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Atheists vs Christians...
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10-06-2008 3:29pm#1Folks,
I've seen countless debates now between Atheists and Christians and tell me if I'm wrong, but I haven't seen anyone ever change their opinion following a debate. It always seems to end in frustration or anger.
Both sides of the divide seems to be getting more and more frustrated that they can't seem to get their point across, that the other person(s) just isn't listening. We all want to win, to put our point across. But are we listening to the other side? It's good to remember that we have 1 mouth and 2 ears.
So I think it we're ever to make any progress towards understanding the other side of the debate, we need to start listening more and try to see things from their perspective. It doesn't do any good blankly stating that we're right, you're wrong. Understanding is key. Maybe then we can have constructive debates and fewer arguments/rows.
I know we Christians are out on a limb in a sense because we can't put God under the microscope. We can't prove He exists but we know in our hearts that He's there taking care of us as good fathers do.
Let's take Jesus' example and not go chasing after people when they don't accept our views. Present the truth for the hearer to take or leave and let's do it out of love and not in order to score points. We know what happens when we take the leap of faith and the joy it brings. So let's keep it joyful.
And yes, I'm a hypocrite
I'm just trying to calm things down a bit!
God bless,
Noel.0
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Folks,
I've seen countless debates now between Atheists and Christians and tell me if I'm wrong, but I haven't seen anyone ever change their opinion following a debate. It always seems to end in frustration or anger.
It has to for you.Both sides of the divide seems to be getting more and more frustrated that they can't seem to get their point across, that the other person(s) just isn't listening. We all want to win, to put our point across. But are we listening to the other side? It's good to remember that we have 1 mouth and 2 ears.
Is that why you stormed out of the A+A forum telling us we're all going to hell.So I think it we're ever to make any progress towards understanding the other side of the debate, we need to start listening more and try to see things from their perspective. It doesn't do any good blankly stating that we're right, you're wrong. Understanding is key. Maybe then we can have constructive debates and fewer arguments/rows.
I have tried it and now I'm an atheist. You can't debate something that is illogical. Its like giving importance to the moral implications of puss n boots carrying a blade.I know we Christians are out on a limb in a sense because we can't put God under the microscope. We can't prove He exists but we know in our hearts that He's there taking care of us as good fathers do.
Its quite possible that that is an illusion of emotion no?Let's take Jesus' example and not go chasing after people when they don't accept our views. Present the truth for the hearer to take or leave and let's do it out of love and not in order to score points. We know what happens when we take the leap of faith and the joy it brings. So let's keep it joyful.
Well you don't really know the truth thats what pisses me off as an atheist anyway.And yes, I'm a hypocrite I'm just trying to calm things down a bit!
God bless,
Noel.
You could have fooled me.0 -
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I'm in no position to judge whether you will be saved.
What I'm saying is that if you're damned, you'll regret having rejected God's grace and realize the good you've forfeited. If you are saved, it will mean you have repented and regretted your attacks on Christ's Church and Christians.
But either way, there will be regret.
Ok I can see this going on ..
Can you agree that there are people, like myself, who have decided not to worship God even if he exists. So while I may be mighty surprised to meet God in the afterlife, and terrified of his punishment for not believing in him my sin*, I certainly would not regret how I have lived my life, even if the throws me into hell. I would not change how I have lead my life, so there is nothing to regret in that regard.
If you can, then we can push on. What did you think of my proposal?
* In the spirit of the thread i have corrected that, you guys don't believe we are punished for not believing, we are punished for disobedience (sin).0 -
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atheists vrs christians why only christians
do atheists define themselves as being unbeliveing just christ??
why dont they have a go at convincing buddests hindus shieks and muslems what about animasts and rastafarians or freemasons who believe in a ''supreme being'' the kkk or wotananism/wotanic arianism
go and chat them and give us a break for a while shir why should we be so lucky to get all your attention
Every ''great'' civilisation ancient and ''modern'' had some religion. The greeks who had all those mathamatitions and philosiphors and the like worshiped appolo
i dunno
can all those cultures and civilisations be wrong
and one last thing the owness is on atheists to prove there is no God as their theory is the newest
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Because this is the Christian forum and there is quite a bit of volleying between A+A and Christianity. I don't know about the other faith forums.cronndiesel wrote: »atheists vrs christians why only christians
do atheists define themselves as being unbeliveing just christ??
