Become a theist

Author: Fallaneze

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#181
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@janesix
Actually, that isn't really what the church teaches.

The church teaches that women should submissive to their husbands, but also that husbands should be submissive to their wives.




#182
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@Mopac
What quotes form the Bible say that

#183
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@Mopac
I am of course talking about God, not your parents.
If the "YHWH" gives life to all living things, how do you suppose that human life is worth any more or less than that of a bacterium?

If the "YHWH" perfectly designs and imbues amazing magical life into a bacterium, doesn't that make each and every bacterium super unique and oh-so special?
#184
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@3RU7AL
Are you willing to live with faith in His standard (His Son) or do you think your own is adequate? You either meet His just requirements and standards through what the Son has done on your behalf, or you are responsible for meeting those requirements on your own merit. How well do you think your merit measures up?
The christian teachings seem to suggest that nobody can "meet gods just requirements and standards" and the only way to get into heaven is by faith and grace.

This would seem to devalue human life, suggesting that only the Jesus is worth anything and everyone else are just worthless free-loaders who don't deserve to get into heaven on their own merit and can only get in if they have blind faith in something for which there is zero evidence.  This means that "blind faith" itself is worth more than human life, and if you don't have "blind faith" then your life is worth nothing.
I disagree. It shows that God is holy and pure, without sin and to enter His presence (have a close relationship with Him) you need to be without sin in yourself. Thus, Jesus accomplishes by grace what no accountable human being can do of their own accord. So, in fact, it is the opposite of devaluing life to come to faith in Jesus Christ. Life is devalued when we don't treat all human beings equally, yet the New Covenant teaches we are all one in Christ. That means even though we have different abilities we have equal value before God in our humanness. The unborn (being a human being) is of equal value to the newborn or adult human being. 

1 Corinthians 12:13
New American Standard Bible
For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.

Galatians 3:28 New American Standard Bible
There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

While we have different roles and different abilities we are one in Christ. 

***

As for the evidence, there is plenty. But I understand how it is easier to deny the evidence than to accept it. I was there once. 


Either you believe in the means He has provided for reconciliation (His Son) or you continue to live alienated from Him. 
Either I am lucky enough to be born into an environment that allows me to have "blind faith" or I am unlucky enough to be either unaware or skeptical of this magical free trip to heaven limited time, special offer.
We, as Christians, are not called to blind faith but a reasonable faith. Whether we reason out or salvation with trembling and fear or just blindly trust Jesus told His believing followers to worship God in MIND, spirit, and body. 


Matthew 22:37 New American Standard Bible
And He said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’

I think you know the way the Bible, especially the NT, prescribes. Whether you believe in the prescribed means is up to God and you. He has provided the means for salvation (being saved from your sins that alienated you from God via the Son). 

Jesus *said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.



It seem like luck is a very poor principle to base your sense of personal "meaningfulness" on.
Where are you getting the luck from?


Your accusations of "atheist bias" (even if 100% valid) grant zero credibility to your conclusions.
Why is that? 
It seem like luck is a very poor principle to base your sense of personal "meaningfulness" on.
I still don't understand what luck has to do with believing? I think the message is clear - Jesus died to reconcile the world (all those who would believe and trust) to God.


Do you recognize that we all hold bias? 
Very good. So you do. 



If you believe God does not exist how will you ever know Someone you deny exists? 
Saul of Tarsus didn't believe in gods until he saw an angel with his own eyes.  It sounds to me that Saul of Tarsus didn't have any faith at all.
He still did not believe gods were anything other than idols, even after the Damascus experience. Paul/Saul had faith in God, he was just given a greater understanding of God after the experience. He realized Jesus was also God and the Holy Spirit was God.  

Here is Pauls teaching on gods, after the Damascus experience:

For even if there are so-called gods whether in heaven or on earth, as indeed there are many gods and many lords, 6 yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom are all things and we exist for Him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we exist through Him.

#185
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@3RU7AL


If you are acting on your mind being necessary on understanding the universe, or even yourself, how well are you doing in that understanding? 
Well, since you can only "understand" information with your "mind" it would seem to be tautological.
While this is true that you need your mind to comprehend anything your mind is not a necessary mind and what you perceive is not always what really is. So how can you be sure your mind is rightly discerning something?


Why do we exist? 
Because our parents had an adequate survival instinct and reproductive impulse.
Why did they and those before exist? You are not getting to the base of the question. I'm speaking of origins. Why did this universe happen? Why is there life in this universe? How did you, as a conscious being come about from matter?


