Hi I'm a friendly atheist :)

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TheKringledOne

TheKringledOne

Senior Member
#21
Dec 25, 2009
423
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#21
T_Laurich said:
Just curious why CC
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Luke might have a different reason but I just thought you might want to know why I, another atheist, am here. I would assume other atheists are here for the same reason as me too. CC has the best functionality to emulate what it is like to interact with Christians offline. This might seem strange to many, but I don't interact with many Christians about Christianity offline. However, I think that religion is an important aspect of people's lives and it is important to understand the common religious beliefs of the culture around you. CC helps with this. It helps A LOT.
 
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Samohito

Guest
#22
#22
HI Happyluke..! WELCOME join to CC I also have some agnostics and atheist friends. They joined into some christian site and they are friendly too. I would love to say JESUS love you.
 
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HappyLuke

Guest
#23
#23
T_Laurich said:
Just curious why CC

BUT WELCOME!
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Heyhey! I really enjoyed the much more argumentative debate chatroom run by ShockOfGod and his skilled Christian apologist moderators, but I was accidentally banned (I think it was an accident, someone else was being quite rude and my message was right under his). And I was trying to enquire more about the cosmological argument we were discussing, but am now left unable to finish my inquiry :( I was told that Vilenkin's work applies necessarily applies to ALL pre-big bang multiverse models, showing that there must be a necessary beginning from nothing, but after watching a lecture by him I found it lacking, he explained how it would apply to 3 popular multiverse models, but not that all models behave like this (for example, the M-theory hyperspace multiverse isn't H>0). So I'm after a new resource of intelligent Christians to further my search for evidence and valid logical arguments for God :)
 
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DannyC

Guest
#24
#24
HappyLuke said:
Heyhey! I really enjoyed the much more argumentative debate chatroom run by ShockOfGod and his skilled Christian apologist moderators, but I was accidentally banned (I think it was an accident, someone else was being quite rude and my message was right under his). And I was trying to enquire more about the cosmological argument we were discussing, but am now left unable to finish my inquiry :( I was told that Vilenkin's work applies necessarily applies to ALL pre-big bang multiverse models, showing that there must be a necessary beginning from nothing, but after watching a lecture by him I found it lacking, he explained how it would apply to 3 popular multiverse models, but not that all models behave like this (for example, the M-theory hyperspace multiverse isn't H>0). So I'm after a new resource of intelligent Christians to further my search for evidence and valid logical arguments for God :)
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I'm also an atheist. Welcome, you should find it interesting.
 
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TosinAsLeader

Guest
#25
#25
A happy atheist, I mean agnostic? Cool! I never seen one use a smilie face on their topic name before (of the thread), so it must be true lol.
 
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benbenjaminjamin

Guest
#26
#26
Hi there HappyLuke! I'm new as well.

I just recently joined CC to participate in the chat room.

I'm excited to see so many lovely atheists here! : )
 
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HappyLuke

Guest
#27
#27
This is awesome!! Everyone is so friendly
 
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HappyLuke

Guest
#28
#28
I'm also working on writing a book, 'conversations with theists', so if anyone would like to go 'on the record' and anonymously give me an interview through inboxes on what you believe and why, I'd very much like that :) Ideally I'm searching for scientific evidence or valid logical arguments, but all the conversations along the way are good too. You can tell me why you think faith is a rational justification for belief, for example :)
 
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Summer_Lyric

Guest
#29
#29
HappyLuke said:
Although depending on your definitions, you might class me as an agnostic :) I'm pretty scientifically aware, and I've been on my ongoing quest to find convincing evidence of God for almost a decade :)
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Hi HappyLuke the friendly atheist, I'm Sara the happy Christian (but you can just call me Sara. May I call you Luke?)

