Is there such a thing as an atheist?

[mustaphadrink]

And then there is this report...

UNPRECEDENTED REVIVAL BREAKS OUT IN LAND ONCE HOSTILE TO CHRISTIANITY

Editor’s note: This story is particularly encouraging to those of us in the Australian Prayer Network who together with CityHarvest International have been taking prayer teams now every year for more than 5 years to all the North African countries mentioned in this article. We give God all the Glory for what He is doing in these nations.

A Christian revival is touching the northernmost reaches of Africa. In a region once hostile to the Gospel, now Muslims are following Jesus in record numbers. Said Tino Qahoush, a graduate of Regent University and filmmaker who has travelled to the Mideast: "What God is doing in North Africa, all the way from Mauritania to Libya is unprecedented in the history of missions. I have the privilege of recording testimonies and listening to firsthand stories of men and women, of all ages where they can be sitting in a room and see the appearance and the presence of God appear to them in reality, like a vision.

Some of them tell stories of how they carry on a conversation with God—it's not just a light that appears. From the shores of Casablanca in Morocco to Tripoli, Libya, experts say the growth of Christianity has been unprecedented. And now that growth is also evident in the North African nation of Algeria. In fact, said Pastor Salah, pastor of one of the largest churches in Algeria, where every new Christian in his church comes from a Muslim background, "We never thought the Algerian church would grow so big." Since Pastor Salah's church opened, they have reportedly baptized an average of 150-160 new Believers per year.

 

[mustaphadrink]

Not to mention this report....

WHY REVIVAL IS EXPLODING AMONG MUSLIMS
By Audrey Lee a freelance feature writer.

Thousands of stories are emerging from around the world of Muslims being awakened to the gospel, literally from their dreams. It started with a dream. In A.D. 610, a man named Muhammad retreated alone to a cave in Saudi Arabia to meditate. There he believed he was visited by the angel Gabriel in a dream. It is said the disturbing experience thrust Muhammad into a depression until he received another angelic message: "O Muhammad, verily thou art in truth the prophet of Allah." This revelation was the beginning of many for him and birthed a religion-Islam-that would profoundly change the course of the world.

Today thousands of Muhammad's followers are having dreams and visions of their own-experiences that rock their world. While political revolution avalanches throughout the Middle East, tremors of spiritual change are also being felt on a widespread scale, especially within countries hostile to Christianity. Ironically, thousands of stories are emerging from around the world of Muslims being awakened to the gospel, literally from their dreams.

Karima, a Muslim, dreamed she was in a car when it crashed. She was knocked out, but when she opened her eyes (in her dream), she saw that Jesus was the driver. "Come to me," He told her, "I am with you. I love you." That experience led her to seek out a Christian church, where she responded to the gospel.

. Omar had been locked up and tortured for years in a jail cell in a nation ruled by a dictator. One night a messenger visited him in a dream, telling him he would be set free. Within days he was released from prison and travelled to America where newfound friends reached out to him. When he was given a book with a picture of Jesus on the cover, his eyes lit up. "I know him," he said. "He came to me in a dream."

Yasmin was fearful and anxious. She cried out to Allah, asking him to help her, but she remained unchanged. One night while visiting friends in the U.S., she was awakened from her darkness with an epiphany. "Walking around the house of my friend," she now explains in broken English, "suddenly I felt that I was blind, but now I can see." That terminology, though cliché to most believers, was foreign to Yasmin, who was born in an Islamic nation and was never exposed to "Christianese." "It was very obvious," she recalls, describing it as a feeling as if something literally changed inside her head. "I felt that it was Jesus who did something to me."

She later learned her sister-a Christian still living in her home country-was praying for her. Yasmin received a Bible, was baptized and began to grow with her new church family. (Her sister, now in ministry, has also had supernatural encounters, saying that she's heard the voice of God seven times, "like a man beside me, talking to me. Whatever He says to me, it happens to me," she describes.)

If that is the demise of religion, lets have much more demise.

 

[nl]

Q. Why is good music enjoyable? I don't see that we can rationally explain it.
Q. What is beauty? I don't see that we can rationally explain it.

This is the Personal Incredulity Fallacy, Just because you can't explain it ( or even I) it doesn't make it unexplainable.
Even if it was never explained, it doesn't follow that god is the answer.
https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/personal-incredulity

OK. The human enjoyment of music and beauty may not prove God. But, rationality cannot fully explain music and beauty. Rationality has limited powers. People follow intuition regularly. Rational people can enjoy music (and beauty) in ways that they cannot explain.