Are you a fluke of nature?
I wouldn't imagine.  There are a great many creatures that have adequate survival instinct and reproductive impulses.
So what was molding your development if there was no intent or agency behind it, and what maintains it (the uniformity of nature)? Again, how does chance happenstance sustain anything? Things just happen. Why should they continue to happen in a prescribed pattern that we call a law of nature? There is no reason unless there is a Reasonable Being behind the universe sustaining it. Reason comes from mindful beings. Show me a stone that is reasonable or reasoning. 


What would be necessary for certainty? 
Perhaps a personal, qualitative "road to Damascus" experience.

Reading an old book isn't really going to cut it.
Romans 10:17
So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.

So, if you hear the message faith can arise from it because God's thoughts are being conveyed to you. 



Logic is not material in nature, but abstract and immaterial. So how do you get something immaterial from the strictly material?
Logic is not itself "material", however, like speed and weight, it is rigorously defined and independently verifiable.

Without basic logical functions, a mind cannot learn from experience or make simple predictions.

Logic is verifiable by its efficacy.
But if everything is material, how do you get something immaterial like logic. It can't be touched, tasted, seen, felt, or heard. Grab hold of logic for me. 
Grab hold of the concept of verifiability for me. 


Atheism is not a "system of belief".  Atheism is a general skepticism of unverifiable phenomena, like Russell's teapot.
Yes, it is for you have to believe something to disbelieve God. 
This is provably false.  Any number of Deistic beings and or mythological gods may "exist" or may have "existed" at some point in the past.
Is that a belief?

#186
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@3RU7AL


I just don't understand how any of them change anything about epistemological limits and or logic and or basic standards of evidence.
The biblical teaching is God has revealed Himself, thus it would be via His thoughts written down and by His interactions in the world and universe. 

From a created universe you would expect to find things that give evidence of a Creator, like finding reasons in what we see. We find meaning and reasons why things are the way they are. We don't create those reasons, we discover them. The reasons were there before we thought them. The laws of logic or the laws of gravity or any natural law, such as the laws of thermodynamics do not depend on your reasoning for their existence. They exist independent of your reasoning. 

"Reasoning" is a mindful process, yet these laws are not dependent on your mind, or mine, and yet you find they are reasonable. 


You start out with the premise that God does not exist 
I start out, like anyone, with the premise that nothing exists (all phenomena are unreliable).
If all phenomena are unreliable then don't worry about looking both ways when you cross the street. That car coming at you is unreliable. It is not there. Nothing exists. Now see how your thought process works in the real world (Nice knowing you!). Do you see the inconsistency of such a statement? 


or there is no evidence for God and you look for your explanations by excluding God as the likely reason. 
The axiom "there is no god" is absolutely nowhere in my ontology.
It must be somewhere or you would not have stated it. You can conceptualize God. You are discussing God. You have beliefs ABOUT God. Nevertheless, you deny God. How can you discuss Someone/thing you have no belief about? If I said pink unicorn you would conjure up an image of a horse with a horn in the middle of its head, so there is a belief there. You also have a concept of the color pink. You believe it is different than the color green or purple or you have a wrong conception of pink. "Pink" is the word we use to describe a particular color or hue. Unicorn/God is the word we use to describe a particular being.    


You build your whole worldview from its core belief on outward like the layers of onion on materialism and naturalism.   
My "whole worldview" is based on the core belief that, "I think, therefore I am".
Then have you stuffed everything into a very small narrow box in which things are hanging out that don't fit into your neat little box? Have you not contemplated how you got here unless you believe you created yourself (novel idea - self-creation; also self-refuting) or everything is an illusion? And what about your parents? You mentioned them earlier. 


Prima facie, axiomatic "atheism" has absolutely nothing to do with epistemological limits and or logic and or basic standards of evidence.
The worldview is constructed on particular premises. It looks for naturalistic means to explain things. 


I mean, I certainly believe it is fair to say that Spinoza's god exists.
I don't know much of Spinoza or his teaching, so what you are saying is not being comprehended except that I believe he thought everything was god or held to pantheism (the universe is god and god is the universe). The biblical God, on the other hand, is personal and distinct from the universe.



#187
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@disgusted
So it's not right but do it anyway, objective morality at work or is that hypocrisy?
Sometimes you are confronted with the lesser of two evils. It is still wrong to steal, to take something that does not belong to you. Once you mess up on one standard of rightness you are guilty of breaking the law. 

Thus, you have a problem and since you are not able to live up to the standards of righteousness you need Someone who has. 