I was raised in church. Well, I supposed "churches" would be more accurate but to clarify I don't mean the chicken place.
I took some of my best naps on church pews, made the larger campuses into my playground and I've seen everything from "holy rollers" to money-driven cults. I spent the majority of my childhood wishing the God my mom told me about could be real. I spent so much of my time reading through the Bible, I'd even bring it to school with me and I'd beg pastors and Sunday school teachers to answer my questions but just couldn't find anything that made it into a reality for me. I always believed there could be something or someone great out there but I also felt like even if He were real, He was impossible to know or reach because all of "His people" that I knew created such a miserable example. I felt that He could have been staring me in the face the whole time and I just couldn't break through to reach Him because no one seemed to know how! Even so, I tried to hold out an optimism that if there were a Heaven, I'd hopefully be allowed to go since all of "His people" had done such a fine job of scaring the Hell out of me (sorry, guys. A little afterlife humor for you all to enjoy a bit... or hate completely, whatevs!) I had a few very personal experiences that seemed to give me glimpses to this God and I'd be prepared to believe I'd found Him but I'd carried my faith about Him not being there for so long that even if someone had showed me Scientific facts that supported God's existence, I probably wouldn't have believed it.

The day before my high school graduation, I stood in front of the mirror and realized that life was only going to make even less sense since childhood was officially over. I was scared but it hit me in that moment that my one constant, even as everything my life so frequently changed, was the God I'd been longing to know. It was then that I decided -- after a lifetime of everything I had seen, done and so desperately wished to believe in and know to be real -- maybe the most real part of believing in God was in the fact that even though I never had the black and white "evidence" in front of my face to prove His reality to me, I would always have the reality of the belief. So I prayed hopeful prayer that He would stay with me, even though I didn't know what I was doing or how to know Him. The rest is an even longer story but I can happily say that He never leaves your prayers unanswered.

There is a verse in Hebrews chapter 11 that says "Faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen." I guess what I'm saying is that maybe faith has to become your reality before the evidence can be seen. Have faith in something not being there and you will begin to believe in the evidence that says it may not be...

I know you didn't ask to know ANY of that -- and how could you? We've just "met" -- but I said it all to say this:
You're in good company, mate! I can't say I know just how you feel, but I think I know where you're coming from! :)
 
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Hungry

Banned
#30
Nov 26, 2012
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#30
Welcome HappyLuke. Have you read anything from Lee Strobel? I've found his books to be a good resource for Christian apologetics.
 
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GingerFollowerofChrist

Guest
#31
#31
If you go back far enough in creation nothing can't create something. Therefore their had to be something that created it. Answer is God. Their is One God and One mediator between God and man the man Christ Jesus.
 
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HappyLuke

Guest
#32
#32
Hi Sara, I really enjoyed your message! When you said that He never leaves your prayers unanswered, you mean the answer if often no, though, right? Or do you think we could set up a scientific test that would show the effectiveness of prayer? If we could, and praying to the Christian God gave reliably better results than praying to false gods or just thinking about it like a psychic, I could really build a case for the existence of the Christian God like that :) But as far as I know prayers haven't yet been shown to have any effect on hospital patient's recovery time, throughout a few studies. Ooo also you promoted faith, I consider myself to be mentally unable to have faith, I care too much about having true beliefs to believe things I consciously understand I don't have reasons to believe. Like, you wouldn't promote someone believing in anything other than Christianity on faith, would you?
 
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HappyLuke

Guest
#33
#33
Yes I've read a Lee Strobel, a William lane Craig, and a C.S. Lewis book, I actually found Strobel to be extremely disappointing, he misrepresented the science constantly and always interviewed people that agreed with him and asked them really gentle questions, pretending to be a sceptic but really just coaxing the answers he wants out of them. >"Professor, shouldn't we be sceptical of this testimony?" "No, I don't see any reason to doubt it" The professors words echoed with truth to me. Truly there was no good reason to doubt that this man saw what he is described as seeing in the bible.< sort of thing :p
 
