I cannot choose what I believe when it comes to statements of objective fact. I will believe the claim best supported by the available evidence. If a god or gods exist and has an effect on our universe (as most theists claim) it/they exist objectively and independent of any subjective experience. We have had at least 10,000 years of human history and still no evidence more substantial than, "everything seems to work with such precision and we don't understand how it happened exactly therefore a wizard....I mean god did it!"
That's why I am a "strong" atheist. I am comfortable saying gods don't exist on the same level I am comfortable saying giant talking spiders don't live in my backyard.
(@Pikachu) If you carry your argument to its most extreme example, what you are saying is the same thing that John Calvin taught, that there is no such thing as free will. You are a Calvinist. lol
You might not be able to chooses to be a believer but you sure can choose to [i]not[/i] be an atheist. If we don't know where we came from a person can say to themselves, I don't know so therefore I have two choices, one is to believe we were created, the other to believe there is no God at all and we are made from nothing. An atheist thinks there is no god because I can't see him, and I choose to believe in Evolution instead because to me I have some visual evidence now, never mind the bigger questions I wont think about them now and I choose to ignore them. A smarter thing would be to think, maybe there is a God, and I choose to accept some ambiguity. I am open to more information if some day I find out there really is a God and then I will believe in a God.
The atheist withholds belief in that which cannot be demonstrated and places their trust in that which can be shown to be real. Can you explain to me why it is [i]smarter[/i] to decide based on lack of evidence to the contrary (a logical fallacy called argument from ignorance) that gods are real?
And don't get it twisted. Most atheists acknowledged that a god [i]could[/i] exist. We just find that there is currently insufficient reason to reject the null hypothesis.
@Pikachu oh, these phrases that are used to confuse the ungodly, and convolute the truth of the clear evidence of a loving God, arguments from Ignorance, and logical fallacies that you use.
Satan is deceiving you like Eve in the garden dear.
I will repeat myself, but I don't mind, because I love answering your questions 😉
1. There is no lack of evidence of God in nature. God himself says "[b]The firmament declares My Glory" So there it is, see! [/b] You can choose to argue that there is no proof, but you are wrong. Any intelligent person looking at the ocean, stars, moon, sun, flowers, trees, a baby, can see God. And don't say How? because it is plain to see. And then we can use our intelligence to understand that if we can't just miraculously come up with a watch unless we know how to make one, then the world has to have a creator from the beginning that is more intelligent than us, regardless of evolution or not. It is totally irrelevant that animals adapt to environment, or the earth is young or old. Those things are interesting but should never detract from the logical conclusion that God made the universe perfect, not by chance but by his [i]word[/i] it came about. He said it, and it was so. That is how it happened.
2. The Bible is a prophetic book, that has come true. I had no idea what my life would look like but I sure knew that there would be terrors, and greater and greater earthquakes, and greater and greater floods, and greater and greater famines, and greater and greater plagues, and more selfishness, and new religions, and knowledge increasing rapidly and Satan in churches deceiving people in the last days. It is so shocking that I saw nothing like this 50 years ago and all of this happened right after the Israelites were gathered back to their homeland. And the Gospel has gone out to the whole world. It is amazing! I believe we are very close to Jesus coming back to judge the living and the dead.
3. God changes hearts today. He changed my heart. It was a miracle. I have spiritual eyes and understand how Holy God is, and how sinful I am. When someone is born again they change forever. I am not talking about calling oneself a "Christian" and going to church. I mean they leave their life behind, and follow Jesus wherever He calls them. When someone says I know God personally, they mean it. If they are not loving, and put Jesus first in their life they are not born again and never was.
[quote]these phrases that are used to confuse the ungodly,[/quote]
No, carazaa. These are just labels which describe a recognized failure of logic. To be clear; using a logical fallacy does not mean that you are [i]wrong[/i] it just means that your conclusion does not follow logically from your premise. These are not "phrases" which are applied only to theology. They are [i]tools[/i] which are used to parse logic from illogic.
[quote]God himself says "The firmament declares My Glory" So there it is, see![/quote]
lol good one, carazaa. 😏
[quote] Any intelligent person looking at the ocean, stars, moon, sun, flowers, trees, a baby, can see God. And don't say How? because it is plain to see.[/quote]
This is not an argument, carazaa. This is a declaration of faith. You have [i]declared[/i] that any intelligent person must agree with you because you believe your conclusion is obvious. I can say the same thing: You can argue that there is proof of god but you're wrong. Any intelligent person can recognize that life is not designed. Do you see what a pointless statement that is? It offers no substance, only a demand that one person accept the proclamation of the other. If you wish to actually debate the fine-tuning argument or the cosmological argument then we can certainly do that. If you think stars and flowers and trees are plainly the work of a god, explain how.
[quote]The Bible is a prophetic book, that has come true.[/quote]
And yet people have been claiming that these prophecies are fulfilled for literally millennia. Throughout history, christians believed (just as you do) that they were seeing the signs of the end times. And yet here we all still are. I seem to remember you bringing up a city being demolished which fulfilled prophecy but when i pointed out that this city had been destroyed a number of times and asked which one was prophecy fulfilled, i don't think you gave me an answer.
