B2W, that portion you quoted was from me (Kurieuo).born2wonder wrote:I cut much of previous post for brevity. The title of this thread (as I mentioned, I am new here last night) is 'The Foolishness of Non-Believers'. Is it possible that designating non-believers as being foolish might encourage an approach by a non-believer that is not the most respectful? It seems that the believer's approach in that title is not very respectful.Kurieuo wrote:1over137 wrote:
There are no magic or spiritual words we can say that will flick a switch. "We" can only present what we know as best as we can, and strive with those who do not believe as best as we can. But... I stop at continually casting pearls to be trodden on over and over. There is no reason why we should not have such boundaries. And there is no reason to believe we're doing something wrong when people don't listen, anymore than God did when Pharaoh would not listen.
I am a non-believer, having been a very active believer, church goer, condemning a lot of people who were not Christians (mainly in my mind, rather than publicly) for 40 some years of my life. For reasons, some of which are not entirely clear to me, other than saying I developed a different opinion after years of being alive, I am no longer a believer, and very strongly feel that no believer can show me a rational reason (other than Pascal's Wager) to ever believe again. I have had quite a bit of discussion online on this subject over the past several years, and generally my experience has been that the believers, especially the fundamentalist believers, are a very nasty rude group (which I probably was rather secretively before), and not very accepting of opinions of others, even if they are presented in a polite organized fashion. Yes, there are people who come on these sites just to be a pain (I have noted that seems to be the case mainly on the side of believers - in the sites that I am most familiar). They have no arguments, no information, just personal attacks and threats of eternal torment.
My life is surrounded by believers. My mother is an 89 year old very active church worker, choir singer, and occasional soloist at church. Her 88 year old sister is a retired minister, in several choirs, and works extensively in her church (so I have heard, at the expense of becoming somewhat of an annoyance to those in charge, because they want to run things their way, which is their right).
Regarding presenting "what you know, as best you can", I have found that people present not what they "know" but what they believe, in spite of what they actually know, in a lot of cases, in discussions. To the best of my knowledge, and I am well educated, a life-long reader, and have always enjoyed good discussion, there is only "belief" when it comes to things of the supernatural, miracles, God and the Bible.
There have been no actual confirmed evidences of anything related to religious beliefs as at this point in time (if there had been would we not have, as we did with the flat earth belief, stopped not believing?).
I have a tendency, to run on and on and on........., both in my posts and in my personal face to face chats with people, in the rare occasions that they permit me to speak. That is a personality problem I have, so I apologize for saying in many words, likely, what I could have said in one sentence.
I do take these discussions seriously though, when those I debate also take them seriously.
And unless you associate yourself with the type of foolish person I'm describing in my original post, then you really don't need to respond to it.
Just keep posting and your motivations will become clear. The fact you at least describe yourself as non-Christian is already in your favour as a positive sign that you are interested in some sort of true dialogue.
PS. Welcome by the way