In fact, the Personal Incredulity Fallacy can be used against unbelievers.

"Because you found something difficult to understand, or are unaware of how it works, you made out like it's probably not true."

God is difficult to understand. God has revealed much via nature and special revelation in Scripture and Providence but He hasn't revealed everything. Just because God is difficult to understand or you are unaware of how He works, you don't need to behave like God is not true.

Q. What is conscience and the intangible moral sense of righteousness and injustice?

Morality comes from our society, we developed morality to enable us to form groups and survive.
There are a number of books on this, I recommend Sam Harris'.

No, morality is derived from a metaphysical sense. Even dogs appear to have a sense of shame if they misbehave. It's inate and it is there at the youngest ages. It's not learned from society. You can repeat the assertion morality is developed by society and repeat it again but that would be propaganda and a fallacy and that wouldn't make it true. Morality is derived from knowledge. Moral obligation increases as knowledge increases. Wherever knowledge exists, there exists the need to use that knowledge in a moral and righteous manner.

Q. How can there be a beginning to the universe and not have a cause to that beginning?

We know nothing about what brought about the Big Bang, if anything did. Uncaused events do happen in quantum physics, but for any more you would have to ask a physicist. Fortunately there are many places that can help you understand this.

Absolutely, science can claim nothing before the Big Bang because it doesn't know. Even if uncaused events happen in quantum physics, it may be that the cause has not yet been detected. How did the attributes of quantum physics get established? Hint: Scientists don't know. Books, bridges, trains, planes, and film projects all have designers and developers. It makes no logical sense for the universe to be different. If you believe that the universe exists without a designer or developer, then that looks more like a wish and one that defies logic. If there is a God who made it all, then He has ownership rights. If God made us, then He is an owner and Lord and Master and we have obligations to Him. If God is god, then He ought not to be ignored. You may wish it otherwise.

A. There must be a cause. If there must be a cause, then there must be a god.

I don't agree with either proposition. You can't just say "We don't understand x, therefore god" It doesn't follow.
(Even if it did, why should it be your particular god?)

You can't just say "We don't understand x, but there must not be a god. We won't allow it." It doesn't follow.

Q. Why is the universe so orderly as well as the laws of physics that order it? A. There must be a cause...

Nope. It does not follow.

Yes. The logic in computer software doesn't write itself. Not yet, not fully ever. The logical order of the universe didn't write itself. The universe is no exception.

Q. How is the earth sustained so well with so many ecological and physical factors in a delicate balance? A. There must be a cause...

Actually, no. We 'fit' on this planet and in this environment because we evolved to do so. Why would a creature evolve to suit another set of parameters? Douglas Adams had a good answer to questions like this when he said it was like a puddle being pleased that its hole, 'just fits'.

How did such evolution happen? What is the evolutionary "force" that designs and creates? Do you pray the pantheist benediction of Star Wars: "may the Force be with you"? Is there a "soul" to a pantheistic cosmos? Do you imagine yourself to be part of a cosmic consciousness and intelligence (part of god)? Are you claiming to be part of god yourself and thus able to boast in your share of what your imagined evolutionary force has accomplished? Is evolution just deaf, blind and stupid or do you think that it is something more?

Q. When evidence points towards God, will you follow the evidence?

Yes. The moment someone presents me with some, I shall.

That's great that you promised that. Glad.

 

[Deadtosin]

Do you have a link?

http://christianchat.com/testimonie...ural-experiences-god-angels-demons-satan.html

 

[nl]

...If the universe needs a cause, then why not God?...

1) Thomas Aquinas (c.1225–1274) devised what we call cosmological proof of God (from Greek: kosmos) (1) Every event has a cause.
(2) God must be an ‘unmoved mover’.


2) Life Follows From Uncausality

One of the essential characteristics of life is motion, for all life has some form of motion or growth. Everything that moves (like living things) is moved by another, and there can’t be an infinite regress of movers. Thus, there is a First, Unmoved Mover (God). Yet God is not immobile, for He is the most moving Mover, giving life and existence to all else. This First Mover of all living things must itself be living.

Geisler, N. L. (2003). Systematic theology, volume two: God, creation (p. 257). Minneapolis, MN: Bethany House Publishers.

 

[Cycel]

1) Thomas Aquinas (c.1225–1274) devised what we call cosmological proof of God (from Greek: kosmos) (1) Every event has a cause.
(2) God must be an ‘unmoved mover’.


