Why Should I Believe in God?

[Sternwallow]

ocmpoma wrote

"...you were created for his pleasure..."

Does this mean we're condoms?

Can't be condoms because God having no opposite gendered partner cannot have genitalia which would be as unnecessary for him as a vagina and therefore an imperfection. It is clear from the constituents of the universe that God has an anus. Apparently we are all butt plugs if destiny!

[Sternwallow]

PollyP wrote

I already told you though. Try Jesus. Ask him to come into your heart. Read the Bible. Talk to God. That's your evidence. It sound's like chicken soup for the soul because it's so simple. You expect some big crazy answer. Hey the answer still remains.
Jesus is the answer for the world today.
Besides him there's no other. Jesus is the way.

You are beginning to babble.
It is a big mistake, often a fatal one, for you to recommend that anyone read the Bible. That route has been a top producer of atheists for centuries.

It is not possible to gain faith in Jesus if you don't have the faith necessary to ask him into your blood-pump. If it were possible, asking Jesus into your blood-pump still would not work because there is no Jesus.

Zeus might just be the one true God. Why won't you ask him for the wisdom to see his superiority over all other gods?

If Jesus is the answer to any question at all, the question is posed poorly. For example, "Which fictional anthropomorphic bastard deity has the looniest adherents?"

[Sternwallow]

PollyP wrote

The evidence is found through personal experience. You cant believe what you havent experienced. you dont know what it is like living for God because you never tried it and you'll never know unless you try. you'll never understand why god is god and why you should serve him unless you know and try him

An excellent way to find God is to take measured quantities of hallucinogenic drugs. This enables personal experience of God and a great many other things besides. Personal experience, whether mine or yours, that is entirely internal as you are suggesting, is not evidence at all because it is not possible to validly identify its cause from among hallucination, mis-perception, drugs (see the Revelation of John), oxygen starvation, extremes of hunger or sleep deprivation or passionate wishing or prior brainwashing or a real spiritual encounter. Because we have solid examples of all but the spiritual cause, we reasonably assign it a very low probability of being true.

Many of us have been long-time Christians and certainly do know what it is like. To claim otherwise is insulting and not good for your case.

[Sternwallow]

anthonyjfuchs wrote

The fact still remains, Polly, that you came to an atheist forum. The fact still remains, Polly, that you took the time to create a screenname and log into a forum where no one believes the ridiculous nonsense that you believe. You came here because some deeply-buried piece of your mind knows that the nonsense you believe is ridiculous. You came here because you're afraid of losing your religious superstitions, and you know that you're going to need compassionate support from people who know what you're going through when you do finally begin to let go. You came here because you know that your god and your Jesus are imaginary, and you want to be free from your crippling religious superstitions.

You came here because you know that here, you can learn to be free again.

That was beautiful, man. It touched me. (a virtual cookie for identifying the reference)

Kate wrote

Step up.

mmmm...reminds of my wife on our first date--she had me place the collar on her and then handed me the remote--what a night...

[Sternwallow]

PollyP wrote

did someone hurt you in the past? were you raised atheist? what's wrong?

You (and hordes like you) are what's wrong.

People who were raised without religious indoctrination or who just never thought about religion at all are atheists by virtue of not believing in God or the supernatural. Virtually all of the remaining atheists came by it through thinking. There are vanishingly few atheists who got there merely by being mistreated since, being rational, they recognize that abuse comes from many different sources, not just religion. Many atheists do reasonably fear and distrust theists due to abuse (and their inherent dishonesty), which is a different issue from disbelief.

[Sternwallow]

PollyP wrote

I am free. I wish you could be too.

Giving your life, body, heart and soul to someone is the essence of slavery complete with shackles. It is not freedom in any sense of the word.

Just as with slaves of old, if you disobey your master, you will suffer greatly (for Christians the suffering is eternal, which is the ultimate in immoral coercion).

Tell me that you are free to try Zeus to see if he is superior to Jehovah.

