I Am An Atheist
Hey there, a challenge to atheists....I am a believer in God and the word of the bible. Now without starting off an angry debate, I'd like to challenge any atheist within this group who thinks they can disprove God. I'd like to see the BEST arguments against the existence of God and all the plaudible reasons you can come up with for being an atheist. Facts, logical arguments all kinds, would love to hear what you have to say. Please as long as it isn't just some angry God bashing comments but real thought out answers!
Go on I may even relinquish my faith if you can disprove God to me! PM me or comment, whichever you prefer!
UPDATE HERE IS MY RESPONSE!!
Key word: SCIENTIFICALLY, and just what kind of experiement could be performed anywhere to prove the existence of God that is all powerful, outside of time, and outside the universe also but also within it! How can you prove that with a scientifical experiment?! It's almost insulting to our intelligence that evidence of God is all around us and a scientifical experiment is not even necessary (or even capable of being performed.) Don't we look at mountain ranges, perfect skies, perfect love between people in awe and does that not reflect God? Okay so I'm preaching a bit without any hard evidence. But to be honest even if there was hard evidence people would deny it anyway. Wasn't Jesus Christ - hard evidence of God denied by people? I know you may not even believe there was a Jesus Christ and that he was divine...why not?
Is not the bible a reliable anecdotal evidence of God and Jesus Christ? A book that hasn't changed in 2000 years, written by MANY witnesses to Jesus Christ, a book that if untrue would've been denied and rejected by people as untrue back then in Jerusalem in 30AD - were they not there to confirm it and accept it otherwise it wouldn't have survived 2000 years? The central message of Christendom - the Christian creed is even older than the bible and still has not changed? Aside from the bible, there are also the the dead sea scrolls which verify the authenticity of not only the new testament but also the old testament. Furthermore there are the new testament papyri which agains show the bibles reliability (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_New_Testament_papyri) and these papyri are readily available in The British library and the Ashmolean museum in Oxford England. Not just the bible mentions Christ, but also ancient atheist writers such as Tacitas, also Josephus and Pliny the Younger (I think) mention Christ in their writings (Tacitas Book 15 of the Annals.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacitus_on_Christ
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephus_on_Jesus
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus
You mention religious experiences, I to have never had what people might call a "religious experience" I never saw any angels, nor music from heaven....but that is just popular associated imagery to God (Haven't seen God in a grilled cheese sandwich either!) For me I just see the logic, I see the facts, I sense that we are made like God and by God logically. And that is something you can test to, live more like how God intended for us to and you'll find more joy and blessing in life - so it shows that God must've made us and therefore knows what is good for us! Test it if you don't believe me!
I understand your ob
An extra argument I would like to put out is also our morality. If there is no God, where does morality come from and why is morality universal amongst us (I.e we ALL think murder/rape/torture etc is wrong)? Some argue it is some kind of biological adaption to enable our survival and reproduction. If that is so then why is rape considered wrong, wouldn't rape benefit the survival of our species by having more offspring? But no, if I ask any one of you if you think it is right to rape or murder someone everyone altogether will say NO. I think points strongly towards God. Are they not the same thing God abhorrs also?
I think you are right about faith healing, though I cant personally verify it, is most likely a placebo effect. Most people wouldn't have the true faith to really perform such a miracle and any healing properties I think would be placebo. I say this as Jesus performed miracles, but then also so did his disciples. So I don't think it impossible faith healing. Certainly more plausible than magic though! Turning people into frogs! Yeah!
Well certainly the resurrection of Christ was from God, it's written in the bible the inspired word of God, and predicted hundreds of years before the new testament also. And if it wasn't from God, so someone pretended to be Christ and went so far as to be tortured, battered and killed? And conveniently happened to EXACTLY match the predicted Christ. (Check the book of Isaiah in your bible, or dead sea scrolls, or NT papyri, you choose!) There are over 500 witnesses for Christs resurrection, an empty tomb, and the tomb belonged to Joseph of Arimathea so it would have been known to Roman, Jew, Christian alike. I think is mentioned in the book of Corinthians in a letter written by Paul - written not 5 years after Jesus'death. How do you explain an empty tomb? It was predicted and there were witnesses again. Just read the bible!
