ARE YOU BORN AGAIN???

smacl · 14-06-2025 02:43PM

We couldn’t say the genocide of Jews and Romani’s and Homosexuals and people with disabilities by the Nazi’s in World War 2 was objectively wrong, you could at best claim in my opinion it is wrong. The Nazis could justify their position in their opinion and how they believe the benefits will outweigh the negatives in the long term.
There is a great verse in Judges 21:25
In those days there was no king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes.
When we abandon the idea of being able to know truth we all simply do what is right in our own eyes and unfortunately that is a very slippery slope as we have seen time and time again throughout history.

There is an arrogance within many major religions, Christianity included, that they are the sole source of morality. Let's not forget that the Christian church has instigated many of the worst crimes against humanity throughout history, including the first documented genocide (against other Christians no less).

When considering right and wrong in the modern era, we look to universal human rights rather than divisive religious dogma that actively seeks to discriminate against opposing belief systems and other non-conforming minorities. Your point in relation to transgenderism is very telling in this regard, not too long ago much of Christianity would have used the same line of reasoning against homosexuality. What you might consider objective truth in this regard is clearly subjective opinion informed by religious dogma, where very many people would hold to a contrary opinion. For example, while you might take issue with transgenderism, the United Nations is clear on their right to legal recognition.

The truth you think you know is no more or less than part of your belief system. Rather than truth, perhaps we should collectively seek the best ways to treat people with fairness, kindness and respect.

redmeadow · 14-06-2025 04:09PM

There is an arrogance within many major religions, Christianity included, that they are the sole source of morality.
That’s not my claim or even the claim of the Bible. Romans 2:15 tells us that Gods law is written in our conscience, we have an innate sense of right and wrong or otherwise we couldn’t be judged. That conscience can be seered however from continuously doing wrong, we see that often presented in western or war films when they say the first one is the hardest, it gets easier after that in reference to killing people.
My claim is without being able to know God, we can have no absolute standard of truth and morality. I believe God has written his truth within you and me and everyone else but our own desires and lusts and influence from our environment corrupt us over time leading us away from that truth.

You cannot claim the UN or the Universal human rights, they are simply written by fallible people who are again without knowledge if they cannot know God, they are still subjective and have changed over time. For instance abortion was once considered murder in many nations but is now permitted.
The nature of Truth is it is unchanging. Their subjective standards is ever changing whereas Gods objective Truth has never changed and that includes homosexuality, fornication, adultery etc.

Let's not forget that the Christian church has instigated many of the worst crimes against humanity throughout history, including the first documented genocide

A Christian is someone who follows Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ doesn’t lead anyone into any sin let alone genocide. Yes the world is full of self proclaimed Christian’s and Christians churches who have done and continue to do many awful things, but clearly they are not following Jesus Christ, if you read the gospels you easily see that. That’s what this thread is about, What it means to be “Born Again”.

The truth you think you know is no more or less than part of your belief system.

I thought you are agnostic? Which means “without knowledge”. This statement is inconsistent with your stated belief system because you cannot know truth so you cannot claim that I can’t know truth without a major inconsistency in your beliefs.

Rather than truth, perhaps we should collectively seek the best ways to treat people with fairness, kindness and respect.

If we ignore Truth we remain lost, fairness, kindness and respect again become subjective standards open to change, they have to be agreed upon by some body like the UN who can’t know the truth any more than anyone else. Truth just becomes something decided by the majority or the most powerful, I could point back to the Nazi Germany example.
In the future we could see a different authority rise to power and could subject a completely different standard of morality on us all and technically there would be nothing objectively wrong about it because we can know God.

Surely you can see at this point that your arguments are falling apart, I think you should at least

smacl · 14-06-2025 05:06PM

My claim is without being able to know God, we can have no absolute standard of truth and morality. I believe God has written his truth within you and me and everyone else but our own desires and lusts and influence from our environment corrupt us over time leading us away from that truth.

That is clearly your belief, for it to be an objective truth you would need to be able to prove it to be true independently of your belief. Otherwise it is no more than a subjective opinion.

You cannot claim the UN or the Universal human rights, they are simply written by fallible people who are again without knowledge if they cannot know God, they are still subjective and have changed over time. For instance abortion was once considered murder in many nations but is now permitted.
The nature of Truth is it is unchanging. Their subjective standards is ever changing whereas Gods objective Truth has never changed and that includes homosexuality, fornication, adultery etc.

