Subject: None
The fool has said in his heart, "There is no God" I wouldn't fool with God, He is, and He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. It is appointed unto man once to die, and after that JUDGEMENT, Where will you spend eternity, Heaven or Hell?
I wish I had a nickel for every email I've received where the author either started or ended their tirade with the personal insult "the fool has said in his heart, 'There is no God." Many insist, though, that they aren't responsible for the sentiment because they are just quoting the Bible - so the Bible should be blamed, not them.
It's so sad to see a person eschew personal responsibility for their words like this. Just because you are repeating a charge or allegation doesn't mean that you aren't responsible for believing it - especially when it is repeated in a manner that makes it look like you agree with it. Calling someone a fool simply because they don't agree about the existence of a God is no way to initiate a conversation with a stranger; it is, however, a great way to communicate the fact that you aren't interested in real dialogue and only wrote in order to feel better about yourself through attacking others.
Why do you people have so much trouble accepting the love of God? Why rebel against a loving, compassionate, long-suffering, all knowing, Heavenly Father who loves you inspite of your sin? If we say we have no sin, we lie. The heart of man is deceitful and desperately wicked, and who can know it? Would you consider the love and compassion of a father to his own children not important?
The questions above seem to assume that atheists aren't really atheists and don't really disbelieve in gods; instead, we actually know that God exists but simply have trouble accepting that God really loves us despite our sinful natures and actions. Or, alternatively, we refuse to accept that we sin and as a consequence refuse to accept that God wants us to stop sinning. Neither statement, however, is true of atheists. Anyone who believes in a god is a theist - they may be an angry theist or a scared theist or a confused theist, but they are still a theist.
The rest of us are atheists. That means that we don't believe in the existence of any gods. That, then, means that we don't believe in any gods from whom we would accept love. We don't believe in any gods that are loving or hateful, compassionate or mean, all-knowing or stupid.
There is one God and one mediator, and that is Christ Jesus who paid your debt on Calvary, The gift of God is eternal life, if you accept that gift it is yours. Reject it and suffer the loss, that is eternal separation from a loving God. You don't understand it, because God is too big for you, but in childlike faith you can except Him and learn, He will guide you into all truth. Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life, no man comes to the father accept through Him. Are you ready to commit your life to Him, Now is the accepted time, today is the day of salvation!
If I have committed crimes, it is my obligation to pay for them. It would be immoral and unjust to allow anyone else to accept the penalties on my behalf. A merciful lightening of the penalties might be nice - but I could never live with myself if I allowed an innocent being to suffer those penalties instead of me. That, unfortunately, is the basic message of orthodox Christianity - and no amount of arguing about how it is a freely chosen sacrifice will change the notion that accepting such a sacrifice makes one morally culpable for it. And that is immoral. So after going on about how we are all sinners and need relief from sin, Mason then proceeds to recommend a course of action which is more immoral than anything else I have ever done!
I pray that God will touch your heart and reveal Himself to you!
Why would a person pray for this? If God has already decided to do this, then the prayers are redundant. If God has decided not to do it, Mason is asking God to change plans, a request which hardly seems appropriate. Why doesn't Mason simply have faith that God knows what is best and will do whatever God wants instead of presuming to have a better idea about what God should be doing?
More selections from the Agnosticism / Atheism Mailbag...
Ah, I love it when Christians use that verse. I usually point out this one when they cite Psalm 53:1:
Matthew 5:22 (King James Version)
“But whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire.”
Bible verses aside, this loving god business is a crock. The brainwashed zombies don’t really love their god, they’re afraid of him. Why else talk about not knowing why god does this or that or allows miseries to occur? How can you even love someone human who would arbitrarily allow those things this loving god does to his children? A human parent would be arrested and thrown in jail for abuse and murder.
I actually heard one of the Midwest flood victims, who was totally wiped out, say “I don’t know why God did this, but I still have faith in him”. I rest my case.
I meant to add this: You tell me who’s the “fool”.
Sojourner?…
On behalf (I’m guessing) of many of us atheists who’ve thought the exact same thing…
Thanks for “nailing” that!
Or, as we sometimes say on Gods4Suckers…
RAMEN!