Romans 3:9-11  (NASB)
9 What then? Are we better than they? Not at all; for we have already charged that both Jews and Greeks are all under sin; 10 as it is written,
“There is none righteous, not even one;
11 There is none who understands,
There is none who seeks for God;

#188
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@PGA2.0
Do whatever you like cos the Jew has already paid the bill, morality is meaningless.
Objective morality, it is to laugh.
Black and white isn't reality.
Why do you quote meaningless drivel written by the IPSS?
#189
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@janesix
Do you agree with Christian values, such as women should be submissive to their husbands? I think that's a pretty big one.
It certainly goes against some views on feminism. Who was the audience Paul was speaking to? I believe it was to the Church at Ephesus and the Church at Colosse. And the culture was different then than now. What were the problems they were experiencing? Even so, I see a principle, even principles in the teaching, that is/are valid.

We have different roles and functions as male and female and God created the male first and held the male responsible for eating the fruit in the Garden. There are responsibilities God gives to both. But we are both, male and female, equally valuable in God's sight. There are also spiritual object lessons here. The husband and wife are analogous to Christ and His bride, the Church.


 Marriage Like Christ and the Church

22 Wives, be subject to your own husbands, as to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, He Himself being the Savior of the body. 24 But as the church is subject to Christ, so also the wives ought to be to their husbands in everything.
25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, 26 so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless. 28 So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself; 29 for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church,30 because we are members of His body. 
31 For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and shall be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.
 
32 This mystery is great; but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church.
 33 Nevertheless, each individual among you also is to love his own wife even as himself, and the wife must see to it that she respects her husband.


[ Family Relations ] Wives, be subject to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord.

Husbands, love your wives and do not be embittered against them.

A husband is to give himself up for his wife. He is to honor her, respect her and watch out for her, guarding her as Christ guards the church or body of believers. 



EDIT: I am not ignoring the rest of your post, i am still thinking about it


Just my personal observation, through years of watching and thinking about the subject matter. I think the situation may come to a crisis in your country.

Os Guinness, Ravi Zacharias, and other Christian thinkers alerted me to the issue (how gatekeepers of society can influence whole societies to a particular way of thinking) way back when (possibly the 1980s or 1990s) and I have been aware of the situation since. I think it was first Henry Morris, then R.C Sproul who first influenced my thinking on the consequences of ideas. There are paradigm shifts in history where an idea takes hold of culture and changes its perspective. I also learned from a friend who told me that if I want to find out about someone, then find out who influences them. That has been very insightful. Then in the 1990s, I studied worldviews and how each one of us builds a belief system starting on a core or foundational belief and spirals or radiates out from there. But the core is the foundation on which other ideas take form and the rest of your belief structure is built.    

#190
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@disgusted
Do whatever you like cos the Jew has already paid the bill, morality is meaningless.
Judging from past communications I don't believe you really think that or else you would not have charged God with every crime under the sun.  

Objective morality, it is to laugh.
I don't understand your sentence structure as to its meaning. 

Black and white isn't reality.
Black and white are hues we use to describe a color. Metaphorically speaking black and white means something entirely different in relation to truth and falsehood, not true is false and false is true! True is true no matter whether you believe it or not. True can never be false and still be true. 

Why do you quote meaningless drivel written by the IPSS?

It is not meaningless. 
#191
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@PGA2.0
When you say Christians are delusional because they place faith in an invisible Being I query how well your belief system can make sense of why you exist? If you do not care to question this then you are left with your facts and the present alone. Nothing else can be known, or so you seem to believe.

So unless I make assumptions about things I don't actually know to be true, I can't know those things? I guess you've never heard of scientific research? Please carefully read what I'm about to say.

For thousands of years, humans thought the earth was flat. One day, science proved that wrong. You're saying that had I been alive about 50 years before science proved that the earth is round, and I had withheld any affirmative belief(no belief that the earth is flat, nor round) until science proved which one it is, that means I don't care to question the shape of the earth, and nothing of it can be known? In what universe, other than the confines of your imagination, would that ever make any sense at all?

You are so deluded. You say atheists are delusional because they don't make assumptions about the origins of existence. Ironic that an assumption actually IS delusional. Say what you wish. Your words are devoid of reason, and it's painfully obvious.
#192
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@janesix
Ephesians 5:22-33


"Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord.
For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body.
Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing.

Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;
That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word,
That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.
So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself.
For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church:
For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones.
For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh.
This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church."
Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband

#193
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@Mopac
Nah. Submission and love are two different things.
#194
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@3RU7AL
Part of the mystery of the incarnation is that it sanctifies all of creation.