[quote]God changes hearts today ... When someone is born again they change forever. [/quote]
But people who have devoted their lives to your god fall away every day too. My own brother was born again and later realized he didn't believe any more. In your faith framework, you can dismiss that as them not being true christians but that only holds water if i first accept your faith framework as legitimate. You're telling me that god changes peoples hears but i'm just seeing people falling in and out of belief.
In short, being an atheist is not a choice i've made. I can't [i]choose[/i] to believe in a god any more than you can [i]choose[/i] to believe in santa.
I'd say both really. I'd say there are varying factors that influence whether or not a person believes in God or not. Me personally, I had the option to not believe as I grew up in a completely nonreligious household but I actively chose to believe. I can understand however that a child being told that God is real vs no real might not garner much of a decision. The child just believes what he is told. There are other factors that may determine what causes a person to believe or not believe and isn't a choice but I cannot think of any. Maybe personal outlook on life, religion etc.
Did you choose to believe or did you realize that you were convinced?
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I chose to believe. I did have my serious doubts at the time but that was then. I admit it motivated out of fear at the time... but time progressed and I stopped having those fears...and in a sense that's where I became convinced. I now have no reason question what's on the other end just as the atheist has no reason to. I am confident enough in my belief and they are confident in theirs. I'm comfortable like this.
I am unsure. I really wanted to be an atheist when I was younger. I thought it would be liberating. But in the end I could not discount what I knew and what I saw and found that I still believed that there must be a Creator. So tentative agreement
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@GoodoldBob [c=#BF0000]The religious god who concerns himself with trivial matters like marriage, sexuality, property def doesn't exist though
Oh ok just like you don’t choose to be gay, or a Christian or Pokémon. What about a criminal or a murderer. You mean you didn’t choose to be a jackass. I don’t believe that for one second. Or were you born that way?
[quote]I choose to believe in Santa when I was a young boy until I discovered otherwise when I got older.[/quote]
I think you're revealing the flaw in your argument right there:
You "chose" to believe in santa until the evidence convinced you that he was not real.
Do you see how that is a contradictory statement? You didn't choose not to believe in santa, you became [i]convinced[/i] based on evidence that he wasn't real.
I don't know why you're being so evasive about this. Just do the exercise and tell me how it goes and we'll move on from there. Decide that RIGHT NOW, you believe that santa is real. Report your findings.
@Pikachu your arguments are always the same. You simply need absolute proof that God exist. That’s what this and all of your so called challenges are about. Because you cannot see absolute proof you refuse to entertain the very idea of a living God. There is no other reason. What you are really saying here is a Christian is a fool. Am I right? I’m right!
lol of course you're not right. But it's not because you believe there's a god. It's because you completely fail to understand, acknowledge or address the argument i am actually making here. And that's because you know that my position on belief is correct but you're too concerned with winning to admit it.
I am not making an argument for god in this thread. I have proved to you that belief is not a choice. You proved that to yourself. YOU, gregola CANNOT choose to believe that which you do not believe. Your intellectual dishonesty in refusing to admit this fact does nothing to disguise its veracity.
Do try to pay attention next time and if you can, just try to be a [i]little[/i] less dishonest.
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[c=#BF0000]Who knows. Maybe Santa Claus did exist but never had enough of a cult following to form a religion. Maybe god wrote all that fucked up shit just to amuse himself. [/c]
@GoodoldBob [c=#BF0000]Yeah I know but people can differentiate between the real and fantasy part. People know there is no Santa Claus who appears every Christmas and rides a magical carriage and drops gifts through chimneys 😂. If Nicholas wanted he could've turned it into a whole religion like Jesus Christ who was basically just a hippy 😂. And Mohammed who then molded all the previous beliefs and formed his own following.
Or maybe they were actually sent by god but the books show very little understanding of the complexity of everything[/c]
@SW-User If you believe this then you need to re-read the bible "the books show very little understanding of the complexity of everything"
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@GoodoldBob [c=#BF0000]I came to that conclusion from the simple facts that homosexuals, people who have sex outside marriage are condemned to burn for eternity. And the fact that all Abrahamic religions state that if you don't follow that specific religion you go to hell. Now that shows very very little understanding indeed[/c]
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There really was a St. Nicholas. Santa Claus, was more of a marketing gimmick like Uncle Ben and Betty Crocker.
I would have thought different people are atheist for different reasons but I don't know. I know I became a Christian when I was 17 when God spoke to me in a very clear and real way.
People. Obviously. That's what power is about: controlling the people. Understand, this need not necessarily be a malevolent motivation. One could want control for the purposes of unity and prosperity or protection. Nevertheless, it is still a means of control.
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@Pikachu Does this apply to non religious as well?
Sorry, still not getting it. You can't change choices...ok. So does that mean being an atheist is a choice? Did you choose that you don't believe in santa or did it just happen unavoidably as a result of your exposure to the evidence?
SW-User
choose whatever you want to believe in. hadron collider or chinese drunken panda. yo life, you decide how to fuck shit up
Choose that you believe that Santa Claus is real ... did you succeed? Do you believe Santa flies around the world in one night on a magic sleigh delivering presents to all the children?