Of course, people are fallible and what we consider fair and just is based on the broadest possible consensus and this evolves over time as our understanding evolves. Our appreciation that abortion is primarily the concern of the pregnant woman rather than society at large is a good example of this, informed to no small extent by the systematic mistreatment of pregnant women in the care of religious institions in recent history. Similarly societies rejection of homophobia, misogyny and various other forms of discrimination based on sex, gender, race and religion. The decline of Christianity in this country could well be coupled to the churches insistent adherence to these positions that very many people would now consider morally repugnant.

I thought you are agnostic? Which means “without knowledge”. This statement is inconsistent with your stated belief system because you cannot know truth so you cannot claim that I can’t know truth without a major inconsistency in your beliefs.

Not sure where you got the notion that I was an agnostic, I'm most definitely an atheist. I do not believe in the existence of a god or gods. This includes the Christian God, Allah, Vishnu, Kali, Thor and any other god you might care to mention. I similarly don't believe in Ghosts, Santa or the magical healing powers of crystals. You might want to point out where I stated I had any belief system, I rather thought I'd gone to some length explaining that I don't.

If we ignore Truth we remain lost, fairness, kindness and respect again become subjective standards open to change, they have to be agreed upon by some body like the UN who can’t know the truth any more than anyone else. Truth just becomes something decided by the majority or the most powerful, I could point back to the Nazi Germany example.
In the future we could see a different authority rise to power and could subject a completely different standard of morality on us all and technically there would be nothing objectively wrong about it because we can know God.

Again, your notion of truth is no more than a subective part of your belief system. Fairness, kindness and respect derived from the broadest collective consensus are the closest we can achieve to an objective position. Quoting vague bits of scripture to support your preferred point of view is very far from the truth, and as is so often shown, you can find a line in the bible to support pretty much any argument or political stance.

Surely you can see at this point that your arguments are falling apart, I think you should at least

Very far from it, I've yet to see anything here that you've posted that I find in any way persuasive. Your logic is entirely circular, demanding a belief in God to stand up. You could substiture any other deity and the argument would work equally well but remove God or that deity and the whole house of cards collapses.

Jellybaby_1 · 14-06-2025 07:00PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123542143#Comment_123542143

I don’t know why bad things happen to good people. I don’t know why children are born with cancer. I don’t know why prayers are not always answered. I don’t know why 240+ people in India had to sacrifice their lives and one person didn’t. I don’t know why me and not you, in fact you might have been the better choice, I don’t know. I know for sure though that evil exists in this world, not the tall dark one with horns, a tail and cloven hooves, but evil intention, which is sadly what you encountered when you were four, I’m so sorry, but if I could change that for you I would.

redmeadow · 14-06-2025 08:37PM

This is a common misconception that some people of faith have in relation to those that hold a contrary position. A lack of faith is simply that, it is not a faith in something else nor a faith in nothing. The position I hold for example is simply that there is an awful lot of stuff humanity does not understand and likely will never understand, which is to be expected given the relative size of humanity as a function of the size of the universe and sum of knowledge contained therein in time and space. This realisation of the vastness of the unknown leads in turn to senses of wonder and curiosity.

This is why i assumed you were agnostic, here you very much claim and agnostic position.
Now you are claiming something inconsistent with that above position, as an atheist you are claiming to have no Faith in God which is the same thing as saying you have Faith in no God.
Similarly I could claim that I have no Faith in their being no God or having Faith that there is a God!

We are both of Faith after all that!
So I put it to you that the evidence for no God is vastly worse than the evidence for God.
You have told me you don’t see the evidence for God but when I question your evidence for No God you told me your indifferent to that and presented an agnostic view.

You are inconsistent in your own views, you simply deny the evidence I presented yet I have never yet seen anyone present a good case for how nothing could create everything which is essentially what you believe in if your an actual atheist, I have also not seen any explanation that holds any credibility for how life could come about or how that marvellous universe that you like to ponder with evidence of intelligent design everywhere could come about by random chance.

You are without any credible evidence for your Faith in no God.
The Bible tells us that people deny God because of their unrighteousness.
There is none so blind as those who don’t want to see!

