard for Christ, and there is nothing in his book that indicates he was any kind of atheist.

This is what blows my mind. Christians are so gullible that they think they can promote the truth of Christianity with lies. I've seen it over and over and over again. It's one of the reasons I quit Christianity. I saw that it breeds a contempt for the truth.

[Beck]

An interesting three part video of one mans journey from being a Christian to Atheism.

Rose, Richard

Are you now considering or promoting Atheism? I've been around for a little while on BibleWheel and have seen you both grown in understanding and have often thought this was where it was leading to.

[Richard Amiel McGough]

There are also many amazing testimonies from Atheist to Christians, Alleluia!

http://www.biola.edu/news/articles/2...712_ordway.cfm

The article you linked contains no "amazing testimony." On the contrary, it is merely a blurb selling a book by Holly Ordway about her religious conversion. The reasons she gives proves she was never really an atheist of any intellectual depth. It appears she was merely lacking a belief in any god until she found herself "drawn, against my conscious will, and against my own inclination, to be interested in matters of faith." Here is what the article says about her conversion:

“It is a hard thing to look at the truth when it runs contrary to what you’ve always believed,” writes Ordway about the atheism of her youth and 20s. “I was not looking for God. Make no mistake. I did not believe that He existed. I was a college professor — logical, intellectual, rational — and an atheist.”

What happened? Fundamentally, a change in her worldview began to occur at age 31 along with a struggle in her own will.


“I was drawn, against my conscious will, and against my own inclination, to be interested in matters of faith,” Ordway writes.

Nonetheless, “My naturalistic worldview was inadequate to explain the nature of reality in a coherent way: it could not explain the origin of the universe, nor could it explain morality,” Ordway says.


On the other hand, she came to acknowledge, “the theistic worldview was both consistent and powerfully explanatory: it offered a convincing, rationally consistent, and logical explanation for everything that the naturalistic worldview explained plus all the things that the naturalistic worldview couldn’t.”

With the care, direction and support of the Runyans, Ordway also came to realize the pride that was at root of her atheism, she writes.


“At the heart of atheism is an appealing premise: ‘My will be done, not Yours.’ If atheism is true, and there is no God, then everything really is all about me, and what I want, and what I can get,” she recently blogged. “No wonder it strikes such a chord in our self-obsessed culture.”

These quotes are very revealing. She asserts that her "naturalistic worldview was inadequate to explain the nature of reality in a coherent way: it could not explain the origin of the universe, nor could it explain morality." Such words could never be written by a serious thinker for many reasons. First, it is the "naturalistic worldview" that has given us science which gives us the only "coherent" explanation of observable reality. Anyone who knows anything about science and the "naturalistic worldview" knows that it does not give answers to "ultimate questions" because those answers are part of philosophy, not science.

Second, she displays a total ignorance of reality when she says that people reject religions because of pride. Is that why she rejected Islam? Is that why she reject Jehovah's Witnesses? Is that why she reject Hinduism? Here position is entirely incoherent and it is based on the fallacy of ad hominem. Obviously, she is just "preaching to the choir" and reaffirming their beliefs. If she had been a real atheist, she would not be writing such drivel. She would be addressing the real issues that caused her to reject theism, and how the "truth" contradicts those reasons. She did not do that.

Third, her appeal to the moral argument shows a very superficial understanding of morality. That argument is based on the false idea that morality is merely following a set of rules, and rules must be given by a rule maker. This is absurd. Father's don't love their children because they must "follow moral rules." On the contrary, all morality is based on love, not rules. Thus, her argument that "naturalism" could not explain morality is based on a fundamental failure to understand the most basic facts concerning the nature of morality.

Fourth, her assertion that "the theistic worldview was both consistent and powerfully explanatory: it offered a convincing, rationally consistent, and logical explanation for everything that the naturalistic worldview explained plus all the things that the naturalistic worldview couldn’t" is not true at all, and it indicates a radical ignorance of the issues she claims to be addressing. The "theistic" world view makes no sense at all because reality contradicts the kind of god it posits. For example, theism says there is a god watching over the world and especially believers, and that he intervenes in human affairs and answers prayers. But there is on evidence for this kind of god at all, and there is much evidence against it. For example, Christians think that God helps them with all sorts of minor things, like Aunt Tilly finding her lost dog Fluffy (Praise the Lord!) even as the same God allows 200,000 of his own people die in the Hatian earthquake. The true God could not be so irrational.

And there are many other obvious flaws in her "conversion" story. She has not written a single word that indicates she was ever an "atheist" in the sense of someone who had intellectual arguments for her unbelief. This is obvious because she completely ignores all the issues that a real atheist would have had to deal with in order to convert.

Take a look at the comments on here blog post here and see how her arguments stand up under scrutiny.

