I urge all the non-believers to check out this website link . I also urge you to find a church to at least visit and listen. I ask you to give the Lord a chance. Go to a church and just listen to the message. I would suggest visiting more than one because some churches have lost their way and have strayed from the word of God. What could it hurt. If I am wrong like some of you think then all you did was waste a little time, however if I am right then you may be on the road to salvation.
You're the reason that non-believers like myself fight the fight we do. I was a Catholic growing up and left at 16. I went from Christian, to Buddhism, to Agnostic......to now pure non-believer. It was a 12 year journey that had me researching every damn type of faith available. Some of us gave God a chance. Some of us did all we could to follow what we were told. Some of us tried and dealt with the internal struggle for years. What killed everything for myself was the lack of conversation and the push to believe what someone else believes. Sharing my ideas about life/faith/reason with a Priest/Christian/anyone hard into religion is like trying to explain calculus to a 4 year old. I ask of you to give the non-believers a chance. Hear what they say....take a step back......look at the ideas presented and expand. It will help you in your own belief.......or make you look deeper into what you put your faith into. I do the same as a non-believer. I look to people of faith and without faith to expand my knowledge. Don't preach but learn. Your brother at church might have the same faith but in a slightly different way. Learn. Stop pushing what makes you a good person and learn what makes others tick. If everyone learned from others instead of preaching........we might finally advance in both a religious and scientific form. In regards to Hawking......I respect the man. Tough life and smart as hell. Amazing mind. But he is doing what we all do. Throwing a guess and see how it expands. Until people can talk and not judge...... look objectively at all reason and possible meaning......we will be here. Stuck running on ice.
yea, you get to suffer 700 septillion years and more in a fire in exchange for 20 years of disbelief. some God. no thanks. do not want.
I have not judged anyone. I told non-believers to visit a lot of churches to hear the message because there are many churches that get it wrong. If you took the journey you speak of and came out a non-believer then you more than likely visited the wrong churches with the wrong message. Just because there is a building that has a sign that says it is a church, it doesn't mean they are preaching the right message. When someone goes to a church that does have the right message then the Holy Spirit will tug at their heart strings and plant the seeds of faith. The right message is the one presented in the Bible. If a church is not telling you how your only chance at forgiveness and salvation is by belief in Jesus Christ then you are getting the wrong message.
How does the threat of hell fire make one believe? That's like some dude pointing a gun to someone's head and saying, "I'm going to pull the trigger unless you believe [insert something the person doesn't believe or doesn't have an opinion on]". The dude might get the person to say "I believe", but that's not actual belief. To believe something, you have to actually believe it. That requires compelling reasons. "I'm going to blow your brains out otherwise" is not a compelling reason. Its just a threat from a psychopath.
Yes, a lot of people aren't aware that it's poetry. Here's a little something on the background, and it gives some background knowledge into the word that was translated as "create" that could also mean "fatten". So in other words God fattened the heavens and the earth. This isn't where I originally learned about the creation as poetry, but it's what I found doing a quick search.
Yeah. It's like God saying, "Here's free will, have fun. It's a GIFT" "What? You ****ed up? Well, I can't have that now.... What would other people think of Me?" "And all that misery around the world that I could intervene on...I wouldn't want to ruin your GIFT now?" "...Or maybe I just don't care."
All I ask is that non-believers visit several churches so that they might hear the proper message. If anyone hears the proper message then the Holy Spirit will do the rest. I am not threatening anyone with hell fire. I am but a mere humble servant of God. If I said there was no such thing as hell then I would be lying.
Why is it necessary to visit a church to hear the proper message? It can't be received by just reading the Bible?
How do you determine what is the proper message? If I go to your church, are you willing to guarantee that the Holy Spirit will "do the rest"?
What did I do that I need forgiveness for? If God created me, he also created my capacity to "sin." So, if God exists...everything is really his fault anyways. Yet you tell me I'm just a crappy human who needs "salvation." Screw someone who's cool with sending amazing people to an eternity of torture. Obviously my friend who feeds and clothes the less fortunate will go to hell just because she believes in logic and reason and not some arbitrary prayer to "get you in." I wouldn't worship God even if he was real.
cml750, I don't ever try to talk someone out of their religion. If you believe it, you will probably be a lot happier, as long as you are not trying to burn people you think are heretics or imposing draconian laws on people with little right to choose otherwise. And I understand that proselytizing is a giddy self-confirming act, really self righteous. But that ***** is a boring thread killer. And really, probably wasted on this audience. It ain't like we haven't thought about it, Thanks though, you will have better luck at the Christian Youth Club.
Whatever makes you feel at peace and keeps you controlled, which is what religion was (man) made for. If you were born in India or Iraq, would you blindly follow a different religion? Do you know that the higher up the educational ladder a person goes, the more likely that this person is an agnostic/atheist? In fact, most of our great thinkers on this earth are that way, yet they are essentially banned from getting into office because of their views that are rooted in science. I have been to a hundred churches, and they are all the same. The bible is modern mythology. Good morals and lessons, but to consider them in any other way is, to me, absurd... Richard Dawkins causes a fuss because he puts religion through the scientific gauntlet, just as any other theory would.
there are so many things we have yet to learn/explore... no one really knows what's out there... I wonder if other animals believe in a God