If you throw a ball in the air it is definitely going to come down and hit the ground again. But if you catch it before it does have you just defied the laws of gravity and created a miracle?
Many religions are out there to "choose" from. But let's not look at it like a religion supermarket where we choose our fave religion. Each of these religions claims to contain truth of God etc, so if they all conflict and contain different information that means some are going to wrong, all actually except 1 will be right. Truth is truth. There is this modern tendancy where people seem to think if you believe somethings true then it is true for you. This is clearly not right, for instance if you believe the earth is flat you are obviously mistaken, you beliving it is true doesn't make it anymore true, you are just mistaken. So only 1 religion is right.
Christianity is the only religion where you cannot offer works or do things for God. Nothing you can offer is good enough, you cannot earn your way there in any way. You are INVITED to join the father in heaven if you simply accept the invitation with heart and mind. And obviously you cannot accept it if you don't believe it's true. It's funny many other "gods" out there all require people to do things for them, which to the God of the world is simply insulting really implying he hasn't already got whatever he wants and that WE, mere mortals actually have something to offer which He wouldn't have without us. I think this shows off the glory of God greatly!
Ultimately when it comes to finding the right religion, it is simply a case of finding the truth not what just suits your beliefs. The truth is there.
I disagree with you straight away about Christianity changing to ,eet the perceived needs of the time. Religon might change but the God of the world does not, nor has the bible since it was compiled. Infact there is really no need for the bible to change or evolve its still 100% relevant even today. Just read the book of Daniel it is a great example of a relevant issue that is the same today!
The old testament is the old covenant with the Jew's before the coming of Jesus. God ruled directly over the Jew's in this covenant as in the desert with Moses and on the battle fields with King David and other kings where he would give the enemy into David's hands. The law also included stoning to death anyone comitting adultery, murder, rape etc it seems like brutal stuff and it is. But the thing we need to observe is that God was present with Israel then and sin could have NO place in Gods presense so it was punishable by death. It says in the bible the wages of sin are death (that is still true today.) If God were all powerful and loving he couldn't allow sin to spread amongst his people (it did anyway) and you can read in the bible the bitter consequences of it. I think peoples shock at the sin deserving death comes from people simply not appreciating the genuine evil they are committing and dont forget they were in God's presense! The people of Sodom who God destroyed, that could be argued as bloodthirsty. But however it was because not 1 single person there was righteous, all were corrupt. Theres even a quote in the bible where God basically says (paraphrasing) "If there was JUST 1 righteous person there I wouldn't destroy them" however there were none.
Anyways this is the old testament covenant a new covenant was formed with Jesus, rather than us die for our sins Jesus died instead as the ultimate sacrifice and so we could come to the Father. Thus no more stonings.
Please if you could point anymore inconsistencies you find? Sorry I dont mean that sarcastically but anymore examples you could come up with?
This is an interesting logical argument. But I think you are just wrong on this ocasion as if God were all powerful then again its impossible for him to create something he can't do, also impossible for him to mistakes also. This is a real paradox with what you're saying. It is impossible for God to create say a weight he couldn't lift because God is all powerful. It's a circular argument as God could create a weight he couldnt lift but also there is no weight he couldn't lift either!
You're absolutely right that all of Gods creation has gone exactly to plan even to this day. Nothing has gone wrong.
