Re: Atheists support evolution because evolution supports their


"Gregory A Greenman" <see@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:MPG.2374f03bdb4112249896b8@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
On Fri, 31 Oct 2008 00:13:04 -0500, Suzanne wrote:

"Gregory A Greenman" <see@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:MPG.23677b7735b2e16e9896af@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Suzanne wrote:

"chris thompson" <chris.linthompson@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:8b74056c-d0c8-4c39-b375-2c171aee91d2@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
On Oct 14, 9:37 am, "Suzanne" <shil...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
"chris thompson" <chris.linthomp...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message


This is all very fine, but it does not answer my question, which I
will put to you again: is there any reason to think that this is
one
of the times we need to trust another person? On top of that, is
there
any reason we should be trusting you in this matter, as opposed to,
say, Richard Dawkins?

Chris

In looking back at this post, when you said this,
when I was talking about a snake being by someone's
foot, which constitutes an emergency. If you want to
get out your cell phone and call someone else that
is not there and ask them whether or not you can
move, I think you may have missed the point of what
has been said.

Suzanne

Thanks for your response. If I am hiking in snake country and my
partner warns me of a snake near my feet, I will certainly listen. I
sometimes hike in Palisades Interstate Park and there are
Copperheads
there, so I know what you mean. (There are also plenty of Northern
Water Snakes, and while they aren't venomous they're fast as hell
and
can give you three painful bites before most people can blink twice.
I
knew a herpetologist who could catch them bare-handed- the only
other
person I ever met who was that fast was a Captain in the US Army
Rangers.)

But that's not what I was talking about, and I think you know it.

Is there any reason to think that we need to trust another person on
the question of deities, and if so, is there a reason to think we
should trust you (or any theist) as opposed to Richard Dawkins, or
some other atheist?

Chris

I presume you are speaking of my belief in Christ to
be the Savior?...
I think there is a good reason why you should trust
what I've been telling you that I believe. . In the first
place, I've been telling you the truth.


All the quacks make that claim. If we believe them all, we'll all
be knee deep in snake oil.



If you put your
trust in what I've placed my trust in, and then found
out later that it was not true (which you won't), you
would have lost nothing at all. But if you put your
trust in what people who oppose my beliefs say that
they believe, and find out later that they were wrong,
you would have lost much.


Good grief! Pascal's Wager has to be one of the stupidest arguments
I've ever heard. Let me ask you this: would you rather get a
million dollars or have the snot beat out of you?

http://www.jhuger.com/kisshank.php

From the viewpoint of the Bible, if a person does not
choose to receive Christ, the person refuses to accept
God's rescue, and his love. If you fell overboard from
an ocean liner and a rescue boat was sent to you and
hands extended to you, to pull you up to safety, you
would receive it, because you would realize the danger
you would be in, if you didn't.


With respect to the sea, if I was drowning in it, I'd probably
realize that. I wouldn't need to take your word for it.

Have you ever gone to any kind of church at all
by any chance? Any religion of any kind?

Also, it's not a matter of not choosing to receive christ. I don't
believe he exists to begin with. Choosing to receive him is not an
option. I can no more choose to receive christ than I can choose to
receive Santa, the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny or Thor. They are
all imaginary beings.

Well....I don't know what you feel like, but look at
this scripture. It seems to be saying what you are
speaking of...maybe...?
Ephesians 2:8-9
"For by grace are you saved through faith; And that
not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, lest any man
should boast."
It says that someone is saved through faith, but that
faith is not something of yourself, but is given to you
when you decide to trust him. It also makes it clear
that salvation is by faith, rather than by effort earning
it with works.


The proper perspective
would not be that if you didn't receive the rescue, you
had to have the snot beaten out of you by the sea. It is
not God's will, he says, that any should perish. If you
were in the sea, seeing the rescuers come, would you
be thinking, "Ohhhh...mannnn!!! If I let them rescue me, I
will have to work every day for a living! Bummer!" No,
you would receive the rescue and be delighted to be able
to go to work every day.


The problem with your analogy is that I am not drowning in the sea.
I am on dry land, doing just fine. If your religion is true, then
the rescuers ask me if I want to be saved, (and, they do it in a
way I cannot detect), and if I don't say "yes", they push me in.
Isn't that the way it works? I'm not in hell right now. If I don't
accept your god's alleged offer, he puts me in hell. The one I need
rescuing from is the alleged rescuer.

Now, it's not in the Bible that someone pushes you in.
No one would do that. Instead, they would feel sad if
you said no, and hope for you to change your mind
some day. As for whether or not it is urgent, people do
not know the future.


As for Richard Dawkins, I wish that he also believed
what I believe. I saw the Ben Stein movie and
Richard Dawkins appeared in it. Ben Stein had shown
how complicated a single cell is. What it sounded to me
like Richard Dawkins conceded, is that life just might
have a designer but that the designer could have been
a highly evolved being from another planet, but that
he just would not have been God.

I've listened to what people who say they don't believe
in God say about him. They have a picture of him that
is not accurately who he is. If they knew who he was,
they would worship him. But even a new Christian is
not born spiritually knowing God. He learns who he is,
as he follows him. But the Christian has an example of
God's sacrificial love for him because of Christ's having
given his life for him.


That's nice. If god really wants me to worship him, he should tell
me himself. That shouldn't be too hard for him. He is supposed to
be all powerful and all, after all.

You are not just a body, you are a body, a soul, and a
spirit.


That's your belief, not mine. I believe that the soul and the
spirit are just part of your mythology, nothing more. Do you have
any evidence to support your beliefs?

Since we are talking about a biblical subject, it's something
located in the Bible, of course. Most of us do consider the
Bible to be evidence of the Christian beliefs. Also, if you
have been shut in all your life you may not have noticed that
the sky is blue. If you don't believe that it is blue, that
does not alter the fact that it really is blue.


He reaches man through his spirit, because God
is a spirit. He can get through. He knows how to.


Then why hasn't he? I'm right here. I'm ready and willing to
listen. The problem is, no one is talking.

I'm speaking to you about the subject. You seem to
hear me because you are responding.


You
can sense his presence and his call to you asking you
to put your trust in him.


No I can't. My guess is because he is not asking me to put my trust
in him.

I'm asking you to do that. Will I do? I believe he speaks
through his followers to people.

He can reach a person through
circumstances, through others, through his word, and
through the inner "still small voice" that he can speak
to a man in his thoughts with. Each of these things are
scriptural that I have mentioned.


Scriptural and wrong. There are no voices in my head telling me to
believe in your god. I'm sorry to burst your bubble on this but
they just aren't there.

I am not voice in your head and I am asking, so
how are you missing this?


Why don't you fix your signature?

I've never had anyone show me how to do that. What
am I supposed to do with my signature?


Well I did tell you how in another post.

A signature is supposed to start with a line that contains two
dashes followed by a single space. If you do that, proper
newsreaders will clip the signature when others reply.

To automatically add a signature in OE, go to Tools->Options->
Signatures, click "New", type your signature in the "Edit
Signature" box, make sure "Add signatures to all outgoing
messages" is selected and click "OK". OE will then add your
signature to your posts with the dash dash space line.
Unfortunately, it will put the signature in the wrong place because
OE really sucks as a newsreader. To fix that, either get a better
newsreader or get OE QuoteFix at:
http://home.in.tum.de/~jain/software/oe-quotefix/

Thanks.

Suzanne

.

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