The Human Spirit

@deepthought said

@secondson:
This whole issue puts you and I in a conundrum of sorts. How do we convince the atheists that they're lying to themselves without making it sound like we're insulting their intelligence?

@ghost-of-a-duke:
We atheists face the same conundrum when convincing you theists that you are worshipping something of your own creation.

Possibly there's a problem with trying to change people's beliefs.

Unfortunately, God is one of those topics where one can't simply come to a compromise, other than to accept the other party will never concede their position.

@deepthought said
Possibly there's a problem with trying to change people's beliefs.

Do you think it a problem to approach the matter with the idea of persuading people to change their beliefs in response to sound reasoning?

@secondson said
Do you think it a problem to approach the matter with the idea of persuading people to change their beliefs in response to sound reasoning?

Does this go both ways? Is it okay for an atheist to persuade a Christian, with sound reasoning, to abandon their beliefs?

@ghost-of-a-duke said
I don't think you have the words. (Even if you were a literary prodigy walking in the steps of Shakespeare). Even if your personal experience with God were genuine (and I'm not saying it wasn't) I genuinely do not think it is possible for you to convey that 'truth' to me in words, irrespective of how well they were crafted. - I simply don't work that way as a person. For me to believe something so significant I would 'need' to experience it myself, not indirectly.

I understand and agree that for you to believe you would need to experience it yourself, directly.

It's the only way.

And I'm quite certain I'll never write a book about "how to know God exists." But I might start a thread by that title. 🙂

@ghost-of-a-duke said
Does this go both ways? Is it okay for an atheist to persuade a Christian, with sound reasoning, to abandon their beliefs?

I think it does go both ways. It would only be fair.

@ghost-of-a-duke said
Unfortunately, God is one of those topics where one can't simply come to a compromise, other than to accept the other party will never concede their position.

True.

But every once in a while you hear about a defection.

@ghost-of-a-duke said
Does this go both ways? Is it okay for an atheist to persuade a Christian, with sound reasoning, to abandon their beliefs?

I am most certainly not someone who participates in this forum with the intent to persuade anyone to abandon their beliefs.

@secondson said
I think it does go both ways. It would only be fair.

Biblically speaking, best to stay away from unbelievers.

'Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness?'

2 Corinthians 6:14

@Ghost-of-a-Duke

Man.

There is no greater authority. When an attempt is made to credit this authority to a 'greater force' it is fundamentally degraded.

Man helps man becase man wants to help man, not because God tells man to do so.

But if there is a conscience in human beings designed by God to render help, even though you may say DIRECT command to do so by God did not occur, still tendency to want to do so (within YOU) could be there by God's design.

You cannot that easily escape giving credit to the designer of the human conscience.

" I do charitable works because I WANT to by golly, No god told me to do it."

Okay. Maybe your conscience told you to do it.
Where did it come from?

And don't you lose some innate dignity when you toss away "created in the image of God" ?

What species-ism or brute self aggrandizement on your part automatically puts you in any "higher" dignity bracket then a cock roach?

@fmf said
I am most certainly not someone who participates in this forum with the intent to persuade anyone to abandon their beliefs.

Me either. (My point was to highlight equity).

@sonship said
@Ghost-of-a-Duke

Man.

There is no greater authority. When an attempt is made to credit this authority to a 'greater force' it is fundamentally degraded.

Man helps man becase man wants to help man, not because God tells man to do so.

But if there is a conscience in human beings designed by God to render help, even though you may say DIRECT command ...[text shortened]... ggrandizement on your part automatically puts you in any "higher" dignity bracket then a cock roach?

I'm more comfortable with a chap doing good of his own volition and suspicious of the chap who needs a God behind him to do so. (Implying he would descend into devilishness without such a deity).

Please supply your evidence that we owe our conscience to God (and your brand of God in particular).

@ghost-of-a-duke said
Biblically speaking, best to stay away from unbelievers.

'Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness?'

2 Corinthians 6:14

2 Corinthians 6:14 doesn't mean Christians should "stay away" from unbelievers. We'd have to leave the planet to do that.

"Unequally yoked" means having participation in the "lawlessness" of certain activities unbelievers engage in.

I certainly don't see this forum as that kind of activity.

@ghost-of-a-duke said
Me either. (My point was to highlight equity).

Positive equity. Negative equity. A baffling minefield.

One of the reason's I fled Britain's shores all those years ago.

@secondson said
2 Corinthians 6:14 doesn't mean Christians should "stay away" from unbelievers. We'd have to leave the planet to do that.

"Unequally yoked" means having participation in the "lawlessness" of certain activities unbelievers engage in.

I certainly don't see this forum as that kind of activity.

I can do better. What about 2 John 1:10-11:

'If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house or give him any greeting, for whoever greets him takes part in his wicked works.'

@fmf said
I am most certainly not someone who participates in this forum with the intent to persuade anyone to abandon their beliefs.

But I do. And what's wrong with that?

From my perspective the issue is one of life and death. It would be extremely remiss of me not to try and persuade any that will hear the Word of God.

Isaiah 1:18
Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.

Ezekiel 18:32
For I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord GOD: wherefore turn yourselves, and live ye.