You may think of all the evil in the world (which is permitted by God) and wonder how it could have gone to plan? The evils of the world are often what draw us closer to God, when we desperately need Him. When theres suffering people quite often turn to God as no other alternative and find Love and satisfaction there. You see they maybe suffering in the world, but they have their eternal souls also which is what God is saving and what matters. The bible says it quite clearly and its quite logical to, "What does it profit a man to gain the world and lose his immortal soul?" If you're rich and healthy and peaceful now on earth, what does it count for when you're dead? Nothing. Your riches, your health, peace are nothing. We put too much importance on these thing and commit sin with our contented worldliness never thinking we are going to die.
"And how disastrous for us is the continual remembrance of death which war enforces. One of our best weapons, contented worldliness, is rendered useless. In wartime not even a human can believe that he is going to live forever."
- The screwtape letters C.S Lewis (essential reading if you're an atheist informing you of who you are being manipulated by. SHOCKING reading, you might even find you're similar to the "patients" mentioned in it!)
God is Love. True Love could not exist without the possibility to hate also. Which makes the choice to love so beautiful amongst so much evil. That is the freewill that God gave us. You're right about God being all knowing and that contradicting freewill I don't have an answer to that! It's a real paradox! The wonders of God surely!
I've seen the quote in the bible about the 1 sin that can't be forgiven about denying the Holy spirit. Again I have no idea about that. So sure I have my unanswered questions and my doubts do come up for me sometimes but my faith is stronger and I see more plausible arguments for Christendom than Atheism or any other religion!
Well thats the end of my response. Hope you find it an interesting read! Sorry about response time I've only just been able to muster up the energy to write a full response! Thanks for taking the time to write to me Phage I've only addressed your argument out of all the comments (so feel special!!) so far. I may write another response to other arguments from other users another time. All at once it is JUST SO MUCH WRITING.
One last quote from the Screwtape letters:
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"Jargon, not argument, is your best ally in keeping him from the Church. Don't waste time trying to make him think that materialism is true! Make him think it is strong, or stark, or courageous--that it is the philosophy of the future. That's the sort of thing he cares about.
The trouble about argument is that it moves the whole struggle onto the Enemy's own ground. He can argue too; whereas in really practical propaganda of the kind I am suggesting He has been shown for centuries to be greatly the inferior of Our Father Below. By the very act of arguing, you awake the patient's reason; and once it is awake, who can foresee the result? Even if a particular train of thought can be twisted so as to end in our favour, you will find that you have been strengthening in your patient the fatal habit of attending to universal issues and withdrawing his attention from the stream of immediate sense experiences. Your business is to fix his attention on the stream. Teach him to call it "real life" and don't let him ask what he means by "real".
Remember, he is not, like you, a pure spirit. Never having been a human (Oh that abominable advantage of the Enemy's!) you don't realise how enslaved they are to the pressure of the ordinary. I once had a patient, a sound atheist, who used to read in the British Museum. One day, as he sat reading, I saw a train of thought in his mind beginning to go the wrong way. The Enemy, of course, was at his elbow in a moment. Before I knew where I was I saw my twenty years' work beginning to totter. If I had lost my head and begun to attempt a defence by argument I should have been undone. But I was not such a fool. I struck instantly at the part of the man which I had best under my control and suggested that it was just about time he had some lunch. The Enemy presumably made the counter-suggestion (you know how one can never quite overhear What He says to them?) that this was more important than lunch. At least I think that must have been His line for when I said "Quite. In fact much too important to tackle it the end of a morning", the patient brightened up considerably; and by the time I had added "Much better come back after lunch and go into it with a fresh mind", he was already half way to the door. Once he was in the street the battle was won. I showed him a newsboy shouting the midday paper, and a No .73 bus going past, and before he reached the bottom of the steps I had got into him an unalterable conviction that, whatever odd ideas might come into a man's head when he was shut up alone with his books, a healthy dose of "real life" (by which he meant the bus and the newsboy) was enough to show him that all "that sort of thing" just couldn't be true. He knew he'd had a narrow escape and in later years was fond of talking about "that inarticulate sense for actuality which is our ultimate safeguard against the aberrations of mere logic". He is now safe in Our Father's house.