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HappyLuke

Guest
#34
#34
GingerFollowerofChrist said:
If you go back far enough in creation nothing can't create something. Therefore their had to be something that created it. Answer is God. Their is One God and One mediator between God and man the man Christ Jesus.
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I find that to be assuming there was a state of nothingness at some point in time - something science hasn't confirmed yet. We do not know that if you go back far enough in time, there was a state of nothing that everything was created out of. It's possible that something has always existed, some background state that spawned our universe. I think about such things in a similar timeless way to how you'd think about God - I'm just not convinced this eternal state that caused our universe was necessarily a mind. But it's a huge area of interest to me! Can you demonstrate that answer? you just asserted it without reasoning before, "Therefore their had to be something that created it. Answer is God."
 
wisebeardman

wisebeardman

Banned
#35
Mar 22, 2013
4,718
124
63
Indiana
#35
The only thing I can say.

You can not prove there is a God. but yet you can not prove there is no God.

The Universe is vast and we are so small. There is really only one thing we can ever truly control... whether we are good or evil.
 
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HappyLuke

Guest
#36
#36
Great message, I'm very much into working hard to inspire people to care about being kind and reducing suffering. One slight disagreement though, you can not possible know that we cannot prove God, unless you're all knowing. There may be valid evidence out there that you and I simply aren't aware of
 
wisebeardman

wisebeardman

Banned
#37
Mar 22, 2013
4,718
124
63
Indiana
#37
HappyLuke said:
Great message, I'm very much into working hard to inspire people to care about being kind and reducing suffering. One slight disagreement though, you can not possible know that we cannot prove God, unless you're all knowing. There may be valid evidence out there that you and I simply aren't aware of
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As of right now. we have no proof ether way. May technology and scientific research one day answer the question? maybe.

but one thing i see over and over is the words "Have faith in him" Faith is a belief a belief he exist. Me personally I believe he does exist.

Of course if God wants us to have faith he exists and faith alone and he is all powerful as the bible says. He may never allow any hard evidince about his existance to ever been known.
 
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Hungry

Banned
#38
Nov 26, 2012
3,095
1,050
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#38
HappyLuke, please let me explain something to you. God calls us to be His children. Once you are a child of God your prayer life is not talking into the darkness. There is an actual tangible relationship that developes. If you went to somebody else's father and asked them for something there is a good chance they would give you a strange a look. Those of us who know God and listen to His voice and follow His commandments actually do get answers to prayers. If you seek Him you will find Him. He has no obligation to prove Himself to anybody, especially when the main intention of the search is to convince yourself there is no god. It is sort of a catch 22. Most people don't want to believe there is God unless they see Him, but you don't get to see God until you believe Him. So who is supposed to make the first move? He did. He sent Jesus. Look and seek Jesus then you will find God. There is a battle going on of epic good and evil. Some believe in God because they found Satan. They don't follow God but they believe He exists because they know Satan exists. Satan is a liar. Satan and demons have revealed themselves to many and have a following much greater than you think even to the highest captains of finance and politics.
 
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Summer_Lyric

Guest
#39
#39
Hi Luke! Thanks for that. Nah, I didn't mean that the answer is often "no" but I can see it as a possibility and an easy thing to believe :)

Anywho, yes that would be very cool indeed. Science is fascinating and endlessly creative so it would be wonderful to be able to combine two such wonderful things. I would love to know all of the scientific reasoning behind the power of prayer or even God Himself but unfortunately, I am not a scientist so I would not even know how to create such a test. Though if we're holding down that logic, I am also not named Tesla or even knowledgeable of the way electricity works and yet, I feel perfectly fine to use it to enhance my life. In fact, most of the things I use and come in contact with each day contain mystery but even though I haven't any insight to the intricacies of how it all works, I do just fine to understand their benefit.
Really good points and I know how fun it can be to challenge the views of others. I'm sure you're sick of the same answers but I sort of feel like you're just giving me the business here. Perhaps I am reading you wrong but in any case, you simply introduced yourself and didn't ask for my opinions so I guess I set myself up for that by ranting on.

I understand your hunger for knowledge and I hope that you will get every answer that you want, however I'm bummed to say that I am not the scientific expert that can confirm or deny any of it for you. Cheers! :)
 
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