A question for atheist

While checking on that I found the perfect bumper sticker. Must get one

 

Yes, many people wave their belief system in our faces.
But how does that disprove what I'm saying? Because many more don't.

 

No, but if a player chose to no take part in the team prayer, people like you would say it's because they hate Christians, and I highly doubt you would support a non-Christian prayer before a game.

 

I love atheists. If they're right we both end up in the same place anyway. If I'm right we end up in a vastly different place.

 

No, we don't. If God is loving and ever forgiving, then he probably won't mind that I didn't think of him every living minute of my life when entering heaven. In any case, where would he set the cutoff? Would you go to hell if you think of him only 5% of your time? 1%? Is one prayer just before you die enough to get you out of hell? I don't know, maybe you have an answer.

 

Read the Bible my friend. It's quite specific. Yelling Ollie Ollie Oxen free at the last minute simply won't save you from the lake of fire, nor should it. Just because God forgives you for your sins doesn't mean there is no punishment for them. I recommend you buy an asbestos swim suit. Again, if you're right we end up in the same place, if I'm right.....well....enjoy your swim.

 

I am still not sure how that works. Does he forgive you for your sins only if you ask? What if I didn't sin, but don't pray? Do I still go to hell? What if I did sin, but gave only lip service to forgiveness? Hell or not?

If it is so clear and easy to explain, why don't you try to explain it instead of referring to the bible?

In any case, I may just go with Pascal's wager and start praying before my last breath. I guess there will be not much to lose, but much to gain, by praying for a few minutes before the end.

BTW: Where does the bible talk about hell? I am not aware of this point, but maybe I am wrong. In any case, how is hell compatible with a loving, forgiving God?

 

You really think God will fall for that? Again, buy an asbestos swim suit.

 

Why would anyone insist that because a person is an atheist they are somehow evil or immoral....that would be very ignorant.
There is so much evidence to the contrary which one would acknowledge if one was honest.



When christians do wrong things the other christians make up the phony excuse that "they weren't really christians" .

Well, when atheists do wrong they aren't really atheists, they're christians pretending they're atheists....

 

"Asbestos swimsuit"...how cute ...and as imaginary as anything else in religion.....is the Devil really red with a villain's mustache, horns and a long forked tail....just like in fairy tales???

 

I'm an atheist and you know what, not upset that you pray to some god.

As someone free from dogmatic narrow mindedness it does raise a few questions though.

Here's one.

People consider prayer to be a sign of your faith in god but if you really had faith in god why pray, why not just trust in his plan?

 

Another good question, to which I am sure you won't get an answer.

So far, the only answer from Professor Peabody I have got to some pointy questions is that I'll go to hell and he won't. However, there weren't any specifics as to why that is the case. I am definitely not considering myself a sinner and I try to be nice to people most of the time (don't always succeed, like many Christians too). So, the only difference is that they ask for forgiveness and I don't? That doesn't sound like a loving and forgiving god for me, if you have to beg to be forgiven.

 

Two men die and face judgement. Both men have lived good lives and have been good people who helped others. One is an atheist and the other is a Christian.

They are both asked why they did the things they did.

Christian: Because I was a God fearing Christian who feared the punishment of hell and wanted to live with God in heaven.

Atheist: I didn't believe in any of that, I was good because I chose to be.

Do what I say or suffer seems like a pretty petty existence to be the creation of an all powerful let alone all loving being.

"If people are good only because they fear punishment and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed."

Albert Einstein

 

As a life long non-believer in godly like things, I have no problem with you praying. But look at it this way. My sister is a good Christian and regularly practices the characteristic rituals. For instance she is in the practice of before every meal, when everyone is seated and the food is upon the table, she recites prayers over the food and the people there assembled. So whenever I go over to her house I expect this behavior and am okay with it because, after all it is her house.

At my house things are different. We have no thoughts about gods or such things. And so when a meal is prepared and everyone is seated we commence eating without any form of ritual. Yet when my sister comes over to my house for dinner she tries to insists that we preform her ritual before we eat. So while I sit quietly by and let my sister do things her way in her house she is unwilling to show me the same respect in my house. If she wanted to just sit there and do her little sign of the cross thing and quietly mumble her prayers to herself while the rest of us dug in to eat, that would be one thing. But that is not what happens. She wants to force her prayer upon the rest of us.

And, to be completely honest, when I see someone praying, to what is, from my perspective, the attempt to communicate to a non-existent being with whom one apparently has some type of emotional bond, I see lunacy. So even if I have no problem with one praying, it does however have a negative impact on my opinion of them.

 

Very good points!

That's what gets me, it is the judgement. Just in this thread you can see that ProfessorPeabody has judged me that I go to hell and he goes to heaven. He has, of course, no idea whether I deserve to go to hell or not, he judges just on the basis that I normally don't pray. Of course, the implication then follows that people who pray = good, people who don't pray = bad.

And that's exactly the problem I eluded to earlier in the football prayer example: If you don't pray, then the other players and/or spectators observe that and immediately conclude that you are a less-good person than the ones who pray.

 

I'm not that sort of Atheist. Pray all you want, I'll even do so myself when socially encouraged (baptisms, funerals, war memorials, etc).

 

Context?

 

Sin really is a silly concept. The Christians will tell you it's "falling short of perfection" or some such. I'd say it's not living up to an ideal. The religionists who believe in the sin concept have taken the innate human capacity for forming and striving for ideals and turned it into an imaginary life or death matter.

 

We're not mad that you pray to him. We're mad that you think you should be able to dictate laws based on a book that had talking snakes and a virgin Giving birth.

 

So after 12 pages of atheists clearly stating the exact opposite of your false assertion, you have anything to say or are you running away to another thread where you show your ignorance and we laugh at you?

 

You might be left alone if you stopped trying to proselytize us at every opportunity and to cram you superstitions down our throats via the public schools, public places and government.

 

Because atheists find the idea of God more offensive than the idea of people getting hurt. They don't consciously recognize this, of course, but if you watch their actions, they show you where their priorities are.

 

I doubt anyone other than the militant fringe minority cares if you pray. I think atheists in general just do not want to have to live by your theistic standards.

 

Athiests only believe in what is known. This is actually a failing of their belief, because what is known is always changing. They attack religion (most of the time Christianity) due to its biblical verses that are contrary to beliefs of today with respect to morality. Also, if they are true atheists they will deny the existence of good and evil. My bet is because people don't take them very seriously here in the US they feel an obligation to attack what they see as an immoral religion. So, when someone prays or if a cross is displayed in their presence, it becomes an affront to their thinking.