Sojourner,
I am a Christian, and you are right, we are afraid of our God. The relationship wouldn’t work without fear and respect for a God so much greater than us, after all, he is GOD and we are just human.
Proverbs 1:7 The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge,
But fools despise wisdom and instruction.
I am not calling you a fool, I am simply saying that our God is big. Like when we are unable to explain why God puts tradgedies in both believer’s and non-believers lifes. We are unable to explain it because Our God created this world, we have been individually created(my belief, I understand you have different beliefs) The God I believe in is All knowing, All powerful, All present. This is why it makes sence that we can’t fully explain these situations. If I could explain just what my God was like, what he looks like, and what he is trying to accomplish through each individual situation,(whether tradgedy or accomplishment) then that wouldn’t be a God big enough for me, and I would not worship him.
I always get a laugh when someone (usually a theist) quotes the bible to support his or her position. I do not believe in god, nor do I believe in the bible, the greatest piece of fiction ever written. To me, someone quoting the bible to convince me something is true has just as much effect on me as someone quoting, say, a passage from “Alice in Wonderland” to convince me something is true.
Joe,
“If I could explain just what my God was like, what he looks like, and what he is trying to accomplish through each individual situation, then that wouldn’t be a God big enough for me…”
An unknowable God is the same (for all practical purposes) as no God at all.
If we have no god to examine, then opinions about god are based upon ignorance and upon accepting claims that cannot be tested, verified, or falsified. Such claims have no meaning, because they can never be called “true,” in any meaningful sense.
If I can’t gauge the truth value of claims god, and I have no god to examine, I have, literally, “nothing.”
All anyone can speak about in any informed way is their concept of god. It’s like discussing our concepts of fairies. We can’t discuss or describe real fairies, since we have no data regarding real fairies. Only concepts of fairies.
Hey Joe, ponder this:
If god is truly “All knowing, All powerful, [and] All present” (and everything is part of his plan), then none of has free will.
John K,
I see what your saying by saying an unknowable God is the same as no God at all. This is what I think is beautiful, God desires more than anything else, for us to know him. We get to know him by reading the bible(I like to say those are his love letters to us), by praying(praying to me is not saying meaningless words to an unknown person, it is a cry from the heart, it is a desire to know my creator,) and finally through worship(praising the greatness and splendor of HIM.)
Now, Again, that may be meaningless to you, but that is how we can communicate with God, and we believe that communication is only possible because Jesus Christ came as man, and lived a perfect life and died for all mankind.
Ok, so that sums up just a little bit of my faith.
TRACIAH and MIKEC, MIKEC especially, I thank you for that thought, I have spent a lot of time thinking about that in the past, and am definently willing to look at it again. Here is the way I see it, through my human eyes. If I were God, and I created the world, How could I get the world to love me back? Well, you can force people to “love” or “worship” you. But True love, or worship, only happens through choice, this is simply the start MIKEC. Now most people look at us christians and think that the God they worship is this huge control freak there to break us down and make us a bunch of goody goodies, and our job is condemning non believers to hell, or bugging the whole world with our “joy.”
So, I want to just say that I am here to talk openly, I do not want to push all my beliefs that you have already heard before, I would like to clear up questions if I can. But I dont have all the answers…..who does? haha, I just think it is time for christians to talk, and not condemn, so I will try and do my part. Thanks
Hey Joe – way to avoid responding to MikeC!
I’ll reiterate:
All-knowing = this guy knows everything that has happened, is happening, and will happen.
All-caring = this guy’s love for me, you, MikeC, TracieH, and the other 6 billion on the planet is so great and so unending, that he wants only for us to be happy… as he sees happiness.
All-powerful = this guy’s got the ability to do anything. ANYTHING. Think about that!!!
The bible puts forth the claim that this guys manages to assume all three characteristics, but let’s break it down.
If it is true that he is all-knowing and all-caring, then he cannot be all-powerful because he knew (all-knowing) the tsunami would kill 200,000 in Thailand and Indonesia AND he cares about each of us (all-caring), but he still let all those people die, and all their families suffered…
If it is true that he is all-caring and all-powerful, then he is not all-knowing. Maybe he really did care about the 200,000 AND he went ahead and created the tsunami but didn’t know they would die as a result of the tsunami’s effects… hmmmm….