2) Life Follows From Uncausality

One of the essential characteristics of life is motion, for all life has some form of motion or growth. Everything that moves (like living things) is moved by another, and there can’t be an infinite regress of movers. Thus, there is a First, Unmoved Mover (God). Yet God is not immobile, for He is the most moving Mover, giving life and existence to all else. This First Mover of all living things must itself be living.

Geisler, N. L. (2003). Systematic theology, volume two: God, creation (p. 257). Minneapolis, MN: Bethany House Publishers.

Bertrand Russel dismissed this argument many decades ago. He wrote a brief summation in his book, Why I am Not a Christian. Essentially he asks, if anything must be imagined without a beginning, why not make it the universe?

Look at it this way. Can you explain the physical cause of the Big Bang? I mean really explain it? Don't just say God did it and walk away. Tell me how God did it. You can't, can you. So then how can you claim with any certainty that God caused the Big Bang or made the universe? The unmoved mover might be something other than God. A mover might imply intelligence, but perhaps there is no intelligence involved. You cannot claim with certainty that God created the universe when you really have no idea how the universe started. When you do this you are simply attributing the cause of the universe to a deity whose existence you are wishing to demonstrate.

 

[doseofreality]

1) Thomas Aquinas (c.1225–1274) devised what we call cosmological proof of God (from Greek: kosmos) (1) Every event has a cause.
(2) God must be an ‘unmoved mover’.


2) Life Follows From Uncausality

One of the essential characteristics of life is motion, for all life has some form of motion or growth. Everything that moves (like living things) is moved by another, and there can’t be an infinite regress of movers. Thus, there is a First, Unmoved Mover (God). Yet God is not immobile, for He is the most moving Mover, giving life and existence to all else. This First Mover of all living things must itself be living.

Geisler, N. L. (2003). Systematic theology, volume two: God, creation (p. 257). Minneapolis, MN: Bethany House Publishers.

This argument only takes you so far, the conclusion is there must be an unmoved Mover. Yet the leap is saying that this unmoved Mover is a person who has God-like qualities.

The problem is you start with an assumption (God) then use the cosmological argument to justify the existence of the assumed God. However, the argument does not directly infer a God in the christian definition, it merely argues for something or some force that must be eternal and was the first cause.

 

[nl]

This argument only takes you so far, the conclusion is there must be an unmoved Mover. Yet the leap is saying that this unmoved Mover is a person who has God-like qualities.

The problem is you start with an assumption (God) then use the cosmological argument to justify the existence of the assumed God. However, the argument does not directly infer a God in the christian definition, it merely argues for something or some force that must be eternal and was the first cause.

Intelligent, human persons create books, bridges, software programs and film projects. Creating the universe required a higher intelligence. A non-personal creative force would be insufficient to create the universe.

 

[nl]

Bertrand Russel dismissed this argument many decades ago. He wrote a brief summation in his book, Why I am Not a Christian. Essentially he asks, if anything must be imagined without a beginning, why not make it the universe?

Look at it this way. Can you explain the physical cause of the Big Bang? I mean really explain it? Don't just say God did it and walk away. Tell me how God did it. You can't, can you. So then how can you claim with any certainty that God caused the Big Bang or made the universe? The unmoved mover might be something other than God. A mover might imply intelligence, but perhaps there is no intelligence involved. You cannot claim with certainty that God created the universe when you really have no idea how the universe started. When you do this you are simply attributing the cause of the universe to a deity whose existence you are wishing to demonstrate.

Truth (and logic) are unchanging. Truth doesn't evolve. Truth at the time of Thomas Aquinas in the thirteenth century continues unchanged today.

As CH Spurgeon has been quoted as saying in the nineteenth century concerning necessary principles of theology: If it is true, then it isn't new.

I don't claim proof and certainty but I do assert that faith in God is logical.

The Lord God, Creator and Owner of the Universe, is happy to help those today who live in honest unbelief. But, people do tend to believe what they want to believe (like Loch Ness monsters and leprechauns). Justification for a belief too often comes afterward. Men are dependent upon God to provide the Holy Spirit and power for discernment of spiritual truth.

 

[Percepi]

Intelligent, human persons create books, bridges, software programs and film projects. Creating the universe required a higher intelligence. A non-personal creative force would be insufficient to create the universe.

But intelligent humans didn't create all the natural cave formations, stalactites and stalagmites, create ice or coal, or played a role in creating the universe.

Could you therefore assume that it would be impossible for there to have been a creator? If we used your logic, we could! This argument doesn't work at all - so it doesn't prove or disprove God.

