There is no Hope without Jesus

[Kenny]

What is truth kenny?

Fact; Reality; the opposite of false.
How would you define truth?

Ken

[PaulSacramento]

What is truth kenny?

Fact; Reality; the opposite of false.
How would you define truth?

Ken

Truth is subjective or objective?

[Kenny]

What is truth kenny?

Fact; Reality; the opposite of false.
How would you define truth?

Ken

Truth is subjective or objective?

Objective.

K

[Hortator]

The wheels haven’t fallen off yet. Someone keep going.

[thatkidakayoungguy]

The wheels haven’t fallen off yet. Someone keep going.

Wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round, the wheels on the bus go round and round, all through the city.

[Kenny]

The wheels haven’t fallen off yet. Someone keep going.

Actually I'm kinda curious where this is going myself. Often it seems when I think a great conversation is about to get going, they just kinda drop off and I don't hear from them anymore.

[Kurieuo]

I didn't say you said if "everybody knew God existed," rather you said, to again quote you verbatim: "If God didn’t want to be known, worshipped, or control us, we might as well live as atheist." The implications of what you wrote are clear, even if you don't like those implications, that is the whole point of Freudian slips. Those implications being, if a person feels God is impersonal and doesn't care about us, then they may as well live as atheists.

Context my friend; it’s all about context.

Another poster asked me to pretend I believe God exist, and then describe this God to her.
Now in order to understand my response, you have to look at it from an atheist point of view, not a theistic view (which is what you seem to be doing)
Because I see no evidence of Gods existence, I described a God that doesn't want to be known. Now in the context of this scenario, if God didn’t want to be known, NOBODY would know he exist; do you agree?
So that would mean if anybody writes a book about God, starts a religion about God, claims to speak for, or even know God, that person is lying; do you agree?
This is when I said “might as well live like atheists” (which is the same as living like theists except you don’t worship or recognize God) because trying to live like a theist in such a scenario would be living based on a lie. Does this make sense now?

I get that, and understand, however I feel you're still missing certain implications. You're also overlooking the fact that you did once believe God existed, so then it wasn't always the case you thought God didn't want to be known.

A logical progression from Theism to Atheism is actually through Apatheism ("the attitude of apathy towards the existence or non-existence of god(s). It is more of an attitude rather than a belief, claim or belief system."). This apathy towards God, which you have articulated you once believed in, could be especially accentuated during some emotional turmoil experienced. For example, it might be a close loved one dying, suffering extreme abuse or something the like.

Then a person becomes angry with God, because if God exists then he did care about you in your time of pain, indeed such persons will often say God doesn't seem to care about a great many people and often create positive arguments against an all-good and all-loving God based upon pain and suffering experienced in our world. So then, to the person who does believe in God, who goes through darkness in their lives, it is easy to understand an emotional reaction like, "If God doesn't care about me, then screw God."

From there, people may start arguing God away and start rebranding themselves as a newly awakened rational Atheist. In actuality, their change in position wasn't at all rational but largely from a very emotional perhaps hurtful spot.

Apathy did not cause me to go from Theism to Atheism, it was motivation; the opposite. As I said before, the reason I was Christian in the first place was because that is the way I was raised. As a child; like many children indoctrination was responsible for my involvement with theism because I trusted and believed the people who taught me. But as I got older I decided to test what I was taught to make sure what I was told was the truth, and this search for the truth was what lead me away from Theism, to become the person I am today.

So what did these "tests" look like?

A great many people, some who post here, were Atheist and found the evidence for belief in God rationally compelling. Others had rather unsual journeys, like David Wood or Lee Strobel who is a popular almost cliché figure of an Atheist turned Christian (watched the movie done on him which I found suprisingly good).



What say you, is the difference between your journey and people like these? How is it that your search for truth lead you away from God, when for many others it lead them to? Based upon what you said, it seems to me like you didn't really believe in God for yourself if you simply trusted others. There comes a time however where we must see for ourselves, have our own reasons, and that journey appears to be normally had during adolescence - particularly for men it seems.

[Mallz]

First of all, Allah and Odin are not Gods of polytheism. But if you are trying to get me away from misconceptions, explain your concept of God, and we can have a discussion.

My concept of God is 'that which all sprouts from' which is equal with 'something always had to be for something to exist'. In my view, Got is the 'something' that always had to exist which everything sprouted from. Polytheism is false as there would be nothing lacking in a God (which everything sprouts from). Either God is real, or God is not, there is no multiple. And as for the identity? Allah vs YHWH (and those who wouldn't see a difference), that's a different question, one that doesn't matter if God doesn't exist.

eternal may show God’s presence to YOU, but it does not to me.

Forget about the eternal, how about something coming from something vs nothing. What's your opinion on that?