You begin to see the point? Thanks to processes which we set at work in them centuries ago, they find it all but impossible to believe in the unfamiliar while the familiar is before their eyes. Keep pressing home on him the ordinariness of things."
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If you don't even consider the possibility of God now, or search Him out, then I'd say its quite simply you don't WANT to believe in God.
~~~~~~~~~~RESPONSE TO MSTITI~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Altruism definition: Regard for others, both natural and moral; devotion to the interests of others; brotherly kindness; -- opposed to egoism or selfishness.
That is hardly what you are talking about which is pure selfishness, "selfish gene" type theory. There are a number of these type of books. I remember reading "***** wars" as an atheist an finding it extremely life minimalising and highly derogatory to us, especially women! If we really were animals, and of course many of us can become like animals through our behaviour and conduct then I would not be writing this I'd be out having group sex on the street with lots of girls whilst murdering all the men in sight trying to allow my genes to live forever through my offspring. Don't animals do this already, you've seen the wild life shows the males fighting each other off and having sex with all the females?
If rape has low chance of pregnancy at 15% which is the same as normal intercourse then whats the difference? That will means that rape would be a viable reproduction strategy. If rape only had a 5% chance of pregnancy and normal intercourse had 15% then you might have an argument there. But you are right....people aren't animals like that, rape isnt done for that intention, it is as you said for power and domination etc. However if we were animals it might not be for that reason which seperates us from animals. You dont see animals having irrational or "unhelpful" emotions, animals dont commit suicide or do self destructive things like we do.....
Also one other point if rape really were considered an advantageous reproduction strategy then there wouldn't just be 1 act of rape but MULTIPLE by many different people so I think conception would be just as likely as if it were just between a consenting partner. If you don't think this gang rape couldn't happen, well it already does as I'm sure you know if you watch the news! Sorry hope this isn't too disgusting for you, understand from what you said it is a sensitive issue for you and it is a disgusting thing I think also.
PS: One other point to "altruism" amongst us that you describe, maybe it isn't just a selfish gene survival strategy and it is just Love for each other that you're describing but with a different label of "selfish genes"?
PPS: I will add that I did used to believe in "selfish gene theory" purely because I behaved like such an animal I was able to recognise my own behaviour in that theory.
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But if God is God and is outside of the universe and time then theres very little a bubbling test tube is going to do to prove God. Though I do not deny that there could be evidence for God within science, its something I hope to get around to doing more thoroughly. The problem is only relying on science for our answers, we seem to have idolised, and even mythologised science, worshipping it as a sort of idol or beacon of truth. Though there is nothing wrong with science in itself, it is only one way of looking at things, and looking at things from the outside. It is just 1 'lense' at looking at things. You should try to look at things also through other 'lenses' like theology. There is plenty of evidence also within the world, right under our noses that defys our understanding also, look at what science doesn't yet/or maybe never will understand, and what we're confused about and don't understand. We don't always understand the things in life, death, relationships, our "purpose" our "existence" these are all things we want to know about, and are often confused about - we want to know what they are but can't seem to find out or we distract ourselves from them by closing our minds. Science can't tell us why, only what is there before us, from the outside. Trying to use science as reason is flawed.
You are right about mountains, love and all things nice don't necessarily prove the existence of the Christian God, they don't specify that they are the work of the Islamic God or Jewish God either. But I think when you look at the "intelligence" of the design of our world, the fact that it is a miraculous balance that enables life. If the world were any closer to the sun we would all burn, but instead we don't we are able to live, same if the earth were any further from the sun. And you know what the chances of all that happening are? Enough to put dusty old hard hearted atheism on the shelf. If all the beauty in our world was by chance and not a miracle and not of someones design it would not be beautiful, it would be meaningless. Beauty itself would be meaningless. But anyways, it doesn't prove Christianity, but it is evidence of the existence of a "deity" as you all like to refer.
