While I am currently engaged in a couple other forums that are discussing some of these issues, please allow me to direct you to those forums when it is fit to do. In particular concerning moral absolutism- see An object lesson by :ae:
When I say that pride, selfishness, hurt and ultimately a lonely death I simply mean the following:
Pride-Do you not see this everywhere within the world? Even Christians are prideful at times. Myself included. In fact many times I am faced with my pride on this very forum.
Selfishness-We are all ultimately selfish and self serving. While we may on occasion do selfless acts, we certainly are mostly selfish and looking out for number one. Again, myself included. In fact, I would even argue that when we commit selfless acts, at times those acts are still done for selfish reasons. Example, do we give to the poor to help the poor or for tax write offs or to appear nice to others and therefore get recognition? Marriage is a good example of how we are selfish.
Hurt-Ultimately, sin creates hurt for ourselves and others. We also are faced with emotional pain and physical pain in this life.
Lonely death- The end result is lonely because your maker is not there with you, to embrace you and comfort you.
In contrast, a life with Christ has to offer forgiveness for the pride, the spirit to assist a believer to not act selfishly and forgiveness when they do, the hurt experienced is comforted by a friend who sticks closer than a brother(Christ, and the church at times) and finally your death is gain, not a loss in that you are glorified with Christ. When I say that the world has this to offer these things, I am speaking honestly and sincerely not trying to scare anyone.
Note, I am not saying an atheist or agnostic can not live a happy joyful life, I concede they do. These are simple realities of the world we live in. Does it not seem apparent that the world is largely bent on destroying you so that it can gain.
In some ways I regret even mentioning these concepts because I understand that it leaves the impression that we should believe out of fear for the contrary. What I am speaking of is within the context of two Christians talking together. Now, if Falkram is a Christian then he knows exactly what I am talking about when I refer to these things. I do not expect you to understand as these concepts are spiritual in nature and probably only make sense within the context of Christianity. When Christians struggle with various concepts we are to examine our lives and look at what Christ HAS DONE for us. We love Him not because we are smart and figured everything out, rather we love Him because He first loved us and revealed these things to us. When faced with struggles, we simply can examine our life with Christ and the contrary to see what He’s given us. We don’t look at the transcendental argument for the existence of God and say, oh yeah, I believe because of the impossibility of the contrary. We look at the evidence within our very own lives and remember Gods grace, mercy and compassion for us. That is why other believers have said Even if you prove the bible is not infallible, I will still believe or Though He slay me, yet I will still trust in Him. This kind of rational only comes from a person who has truly experienced Christ and has seen Him work in their lives-something that is improvable but real. That is to say, the evidence for a believer (when examining who Christ is and what He has done for them) is much more convincing than any alleged contradiction seen in scripture or perceived from our faulty senses.
Now, for those who do not believe, we produce different arguments. Since you ask what evidence suggests this I will lend you a few of the arguments that exist,
Arguments from —
selfevident,
transcendental,
impossibility of the contrary(various versions),
ontological,
revealed theology(various versions),
teleological,
pascals wager(this boards favorite),
individual experience(millions of testimonies),
cosmological,
from miracles(various versions),
from life(various versions)
from morality(various versions)
In there final form with all their versions, all of these arguments could easily number in the hundreds. If one is correct, then God exists and most of them would even conclude that Christianity is true. While it is true that some of these have decent arguments to rebut them, not all do. Furthermore, the rebuttals themselves have flaws and are ultimately based on a whole string of presuppositions. So in light of this evidence, I ask what proof you have for the contrary(atheism). No doubt you’d say the burden of proof is on the one making the claim( I would agree with btw). You might even say something like if it’s not on you, then who is to say pink unicorns don’t exist on the moon. There is no evidence to suggest this so it is an unreasonable claim. There obviously is evidence for Christianity-else there wouldn’t be millions of us and the argument list would be much smaller. The argument for unicorns is simply that it’s possible they exist or maybe I had a dream that they did.
When I say Christianity is the more rational choice I simply mean that if someone examined these arguments and found one that had a suggestion of truth to it, and then examined the counter claims(problem of evil and flood to name 2) a rational choice would be to concede that Christianity is likely true.
You seem to expect a theist to be able to provide some type of inerrant proof that is 100% conclusive. I would argue that your demands are not rational demands and that your method of discovering truth in this area is flawed.