There are those who worship the Sun, and Nature as God, so of course I could consider you believing in the existence of a Multiverse and calling that God. Of course I wouldn’t call it God though.

And you shouldn't because it would be 'passing the buck' down the line. Although if your idea of God is being an infinite recess, then it could be the Multiverse (I see it against reason). Nature and the Sun came into existence, those can't be God. Back to the something vs. nothing.

Okay here is how I see it. Theists believe in God, Atheist do not believe in God, and Agnostics claim it is impossible to know if God exists or not
IOW; I see Theism and Atheism about what one believes, and Agnosticism about what you KNOW; a completely different subject.
If I were an Agnostic and you asked me if I believed in God and I responded there is no way of knowing if God exists or not, I haven’t answered your question because you asked about belief not knowledge. Does this make sense to you?

So, we have 3 views here. All can't be right, two are wrong. I disagree with your believe vs know, it assumes people believe not based off knowledge. But perhaps that's not what you meant? So, where do you fall in the three, and why?

How about if you just tell me what you believe God is? You’re saying a lot but we don’t seem to be getting anywhere. If you want me to consider the possibility that God is energy, the Universe, Multiverse, or something else physical? The best I can do for you is to recognize that YOU may see those things as God, but I do not.

God is what I said above. I don't think identifying God more is helpful but to answer your question God is spirit and His energy which I see almost synonymous with His will brings forth existence.

[PaulSacramento]

What is truth kenny?

Fact; Reality; the opposite of false.
How would you define truth?

Ken

Truth is subjective or objective?

Objective.

K

So no such thing as "your truth" or "their truth", right?

[Kenny]

I didn't say you said if "everybody knew God existed," rather you said, to again quote you verbatim: "If God didn’t want to be known, worshipped, or control us, we might as well live as atheist." The implications of what you wrote are clear, even if you don't like those implications, that is the whole point of Freudian slips. Those implications being, if a person feels God is impersonal and doesn't care about us, then they may as well live as atheists.

Context my friend; it’s all about context.

Another poster asked me to pretend I believe God exist, and then describe this God to her.
Now in order to understand my response, you have to look at it from an atheist point of view, not a theistic view (which is what you seem to be doing)
Because I see no evidence of Gods existence, I described a God that doesn't want to be known. Now in the context of this scenario, if God didn’t want to be known, NOBODY would know he exist; do you agree?
So that would mean if anybody writes a book about God, starts a religion about God, claims to speak for, or even know God, that person is lying; do you agree?
This is when I said “might as well live like atheists” (which is the same as living like theists except you don’t worship or recognize God) because trying to live like a theist in such a scenario would be living based on a lie. Does this make sense now?

I get that, and understand, however I feel you're still missing certain implications. You're also overlooking the fact that you did once believe God existed, so then it wasn't always the case you thought God didn't want to be known.

A logical progression from Theism to Atheism is actually through Apatheism ("the attitude of apathy towards the existence or non-existence of god(s). It is more of an attitude rather than a belief, claim or belief system."). This apathy towards God, which you have articulated you once believed in, could be especially accentuated during some emotional turmoil experienced. For example, it might be a close loved one dying, suffering extreme abuse or something the like.

Then a person becomes angry with God, because if God exists then he did care about you in your time of pain, indeed such persons will often say God doesn't seem to care about a great many people and often create positive arguments against an all-good and all-loving God based upon pain and suffering experienced in our world. So then, to the person who does believe in God, who goes through darkness in their lives, it is easy to understand an emotional reaction like, "If God doesn't care about me, then screw God."

From there, people may start arguing God away and start rebranding themselves as a newly awakened rational Atheist. In actuality, their change in position wasn't at all rational but largely from a very emotional perhaps hurtful spot.

Apathy did not cause me to go from Theism to Atheism, it was motivation; the opposite. As I said before, the reason I was Christian in the first place was because that is the way I was raised. As a child; like many children indoctrination was responsible for my involvement with theism because I trusted and believed the people who taught me. But as I got older I decided to test what I was taught to make sure what I was told was the truth, and this search for the truth was what lead me away from Theism, to become the person I am today.

So what did these "tests" look like?

A great many people, some who post here, were Atheist and found the evidence for belief in God rationally compelling. Others had rather unsual journeys, like David Wood or Lee Strobel who is a popular almost cliché figure of an Atheist turned Christian (watched the movie done on him which I found suprisingly good).

What say you, is the difference between your journey and people like these? How is it that your search for truth lead you away from God, when for many others it lead them to?

The video doesn’t say much about their journey so I can’t compare theirs to mine, but there are plenty of people on both sides converting to the other side; theists converting to atheists, and visa versa.

Based upon what you said, it seems to me like you didn't really believe in God for yourself if you simply trusted others. There comes a time however where we must see for ourselves, have our own reasons, and that journey appears to be normally had during adolescence - particularly for men it seems.