The evidence is there for you but you deny and instead misplace your faith elsewhere with vastly less evidence thinking it will excuse on judgement day.
The sad reality is it won’t and in denying God you also make yourself deaf to the Gospel or good news of Jesus Christ that could save you and give you eternal life.
Your hope is in non existence after death, that is not the case either, you will remain to exist for eternity apart from God, the source of Life, Love, Truth, all that is Good.
You need to realise the dire situation you are in and the foolishness of your beliefs before it’s too late

Iscreamkone · 14-06-2025 09:18PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123544804#Comment_123544804

What a crock of 💩

redmeadow · 14-06-2025 09:21PM

What a crock of 💩

Not a very intelligent response, I hope you have something better to offer than that?

Iscreamkone · 14-06-2025 10:03PM

You slag off my post as unintelligent- yet you extrapolate from a position where we don’t know what if anything caused the Big Bang to - it must’ve been caused by a god. And this god fella is related to a holy ghost who knocked up a virgin 2000 years ago and so the child Jesus is divine. And the god fella says if we’re good we go to heaven forever, but only after we die. And it must be true because it’s written in a book.

Any non indoctrinated child can see that your god is just a man made scarecrow.

redmeadow · 15-06-2025 05:36AM

yet you extrapolate from a position where we don’t know what if anything caused the Big Bang to - it must’ve been caused by a god.

Yes I do because it must have been caused by God, there has to be some outside force involved and the cause has to greater than the effect. That force has to be intelligent because a big bang produces chaos and not order.
Not matter how the Bible triggers you and how far fetched you find it, none of it is as far fetched as nothing creating everything, that everything then just randomly by pure chance produces a really ordered universe, then by another pure chance dead matter just comes alive all by itself- I don’t think anyone can make up 3 more far-fetched fallacies than those in their desperate effort to deny God.

And this god fella is related to a holy ghost who knocked up a virgin 2000 years ago and so the child Jesus is divine

Now we have moved to a different part of the story, the proof for Jesus Christ. I can see that you seem somewhat triggered in your response as do most people because the thoughts of a God who will judge them and cast their soul into hell for eternity is the ultimate in offence.
Yes God himself revealed himself to us humans by coming as Jesus Christ, who can empathise with our every temptation, our suffering but who showed us mercy by paying the penalty of sin on the cross. You would rather ridicule the idea that you could be a sinner than accept the mercy that was shown to you.
You seem to think that all the evil done on this earth will go unaccounted for, Jimmy Savile who abused and raped little children over his lifetime while working for the BBC and enjoying fame and fortune and never got caught will have got away without judgement in your view but you are naive if you believe that, they will be a judgement day and we will all fall short if we don’t accept the mercy of God, your cynical scoffing while willingness to believe in something vastly more ridiculous will come against you also.
You need to repent now because you don’t know when you will draw your last breath and be completely without hope.
You have been indoctrinated since the day you were born as has most children, this world is deceived, that’s why the truth is so offensive to you but the truth is your only hope

Iscreamkone · 15-06-2025 07:32AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123545359#Comment_123545359

Oh well, if you put it like that it must be true

🤣

redmeadow · 15-06-2025 07:41AM

Oh well, if you put it like that it must be true

No, but truth as a concept cannot even exist without God, the source of all truth. As an atheist you would have to find something else to be the source of truth or just simply disregard truth as a concept.
That’s what Pontius Pilate done with Jesus

John 18:37-38

37 Pilate therefore said to Him, “Are You a king then?”

Jesus answered, “You say rightly that I am a king. For this cause I was born, and for this cause I have come into the world, that I should bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice.”

38 Pilate said to Him, “What is truth?” And when he had said this, he went out again to the Jews, and said to them, “I find no fault in Him at all.

smacl · 15-06-2025 07:44AM

This is why i assumed you were agnostic, here you very much claim and agnostic position.
Now you are claiming something inconsistent with that above position, as an atheist you are claiming to have no Faith in God which is the same thing as saying you have Faith in no God.
Similarly I could claim that I have no Faith in their being no God or having Faith that there is a God!

You should perhaps take a little time to understand the definition of the word atheist. It's a nice simple one, all it means is "a person who does not believe in the existence of a god or any gods". It is not a claim not to have Faith in God, it is simply a lack of belief in a god or gods. There are lots of belief systems with lots of gods out there. Atheists merely subscribe to one less of these belief systems than you do.

redmeadow · 15-06-2025 08:06AM

a lack of belief in a god or gods.

