Hello! My name is Isobel. I am a student at a classical Christian school. One of my classes is on Apologetics for the Christian faith. I have been asked to do a project that involves me interviewing an atheist through an online forum such as this about their views and their reasoning behind their belief. The intent is not to argue or prove anything. I just want to talk about your beliefs. It is good for everyone to be exposed to ideologies of all kinds. I am specifically a Calvinist Christian. Let's talk!:)
(If you see this as an opportunity to convince a Christian to be an atheist, then I warn you of my resolve, but I am willing to have a civil discussion. I don't want to start a fight)
edit:if u look at page 3, that's where the questions begin
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"I just want to talk about your beliefs."
Atheism is not a belief system...
let us know what you believe and we'll start from there...
I meant what you believe about the world, I apologize. I believe in God, the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth. And in Jesus Christ, His only begotten Son, our Lord. He was conceived by the Holy Ghost, and born of the Virgin Mary, He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried; He descended into Hades, and on the third day he rose again from the dead; He ascended into heaven, and sits at the right hand of God the Father almighty. From thence he will come to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Ghost, the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen. (Apostle's Creed)
"I believe in God, the Father almighty,"
which god are we talking about here?..
"meant what you believe about the world,"
"it's a strange myth that atheist have nothing to live for.
it's the opposite. we have nothing to die for, we have everything to live for."
~Ricky Gervais
i believe that the world is beautiful, livable, has a deadly earthquakes, tsunamis, storms, disease illnesses etc. but its fine. (but i don't believe that your god made it perfect, and yet we have all this.) i appreciate all the nice and good things in this world.
its really ok to say "i don't know" that's why where still learning and observing the world and understanding where it came from.
rather than asserting something created it...
im talking about the God spoken of in the Bible. if u would like to be interviewed, just message me. u seem like an interesting case!
@ Isobel
I suggest Isobel, you read a couple of threads that I put up regarding the evidence (or lack of) for your beliefs. You will find them here under "Food for Debate-History | Sat, 03/17/2018 - 16:12" and "History - Food for Debate 2 Ebionites" . The origins of your particular sect of christians is not what your think or have been taught.
They are written for apologists and contain factual events (and non events) that you have never been exposed to in a cloistered education.
Have fun.
If you have further questions you may ask me on this forum or in a pm..
i regret i havnt the time to explore other forums rn but could u give an example of wut they havnt told me about what my sect believes?
@ Isobel
"i regret i havn't the time to explore other forums"
Then you will regret that you have no time to actually learn anything and will continue headbutting unseen obstacles..
The real history and origins of the Pauline (Roman) church are fascinating and should be compulsory reading for any apologetics student.
Here are some teasers: the Roman church was not the first, its texts (on which it bases its beliefs) are not the oldest, not the purest, not the most accurate renditions.
The Roman church was founded for one political reason, to unite the Roman empire under Constantine and make him the undisputed god emperor.
There is no evidence that "paul " existed. There is evidence that a "paul" type character did write 6 of the epistles, 3 he definitely did not (by a different later author) , and 4 the scholars are still arguing about.
The Roman church destroyed every competing christian sect, obliterated their books and killed their adherents right up until 1829 when a schoolteacher in Spain was burnt for heresy.
Make any apologetics you like about that.
If you want to ask me questions/interview me about this, then feel free to pm me or preferably on open forum.
first of all dont exclude the "rn" after wut i said. its just that finals week is coming up and im crazy busy. i didnt say never. also i am aware of the aweful things the roman church did. i do not claim to justify their actions. although i would like to hear a significant change from the original manuscripts and translation to todays versions of the Bible
@ Isobel
Adding two chapters at the beginning of Matthew would probably be a good start for you. Forging 'Titus' another. Have you compared Acts with what Paul actually says and does? Its like they are not talking about the same person.Fun times....