[Rose]

Rose, Richard

Are you now considering or promoting Atheism? I've been around for a little while on BibleWheel and have seen you both grown in understanding and have often thought this was where it was leading to.

Hi Beck,

No, I am not promoting Atheism, and I don't consider myself an atheist. What I am promoting is freethinking, because that is what led me to where I am today. I find it very interesting to hear peoples stories of their own journeys, that is why I posted those videos.

This forum has grown into a very open place to discuss anything that's on your mind...

All the best,
Rose

[Richard Amiel McGough]

Rose, Richard

Are you now considering or promoting Atheism? I've been around for a little while on BibleWheel and have seen you both grown in understanding and have often thought this was where it was leading to.

Hey there Beck,

I think it would be more accurate to say that I am promoting freedom from all dogmatism, whether it be religious, political, or atheistic dogmatism. I think I'm pretty balanced. Dogmatic religions can also be atheistic like Scientology and some branches of Buddhism. I'm promoting freedom from all that crap.

Now as for the word "atheist" - it is important to understand that there are two definitions:

1) A person who has no belief in any god (Allah, Apollo, Brahman, Christ ... Xenu, Yahweh, Zeus)

2) A person who asserts there is no god.

I currently have no belief in any god, so definition #1 is an accurate definition of who I am right now. But I'm not interested in promoting atheism of either kind. My interest is in promoting free thinking and the freeing of minds from dogmas.

There is a problem with the word atheist because Christians have been programmed (brainwashed) to have an emotional response to the word - they salivate and snarl like a trained dog when they here the word. They have been conditioned to think of it as the ultimate insult along the lines of "godless" and "idolator" and "selfish" etc. This is how the dogmatic cults keep their minds trapped. They have said that anyone who disagrees with the Christian dogma is a godless fool, and very dangerous because they are aligned with the Devil. Therefore, must not listen to them because they are deceivers. This is how all cults shut down the minds of the believers. When I was in Scientology as a teen, we called outsiders "wogs" and thought of them as zombies who could only be saved by Scientology.

So Beck, what do you think of atheism and its relation to dogmatic religions?

Great chatting,

Richard

[Beck]

Hi Beck,

No, I am not promoting Atheism, and I don't consider myself an atheist. What I am promoting is freethinking, because that is what led me to where I am today. I find it very interesting to hear peoples stories of their own journeys, that is why I posted those videos.

This forum has grown into a very open place to discuss anything that's on your mind...

All the best,
Rose

Thanks Rose,
For clearing that up. I just thought that by this thread of 'There are no gods' and the video as being atheistic.

Hey there Beck,

I think it would be more accurate to say that I am promoting freedom from all dogmatism, whether it be religious, political, or atheistic dogmatism. I think I'm pretty balanced. Dogmatic religions can also be atheistic like Scientology and some branches of Buddhism. I'm promoting freedom from all that crap.

Now as for the word "atheist" - it is important to understand that there are two definitions:

1) A person who has no belief in any god (Allah, Apollo, Brahman, Christ ... Xenu, Yahweh, Zeus)

2) A person who asserts there is no god.

I currently have no belief in any god, so definition #1 is an accurate definition of who I am right now. But I'm not interested in promoting atheism of either kind. My interest is in promoting free thinking and the freeing of minds from dogmas.

There is a problem with the word atheist because Christians have been programmed (brainwashed) to have an emotional response to the word - they salivate and snarl like a trained dog when they here the word. They have been conditioned to think of it as the ultimate insult along the lines of "godless" and "idolator" and "selfish" etc. This is how the dogmatic cults keep their minds trapped. They have said that anyone who disagrees with the Christian dogma is a godless fool, and very dangerous because they are aligned with the Devil. Therefore, must not listen to them because they are deceivers. This is how all cults shut down the minds of the believers. When I was in Scientology as a teen, we called outsiders "wogs" and thought of them as zombies who could only be saved by Scientology.

Hi Richard,

I totally agree that each theology, religion has dogma and many have blinders on. So would I be correct to assume you have taking some knowledge from all religions, theologies and therefore not limiting yourself or putting youself into a box, so to speak.

So Beck, what do you think of atheism and its relation to dogmatic religions?

Great chatting,

Richard

It's no different that any other religion.

[Richard Amiel McGough]

I totally agree that each theology, religion has dogma and many have blinders on. So would I be correct to assume you have taking some knowledge from all religions, theologies and therefore not limiting yourself or putting youself into a box, so to speak.

So Beck, what do you think of atheism and its relation to dogmatic religions?

It's no different that any other religion.

I don't understand what you mean when you say that the lack of any religion is itself a religion. Isn't that like saying I have a hobby of not collecting stamps?