Just because one object required intelligence to create doesn't necessarily mean all objects required intelligence.

Furthermore, one could also use your argument to argue humans created the universe. If HUMAN intelligence is behind clocks, buildings, phones, etc., then the universe must have been created by a human. Again, this is a flawed argument, but it's the same reasoning your using.

 

[nl]

“A person convinced against his will is of the same opinion still.”

No one is going to continue to be convinced of God unless they allow themselves to be convinced. Human will can resist for the duration of a lifetime.

 

[mustaphadrink]

Intelligent, human persons create books, bridges, software programs and film projects. Creating the universe required a higher intelligence. A non-personal creative force would be insufficient to create the universe.

if there is a non personal creative force you are back to the idea that it created it whatever it is.

Judging by the circular arguments of atheists here, nothing is true unless they believe it to be true. I might say that the Maclaren Mercedes is the best car on the road, but if an atheist is convinced that it is not the best car on the road, nothing you say will convince him because every reason you bring up, the luxurious interior, the incredible speed, the silence of the engine, the advanced technology that runs it etc. they will always say that another car is better, whether it is or not because they cannot cope with being wrong. As one atheist told me "We are NEVER wrong."

On that basis, talking to an atheist is like banging your head against a brick wall because NO ONE is right all the time and NO ONE is wrong all the time so saying you are never wrong means that you are God because he is the only one that is never wrong. When you think like that you are destined for annihilation because it is the product of pride and pride ALWAYS goes before a fall.

 

[Percepi]

Judging by the circular arguments of atheists here, nothing is true unless they believe it to be true.

Nobody is arguing that God doesn't exist because we don't believe in him.

As one atheist told me "We are NEVER wrong."

Atheist or theist, he's wrong.

 

[nl]

Desire for man's will instead of God's will can be a cause for unbelief.

Human beings are free moral agents who have been given the ability to make their own decisions. Different human hearts show different inclinations towards what they like or enjoy but people make free will choices every day.

Freedom, however, always comes with responsibility. It is the responsibility of each person to find and follow truth.

One of the common reasons people prefer not to believe in God is because they apparently do not want to conform to God's will as revealed in God's Word.

But your iniquities have separated you from your God; And your sins have hidden His face from you, So that He will not hear [your prayers until you begin to repent]. (Isaiah 59:2)

 

[Percepi]

One of the common reasons people prefer not to believe in God is because they apparently do not want to conform to God's will as revealed in God's Word.

If we believed God's will was real, we wouldn't be atheists. Even if we didn't want to abide by his will, we would still believe in him.

What you fail to understand about our lack of belief in God is the fact we don't believe in him. Your arguments are aimed towards us as if we do believe in him.

That's like saying, "Some people don't want to follow the law, so they choose not to believe in cops."

You have a hard time trying to fathom how anyone can not believe in God. You try to rationalize it, and the thing that makes the most sense to you, you assume that's the reason we don't believe in God. But your assumptions are wrong.

 

[Cycel]

Desire for man's will instead of God's will can be a cause for unbelief.

To be honest Nl this sounds more like a Christian interpretation of why men become atheists, than why they actually do, unless I am not really understanding you, and that is entirely possible.

Can you give me an example of what you mean by desiring "man's will"?

Human beings are free moral agents who have been given the ability to make their own decisions. Different human hearts show different inclinations towards what they like or enjoy but people make free will choices every day.

Freedom, however, always comes with responsibility. It is the responsibility of each person to find and follow truth.

It was following truth that led me to the views I hold today.

One of the common reasons people prefer not to believe in God is because they apparently do not want to conform to God's will as revealed in God's Word.

I think this shows a lack of understanding of how people become atheists. This certainly wouldn't be true of myself and I suspect it is not true of most atheists, if any. I have often heard the conjecture that atheists follow the path they do in rejecting God so they may gain more freedom in not following God's commandments, but I have never met an atheist who thinks this way.

People behave in all sorts of ways contrary to the requirements of scripture, and this is when they already believe in God. No one needs to stop believing in God before they can engage in such activities. The Christian world is full of instances, for example, where preaches rant against some behaviour on Sunday only to engage in it themselves when they think no one is looking.

When people stop believing in God they do so for other reasons. I think what really happens is not that people choose not to believe, but rather find they have lost the ability to believe. Some try mightily to get that belief back once they realize it has slipped away. I tried, unsuccessfully, and Dan Barker tried. He is a former, conservative biblical literalist and evangelical preacher. He’s written several books and one very interesting one on how he lost his belief in God. You can find him on You Tube if you are so inclined.