The Roman "gospels" don't become unified until about 330CE and in 492 CE the Bishop of Rome promulgated the first of the "index" of banned books. Possession of which was heresy as was preaching anything but the Roman (Nicene) creed. So all those sects and early christians were suddenly declared apostate and heretics. 300 years of tradition, gone, and their books and texts destroyed.
I am not going to do your study for you. If you make such extraordinary claims as to the existence of a magical jesus, you should be prepared with extraordinary evidence. As you seem totally unaware of the history of the Early Church and its transformation into the Church of Rome then there is a large hole in your education that no amount of apologetics can fill.
Be curious. Ask questions. You will be told "don't think, have faith, the Church is infallible" Then go look it up; the information is in all the great libraries and online. The original texts are online...see what you find. It will not be what you have been taught.
also if u would like to be interviewed, just message me
Can you demonstrate any objective evidence for your beliefs or for any deity?
When you say you're resolved to believe something this is an a priori statement of bias. Surely if we're interested in the truth our resolve should be to remain objective.
@Isobel: I just want to talk about your beliefs.
Atheism is quite simply a lack of belief in the religious sense.
If you want to understand how a person reaches this state, look at your own religion. Now imagine yourself as a person from a non-Christian culture who hears this story today for the first time. Would you believe it? There's no evidence other than the narrative itself, which has been translated, re-translated and interpreted in as many different ways as there are Christian sects.
That's one of the reasons why I'm an atheist. Christianity and every other religion stretch my credulity too far.
Another reason is the harm and evil brought into this world by people who suspend reason and decency in the name of faith. Religions are, at root, tribal cults of hatred, death, and war. I won't be part of that.
as I have responded to some others, what I meant by beliefs was what you believe about the world and where it comes from and where it's going etc...
if u would like to be interviewed please let me know
@Isobel: what I meant by beliefs was what you believe about the world and where it comes from and where it's going
Then perhaps we should start by defining terms. A belief is something you accept without evidence, something that requires the suspension of disbelief. I would suggest to you that your "beliefs" are the products of childhood conditioning in a Calvinist Christian environment.
I don't have beliefs. I have a philosophy, values, morals about the world and how I behave in it. I acquired them in adulthood, so they are my own. I have incomplete knowledge about where the world came from and where it is going. What knowledge I have is based on science and is subject to change as new evidence comes to light.
After thousands of years of thought and speculation and over two centuries of scientific inquiry, not one piece of evidence for anything supernatural has ever been found. For me, that's enough to conclude to the absence of evidence is evidence of absence where gods are concerned.
i apologize. i did not define my terms. as far as the definition of beief goes, i use the dictionary definition: "an acceptance that a statement is true or that something exists.". it says nothing about evidence. as i understand it, one of your "beliefs" is that there is no evidence for a god, so by the dictionary definition, everyone necessarilly has beliefs.
in response to the assumption that i was conditioned as a child to be calvinist is quite far from the truth. as a child i never much cared about religeon, and by the age of about 13, i decided i was definitly not a Christian and hated everything about Christianity. a series of unfortunate events in my life led to me accepting God into my life at about 15, and ive grown stornger in my faith ever since.
@isobel: a series of unfortunate events in my life led to me accepting God into my life at about 15
I'm sorry to hear about your unfortunate events. We all react differently to tragedy in our lives. Some seek god. Some blame god, and others conclude that there can't be a loving god who'd let such things happen.
You said you accepted god. I'm assuming you're in a Christian country (the USA perhaps?). Which god do you think you'd have accepted if you were in India or Yemen? In Western countries, Christianity is still pretty much one of the gases that makes up the atmosphere. In other places the same is true of Hindu, Buddhism, or Islam. So how free are the choices that take people into Christianity?
@Algebe
Re: "In Western countries, Christianity is still pretty much one of the gases that makes up the atmosphere."
