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Being a deist

Being a deist

Spirituality

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@pb1022 said
Then you acknowledge someone who no longer loves his wife makes a decision about whether to leave her and is responsible for that decision?
I am talking about the nature of love. I am not talking about which building a husband and wife live in.

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@pb1022 said
He seems to think his faith happened to him and then left him - as though he had no role in either of those events.
Like I have been saying,

what I decided to do and what I didn't decide to do about what I was going through ~

how hard I struggled to hang on to my faith or how little I did ~

how many days and weeks and months of contemplation or how few there were ~

how many people I went to for counsel or how few there were ~

how many conversations into the night I had about it or how few I had ~

how much I prayed or how little I did ~

all this personal information, absolutely none of it is any of your business.

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Does that statement say, to you, that he takes responsibility for his *loss of faith?*

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@pb1022 said
And faith is a lot more than a feeling, but we’ve been over this ground before.
If you don't like the analogy, I'm fine with that.

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@fmf said
I am talking about the nature of love. I am not talking about which building a husband and wife live in.
And I’m talking about love as more than a feeling.

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@pb1022 said
I think many atheists do hate God and explained why.

Why argue and try so repeatedly to get believers to doubt God’s existence and why repeatedly trash Him?

I don’t do that with people who believe who believe in unicorns, nor do I suspect you do.

And your atheism, if it really is atheism, is based solely on your feelings. Are your feelings always correct? Have your feelings ever led you astray?
Your utter (utter) failure to understand atheism does not reflect well on you and to be blunt makes you look rather silly.

But here it is again. I do not believe in God or gods. I do not hate your God, I do not hate Odin or Shiva. Even if I wanted to hate Odin (or Zeus or Allah) it would be a ridiculous undertaking. The hate would have no purchase on reality. It would be like trying to hate Winnie the Pooh or Dracula. Why that is beyond your understanding is mystifying. Seriously. I also don't hate Christians or Muslims, Buddhists or Hindus. I don't even hate the guy who stole my dustbin. (But he has it coming).

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Because, imo, many atheists (not all) *do believe* God exists. They just hate Him.

Why else spend so much time arguing He doesn’t exist and trashing Him?

Do you do that with people who believe in unicorns?

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@pb1022 said
And I’m talking about love as more than a feeling.
I cannot decide to not love my life. I might realize one day that I don't love her anymore. But if I love her, I can't choose not to.

Someone who believes in Jesus can't simply decide not to believe in him.

It's an analogy.

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I think most reasonable theists would be similar minded.

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Sometimes sonship would claim that I really wasn't an atheist but that I just claimed to not be a believer because I was "angry" at Jesus for making me accountable for my "wickedness".

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@pb1022 said
I think many atheists do hate God and explained why.
Do you hate Zeus?

I accept you do not believe Zeus exists,....but do you hate him? Would it be possible for you to hate him, bearing in mind you don't believe in him?

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@fmf said
Sometimes sonship would claim that I really wasn't an atheist but that I just claimed to not be a believer because I was "angry" at Jesus for making me accountable for my "wickedness".
I’m not sonship. I actually think the opposite.

I doubt you ever were a believer at least a la John 3:16 and Romans 10:9. You may have had the head belief, but I don’t think - based only on what you’ve written here - that you had the heart belief.

But I absolutely acknowledge I don’t know your story and could be wrong.

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@pb1022 said
I doubt you ever were a believer at least a la John 3:16 and Romans 10:9. You may have had the head belief, but I don’t think - based only on what you’ve written here - that you had the heart belief.
So?

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@pb1022 said
But I absolutely acknowledge I don’t know your story and could be wrong.
My story is none of your business.

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@ghost-of-a-duke said
Do you hate Zeus?

I accept you do not believe Zeus exists,....but do you hate him? Would it be possible for you to hate him, bearing in mind you don't believe in him?
I think your comparison of Zeus with the God of the Holy Bible assumes the amount of evidence for both is the same, and it’s not.

And someone who calls himself an atheist knows it’s not.