Dunno. Maybe because A+A and Christianity are the busiest R+S fora.cronndiesel wrote: »why dont they have a go at convincing buddests hindus shieks and muslems what about animasts and rastafarians or freemasons who believe in a ''supreme being'' the kkk or wotananism/wotanic arianism
go and chat them and give us a break for a while shir why should we be so lucky to get all your attention
Yes, they fell didn't they? Christianity is still alive and well today.cronndiesel wrote: »Every ''great'' civilisation ancient and ''modern'' had some religion. The greeks who had all those mathamatitions and philosiphors and the like worshiped appolo
i dunno
can all those cultures and civilisations be wrong
If only it were that easy. Atheists claim that we're living in an age of enlightenment now and that they've thrown off the "shackles" of religion.cronndiesel wrote: »and one last thing the owness is on atheists to prove there is no God as their theory is the newest0 -
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Wicknight, why do I feel that you're assuming the role of the professor and I'm supposed to be the student learning from you? Anyway have to go home now, will take this up later.
I hope I won't regret starting this thread! 0 -
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In fact that is a good way of thinking about it. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to construct a thread with the purpose of convincing someone God doesn't exist.
And the atheists have to convince someone he does.
As do atheists when they look at Christianity.
This excersise may help. The key to debate is to full understanding the opposite sides position as well as your own.
This does sound really fun, I have to say. Not easy either, it's not easy trying to formulate arguments that go against your position. Although that is exactly why I turned from Christianity, I did this before.
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Hmm, naturally I would like to see atheists question their own beliefs and open their minds (or rather hearts) up to the possibility that God exists. I have reservations about attacking my faith for fear of offending God, even though I wouldn't mean what I wrote.
That aside, I could attack theism but I know there's no possible proof of God's existence. God wants us to believe and has designed the universe so that we are required to have faith. I think one possible explanation for this is that this is the means by which God tests us, to sift the wheat from the chaff so to speak.
I haven't yet come across an argument that comes near to refuting God. That's not to say that I haven't had moments of doubt. But I really can't bring myself to argue against God. I could do like you guys and argue God can't exist because there are millions of starving people in the world etc, but that would be playing right into the hands of the devil.
Sorry if you feel I'm not being very sporting.
I had a great laugh though when Fanny Cradock, on the thread you started in the atheism forum, said "Put yer back into it lads"
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Hmm, naturally I would like to see atheists question their own beliefs and open their minds (or rather hearts) up to the possibility that God exists. I have reservations about attacking my faith for fear of offending God, even though I wouldn't mean what I wrote.
That aside, I could attack theism but I know there's no possible proof of God's existence. God wants us to believe and has designed the universe so that we are required to have faith. I think one possible explanation for this is that this is the means by which God tests us, to sift the wheat from the chaff so to speak.
I haven't yet come across an argument that comes near to refuting God. That's not to say that I haven't had moments of doubt. But I really can't bring myself to argue against God. I could do like you guys and argue God can't exist because there are millions of starving people in the world etc, but that would be playing right into the hands of the devil.
Sorry if you feel I'm not being very sporting.
I had a great laugh though when Fanny Cradock, on the thread you started in the atheism forum, said "Put yer back into it lads"
It doesn't look like Wicknight's idea is going very well. Leopards changing their spots and all that. Already they're presenting attacks on Christianity as if they were strengths. Listen to this little gem from stereoroid: "This may be another failing of atheism: an inability to follow orders, or accept that something is true just because it was written in a book long ago, and "authorities" vouch for it"
Trolling in their own forum! ROTFL :pac:0 -
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Because they're similar viewpoints (well, not all forms of either, but post-Enlightenment Atheism and Fundmentalist Christianity and to a lesser extent many of the more established denominations are) except for one big point of difference.cronndiesel wrote: »atheists vrs christians why only christians
Why are Buddhists in the list? Buddhists are already Atheists. For that matter, Arianism and Rastafarianism are both forms of Christianity, and most (though of course, not all) Freemasons are Christians too.cronndiesel wrote: »why dont they have a go at convincing buddests hindus shieks and muslems what about animasts and rastafarians or freemasons who believe in a ''supreme being'' the kkk or wotananism/wotanic arianism
go and chat them and give us a break for a while shir why should we be so lucky to get all your attention0 -
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Intuitively speaking I think science is coming very close to the limits of what it can know. From my distant vantage point, it appears that theories are getting ever more complex and high energy physics is having to work at ever higher energies to find new particles. You have to ask the question, will we every find the ultimate particle and why such a particle, if it did exist, would not be divisible as the atom was once thought to be. We don't seem to be getting near a "definite line of enquiry". I see they've also come up with a new cyclical universe theory which postulates that time had no beginning, and thus no creation. It involves the idea that each cycle is slowing down and thus can go on ad infinitum. But apparently it relies on the existence of a hypothetical particle (I think).
