They say, I don’t believe in God, I say, I don’t believe in the Atheist…..here’s why.
What if I were to say, there is no gold in Oregon. For me to prove that is true, I would need absolute and total knowledge. I would need to know that there is no gold in any rock, in any river, in the ground, no stores or rings….in all of Oregon. I would need absolute knowledge before I could make an absolute statement like that. For me to say, there is gold in Oregon, I wouldn’t need all knowledge, only one speck and my statement would be true.
To say there is no God is making an absolute statement. For the statement to be true, I must know for certain that there is no God in the entire universe. Since NO human being has all knowledge, none of us is able to truthfully make this assertion.
If they insist on disbelieving in God, what they have to say is “Having the limited knowledge I have right now, I believe that there is no God.” Having that lack of knowledge, they don’t know if God exists, so they can not be atheist. The only one that could actually qualify that statement is the One who has absolute knowledge, and He would not deny His own existence…..
I believe atheists to be agnostic…people who claim they don’t know if God exists. The Latin equivalent for the Greek word is “ignoramus.” The Bible tells us that this ignorance is “willful” (Psalm 10:4). It’s not that a person can not find God, it’s that he won’t. It has been rightly said that the “atheist” can’t find God for the same reason a thief can’t find a policeman. He knows that if he admits that there is a God he is admitting that he is ultimately responsible to Him. This doesn’t set well with some people.
I watched the history channel this weekend and a little clip on Mussolini. He stood up one time and cried, “God, if you are there, strike me dead!” When God didn’t immediately bow to his demand, he concluded there was no God. But, his prayer was answered eventually.....
12 comments:
It's one of the things I'm finding more difficulty in addressing...is being told there is no God. W/out proof you cannot tell me there isn't. Therefor, one cannot tell me what I believe in isn't valid. Again, it's a pride issue. I really believe that. I hate being told I'm wrong. It makes me mad, uncomfortable and embarrassed - that's pride fleshing itself out into a wide range of emotions. But when I'm wrong and know it, even though I don't want to admit it or dislike the reasoning behind it...I must take a knee and admit, even begrudgingly at times, that i was wrong. It sucks!
I believe that the Lord reveals Himself differently to the believer than the non-believer...There's several scriptures about blinders, and leaving them to their own divices...my flesh has popped out more than once these last couple of weeks that's for sure! You can never be wrong about the Lord...He is the one for sure thing there is..my heart just hurts for these people.
Tam and Godsgal as an atheist I can only try to explain how I came to believe there is no God.
The question to me isn't why I don't I believe in God but why should I believe in God.
I use reason and logic to determine whether to believe something is true or not.
I believed in God when I was growing up because I believed what I was told by parents and minister.
As long as I accepted without question what I was told I continued to believe in God.
Once I started my education and began reading books and was exposed to the ideas of people ouside my family and church I realized that not everything I had been told was true.
I have learned not to believe soemthing solely because it is written in a book.
I have learned not to believe something is true solely because someone tells mke it is so.
There are far too many examples where personal observation has been proven wrong.
There are far too many examples where something turned out to not be true even though it was believe by large numbers of people.
I have come to place my faith in the process called science.
I can see with my own eyes how this process is used to create things that make my world a better place to live.
I can recreate, usually very badly, the very same experiments that a scientist states is the basis of his theory.
I know a finding is credible when it has been tested with a machine when that machine has been proven to be accurate.
Why should I believe what is written in the bible?
Why should I believe in life after death simply because somebody tells me God has spoken to them about it's existence.
I experience love, joy. I am in awe of the mircle of life. I don't need a belief in God to sustain these feelings.
I do enjoy reading blogs like this because it makes me happy to hear about people that believe in something that brings them joy and helps them in their lives.
I actually prefer reading articles written by people who have the opposite opinion from mine because I have come to learn that is the best way to try an understand a subject.
I accept that I might actually be wrong. I know, that's hard to believe. :-)
Godsgal you are very articulate in stating your beliefs. I hope I have done half as well.
Hi Ed, thanks for stopping by and leaving your comments! I suppose the thing I don't understand is this need for agnostics to be able to explain everything. If I said to you, ok, here is proof, of a living God that could be explained and reasoned out, would you worship Him? I couldn't, what a small, insignificant god that would be.....one that could only be understood on human reasoning...You should believe what is written because it can bring you a deeper peace, a more safisfying explanation and more personal relationship than one with the Living God. I don't worship God to sustain my feelings of awe and wonder that things of this world bring, I worship Him to give credit where it is due, and thank Him for all He's done. If you truly think you may be wrong, seek Him out, what harm could that do? He is the only one who can prove you wrong, in a way that only you would believe..... ;) Thank you again for stopping by, and yes I'm going to say this because it's my blog...I'm praying for you!!!
Ed, you are very articulate! Thanks for your response...
You said you learned that you shouldn't believe something just because it said so in a book or because a person told you so. I agree - we should test out things and search on our own. And that is what you did - but you also came to where you are from reading books and being exposed to other people outside your family and church. So you do believe in things you read and other peoples ideas - it's what you're now choosing to believe and you don't choose God.
You shouldn't believe in God if you simply don't want to or choose not to. It wouldn't be real or authentic and I don't believe that would honor Him anyway.
Tam-thank you for your last couple of sentences!!! That's why there is so much "fake" Christianity....be real..faults and all...just be real! Thank you!