Contrasts this with the error of the gnostics and other dualists who by contrast take God's creation as dirty and even evil.



Why do you take people as being of equal worth as bacteria? You say this, but I doubt you've ever known a bacteria as you've known another person.

#195
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@janesix
Love as Christ loved the church. With self sacrifice.


So there is a certain level of submission involved. It is not a domineering type of relationship.

At the end of the day, man is the head of the household. As it should be. 

And a good husband will listen to his wife and be willing to compromise. In fact, I don't think it is possible for a marriage to work otherwise.


Really, a good husband does know when to submit to their wife... which is probably more often than a man would like to admit. But there is certainly a time when a man needs to stand up.

I am married. We are very happy with our relationship. In fact, we love eachother more every day. We do things as prescribed by the church. God is number 1 in our relationship. In fact, whoever dies first, the other is going to be a monastic. That's the kind of relationship we have.


#196
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@Mopac
Why "should" it be that way? 
#197
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@janesix
Because men and women are different. Not better, not worse, but different. And there is a certain time tested and proper way to go about things.

If it mb isn't obvious that the other way doesn't work, divorce rates have skyrocketed, as have the multiplication of orphans since the so called "sexual revolution" and feminism. 

It's destructive.


Let us not envy or covet eachother's places. 


#198
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@Mopac
What a bunch of total BS.
#199
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@janesix
I really need a "rofl" emoji. Jesus. Not only is this dude delusional, but also sexist as hell(sexism, as with any form of prejudice, is delusion, but still).
#200
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@janesix
Why do you say that?

#201
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@brutalloser


Blocks what he doesn't want to hear.

#202
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Only in this century is the idea that men and women are different controversial.
And only in a very small part of the world, because there are still many places where a woman will not be taken as seriously as a man during negotiations.

Its reality. Men and women are different. Everybody knows this. Women, it should be obviouus to you that men treat you differently than they do guys. No amount of a woman pretwnding to be a man is ever going to make her a man. No amount of a man pretwnding to be a woman is ever going to make them a woman.




#203
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@Fallaneze
No evidence for or against any god or gods. 
#204
3RU7AL
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@Mopac
Part of the mystery of the incarnation is that it sanctifies all of creation.
All of creation, including bacteria.

Contrasts this with the error of the gnostics and other dualists who by contrast take God's creation as dirty and even evil.
If the "YHWH" created everything, then the "YHWH" created dirt and evil as well and should take full responsibility.

Why do you take people as being of equal worth as bacteria?
If you believe that humans are "meaningful" only because you believe they were designed by and given life by the "YHWH" then, quite logically, everything else that was designed by and given life by the "YHWH" must be equally "meaningful".

You say this, but I doubt you've ever known a bacteria as you've known another person.
There are a great many people that I have never known, does the fact that I am unfamiliar with something or someone diminish their intrinsic "meaningfulness"?
#205
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@janesix
Nah. Submission and love are two different things.
Just think of the equivalent statement - Husbands should submit to their wives and wives should love their husbands.

It doesn't seem to have the same ring to it.  It doesn't seem very "equal".
#206
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@3RU7AL
The thing that makes human beings meaningful is not the fact that we were created by God so much as it is that we are created in the image of God. And the discipline of the Christian is to clean that image so that we can be truly human rather than reduce ourselves to the bestial level through our predispositions to idolatry and being slaves to the flesh.
#207
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@PGA2.0

I disagree. It shows that God is holy and pure, without sin and to enter His presence (have a close relationship with Him) you need to be without sin in yourself.

Oh sure, nobody is disputing that the "YHWH" is super cool, but humans are sinful trash.  The scriptures teach that all humans are born sinful so there isn't really anything we can do about it ourselves.


Thus, Jesus accomplishes by grace what no accountable human being can do of their own accord.
Right, humans are sinful trash that should be tossed into the flaming trash heap of She'ol.


So, in fact, it is the opposite of devaluing life to come to faith in Jesus Christ.
I agree, humans are sinful trash and the only way to make a human "valuable" is by a leap of blind faith.

This logically leads us to the conclusion that "a leap of blind faith" is intrinsically more valuable than a newborn (super sinful) baby.


Life is devalued when we don't treat all human beings equally,
All humans are sinful trash.  So, all in all, mostly equal.


yet the New Covenant teaches we are all one in Christ.
It teaches that only all blindly faithful leapers (christians) are equal in the eyes of the Jesus.

That means even though we have different abilities we have equal value before God in our humanness.
Well, not really.  All sinful trash humans are equal and all blindly faithful leapers are equal, but a sinful trash human is not equal to a blindly faithful leaper.