Beautifully put.
isobel,
The sun and earth trace back to a collapsing dust cloud about 4.6 billion years ago. Go back about 9 billion more years and the universe traces to the Big Bang. What happened at (or before) the Big Bang cannot be addressed by our present knowledge of the laws of nature. The only honest answer is that nobody today knows, including you. Some interesting speculation, based on what we know about reality, has been advanced by knowledgeable scientists.
If you take the time that has elapsed since the trilobites first appeared, and project it into our future, you will find earth to be too hot for complex life. About 4 or 5 billion years from now, when the sun reaches the end of its life, it will bloat up into a red supergiant. Venus and Mercury will be swallowed up, and possibly earth too. By then, however, its oceans would have been boiled off and its surface would be more like that of Venus--HOT. The red supergiant sun would then throw off most of its material and wind up as a white dwarf. If earth is still orbiting it, earth would wind up in a deep-freeze.
Perhaps intelligent life would arise on other planets, but if our universe continues to expand all life would eventually die out after the stars have died. If neutrons are unstable, having a near-infinite half-life, rather than permanent existence, then all atomic matter would eventually dissolve away into particles. The universe would become a dark, spacey, cold place with no one left to complain.
I accept the above as our current, best answer to your question.
I am called atheist because I hold no beliefs in any gods.
The following thread could be helpful: I'd like to ask a few general questions about Atheism.
It might contain much of what you are looking for. But feel free to post your own questions or whatever.
hi! you were the first to comment on my teacher's post. I'm so glad you're participating
Hi there! I would be happy to answer some questions from you.
feel free to message me any time about it!
@isobel: "their views and their reasoning behind their belief."
Atheism is not a belief. You do not understand the laws of logical discourse. If you assert that a god exists, then you have the burden of proof. Atheism does not begin by making the claim that god does not exist. It makes the claim that you have not proved your assertion so there is no reason to believe you.
Look at it this way. You tell me that the number of stars in our universe is even. (God exists.) I tell you that I do not believe you. I did not assert that the number of stars in the universe is odd. (God does not exits.) I only said that I do not believe you. You have not given me any evidence to support your claim.
This is called the "Null-hypothesis." The claim is null and void until such time as it can be proved. In 10,000 years no religion has ever proved the existence of a God or gods.. If you think you have a good reason to believe in a god, please post it. We would all love to hear it.
@isobel "Speaking of the God of the Bible?"
You gotta be kidding. There are 30,000 Christian faiths all asserting that they believe in the god of the Bible and all asserting that it is the Church up the street that is following false teachings and will end up in hell. Mormons, JW, Catholics, Evangelicals, Quakers, Prosperity Faiths, and more. At any point in time, 1/3 of all Christian faiths will assert that the other 2/3s are going to burn in hell. WHICH GOD OF THE BIBLE. The same god the Jews believe in? Then why not be Jewish. The same god the Mormons believe in? Then why not be Mormon? There is no "GOD OF THE BIBLE." There are only random and multiple interpretations of the magical God of the bible.
first of all, im afraid i dont have time to answers all questions and comments, but i will attempt to get to as many as i can. i do not believe that all other denominations r going to hell at all. anyone who reads their Bible and accepts what it says as truth and does not add to it or take away from it is probably gonna be fine, even if i dissagree with certain things they interpret differently. Mormons and JWs and Catholics and Jews etc. add and or take away bits and pieces of the Bible
@ Isobel
"anyone who reads their Bible and accepts what it says as truth and does not add to it or take away from it is probably gonna be fine, even if i dissagree with certain things they interpret differently."
Then you are sadly misled. The Pauline (Roman) version of the "bible" was very heavily edited from the pre Roman texts to the present day and parts of it were downright falsified to suit the powers that be around 350CE.
This is not a spurious claim the evidence of editing is very clear as is the evidence for falsifying third party accounts.
Then you have the problem of the gnostic gospels ( Nag Hammaddi) that pre date the earliest of your Pauline versions...and it goes on.
Cognostic advised you not to make claims that were easily disproved. Ignore that kind of well meant advice at your debating peril.
