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One for our God-fearing friends
Just so our Christian or other religious readers don’t feel excluded from this ongoing conversation about evidence: What experience or reason would you need to convince you that God doesn’t exist?
–Allen
The Atheist Mama
The Atheist
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atheist in Columbus, Ohio.
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on February 28th, 2007 at 2:35 pm
I am one of those Christians you speak of. I stumbled onto your site and was intrigued by the question, why? You are atheist and that is fine but why make all this over what you do not believe? Atheism has always seemed an enigma to me; an ideology based on disbelief of what others believe. If Christians did not believe there would be no basis for atheism. But this web page is devoted to the tearing down of Christian ideals by which if you achieve your goals and Christianity ends your beliefs would also end. Is the end of Christianity the goal? You seem to enjoy finding the many holes in someone else’s beliefs so I for one will continue to believe just so your system of non-belief might also continue.
Besides, I like believing.
Anyway to answer your question, the Bible has a story about Job. He lost his children, wealth, health, and his friends were certain that he had deserved his punishment from some hidden wrong. He got to the place that he wished he had never been born. In the end God restored all his wealth and more. Job proclaimed his trauma that God allowed had increased his relationship with God making it better than ever.
People down through the years have been tortured and died for their beliefs. So the question of what would it take not to believe has been pretty well answered many times over. For me personally, I don’t really know till I have been there and can only hope that my integrity of faith will be as the faithful before me.
People die for a lot of reasons suicide, war, famine, disease, or old age. But it is strange that in death, a very strong motivator, many people get religious when they are not even normally that way. I have seen people in a variety of other struggles like Job grow closer to God. So I would say that if something were to shake my faith it would be if things got too good or easy. Maybe if I got rich or famous. Not very likely but if it does happen I’ll let you know.
on March 1st, 2007 at 12:59 pm
It simply isn’t true that if Christians didn’t believe, there would be no basis for atheism. That is an incredibly ignorant thing to say. Atheism simply implies non-belief. People have been nonbelievers in all types of gods for hundreds and hundreds of years. It didn’t take Christianity to create the idea.
It’s that kind of myopia that causes believers to think that nonbelievers are “shouting it down” at them. If this were a Christian blog, you would praise her for devoting so much time to the discussion of god. Christianity is so prevalent that it’s taken for granted as the normal way of looking at things. I posit that atheism seems so strange to you because culture teaches us both what we’re supposed to see (often called norms) and what we’re supposed to pretend isn’t there.
on March 1st, 2007 at 4:58 pm
Oh deary dear…our little pal Joel has it all wrong. Huh, go figure that a theist would give a wrong interpreation of atheism.
Joel, boobala, YOU are an atheist. Do you lay awake at night wondering if Zeus exists? Or Odin, Ra, Appolo, or Thor? No? Why not?
Well, as you answer that WHY NOT, apply that to your lil’ Abrahmic god and you see that atheism is not about disbelief, but about NON-believe.
Big difference there big fella.
Eric
on March 3rd, 2007 at 3:09 pm
While I don’t disagree with what you’ve written, contemplator and Eric, I do want our religious readers to share their beliefs about this particular issue without being criticized or ridiculed. It’s my fault, really, for not making this clear from the start. So, from now on, comments on this post are reserved for our God-fearing friends only.
So, let’s hear from you, true believers!
on March 15th, 2007 at 4:01 am
Well, that produced a good response.
I imagine that, after seeing one who shares their beliefs called a “boobala,” any Christian would avoid posting comments here. At the very least, the way Eric used this term is patronizing.
on May 23rd, 2007 at 10:53 pm
I don’t think anything could make me not believe. Not even the brilliant theory that all wars are caused by religion. Hitler, Stalin and Mau are responsible for more death and destruction than any religion in the past 60 years and I can say with certainty they were not believers, but were in the category of secularist, Atheists or Agnostic. These are just the Big 3 as there are others like them that are responsible for millions of deaths.
I also know that many Atheists like to point out the Salem Witch trials as evidence of the evil of religion. A total of 19 people were burned for witchcraft during that time. A terrible tragedy for those 19 and their families, but hardly significant in the scope of whether secularists or religions have killed more people.
Let’s not forget the Crusades. After being invaded by Muslims for decades, Christendom as it was known finally fought back. Okay, so that was a religious war, but history shows that Islam was responsible for starting this one. You might wish that Christendom had been conquered, but think how the world would be if Islam was the religion of the vast majority of the world.
Would there be a USA? Would it be okay to be an Atheist in the USA? You might not like that America is mainly a Judeo-Christian nation, but I believe it is because of this that people are free to be Muslims, Atheists, Christians, Agnostics or Jews in this country. I don’t remember when the last Atheist was beheaded here in the USA. I don’t care if you want to be an Atheist or a Scientologist, but I every time I look upon an Atheist site, I see bitterness towards Christians and people of faith. I guess I should stop looking!
I believe in the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, so mock if you must.
on July 18th, 2008 at 1:54 am
to MJ.
Hitler was a christian.
on August 10th, 2008 at 5:27 pm
as an added note on the whole Hitler issue, he did chose Jews to persecute on the basis of their religion…