I lack belief in the non existence of God. It’s just semantics, you can’t prove no God exists so it’s equally a position of Faith.

smacl · 15-06-2025 08:07AM

Yes I do because it must have been caused by God, there has to be some outside force involved and the cause has to greater than the effect. That force has to be intelligent because a big bang produces chaos and not order.
Not matter how the Bible triggers you and how far fetched you find it, none of it is as far fetched as nothing creating everything, that everything then just randomly by pure chance produces a really ordered universe, then by another pure chance dead matter just comes alive all by itself- I don’t think anyone can make up 3 more far-fetched fallacies than those in their desperate effort to deny God.

Some very enjoyable discussion on this from a couple of years back, which debates the merits and problems with Creation Ex Nihilo and intelligent design.

As for dead things coming back to life, pot / kettle? ;)

redmeadow · 15-06-2025 08:32AM

As for dead things coming back to life, pot / kettle? ;)

I believe in God the creator of all things, the source of all life, all is possible with God, believing in raising the dead or the virgin birth or parting the sea are not a stretch, I only have to believe in one miracle, the miracle of God.
The athiest has to believe in endless miracles

smacl · 15-06-2025 08:38AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123544468#Comment_123544468

What of simple bad fortune? I'd be very much of the opinion that bad things can and do happen to good people without any intent, evil or otherwise involved. That said, I agree entirely that there is no shortage of evil intent out there.

smacl · 15-06-2025 08:48AM

The athiest has to believe in endless miracles

Atheists simply don't believe in a god or gods. Beyond that, unlike members of a well-defined belief system, their beliefs and personally held philosophies needn't having anything in common and tend to vary widely based on the place and culture in which they're raised. Given that miracle means "an extraordinary event manifesting divine intervention in human affairs" it would require a belief in the divine and hence not be likely something an atheist would believe in.

My opinion is that if an event or phenomenon can't be readily explained, it doesn't indicate divine intervention, it simply indicates a knowledge gap, of which there are very many in human understanding.

redmeadow · 15-06-2025 09:06AM

My opinion is that if an event or phenomenon can't be readily explained, it doesn't indicate divine intervention, it simply indicates a knowledge gap, of which there are very many in human understanding.

Your opinion here is another position of faith, I know you are intelligent from our conversation so far so I know you have the logic to understand you are taking a position of faith.
Your are now again saying a there is a knowledge gap but you are sure that God isn’t the explanation, again to are being inconsistent and trying to hide between Athiesm and Agnosticism, if there is a knowledge gap then you don’t know but you are claiming to know that there is no God.

smacl · 15-06-2025 09:29AM

Your opinion here is another position of faith, I know you are intelligent from our conversation so far so I know you have the logic to understand you are taking a position of faith.

Stating that you don't know something which you don't know is hardly an article of faith, it is a rather bald fact. Substiting a supernatural explanation for lack of knowledge is something altogether different, commonly referred to as a God of the gaps argument.

if there is a knowledge gap then you don’t know but you are claiming to know that there is no God

Far from it, if there is a knowledge gap I am plainly describing it as a knowledge gap. I am not claiming there is no God, merely that I have no reason to believe there might be a god or gods as I have seen no evidence to support such an assertion, even though I have taken time to study the arguments. You appear to be confusing absence of evidence with evidence of absence.

redmeadow · 15-06-2025 12:16PM

Stating that you don't know something which you don't know is hardly an article of faith

Now you’re abandoning your position as an atheist again and taking an agnostic position.
I have already given you lots of evidence for God, you haven’t refuted that evidence and given any better alternative, you are taking a different position based on even less evidence that you don’t want to discuss.

Your changing position is clearly not based on evidence or lack of evidence but on a dislike for the notion of God and judgement

smacl · 15-06-2025 05:23PM

Perhaps re-read any standard dictionary definition for atheist again. It doesn't require any positive assertion that your god, or anyone else's god or gods, don't exist. It simply indicates a lack of belief that they do exist. Someone who has never even heard of god for example is an atheist. I am an atheist not because I can categorically state that your god does not exist but simply because I have no reason to believe he does exist.

Asserting that I don't like god because I find your line of reasoning rather flimsy says rather more about you than it does about me.

redmeadow · 15-06-2025 06:56PM

I am an atheist not because I can categorically state that your god does not exist but simply because I have no reason to believe he does exist.

An atheist asserts God does not exist, an agnostic says the don’t know or that it is unknowable. You can look up the difference for yourself. You have sought refuge in both camps when pressed on certain issues, you claim you’re an atheist but then say there is so much we can’t know.