@Isobel
Re: " anyone who reads their Bible and accepts what it says as truth and does not add to it or take away from it is probably gonna be fine...
Mormons and JWs and Catholics and Jews etc. add and or take away bits and pieces of the Bible."
So you never wear cotton and wool together, Isobel? You don't eat pork, rabbit, oysters, scallops, crabs, crayfish or lobster? You observe the ritual impurity laws governing your menstruation? You avoid touching anyone for seven days? You clean anything you've sat or lain on? You're first in line at the rock counter when one of your peers is going to be stoned to death for disobedience?
Any believer who doesn’t add/subtract from the bible is going to be in a world of inconvenience and pain. They're going to be in jail for murdering people. Or more likely a mental health facility, because the bible's problematic morality and contradictions will send them quite mad. They'll be far from fine. The hard part's deciding what to add and subtract. It's so hard, 30,000+ Christian sects have different opinions on it and individual believers have different opinions again.
post deleted by Moderator for being plagiarized copyrighted material
@Isobel
Re: "...in reference to the early Israelite laws, the Apostle Paul points out that those who are born again are actually released from the Law (Rom 7:1-6; Gal 3:25) As Jesus himself put it, he came to fulfill the Law (Matt 5:17). "
Matt 5:17 "DO NOT THINK THAT I HAVE COME TO ABOLISH THE LAW or the Prophets; I HAVE NOT COME TO ABOLISH THEM* but to fulfill them.”
Looks like Paul indulged in a little addition and subtraction to me - and you are too. "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law..." is pretty unequivocal. Jesus said it twice. Nowhere did Jesus say the old Laws don't matter anymore, ignore them. Paul did, but Paul wasn't Jesus. Paul was more of an interpreter, an entrepreneur - add a little here, subtract a little there, emphasise this bit and ignore that bit- and if that means flat out contradicting Jesus, oh well! Them's the breaks! Come the Second Coming, I think Jesus's first act will be to break Paul's nose.
Anyhoo, you subtract the bit Jesus said about following Old Testament Law and look to the New Testament for your guidance. Fair enough, the OT's a bloody horrible book- enough to give grown women nightmares. If you filmed it, it would make 'Salo' look like a romcom.
So, you treat your slaves in accordance with the NT's guidelines. You have them, of course. Nowhere does the NT speak out against slavery. Nowhere does it denounce it. It takes it as a given, a part of life, the way things are and are meant to be - it just gives guidelines to regulate it.
Jesus himself found slavery very useful for teaching purposes: John 8:35 " A slave does not remain in the household forever, but a son does remain forever." Nowhere did Jesus denounce slavery. Not once. Nowhere did he tell a slave to run away and take as many as he could with him. Nowhere did he demand slave owners set their slaves free. Jesus accepted slavery as the natural order, as normal and natural as breathing- a strange trait in the loving Son of God, but not a strange one in an all too human rabbi who was a product of his times as we are of ours.
Paul told slaves to obey their masters, and he told masters how to manage their slaves. (Eph. 6:5–11; Col. 3:22–4:1).
And if you don’t have slaves? Well, that's because you're a product of your times and the NT's Laws about slavery don't fit you, so you've subtracted them. You ignore them. You ignore the NT's attitude to slavery altogether, because you have to. What else doesn't fit you, Isobel? How about 1 Timothy 2, verse 12, where Paul writes: "I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent." Most of the people you're addressing on this forum are men. I'm one of the few women. You've quoted Paul as an authority, yet you seem unwilling to bow to his authority here. Why is that?
ALL believers play the add/subtract game with the Bible, Isobel. Not just Catholics, Mormons, JWs and Jews. You do it too. So do the Christians in my circle. None of you have a choice. If you didn’t play the add/subtract, emphasise/ignore, time/context interpretation game, you couldn't believe anymore. I know. I stopped playing and read the bible.
*Please forgive the use of capitalisation for emphasis. I don't have the option of bold or italics on this tablet.
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