Why Skeptics Should Pray

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(Q)

Encephaloid Martini
Valued Senior Member
Christians run across the same problems that atheists and skeptics do - evil in the world, God's acts of judgment on people in the Bible, etc. - yet their response is to continue to trust in God and worship him. What makes the difference is that Christians know God personally; they have a relationship with him and experiences that have shown them that God is good and trustworthy. This provides them with reason to continue trusting God even when they don't understand the reasons for everything he does.

What sort of information can you learn from prayer? First, if you get a response, then you know that there is a God who is willing and able to communicate with you. An omniscient God knows what sort of response will make sense to you and be convincing to you; receiving such a response can also serve as evidence that God knows you well enough to know how to respond to you. Asking for help and receiving it, particularly when the help is not something that would ordinarily happen or that you could bring about on your own, is evidence of God's loving character.

God treats each person as an individual. For some people, having God answer their prayer to know him would be the most effective way for them to come to believe in God. If a person's prayer to know God is answered, they know that God heard them and answered them - they've interacted with God and know from experience that God will listen to them and respond to them. Simply receiving evidence for God without asking for it first doesn't establish a relationship with God in the way that prayer does.Asking God to reveal himself is a demonstration of one's desire and willingness to know God. If one is not willing to even ask God to reveal himself, one would most likely be unwilling to follow God no matter what evidence or revelation was provided.

http://www.rationalchristianity.net/why_prayer.html#why
 
This God fellow sounds pretty good. When do I get to meet him?

Read Letters From the Earth by Mark Twain. Now that is what answered prayer is all about...:D
 
Finally, someone who's opinion's are formed on personal beliefs. I'm sick of so many trying to tell me that God doesn't exist, or if he does, he's evil.
 
What makes the difference is that Christians know God personally; they have a relationship with him and experiences that have shown them that God is good and trustworthy.
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Seems to me the experience of most of our history shows us otherwise.
 
Finally, someone who's opinion's are formed on personal beliefs. I'm sick of so many trying to tell me that God doesn't exist, or if he does, he's evil.
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God dosen't exist. If He does, He's evil.

:p

Umm, but all opinions are formed on personal belief. Like, DUH!

Anyways, God never answered my prayers. And judging from the fact that fish-boy just posted, Adam is not being abused by hot fundie chicks.

So apparently, he does not even answer the prayers of Godly men like Adam.
 
What sort of information can you learn from prayer? First, if you get a response, then you know that there is a God who is willing and able to communicate with you. An omniscient God knows what sort of response will make sense to you and be convincing to you; receiving such a response can also serve as evidence that God knows you well enough to know how to respond to you.

Occurs to me from this that prayer is a form of self-worship, in which a person can take their own opinions and reinforce them and drive themselves to act more confidently. After all, if you get a response (which is easy enough to dream up) which makes sense to you and is convincing to you (since your mind invented it) then you're putting the emotive force of the all-powerful behind your ideas of what you want to do. So, prayer has plenty of self-motivating potential is people use it that way.
 
My proof that Christ isn't really lord:

the letters in CHRIST can be used to form the word SHIT, with the letters CR left over. Now, what letter starts with CR? So, simply put, your dear Christ is SHIT-CRAP.

Well, that doesn't REALLY mean much, just for fun.

However, the major problem with Pascal's Wager is that there are plenty of religions with over 5000 gods, many of which say that if you don't choose the right god (their god, of course), you'll suffer in hell (or the rough equivalent in their religion) for all eternity (or some length of time).

This same theme is repeated in Cthulhuism, however in a different way: if you aren't a Cthulhuist, you will be eaten alive by Cthulhu-al.

Actually, there are quite a few words that can be formed from the name Jesus Christ, some with bad connotations, some with good, and some that you don't know what the fucking hell they're supposed to mean.

CURSE, CUSS, are both to be found in JESUS CHRIST.
But then there's ETHICS, JUST, JUSTICE, TRUE...

But what about something that would be more telling if the practice of SUBWORDS really revealed anything? Howabout "Jesus is saviour"?

(Jesus Christ has 369 valid words according to Dictionary.com)
One can find 330 valid words in "Jesus is savior", none of which are very significant unless you take Jesus being saviour as true (ie Russia)

But why not something yielding more diverse combinations, such as "Jesus Christ is Saviour", "Christ is Saviour", "Jesus is Lord", "Christ is Lord"?

Try, "Jesus Christ is Our Saviour", and you'll find things such as "Jehovistic" (or more obviously, "Jehova") Seeing as there are 2233 valid words in "Jesus Christ is Our Saviour", I'll certainly have to check the list some other time for interesting hits. Upon glancing at the list, I saw "historic" and a few other words that were semi-interesting, but what REALLY struck me was "iscariot". What does that make you think? Then there were "creator" and "crusher" which I noticed, and a few other words. However, seeing as there are 2233 valid words (this number is probably coincidental, however it could mean something too) listed, you can find all sorts of things, so only things that are REALLY *wow* do you pay attention to. A strange one was "rousseauist". And then there was "vicar".

But English is, by all means, not the "divine language", if I were trying to find something on Islam, I would use Arabic of course. So, I tried "cristi est deus" (probably wrong, anywho, I'll continue) because it's in the "divine language" of the Catholics. Well, sort of. Then I realised, I was using an English subwordifier, so I would by no means find anything indicative. Well, I tried anyways (as there are many Latin words in English) and nothing interesting happened. Nothing at all.

On a side note, "android" (and several words using that as a stem), as well as "dinosaur" can be found in "our lord and saviour".
 