Christians believe that it is God's will that keeps everything in existence. So if God hypothetically disappeared, so would the world.
Physics has always had many competing theories so cyclic theory is not that is not unusual, and as far as I recall is itself based on speculative String theory, so it is a long way from being established.
Scientist in the late 19th century early 20th century thought that all the major discoveries had been made already and all that had to be done was dot the i's and cross the t's.
Are you thinking about "God particle" or Higgs bosson as the ultimate particle? To be fair hat is probably the most inappropriate and unfortunate phrases ever devised in the history of science (One author coined the term, which all physicists detest). If discovered we will understand how particles aquire mass and we will understand how the universe works a little better, but that is about it. I don't think it will revolutionise mankind or anything like that, in fact most people probably won't even notice
I agree it is very hard to evaluate where science is at. What seems to be certain is that when it finally succeeds in opening a box it has a nasty habit of finding another box inside.0 -
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That doesn't make a lot of sense. I used to be an atheist, as did PDN. We thought about it hard and came to different conclusions to you. Countless people have thought really hard about it over thousands of years and most of them have been theists. Our generation is nothing special.
Well the perception stems, I think at least, from the reliance Christians seem to put on faith in God or faith in his abilities, to explain various difficulties with theism, such as in the thread on the Egyptian plagues, or the plausibility of something like Jesus' resurrection (it was stated on a thread discussing that issue that Jesus' resurrection is only implausible if someone assumes God doesn't exist, but that is what an atheist would do).
The issue is how were these explained when the person was an atheist, since faith or trust in God is meaningless when someone is an atheist. So the perception is that concept of God is accepted without really thinking about it in a very critical fashion, accepted for emotional reasons because it is comforting or claims to offer something, and then the person goes back, and using faith in God as a starting point, explains the troublesome aspects of the religion from the perspective of a believer, rather than a skeptic.
But again, this is a perception of (some) non-Christians, I'm not saying it is accurate, in fact that was the point of the threads I think should be started.
A lot of the issues both sides have is that they perceive the other side as being motivated by silly reasons, such as your comments below about atheists being motivated by "cultural moods" and that we are just "fitting in" (with the 85% Catholic population
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I have reservations about attacking my faith for fear of offending God, even though I wouldn't mean what I wrote.
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I could do like you guys and argue God can't exist because there are millions of starving people in the world etc, but that would be playing right into the hands of the devil.
Well I have lunch with him every second tuesday of the month, I'll check if he is ok with it
Seriously though, I certainly wouldn't want you doing anything you are uncomfortable with, the threads were only a suggestion. I think they would be interesting, but I am reluctant to start the Christian one myself, not being a Christian. Hopefully someone else will start one. 0 -
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Folks,
I've seen countless debates now between Atheists and Christians and tell me if I'm wrong, but I haven't seen anyone ever change their opinion following a debate. It always seems to end in frustration or anger.
Both sides of the divide seems to be getting more and more frustrated that they can't seem to get their point across, that the other person(s) just isn't listening. We all want to win, to put our point across. But are we listening to the other side? It's good to remember that we have 1 mouth and 2 ears.
So I think it we're ever to make any progress towards understanding the other side of the debate, we need to start listening more and try to see things from their perspective. It doesn't do any good blankly stating that we're right, you're wrong. Understanding is key. Maybe then we can have constructive debates and fewer arguments/rows.
I know we Christians are out on a limb in a sense because we can't put God under the microscope. We can't prove He exists but we know in our hearts that He's there taking care of us as good fathers do.
Let's take Jesus' example and not go chasing after people when they don't accept our views. Present the truth for the hearer to take or leave and let's do it out of love and not in order to score points. We know what happens when we take the leap of faith and the joy it brings. So let's keep it joyful.
And yes, I'm a hypocrite I'm just trying to calm things down a bit!
God bless,
Noel.
In a debate, we don't seek to convert the opposition to our viewpoint. We seek to convince the audience, the uncertain or divided.0 -
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