You are right also that a great many people have claimed, and do claim to be prophets. It is understandable and right not to take these people seriously. But look at this way, of all the false prophets out there, which of them have any evidence for them performing miracles or being divine of any kind? And obviously many people have made wild claims like these, but whose names can you actually think of? None except Jesus, who is the most famous Man and God in history. Nevermind famous celebrities who are famous for 10 years or even a career. Jesus has been famous for 2000 years, and even longer when people were anticipating his arrival so more than 2000 years!!! Before the foundations of the earth!
I think me and you are reaching a point in our arguments where we are gonna find it hard to argue anymore without us repeating ourselves and having to move away from you might call "hard evidence" and a scientic microscope view because I think these will not do. I mean we're told anyway by God that there will be no miraculous signs to prove His existence in the bible, except finally at the end when He comes again to judge the world and us souls on it! At which point it is too late for any unrepentant people. But anyway, we'll go on and see how it goes!
Well there are many characters throughout history that are recorded in books, like Napolean, Henry VIII, Guy Fawkes. I mean surely we all happily accept the reliability of history books about them, we have faith that what we're told about these fellows is true. So, why not the account of Jesus, which have been accounted for by more people, and accepted for longer as truth? I disagree with you that most people would accept hard evidence of Jesus as God, I mean the Jew's of 3AD whenever it was got to witness Jesus, His miracles and wisdom first hand and yet many didn't believe in him, they thought it blasphemy that He claimed to be God. If there is evidence for something surely we believe it. Like there is evidence from satellite photos that the world is spherical. But sure we can research, and find more evidence, and find out whether the evidence is reliable. It would be foolish just to point blank reject the evidence unless you had grounds, or if your point of view then came to have no evidence and credibility then you change your point of view and your belief based on new evidence.
You don't have good enough reason to believe He was divine? I mean I sort of understand, I provided you with evidence and other stuff as evidence for Jesus and God. But it is a hard thing to accept as truth, it's something I struggled with before as we don't know just how locked, and DEAD our heart is and it needs reviving! It's a very personal, spiritual, issue of the heart. Yes, yes I know I'm preaching away! You kinda said it, that we are rarely offered unequivocal evidence for things, yet we happily believe other things as truth, we just dont want to accept Jesus because as you said again, it would we would have to change and it would show us up as being the evildoers that we are. When you live in darkness long enough, it becomes your light, so when actual light comes in to save us from our ourselves we dont welcome it because we love the dark too much now. It's a hard thing to do, becoming a believer in the Christian God is NOT easy. It's riddled with doubts, painful confessions, demons from the past, hard hearted accepting the truth. Like CS Lewis described his conversion to Christendom as a child kicking and screaming. What better evidence is there for aliens over God?
First off, the Bible has NOT changed. It has indeed though been copied and translated many times though, but despite this it is possible to compare ancient Greek Bibles to present day and see they are infact unchanged. Have a look at this old bible, its 1600 years old. Reads exactly the same as my "new international" version of the bible. http://www.codexsinaiticus.org/en/manuscript.aspx
And you are wrong about the bible being written by people who hadn't met him, as the first 4 books of the New testament are accounts of his disciples themselves, not to mention Peter also! Well, I didn't just mention the dead sea scrolls, I also mentioned the new testament papyri which can be seen in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford if you live in the UK They along with the dead sea scrolls contain books of the bible and recount history of that time and are in agreement, but also the writers I mentioned such as Tacitas, also record history of that time, and all mention Jesus Christ, so surely that at least can be assumed to be true as we have 3 sources of information. As for the history mentioned in the Bible, I trust its authenticity, it would have no reason to lie (think about it), but that isn't entirely the point of the Bible, it's the inspired word of God, its designed to cause people to know God and allow God to save their souls and cause them to repent and change their lives to being centred around God. It's not an encyclopedia of history. If God is our creator then certainly He knows what is best for us and what we need, its arrogant to assume we do (which we do arrogantly assume. Me included.) Another way of looking at the Bible is, the fact its a totally intricate span of books written over a span of over 1500 years, I don't see how a human acting alone could have planned that if it werent divinely inspired. Anyways can you find any evidence that the bible is NOT accurate in its recollection of history back then?