I'd like to rename this thread to 'Why believers must die'.

It seems that when prayers get answered its more of a coincidence or through personal abilities.

As you can tell I'm not a believer. I don't want to be known as a Skeptic, more of a bible basher or Christian killer or something that sounds mean that reflects my religion hating ways.:p

Christians, you don't have prove that god exsists, you have one mans word for it. I didn't know the guy, so why should I trust him. WHY!
:confused: :confused: :confused: :confused: :confused:
 
Authority of the Bible

Internal Evidence:

The first fact is that the Bible claims to be the Word of God.

Second, the Holy Spirit confirms to us that the Bible is the Word of God.

Third, we have evidence concerning the transforming ability of the Bible. The Bible has changed the lives of murderers, drug addicts, top government officials, business people, and students, to name just a few people from every walk of life who have been transformed by the Bible. No other book can make such a claim.

The Bible covers hundreds of topics, yet it does not contradict itself.
First, the Bible was written over a span of fifteen hundred years.

Second, it was written by more than forty men from every walk of life.

Third, it was written in many different places.

Fourth, it was written under many different circumstances.

Fifth, the writers had different purposes for writing. Hundreds of controversial subjects are addressed and yet the writers do not contradict each other.

External Evidence:

The first external evidence is the indestructibility of the Bible. Each time the skeptics have been wrong, and the Bible has proven itself true.

The second source of external evidence comes from archaeology. Middle Eastern archaeological investigations have proven the Bible to be true and unerringly accurate in its historical descriptions.

There are many more external evidences for the Bible, but I'll just cover one more: evidence from prophecy. The Bible contains hundreds of prophecies which have come to pass. The prophecies in the Bible are very specific and accurate.

http://www.probe.org/docs/auth-bib.html


Q: Well, the skeptics wanted evidence, here it is. :rolleyes:
 
Hey Trans Global, I have known that for ages. I was just stating it because the guy who started this thread said that prayers being answered was a sign of god being true.



The Bible covers hundreds of topics, yet it does not contradict itself
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Er, yes it does. Have you read it. I can't think of one right know but I know theres loads.

Ah ha, heres one. If god is everywhere, why do we have to look up when we pray?
 
thought of one....



God loves us all right? He is supposedly perfect.
think what makes us imperfect?? EMOTIONS (they blind judgement)
love is an emotion though so if "God" loves that would make him imperfect


Gods everywhere right??? He must then also be a gynocologist
or he could also be raping you right now and you wouldn't know it but wait that couldn't happen cause he loves you, but then some also say that they love god so yeah then it wouldn't be rape huh to me this is perplexing i dunno im just rambling on right now too little sleep i need to stop partying so much

-later all
 
Some guy 01, please use proper capitalization, grammar, and punctuation. You can type any shit you want when chatting (I don't chat like that, though) but these are discussion forums. Careless and sloppy text will turn people off your ideas and it is also a sign of disrespect. Thanks.

Why do christians have to look up when they pray to their god? Their god is supposedly superior to them in every way, it is supposed to be a sign of worship. Dunno. "Ye shalt kneel before thy lord god" or something.

I don't think there is a god. If there is one, he probably operates on people he has an influence on, and is probably helpless without worshippers. Religion is useless dreaming. That doesn't mean there can't be good individuals, even though they might be poor believers.
 
Originally posted by Zero
Some guy 01, please use proper capitalization, grammar, and punctuation. You can type any shit you want when chatting (I don't chat like that, though) but these are discussion forums. Careless and sloppy text will turn people off your ideas and it is also a sign of disrespect. Thanks.
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Are you serious?! No offense to anyone, but loads of people on this board have bad spelling, punctuation, grammar etc etc, but they seem to get away with it?
 
Q, has something happened to you? Have you become a christian? :eek:

I have to be honest here, I haven't actually taken the the time to read the whole Bible, maybe I will some day. But it contains too much who's who. And then no explanation why those names are even mentioned. Maybe it has to do with the accuracy thing, that people should know that it was about real people that can be found in history records besides the Bible.

I have a very different view on the God concept than most christians do, but I must say that the prayer bit does work. If you ask for help, you will get it.

 
Thought of another. Zero, you said that god is supposed to be superior, thats why we look up to pray. But the bible says to treat everyone and everything as equal.
Also, it doesn't matter how you write things as long as you write. For all you know, he may only have one arm (no offence to anyone who has one arm) and he/she finds it uncomfortable o keep on using caps. Have you seen the way many of the foreign members write?
 
Originally posted by Firefly

Are you serious?! No offense to anyone, but loads of people on this board have bad spelling, punctuation, grammar etc etc, but they seem to get away with it?
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They all annoy me, but I mostly try to stick to the main idea. It is only when it becomes a hindrance that I complain. Also, maybe it is because I don't stick around their posts.
 
Originally posted by Thor
Thought of another. Zero, you said that god is supposed to be superior, thats why we look up to pray. But the bible says to treat everyone and everything as equal.
Also, it doesn't matter how you write things as long as you write. For all you know, he may only have one arm (no offence to anyone who has one arm) and he/she finds it uncomfortable o keep on using caps. Have you seen the way many of the foreign members write?
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From the point of view of an atheist who reads the bible to sift out the worthy parts from the utter shit, I would say...

...I think that their god is supposed to be superior, a sort of abstract being who is above it all, who is all-powerful, etc etc.

The caps and punctuation thing does not anger me, it is just so irritating. A minor thing that has gone outta control, I'd say. And if he really has one arm, I would accept it.
 
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