Amen siestas!!!
See, this is the kind of post that I know is very pleasing to HIM:)
He wants us to seek to find Him, and it doesn't necessarily mean finding Him through others...
I learned that on my own.
My faith, I believe did not get deep until I decided to find God on my own, instead of who everyone said HE was and how HE was...
I went through a lot of searching, and I have this to say:
My faith is not a security blanket, it is something I live and breathe; I do not know God because of people, I know God because He chose to know me.
He chose to know all of us.
In the bible from the beginning it states the world was dark and lifeless before God touched it.
So that means the world had a void from the beginning, and nothing happened until He made it happen...
I don't suggest anyone to just read the word; anyone can read, but to read to understand is a different story.
You have to break down what you are reading...start in little bits.
I was saved, because I knew in the desperation of my life there was no where I could turn that could change my way of living, that could change the way I saw myself...only God could do that.
People are always going on about they need to see to believe, okay, if you see someone pregnant, do you not think they are pregnant if they say they are, with this big belly, until the baby is born? Seriously.
Do you not see wind blow? You do, but in your own way, you don't just feel it, in your own way you give it shape, don't you?
Oh, I could go on, but I will say this, if you don't believe in Jesus, be aware of what you do believe, and use caution. Its all I ask.
Be Blessed:)
Angie
OK, Ed summed it up very well but I have a few points to add.
I consider myself an Atheist because, as far as the evidence suggests, there is insufficient reason to suggest that any deity exists.
For example, do you consider yourself an Atheist in respect to Odin? There is just as much evidence in ancient texts to support the existence of the All Father of Norse mythology as there is for Jesus. OK, this is a dead religion so how about Ganesh, the elephant headed God of beginnings in Hinduism? Again the texts for Hinduism are ancient. The religion itself is the oldest living religion on the planet. It sports nearly a billion worshippers.
Do you believe in Ganesh though?
I cannot accept one religious text as more valid than another if you take each as evidence (which I don't). Therefore I am left to my own resources. There is no clear evidence for the existence of any deity, no physical evidence whatsoever, in fact. This leads me to the conclusion that the existence of a deity of any kind is so unlikely that I needn't concern myself with it.
However, if Ganesh appeared before me in his elephant headed glory then I'd be forced to reassess. Similarly if Odin, Ptah, Yahweh, the Flying Spaghetti Monster or Sauron himself appeared then I'd have to reassess my belief in them.
Cosmic teapot time I'm afraid.
You said "Having that lack of knowledge, they don’t know if God exists, so they can not be atheist." I don't know everything about the milky way and neither do you. If I assert that there is a china teapot that is floating around in the asteroid belt would you believe it?
Surely you would say "Having the limited knowledge I have right now, I believe that there is no Cosmic Teapot." You would rightly reject my assetion that you have not seen every rock in the asteroid belt so how can you deny the existence of the Cosmic Teapot. You cannot prove that it does no exist and yet it does seem so outlandingly unlikely that I am certain that you have no problem with denying the existence of the Cosmic Teapot.
I do the same with deities.
I can play this game all day. If you don't like the Cosmic Teapot then how about the silent, intangible, odorless, invisible unicorn?
An Agnostic (literally "not knowing")is one who professes to having insufficient evidence to decide on the existence of a deity or not. An Atheist is one who holds the philosophical view that there are no deities. With that in mind I am an Atheist with a nod to Agnosticism. Claiming absolute certainty strikes me as far too arrogant not to argue with.
Ok, Hov, you know I think you da coolest man, and I appreciate your stopping by and input, really I do! ;) BUT...this site is to honor God, Jesus Christ with all of my mind heart and soul because I do know and believe that His existence is real and He is my life. I'm sorry if you think I'm arrogant, that is certainly not who I am, nor is it who I want to portray to be. I am not going to argue, but I will say, you will never find Him until you search for Him...All other deities and "gods" are man made, or dead. Jesus is alive and well...and again until you open your heart and mind to the possibility of His existence, you will never know Him. I'm writing from my heart here, I'm sorry if I offended you....I know Him to be real and don't need to defend my belief, especially here.
Indeed you don't need to defend your belief if you don't want to. Would you prefer it if I didn't comment? Forgive me but I see you writing something that I can contribute to and wish to participate.
You don't offend me by saying these things. It's not as if you are calling me names or anything (some Christian sites have done). You're expressing an opinion to which I have a differing view.
As I've said many times before I dislike the very idea of absolutes. Absolute belief that one opinion is true to the exclusion of all others is arrogant. The arrogant comment was actually aimed at Atheists who are absolutely certain of the non-existence of a deity.
I see far too many grey areas to put any faith in absolute statements of right or wrong.
No Hov, I value your comments, I would hope that nothing I say would make you feel like your opinions aren't welcome, as you have said before, I am passionate about my belief and sometimes don't come across right. I guess in this one area tho, I will have to be arrogant. To me, He is more than "a god", He is my Abba, papa and I get a little defensive about that. ;) I have questions Hov, lots of them, maybe those are the grey areas you speak of, but two things I never question are His existence and my belonging to Him. To me, that is an absolute. My comment about Atheism was thinking through the difference between Atheist and Agnostic...it's new to me. I'm learning alot too....today is a hard day of rememberence for our country as well, so I think I'm a bit emotional....thank you tho, for being you!
Thanks for writing this.
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