The unborn (being a human being) is of equal value to the newborn or adult human being. 
Well, not really.  All sinful trash humans are equal and all blindly faithful leapers are equal, but a sinful trash human is not equal to a blindly faithful leaper.


For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.
Exactly, all blindly faithful leapers are "baptized into one body".  The rest of the sinful trash humans go into the flaming sewer hole.


There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
This statement referrers specifically and exclusively to blindly faithful leapers.


While we have different roles and different abilities we are one in Christ. 
This statement referrers specifically and exclusively to blindly faithful leapers.

Isn't it funny how the overwhelming majority of Preachers and Deacons are male?  I wonder why?


As for the evidence, there is plenty. But I understand how it is easier to deny the evidence than to accept it. I was there once. 
Holy smokes, "evidence"??  Who needs faith again?  In order to maximize your faith, you should ignore as much evidence as humanly possible.

Without your faith, you are human trash.  Anything even remotely resembling "evidence" should be treated like toxic waste!!!!
#208
3RU7AL
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Either I am lucky enough to be born into an environment that allows me to have "blind faith" or I am unlucky enough to be either unaware or skeptical of this magical free trip to heaven limited time, special offer.
We, as Christians, are not called to blind faith but a reasonable faith. Whether we reason out or salvation with trembling and fear or just blindly trust Jesus told His believing followers to worship God in MIND, spirit, and body. 
Reason and faith are mutually exclusive.  "Trembling with fear" and "intelligent, rational thought" are mutually exclusive.


And He said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’
If your mind is full of love, there can't possibly be much room left for "intelligent, rational thought".

Interestingly, brain scans of people reportedly "in love" show that intelligence is distinctly inhibited.

I think you know the way the Bible, especially the NT, prescribes. Whether you believe in the prescribed means is up to God and you. He has provided the means for salvation (being saved from your sins that alienated you from God via the Son). 
Unfortunately the "YHWH" didn't design me with the capability to make blind leaps of faith.


Jesus *said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.
Of course he did.  The problem is that there are literally thousands of denominations, and many of them claim to be the one and only true path to heaven.


It seem like luck is a very poor principle to base your sense of personal "meaningfulness" on.
Where are you getting the luck from?
You must be lucky enough to have been designed by the "YHWH" with the capacity for blind faith.


I still don't understand what luck has to do with believing? I think the message is clear - Jesus died to reconcile the world (all those who would believe and trust) to God.
Why didn't the Jesus die for everyone everywhere???

Why does the Jesus neeeeeed you to "believe" anything at all?

Can you imagine a rescue team of firefighters who put out a raging forest fire, and then tell people in the nearby towns that they will surely burn to death if they don't thank them with their whole heart and soul and mind?

If the Jesus fixed the problem of "original sin", then why do we have to thank him or make sure he gets full credit?

I mean, wasn't the whole "original sin" problem sort of a design flaw in the first place?

I mean, who in their right mind would blame all newborn humans for the "sin" of their ancient great great great grandfather?

Saul of Tarsus didn't believe in gods until he saw an angel with his own eyes.  It sounds to me that Saul of Tarsus didn't have any faith at all.
He still did not believe gods were anything other than idols, even after the Damascus experience. Paul/Saul had faith in God, he was just given a greater understanding of God after the experience. He realized Jesus was also God and the Holy Spirit was God.  
Thanks for the hair-splitting.

Saul of Tarsus didn't believe in the "YHWH" until he saw an angel with his own eyes.

Saul of Tarsus had zero faith.

If you ask me, "what would it take for you to believe in the Jesus?" 

I'd simply say, "send me a holy messenger angel that I can see with my own eyes".
#209
Mopac
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Just think of the equivalent statement - Husbands should submit to their wives and wives should love their husbands.

It doesn't seem to have the same ring to it.  It doesn't seem very "equal".

Yet Jesus said that the servant among you is the greatest. That is the example of love we are given by him.

What does that mean? It means that the love a husband has for their wife should resemble that of a servant

But woman being the head isn't precedent, and if and when everything in society falls apart and we are catapulted back into the dark ages, it will be very clear to everyone why woman has to submit to the man in the end, as it was for all but 99% of human history and in select geographic locations in that time.

#210
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Biology. Survival skills. Women traded protection and food for mating rights during pregnancy and while having to raise small children. Some societies turned this natural inclination into women being "property" of the male. That is not as it "should" be. There is no cosmic law saying women are inferior to men and thus must be subservient. 

It's about survival and continuation of the species.