Big lie principle, well I see it works both ways. It's either a HUGE lie if you say there is no "deity" when there is and likewise....no......actually I was gonna say its just as huge a lie if you say there is a deity when there isn't...but to be honest it wouldn't be, because we couldn't be accountable to God if we said it, and it would be meaningless anyway and there would be no consequences of Hell etc. But if you say there is no deity when there is, then you're in trouble! So I think that principle works against atheism, its a much bigger thing to say there is no God, and atheism comes with scientific evidence against God and men in authroity such as Richard Dawkin claiming it isn't true, everyone believes it, Big lie principle right there!
Though the Big lie principle didn't work with Jesus, He made BIG claims, and he came with the authroity that he demonstrated by being able to heal people and drive out demons and save the the whole of humanity! But few believed him, like you guys! And why would he lie? He was hated, tortured and murdered for it, hardly any human incentive to lie (though he wasn't human as such.)
I see much joy in living the way God intended us to. You shouldn't look at God putting "restrictions" on sexual stuff, they're not, they're the blueprints of how sexuality should be properly done. He designed it, so why should we tell Him how it is better to have it. Truthfully, any deviating from Gods blueprints from sex is just corrupt sex. And anyone who isn't a virgin, and has had sex outside of marriage (for example) knows the pain and grief of then finding that person we were intimate with gone from our lives, or leave us, or hurt us, or use us. Surely sex is meant to be enjoyed, it shouldnt cause these things, but thats because we choose to have sex outside of marriage and go into all sorts of perversions that just hurt us because we think we know best. Truly, sex is BEST enjoyed in a marriage by two people that love each other, aren't selfish (doesnt just quickly climax, roll off and ignore his woman or disappear in the morning) marriage protects us from these things as the two are committed to each other. AND most all WE KNOW these things to be true because we have experienced them!!
Yep you're quite right, we should scrutinise things before just blindly accepting things as true. Though, there is the risk here is over scrutinsing something, and basically, nit picking, going over tiny uninportant details that may agree/disagree and coming to a conclusion on something so small and insignificant. I don't know if there are any non-christian corroborations on the miracles of Jesus, might be another thing to research, but if they were non Christian they wouldn't have believed the miracles anyway and wouldnt have written about them. I mean unless Jesus was playing tricks and when he changed water to wine he just quickly swapped the jugs and they saw him and wrote down that he was a trickster! A man willing to die for "tricks"....hmm....
Morality as proof of God...I didnt feel that the detail was "lovely" though, extremely crude and degrading to us. That theory - which I used to believe when I was an atheist is so, so , so negative and degrading. Personally I disagree with you when you say rape is an ineffective tool for reproduction, I think it could be highly effective at expanding our population. If we were all raping each other, think of how many more acts of sex that is, and the fact you wouldnt rape someone once, but probably many times - I think pregnancy and childbirth would increase. Besides if we're "fair" and care about others who are hurt then rape could never evolve as a strategy (even if it is good for expanding the population) because it isn't fair, its not remotely caring and is disgusting and twisted. If we care so much about "reproductive tools" besides rape, then why do we have contraception? It shows that reproduction isnt necessarily whats on our minds like animals but sexual pleasure, perversion, intimacy, using people etc.