 

[Kerry]

Man does have free choice. Choice to a slave to sin or choice to be free from bondage by placing there faith in work of Christ. There is no other choice.

 

[Cycel]

Man does have free choice. Choice to a slave to sin or choice to be free from bondage by placing there faith in work of Christ. There is no other choice.

The difficulty is Kerry that a person cannot simply will themselves to believe, anymore than they can will themselves to love. Saying I can choose to believe in God is like saying I can choose to romantically fall in love with anyone you might ask me to fall in love with. I can't just choose to make it happen. This is what so many Christians don't seem to understand.

I don't know if you have ever fallen out of love, but you cannot simply will the love back, as much as you might wish you could; and if you fall out of belief in God you cannot simply will that belief to return. Believers seem to think that atheists have simply chosen not to believe in God, but it is not like that. I did not choose not to believe; I lost my belief. There is a huge difference. Once lost, love – and or belief – cannot simply be willed to return.

 

[Spokenpassage]

Man does have free choice. Choice to a slave to sin or choice to be free from bondage by placing there faith in work of Christ. There is no other choice.

You don't choose your slavery. People who sin are a slave to sin, until the Lord brings them to life and frees them from that bondage. Free will is either in bondage to sin, or captured by grace. You cannot "choose" your slavery.

Just pointing that out there brother.

 

[AgeofKnowledge]

Tell it to Peter Hitchens who simply willed himself to live as if it were true initially and discovered that God accepted this and met him in that place and took him the rest of the way to where he needed to go.

I suppose I'll just continue to correct this false assertion of yours that a person simply cannot will themselves to believe or to love. Obviously, they can. Feelings can follow action just as action can follow feelings.

But we're back to repeating the message because you will not to retain and act upon the information. Think of Abraham who experienced times of doubt, didn't always do the right thing, and had motives that weren't always pure. Yet, he is remembered as the "father of the faith."

Abraham made a choice to believe God and over time God gave him the gift of faith interacting with Abraham until he had all the experiential content and knowledge he needed to never doubt God again. That is why Abraham is called the father of the faith.

One exercises their will to put their trust in Christ and God empower them. Jesus says, "If a man chooses to do God's will, he will found out whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own" -John 7:17.

Will -->Faith-->Knowledge/Experience-->Belief. It's not for no reason that faith is always a verb in the Gospel of John (e.g. a direction of life that God begins validating).

Many smart people have exercised their will toward faith on the corroborative evidence that exists for God subsequently gaining the requisite knowledge and experience from God resulting in absolute belief.

This why the Bible paints a picture of faith as an instrument. The imagery is that of saving faith appropriating Jesus Christ and everything he has to offer (Jn 11:25–26; 14:1; Acts 16:31; 1 Jn 3:23), the means by which a person is justified (Rom 3:28; Gal 2:16; 3:8, 24), sanctified (Acts 15:9; 26:18), adopted (Gal 3:26), and the action through which a person receives the righteousness of Christ (Rom 3:22; Phil 3:9).

The Bible is full of accounts of the faithful which show what genuine faith can lead to but so is our world today. . Yet are there any heroes and heroines of the Bible without faith? No.

Even the great falling away from the faith foretold at the very end of this age that precedes the rise of the "son of perdition" (e.g. anti-Christ) and the tribulation that will follow before Christ's return at which Jesus Himself once stated if any faith at all will remain when He returns (Luke 18:8) itself can strengthen one's faith as they observe the prophecy in action.

Meaning that faith can certainly grow stronger. Though the faith of some may be weak (e.g., Rom 14:1), there is always room for it to grow (Lk 17:5; 2 Cor 10:15; 2 Thess 1:3).

Even in small doses, genuine faith is potent stuff. This is not due to the power of the faith itself but to the power of the God in whom faith is placed as faith is an open door into a relationship with God (Acts 14:27).

The difficulty is Kerry that a person cannot simply will themselves to believe, anymore than they can will themselves to love. Saying I can choose to believe in God is like saying I can choose to romantically fall in love with anyone you might ask me to fall in love with. I can't just choose to make it happen. This is what so many Christians don't seem to understand.

I don't know if you have ever fallen out of love, but you cannot simply will the love back, as much as you might wish you could; and if you fall out of belief in God you cannot simply will that belief to return. Believers seem to think that atheists have simply chosen not to believe in God, but it is not like that. I did not choose not to believe; I lost my belief. There is a huge difference. Once lost, love – and or belief – cannot simply be willed to return.