[clambake]

PollyP wrote

clambake, yeah, i am in love with music! i dont take it seriously either though. whenever i have time to play, i play, but i really dont make the time. my favourite instrument is the piano.
you own a few flutes? wow. that's really cool. you dont try to rent them out?
i need to learn how to cook!!

Rock on. Cooking is easy.

[Sternwallow]

PollyP wrote

why are you being so mean. that's another attribute of Jesus, love. "love your neighbor as yourself". not once have i called you a mean name, but you wont be nice to me. what's wrong man? dont get mad at me. i'm not mad at you.

Jesus' kind of love is a perversion of the very word. His love brought the wrath of the world down on all Jews for tens of centuries. In his love for mankind, he invented Hell, a concept unknown in the OT. He lovingly condemned to that Hell all who were constitutionally incapable of accepting him as God. And, noting that love is true, he made a false promise to his audience that at least some of them would be alive for his return from Heaven.

You are behaving as a person would who was mad at us for not believing in your pet god. You have repeatedly insulted us; you just do it with "clean" language. Your attitude of Lilian superiority is a constant slap in the face which gives the lie to your claim of love.

I, for one, have not called you a cunt or other derogatory names, not because they are not true, but because they are not germane to the topic of your insane and vacuous god.

You have no reason to think that love is an aspect of Jesus, at least you have shown none here.

[Sternwallow]

PollyP wrote

i[sic] tried truth. have you tried jesus? if not, why not? what did God ever do to you that's so bad that you wont[sic] accept him? and[sic] if he hasnt[sic] done anything wrong, then why wont[sic] you try him. why[sic] are [you] atomatically assuming he isnt[sic] real when you never gave you[sic] self a real chance. everytime[sic] you try you quit because you [are] depending on yourself and not God.

I am increasingly convinced that English is not your primary language. If that is the case then I will put in the extra effort to unscramble your posts and I will make allowances for the evident fact that you do not know the meaning of certain common English words such as "love", "truth", "evidence", "proof", "existence", "reality", "imagination", "hate", "thought", "logic", "rational", "free".

[JU Mike]

Sternwallow wrote

You are behaving as a person would who was mad at us for not believing in your pet god. You have repeatedly insulted us; you just do it with "clean" language. Your attitude of Lilian superiority is a constant slap in the face which gives the lie to your claim of love.

You know what really irritates me about Christians. When a theist goes around shouting "ha ha you atheists are stupid losers who will burn in hell for not believing in Jesus ha ha ha ha fuck you heathens" that doesn't bother me one bit because personally, I find that hilarious. It's really the "nicer" Christians that piss me off the most since they try to mask their hatred with love. They pretend to care about the souls of atheists but deep down inside they're still the same old "ha ha ha you athiests will burn in hell motherfuckers!"

[Sternwallow]

PollyP wrote

is love imaginary?

Love is not imaginary. It is detectable as a set of behaviors by real live people as well as several strong indicators in neurochemistry. It is not detectable from any spirit.

We can confidently say, then, that, since God is imaginary (one among tens of thousands of distinct imaginary gods), God's love is also imaginary.

It is a bit sad that you seem satisfied with imaginary love when the real thing is so much more beautiful and noble.

[Sternwallow]

PollyP wrote

no sugar, if you really tried him you wouldnt be an athiest.

If you really tried thinking, you would be an atheist.

Now, does that finally get the "try it, you'll like it" ploy out of your system?

[Sternwallow]

PollyP wrote

it's like love. you can read about it, hear about it, but unless you never experience it, you'll never know what it's like. why did you stop believing in God?

Why did you abandon basic logic?

"unless you never experience it, you'll never know what it's like" if I understand what you were trying oddly to say, should have been "IF you never experience it, you'll never know what it's like". Watch those double negatives.

[Sternwallow]

PollyP wrote

then you never tried Jesus if the outcome is athiesm

You are so thoroughly wrong about many of us that you can't even make a meaningful or useful statement.