There is no hiding behind a dictionary definition, simple logic can allow you see that you can express your lack of faith in God in the inverse as faith in no God (if you’re atheist) or faith in the unknown as agnostic just as I can express my faith in God inversely as a lack of Faith in no God.
I know you understand that for some reason you don’t want to acknowledge it.

Asserting that I don't like god because I find your line of reasoning rather flimsy says rather more about you than it does about me.

That’s not my opinion, the word of God tells why people deny God, I know it to be true from my own past, even though I never claimed to be an atheist I did claim to be agnostic and that did allow me to live my life on my own terms, to do things that I saw no issue with but I knew was condemned in the word of God (the little I knew about it)

Romans 1:18-22

18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.

21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools

You Can think that is a flimsy line but it’s clear to me that it’s true, you deny God without evidence, instead trying to turn the tables saying there is no evidence for God, but in doing that you leave a massive black hole of gap for how you are even here breathing and thinking in this amazing universe with evidence of infinite design all around us.

I hope you believe me that it’s not my intention to offend you, the truth offend people who are not living in the truth, it’s just the reality of it, I have tried confront you with the truth but at this stage we are just going in circles with jumping between athiest and agnostic and purposely remaining blind to the fact that your lack of belief is equally based on faith.
You can for now take refuge in a dictionary definition and a lack of evidence because you are unwilling to open your eyes or simply attribute all the evidence to “nothing” or to “I don’t know”, no matter what evidence you received you would just assign it somewhere else to try hold your position.
The day will come when your place of refuge will have a big light shone upon it and expose your folly.

I will leave you with this passage from the Gospel of John 6:35-40

35 Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life.Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. 36 But as I told you, you have seen me and still you do not believe. 37 All those the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away. 38 For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. 39 And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all those he has given me, but raise them up at the last day. 40 For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life,and I will raise them up at the last day.”

I appreciate that you were respectful to debate with and I really do pray that you can hear the voice of God calling before Its too late, that you can genuinely humble yourself and admit that you don’t know and ask God if he is true to reveal himself to you in some way. Seek and you will find, Knock and the door will be answered.
God Bless

smacl · 15-06-2025 09:28PM

I have already linked a definition for the word atheist from what I'd consider a highly reputable source (Merriam-Webster). You might be so kind as to do the same, although any other major dictionary I've looked at has the same definition.

Quoting bits of scripture to someone who has already told you they're an atheist really doesn't help in progressing your argument.

Anyway, it looks very much like we have no common ground from which to enjoy a meaningful discussion. All the best and I'll leave it at that.

hfenton · 17-07-2025 08:27PM

From the atheist's point of view, what would one consider a good reason to believe that God exists, and why could it be considered to be a good reason?

Hotblack Desiato · 17-07-2025 11:40PM

Generally, atheists believe in concepts which have evidence behind them.

Peregrinus · 18-07-2025 01:10AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123646945#Comment_123646945

Nup. As regularly pointed out on this board, all that we can say about atheists in general is that they don't believe in a god or gods. They can't be characterised by what they do believe; still less by the basis on which they adopt their beliefs. (Plus, it's trivially easy to point to examples of atheists holding unevidenced beliefs.)

hfenton · 18-07-2025 01:53PM

What would be sufficient evidence or reason for the existence of God from the atheist point of view, can anyone give a good example of what would be sufficient from their point of view and why it would be sufficient for them?

redmeadow · 18-07-2025 04:33PM

As regularly pointed out on this board, all that we can say about atheists in general is that they Don’t in a god or gods

Does that mean the same thing as believing there is no God or gods?

smacl · 18-07-2025 07:06PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123648747#Comment_123648747

Nope. Absence of belief is not the same as belief of absence.

smacl · 18-07-2025 07:28PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123648305#Comment_123648305

Surprisingly awkward to know. If I had a first person encounter with a clearly omnipotent being claiming to be God, it would be compelling on the one hand but I'd also wonder whether I was losing my marbles. I've heard it said that any encounter with technology an order of magnitude more than you've experienced can appear like magic. If it ever happens I'll let you know.

I do have a friend who's come to religion later in life after having had a number of very rough years. His faith, from what I can tell, has been arrived at through through the shared faith of a supportive community. I think the important thing here is that it is faith derived from shared positive experience as distinct from evidenced belief in the more material sense. The need for evidence undermines the notion of faith.

ARE YOU BORN AGAIN???

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