Quote by kazuki21A skeptic states...
"I am perfectly content as a non-Christian. I do not believe in an afterlife and would never consider a religion so restrictive and exclusive as Christianity anyway."
Answer:
You are content as you are -- fair enough. If contentment is what you are after, the Christian faith may not have much to say to you for a while. But lots of things that bring contentment are not true. Would you be willing to consider something if it disturbed your contentment, but might actually be true?
Atheists do not claim to be more content then Christians. I think it is fair to say both Christians and Atheists have
their own challenges in life. Being a religion does not cause discontent. Doubting your beliefs is what causes
discontent. An Atheist has eternal punishment to fear if they are wrong, hence they have a strong inclination to
investigate if they might be incorrect. We do investigate, but we simply do not find any reason to give in to
irrational fear. A Christian fears they will not be eternally rewarded and instead simply cease to exist. Even if a
Christian were to convert to being an Atheist, this would not change. They have no motivation to consider they might be
wrong and will often ignore rational arguments simply because being incorrect on this matter is unacceptable. Would you
be willing to consider something if it disturbed your contentment, but might actually be true?
Quote by kazuki21How do you know that there is no conscious existence after death? The main reason that people claim to not believe in an afterlife is that they think that the idea is a naive wish-fulfillment in the face of the fear of death. But disbelief in an afterlife could have the same intellectual status. It could be the hopeful wish that there might be no accountability to anyone after we die, and the hope that there is no intrusive authority in our lives before that time.
Of course we can not truly know if there is an afterlife, but we have no reason to believe there is one. There is no
evidence of it at all and no logical reason why there should be an afterlife. There is absolutely no reason to believe
in an afterlife, but don't want to die so we simply invent them. Accountability is irrelevant. If some higher
power did exist, why would it punish someone for being logical? For simply not believing in them? Eternal suffering
for a bit of analysis? If in the end, we are wrong, we can face death with confidence knowing we did only what we
thought was best.
Quote by kazuki21Christian exclusiveness starts with the idea that the Gospel of Christ is true in a way that will exclude some other claims to truth. Is this so arrogant? Everybody in the world who has any religious or metaphysical convictions believes that the majority of people in the world are wrong about their religious and metaphysical convictions. For example, you exclude my convictions. But that's okay. We can talk about it much better knowing where we both stand -- two absolutists having a civil discussion.
The problem is not that you think your beliefs are correct. The problem is what you believe. An
Atheist says "There is no afterlife." The Deist says "There is an afterlife." The Christian says
"There is an afterlife of bliss for those like me and an afterlife of pain for those who are different." Do
you see why this can seem like an exclusive and unfair religion to those not in your club?
Quote by kazuki21Text author: Richard B. Keyes, Director of L'Abri MA, a residential study center in Southborough, Massachusetts. L'Abri was founded in Switzerland by the late Dr. Francis Schaeffer in 1955. Mr. Keyes is also and author and lecturer. Since 1997 he has served as an AIIA Resource Associate (worldviews). Above text provided by AIIA Institute.
Why the Atheist doesn't exist
There can be no such things as an atheist. This is why: Let's imagine that you are a professing atheist. Here are two questions for you to answer: First, do you know the combined weight of all the sand on all the beaches of Hawaii? We can safely assume that you don't. This brings us to the second question: Do you know how many hairs are on the back of a fully-grown male Tibetan yak? Probably not. It is therefore reasonable to conclude that there are some things that you don't know. It is important to ask these questions because there are some people who think they know everything.
Let's say that you know an incredible one percent of all the knowledge in the universe. To know 100 percent, you would have to know everything. There wouldn't be a rock in the universe that you would not be intimately familiar with, or a grain of sand that you would not be aware of. You would know everything that has happened in history, from that which is common knowledge to the minor details of the secret love life of Napoleon's great-grandmother's black cat's fleas. You would know every hair of every head, and every thought of every heart. All history would be laid out before you, because you would be omniscient (all-knowing).
Bear in mind that one of the greatest scientists who ever lived, Thomas Edison, said, "We do not know a millionth of one percent about anything." Let me repeat: Let's say that you have an incredible one percent of all the knowledge in the universe. Would it be possible, in the ninety-nine percent of the knowledge that you haven't yet come across, that there might be ample evidence to prove the existence of God? If you are reasonable, you will be forced to admit that it is possible. Somewhere, in the knowledge you haven't yet discovered, there could be enough evidence to prove that God does exist.
Let's look at the same thought from another angle. If I were to make an absolute statement such as, "There is no gold in China," what is needed for that statement to be proven true? I need absolute or total knowledge. I need to have information that there is no gold in any rock, in any river, in the ground, in any store, in any ring, or in any mouth (gold filling) in China. If there is one speck of gold in China, then my statement is false and I have no basis for it. I need absolute knowledge before I can make an absolute statement of that nature. Conversely, for me to say, "There is gold in China," I don't need to have all knowledge. I just need to have seen a speck of gold in the country, and the statement is then true.
To say categorically, "There is no God," is to make an absolute statement. For the statement to be true, I must know for certain that there is no God in the entire universe. No human being has all knowledge. Therefore, none of us is able to truthfully make this assertion.
If you insist upon disbelief in God, what you must say is, "Having the limited knowledge I have at present, I believe that there is no God." Owing to a lack of knowledge on your part, you don't know if God exists. So, in the strict sense of the word, you cannot be an atheist. The only true qualifier for the title is the One who has absolute knowledge, and why on earth would God want to deny His own existence?
The professing atheist is what is commonly known as an "agnostic" - one who claims he "doesn't know" if God exists. It is interesting to note that the Latin equivalent for the Greek word is "ignoramus."
An Atheist is agnostic. We don't know if God exists, but until there is evidence that he does exist, we are justified in believing he does not.
Quote by kazuki21The Bible tells us that this ignorance is "willful" (Psalm 10:4). It's not that a person can't find God, but 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 is not a pleasant thought for some.
Excerpted from God Doesn't Believe in Atheists by Ray Comfort
This is untrue and biased. If we
feared Hell we would be Christian. If we knew we were ignorant, by definition, we would not be. The author
doesn't understand. We don't deny some overwhelming proof of God. We deny what does not conform to reality.
Don't you see that we reject Heaven as well as Hell? We see the world without the stories you have placed on top
of it.