For me personally understanding some of these arguments and then having experienced the reality of Christ, I am compelled to believe that this is true. Most of the arguments I see against Christianity are rather empty and much more inconclusive than the arguments for. Is this not a more rational choice for me? I suppose that it is for everyone, however add to this mix our nature to resist God and certainly it is logical that others would force themselves to reach other conclusions. I would argue that in order to reach a different conclusion you have to give yourself your own type of religious tunnel vision, that is you have to deny other evidences for Christ, in favor of a couple weak arguments against it.
Finaly , your statements concerning scientist being nonbelievers is quite interesting. In fact, can you provide some evidence suggesting this is true? It might appear that there are more science minded people that are non-believers than there are, however I think this is simply an illusion. For one, most people (in the USA) believe in God. If we say it’s 90% (in the USA) then of this group, many are uneducated, not all are though-consistent with the population-maybe 30% have college degrees. Most atheists have an interest in science. Most people in general don’t, in fact even of those educated in a university (the 30%) only a third probably are educated in philosophy or science. This leaves 10 % Christians who are science minded while most atheists are. Of this 10% Christians, many believe that it is not consistent with Christ’s teachings to debate as we are now. I would obviously disagree, however many of the extremely smart Christian philosophers or scientists I know simply do not debate those who are not willing to truly listen. There are however other non-scientific minded (as you put it) Christians who want to share their faith. So you can easily see how it would appear at many times that the atheists are extremely smart and rational, while the believers appear to be sheep and not really knowing anything about logic, math or science, yet they are debating those who do. It is easy(even for an engineer) to make a non-science minded person appear as if they do not know anything about what they are talking about when it comes to science. So , the appearance is that Christianity is filled with foolish and irrational people. The reality of course, is that these uneducated Christians simply see what is obvious to them(and a large portion of the rest of the world) and are trying to explain it to others who will demand proof for every single concept the simple Christian provides. Since they do not understand logic or even the mind of these science minded people they simply look as if they are foolish.
Now, the problem is, that when other non-science minded people (on the line or weak in their faith) observe a conversation like this they see the cards heavily in favor of the atheist. This then produces some ignorant agnostics or atheists who think they understand science but in reality don’t even know what a differential equation is. They then start placing unrealistic demands on theism and start assuming that the problem should be debated within the context of science as opposed to meta physical evidence being valid within a philosophical debate, where the discussion ultimately should be held. These people can then appear as if they understand science and when faced with a theist who doesn’t care about science can appear to be smarter. IMHO, it is simply an illusion that unfortunately traps many people into an irrational philosophical system.
I don’t know how I got on this tangent, but going back to your original comment about scientists being non-Christians, please explain where you got this information.
Now concerning your final comment that justice, morality, right and wrong, etc can be explained within an atheistic universe,
I do agree that there are possible explanations for this BEHAVIOR within atheism however are these explanations more reasonable than the ones Christian theism provides, discussing the meta nature of such behaviors? Yes, you could argue that morality is taught by parents and society, etc, however I could also argue that it is a reflection of God. Concerning truth, I don’t want to start another debate —look at "where did God come from?" thread, but within atheism all is relative. This would seem to imply that it was ok for Hitler to kill Jews since in his society it was ok. Furthermore, why is it that the universe behave rationally? Why are mathematics possible, why do you assume logic to be a valid method of discovering truth? What is truth if everything is relative? How can the laws of thought be valid and so useful so often in different fields of science and philosophy? How can absolute truth NOT exist (since to claim it doesn’t exist is to declare an absolute)? While atheism can give explanations to these, I find the explanations to be quite lacking ultimately somewhat contradictory. Given the impossibility or unlikelihood of atheism being correct, why is it undecided for you? Either God exists or He doesn’t. Massive amounts of evidence suggest He does, while the evidence against His existence is quite small and lacking in epistemological substance. To me, being agnostic is just as irrational as being atheistic given the evidence for theism.
At any rate, I apologize if I sound harsh or rude. In fact, I do not mean to implant fear or sound arrogant, only to reveal truth as I (and millions of other people-including scientists) see it.
If I have missed some other points or misunderstood you please let me know,
Take care,
). I can justify my feeling on the subject by remembering that Jesus told his disciples that unless they became like little children they would not enter Heaven. He didn't check to see if the kiddies in question had been baptised first. OK, maybe weeds weren't the best example in the world since a weed is defined as a plant growing in the "wrong" place, but I'm sure you understand what I was getting at.
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