A minority of people, do seem to appear to have no conscience...we can see that with figures in history like Hitler for example. I don't see any proof that it is biological reasons that cause it though - in that we are born like it. I don't believe that and would like to see some evidence for that first before even considering it. Well I don't know you personally, but do not seeing images of those things, or hearing stories of torture or murder cause you fear, or grief in anyway? Without lying to yourself can you say that? Would torture to you, if you were being tortured simply be meaningless, would you not cry out for help, and scream in pain, and weep and wish it wasn't you being tortured, and then would you feel a sense of wanting "justice" or revenge against that person who did it? The fact you would want revenge against that person (I can safely assume you would), to get justice, also shows you reflecting God's image. Justice in blood, like the cross of Jesus, God's justice. Have you ever tried to live Gods way? You can test God in this, turn away from all the things you do, and trust God, and keep his commands and see if you aren't totally blessed, and relieved from any burdens. TRY IT!!! You owe it to yourself, as does everyone to at least "try" God and read the Bible.
I think that all people get a conscience, I mentioned earlier about Hitler, even a HUGE murderer such as him has a conscience. You see alot of murderers who kill their victims then kill themselves, they have a conscience and so carry out justice on themselves by blood. Justice by blood. There's a definite conencton between the two. You know when people are wronged badly, they say "I want blood."
So, you are an atheist, you dispute the existence of God, a long with others in here, and yet, you haven't read it. You owe it to yourselves to read it! You can't possibly knock soemthing till you've tried it! You know how that goes! I know its a long book, took me ages to read it, but you need to, as much as any other of your books like "God delusion" by Richard Dawkin if you've read it. I don't think you can get much crazier than believing you're God, but then how do you measure craziness? Lol....Jesus was tortured and killed because he claimed to be the son of God and was the leader of a "cult" or just his disciples which the Romans I think didn't care about. It was the Jew's themselves that wanted Him to be crucified, the Roman Pontias Pilate didn't want to crucify as he found him innocent! And even a Roman centurion professed he was the son of God.
Well, we are all happy to believe other history books about other historical characters, its just Jesus we have a problem with believing in. There is no way Jesus, being dead (but lets assume he was just stunned or something for arguments sake) in a whipped, beaten to hell, holes in hands and legs could have rolled a huge stone away form his tomb entrance, and it was a tomb carved into stone, theres no way out!! Plus the Jews posted guards outside the tomb to prevent any of the discples from emptying the tomb (so that they could then claim that Jesus has risen when he hadn't.) But it....it comes down to whether you trust the accounts of this and its evidence.
Explain to me how it couldn't be a miracle? I used it as a way of showing that miracles aren't by magic spells or the like but it can simply be God reaching his hand in to disrupt the normal course of things. Like gravity in this case. It's just a different way of looking at what a miracle is.
I said that God can't be earned by works like other religions by gifts, token gestures etc. It is simple given and we either accept it or reject it. Of course out of love for God we make gestures to people and to him, to honour him. Just not to earn him. It's like you give the roses to your lover as a sign of your love, not to earn their love. But just bare in mind that God doesn't NEED anything from us, because all belongs to God already, like a child who borrows money off of his father to buy him a present, the father is pleased at the thought, but it is nothing he didn't already have and the child can take no credit for being so good etc.
I am angry at your assertion about my lack of understanding about other religions because you you yourself openly argue with me about the Christian God but are not familiar with the Bible!!!
I think I've said enough. The rest of your points I'll leave. It is better for you to read the Bible instead, and as I've been repeating, you owe it to yourself. I can't convince you to believe, it has to be your search for truth and God. But I have achieved what I wanted here in this forum and nobody has been able to offer a single good reason to stop believing in God. There might be some amongst all these pages of comments, but theres too many to read and your arguments seemed to be the best out of the ones I saw.
Oh heres a link about old testament law versus new testament: http://www.wcg.org/lit/law/otlaws.htm
that should answer your question.
PS. What you believe is impossible to as I have said already! I have been very open minded with you and have looked at evidence for each argument you put up and have reasonably concluded that God does exist. How is that close minded?
PPS. I wish you well and good luck in your research! REMEMBER: READ THE BIBLE. hehe
