So you are saying that faith gives itself to lending human beings the affirmation they need ( in the face of all good reasoning) to become like power crazed loons, telling people how to live their lives because their god said that that was how it should be?
yes thats exactly what im saying. belief in a religion as the one true way to know god precludes respect for other belief, which inevitably leads to some type of harmful minority oppression or war between factions disputing the validity of each others claims.
Well yeah! And THAT was the Pharisees problem. They didn't understand that believing in God resulted from 'knowing' God. And they DID NOT 'know' God.
that is your opinion. to the pharisees, you do not "know" god, and neither did jesus. they were using reasoning from what is now the old testament of the bible and the associated jewish apocrypha to deny jesus based on their faith. thats why its so ridiculous. what you are saying now is that there is a true and demostrable way to know god and that you "know" that that is the only kind of faith you are supposed to have. how do you know that? because the bible says it, and since the bible is not a historical document, it is the repository of collected faith. so basically you are saying you have faith that you know what faith is and that the faith you have faith in is the correct faith. ridiculous. your argument collapses on itself.
And yeah, I was an atheist, happy in my logical view of the world. No need for all that spiritual rubbish. Not my thing. And when I use the word 'hate' as in 'hated religous types', I dont mean I hated anybody, I just mean that it was far removed from me, . I do not need a lecture on what atheism is. I'm telling you I was an atheist. My views were 'changed'. Not by a thought process, but by an experience that meant I could no longer have an atheist view anymore because I 'personally' had 'proof'. The experience overwhelmed me and I was a 'witness' to the Holy Spirit. I have no other explaination. The experience left me in no doubt. I can no longer lie and say 'there is no God' because 'I have' witnessed God's power. Now the atheist values that I once held, still hold me in good stead, why... because the atheist is right. It is about proof. But as with anything you wish to prove, you have to start with an open mind and not 'force' the results to 'fit' your personal bias. You must be objective and be prepared to get different results to what you might expect and treat it all the same. Science is about fact after all. The atheist is interested in cold hard fact. The mistake I made as a 'die hard' atheist, was 'not being true to logic'. Logic suggest that all possibilities must be considered else the one disregarded may turn out to be the most important of all. I hadn't even entertained the possibility that the 'God thing' might actually be true. Logic stood and mocked me for a brief while after my conversion and I was reminded of these words from Matthew 11:25
the mistake you made is that you were an ignorant atheist. no self-respecting atheist that i am aware of would deny that there is a spiritual aspect to existence that cannot at this time be quantified in scientific terms. so what? that doesnt mean that you have to go get religion to explain it. logic does not suggest that you must consider all posibilites equally, logic requires that you consider all possibilities and discard ones that do not have any basis in logic itself. logic requires that you institute a heirarchy of possibility based on how probable each possibility is and how much evidence there is for and against the validity of any particular claim. maybe you failed as an atheist because you misunderstood the ethos as much as you apparently misunderstand your religion.
and also, just to keep it in mind, when you use the word hate, you should mean hate. or just in general you should say what you mean.
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At that time, Jesus answered, "I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you hid these things from the wise and understanding, and revealed them to infants. "
Logic suggest that all possibilities must be considered else the one disregarded may turn out to be the most important of all.
but what youre saying isnt true. you are beginning with the assumption that an atheist doubts christianity because he or she has not considered that it may be valid. well i start from the other end of the spectrum, i went to a protestant church until i was old enough (about 9) to see the glaringly obvious contradictions between what the minister and the bible said were true and what seemed to be the reality of life. there was a huge disconnect for me even as a kid with like a 3rd grade education. so for a long time i didnt know what to think, then as i got older i started to study religion in an attempt to understand it. it still didnt make any sense. so my attempt to understand religion pushed me further from it as a logical and reasonable person, because logic cannot support what is unsupportable. reason cannot justify the unreasonable. religion is both of these things, faith requires suspension of disbelief and trust without proof. i cant accept those requirements. so according to what you have posited, i am a living example that faith cant stand up to critical empirical analysis.