babelfish

Gixxer,

I forgot to add to my last post:

But please please please stay! You really seem like a wonderful young person and we'd love for you to stick around for a long long time.

(Is that better, Dave?)

gixxer750

Well, I am a little offended at the suggestion to stay away from fear of losing my faith.

Let me make one thing straight - I consider myself as much a "free-thinker" as anyone else here. True - I grew up in a Christian household, but I spent plenty of time away from God through my high school years. He is now MY God, not just the God of my family. I am committed to knowing the truth - Jesus himself said (or the cultist who wrote the gospel of John said...!) that "you shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free." I will not sacrifice my intellect on the altar of "blind faith". The heart cannot delight in what the mind rejects as false...

But thank you for your comments - I have enjoyed our discussions and you've certainly given me a lot to think about. I just think it would be great if there were some Christian scholars around that could answer some of the challenges that I am unequipped to deal with.

On an entirely unreasonable, perhaps illogical note - I wish there was some way to share my Christian experience with you. I have FELT very strongly the presence of God in my life. I have experienced freedom from the "bonds of sin". I don't really expect you to understand this, even if you think that you do, but I have seen this divine experience in others, and my MIND cannot reject these things as delusions - especially when they have been shared by so many. I will continue to seek answers for the challenges to Christianity, but it will take a lot more for me to reject the things I know to be true. It would be like telling me that my wife isn't real, just an illusion.

sidewinder

You are wrong. I think most of us understand your experience but we have a different interpretation of it. Let me ask you some questions.

1. What do you think about Muslims who would also state that they feel very strongly that they have experienced the presence of God in their lives and they know that Islam is the one and only true religion?

1a. What do you think of other Christians who claim that their denomination is the one and only true denomination, and that they know this because God told them.

2. How do you know that your religious experience is caused by something outside of your own mind? Many people (non-Christians too)throughout time have had religious experiences.

3. Have you ever considered why your mind can't entertain the possibility that your beliefs are delusional?

I'm sure you will continue to seek answers to the challenges to Christianity but I think the outcome of this search has already been determined by your statement that it will take a lot for you to reject what you know is true. Why not just save yourself some time, energy, and money and forget the search. You want to believe, so any evidence to the contrary will be interpreted to be incorrect.

The analogy of your beliefs and your wife is bad. Your wife exists, and it's easy to determine this fact. It's plain for all to see. We don't need books, apologists, churches, doctrines, money, etc. to try to prove your wife exists.

gixxer750

Would it be fair to say that you DON'T want to believe, so any evidence to the contrary will be interpreted to be incorrect?

Of course I come at this with a bias - we all do.

Ruy Lopez

quote from gixxer:
I have experienced freedom from the "bonds of sin". I don't really expect you to understand this.

I would like to make three points. First, I am willing to believe your questions about Jesus were sincere and the platoon of freethinkers, humanists etc. on the site gave you a fair shake. Second, freethinkers also experience a kind of liberation, as you described above, though not as emotional. I'll mention mine briefly. Around seven years ago, I knew from "irrefutable analysis" that Christian beliefs were largely fiction as in mythical. That realization and profound insight made me so happy that I was walking on clouds. It was worth more than a million dollars. Third, this forum, as you probably realize already,provided what is called biblical scholarship or analysis. I hope you accept that this comes from the hard intellectual work, some lifetime, of hundreds of scholars. We, the freethinkers, were not "indoctrinated" nor threatened to believe.

tony

babelfish

Show me some evidence (I don't mean Bible quotes, unless you can produce some evidence that the Bible was written by God).

sidewinder

It wouldn't be fair to say that. I am perfectly willing to examine arguments (which includes evidence) from each side of a question. I will believe something to be true if there is concrete and overwhelming evidence to prove that it is true. I have examined both sides of the question of whether Christianity is true or not, and my conclusion is that it is not true. If you have some additional evidence for Christianity, I am willing to examine it and draw a conclusion about it.

It appears that you embraced Christianity without examining whether it was true or not. You started from the point of belief and now when you encounter challenges, you believe those things which uphold your religion. Wouldn't it have been more reasonable to have researched all these challenges to Christianity before you embraced the Christian belief system? Wouldn't it have been more appropriate to make an informed decision? Now you come here and tell us that we are all wrong and that we don't know how wonderful you feel being freed from the bonds of sin or some such. Yet, you admit that you don't know the answers to many of the challenges within this topic. But, we are somehow still all wrong, right?

By the way, you didn't answer the other questions from my last post.

Eudaimonist

Beautifully put! This is something atheists can identify with.

Few here will doubt that you experienced something. The question is: how should one interpret those experiences? Should one conclude that only a supernatural god could produce such experiences, or is it instead a poorly understood psychological phenomenon? You see, even if you could share these experiences (and some atheists here are former Christians who have already had them), that doesn't mean that they would interpret them in the same way as you.

Of course. We expect no less from you. No one should change their worldview entirely overnight. No one wants you to have faith in atheism. Any rational change of world-view tends to be a long, drawn-out process, and this is a sign of intellectual integrity. Keep on thinking. Your reason is your light in dark places.

babelfish

Gixxer, here are sidewinder's questions to refresh your memory. I think they are very valid questions. Since you seem to be talking quite a bit about your "feelings" IMO question #2 is especially relevant.

Now will you answer them?

Viti

Hi there...jumping in late

I think the difference for me personally is I don't have anything emotionally invested in my non-belief. I don't have any burning desire to be right...I am simply unable to believe (this is not some choice, belief is either there or it isn't). I don't shun evidence out of hand, if good strong evidence to support the existence of any deity came along, I could start believing pretty easily.