I agree. When I was a kid, my parents had the attitude “Me and my house will serve the lord” so of course I had no choice in the matter. But when I became mid teens, I had a desire to get “saved”, I wanted to know for myself; in a sense put to test what I was taught was true; and this is what eventually convinced me what I was taught about God was not true.

[Kenny]

What is truth kenny?

Fact; Reality; the opposite of false.
How would you define truth?

Ken

Truth is subjective or objective?

Objective.

K

So no such thing as "your truth" or "their truth", right?

Right.

K

[Kenny]

First of all, Allah and Odin are not Gods of polytheism. But if you are trying to get me away from misconceptions, explain your concept of God, and we can have a discussion.

My concept of God is 'that which all sprouts from' which is equal with 'something always had to be for something to exist'. In my view, Got is the 'something' that always had to exist which everything sprouted from.

Welcome back my friend! Ya had me worried for a minute; thought you had gone away!
So your idea of God is that which everything else came from? Suppose that which everything came from was not intelligent, conscious, or capable of thought? Would you still call it God? Or does it also have to be good, smart, powerful, etc. etc. and all the other stuff described in the Bible

eternal may show God’s presence to YOU, but it does not to me.

Forget about the eternal, how about something coming from something vs nothing. What's your opinion on that?

Something coming from something makes sense to me; something coming from nothing does not.

There are those who worship the Sun, and Nature as God, so of course I could consider you believing in the existence of a Multiverse and calling that God. Of course I wouldn’t call it God though.

And you shouldn't because it would be 'passing the buck' down the line. Although if your idea of God is being an infinite recess, then it could be the Multiverse (I see it against reason).

Yeah; the idea of a multiverse makes no sense to me. If Universe is defined as “all that exists” by definition there can’t be more than one.

Okay here is how I see it. Theists believe in God, Atheist do not believe in God, and Agnostics claim it is impossible to know if God exists or not
IOW; I see Theism and Atheism about what one believes, and Agnosticism about what you KNOW; a completely different subject.
If I were an Agnostic and you asked me if I believed in God and I responded there is no way of knowing if God exists or not, I haven’t answered your question because you asked about belief not knowledge. Does this make sense to you?

So, we have 3 views here. All can't be right, two are wrong. I disagree with your believe vs know, it assumes people believe not based off knowledge.

Actually there are 4. Those who believe based off knowledge are Gnostic Theists. This link explains it in a way that I agree with
http://www.neatorama.com/2013/09/25/Ath ... nosticism/

But perhaps that's not what you meant? So, where do you fall in the three, and why?

Where I fall is a bit more complicated. I don’t like the definition of atheism as one who claims God doesn’t exist. There is a difference between not believing in God vs believing God doesn’t exist. There are people as real as you and I who are worshipped as Gods. I don’t see these people as Gods, but it would be foolish to say they don’t exist. IOW I realize what you or others might choose to call God may exist, but because I don’t call it (or anything else) God I am atheist. According to the link, that would probably put me closer to the category of a gnostic atheist.

[RickD]

Kenny wrote:
There is a difference between not believing in God vs believing God doesn’t exist.

I'd love to hear what the difference is.

Would that be the same as saying there's a difference between not believing in the tooth fairy vs believing the tooth fairy doesn't exist?

[Kenny]

Kenny wrote:
There is a difference between not believing in God vs believing God doesn’t exist.

I'd love to hear what the difference is.

Would that be the same as saying there's a difference between not believing in the tooth fairy vs believing the tooth fairy doesn't exist?

Not quite. There is a consistent view of what qualifies as the tooth fairy; the same cannot be said for God. The reality is; different people will bring a different concept of God to the table and unless I know what concept they are bringing, I have no business claiming it doesn't exist! You gotta describe what you are calling God before I can tell you if I believe it exists or not; otherwise the best I can do is tell you whatever it is you call God; I do not. Does that make sense to you?

[RickD]

Kenny wrote:
There is a difference between not believing in God vs believing God doesn’t exist.

I'd love to hear what the difference is.

Would that be the same as saying there's a difference between not believing in the tooth fairy vs believing the tooth fairy doesn't exist?

Not quite. There is a consistent view of what qualifies as the tooth fairy; the same cannot be said for God. The reality is; different people will bring a different concept of God to the table and unless I know what concept they are bringing, I have no business claiming it doesn't exist! You gotta describe what you are calling God before I can tell you if I believe it exists or not; otherwise the best I can do is tell you whatever it is you call God; I do not. Does that make sense to you?

I don't see how that explains the difference between not believing in God, and believing God doesn't exist. Since you made the assertion, I'll let you define God. For the sake of this particular discussion, you don't even need to tell me your definition of God. While thinking to yourself, your definition of God, tell me the difference between not believing in God vs believing God doesn’t exist.

Maybe that will help me understand.