OK, and if it is true that he is all-knowing and all-powerful then clearly he is not all-caring. Refer to either of the above, plus the current flood in the US mid-west, Katrina, any other natural disaster, Hitler, Bin Laden, the Inquisition, so-called “holy” wars and those waged in his name…
Read your bible with some objectivity. It’s OK to ask questions.
I see what your saying by saying an unknowable God is the same as no God at all. This is what I think is beautiful, God desires more than anything else, for us to know him.
I find it interesting that you apparently agree wholeheartedly that “god” is unknowable and undefined, and yet in the very next breath, you claim to know exactly what “god” wants, desires and needs.
How do you reconcile those two diametrically opposed points without your brain explosively bifurcating?
I always find it fascinating that someone can, with so little apparent effort or thought, portray such ignorance in so few words.
We get to know him by reading the bible(I like to say those are his love letters to us), by praying(praying to me is not saying meaningless words to an unknown person, it is a cry from the heart, it is a desire to know my creator,) and finally through worship(praising the greatness and splendor of HIM.)
Now, Again, that may be meaningless to you, but that is how we can communicate with God, and we believe that communication is only possible because Jesus Christ came as man, and lived a perfect life and died for all mankind.
Ok, so that sums up just a little bit of my faith.
If, as you say, you can “communicate” with “god” through prayer, then why is it that in all studies done regarding the efficacy of prayer (from the time of Galton forward) has it been shown to be no more effective than random chance? If “god” wants to communicate with us, why use such an inefficent and unreliable means? Can’t he come up with something more effective and consistently applicable?
I really find it troubling that an almighty creator deity that believers claim is so damned interested in my personal well being (not to mention, my sex life) is so drattedly incapable of clear and effective communication and responsiveness. It’s almost as if “god” didn’t exist, and all those prayers and chants, rituals and hierarchies, were no better than random mumblings and useless gestures, just power-grabbing schemes used by the clever to extort and control the ignorant masses.
Hmmmph. No wonder atheists are always so grumpy — “god” never listens to us!
An unknowable god, “…desires more than anything else, for us to know him?”
Does an unstoppable force “desire more than anything else” to move an unmovable object?
Did your omnipotent being create the universe just so we can experience living in a paradox?
The real fool is someone who swallows the viewpoints of self-proclaimed authority on the basis of recycle fairy tales written by uneducated men who were bigoted toward women, other ethnicities, and critical thinking.
People who believe in order to save their own ass (which is the reason, deep down) are not only insincere but dangerous to democracy and freedom.
Casting judgment against atheists is baseless, though coming from theists who ignore evidence leaves me unsurprised.
Also note that you’re not a fool for writing ‘There is no God,’ you’re apparently a fool for saying it in your own heart, which means you’re a fool just for believing something, regardless of how you externalize it. And you thought Pascal’s Wager would work?
Cheers!
To those who claim that a fool says in his heart there is no god, I respond ” Ah, yes, but the wise man shouts it from the rooftops!”
It is mindboggling to listen to godbots claim that the mysteries of god are unknowable in one breath and in the next we are told what god desires of us. Putting aside the mutual (and ridiculous) exclusivity of such a statement, I wonder:
This god of the christians – is he supposed to be perfect? What does it mean to be perfect? To be perfect means to be complete: wanting nothing, needing nothing, desiring nothing – otherwise how can it be perfect? So for a human to impart to his god a desire is to automatically declare it IMperfect. And godbots can’t understand why atheists view their beliefs as utterly ridiculous?
It is mindboggling to listen to godbots claim that the mysteries of god are unknowable in one breath and in the next we are told what god desires of us.
Well put.
Mankind consists of crooks (most religionists), suckers (most religionists), and lazy cowards (the rest). We are nothing but fools. We are all unique fools. None of us are special fools.
Darwin Finch, welcome to my quote collection! – http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=dhs623jg_9f5s8rg&hl=en
“The fool has said in his heart there is no god.” SO, EVEN a FOOL knows that there is no god. Christians are WORSE than fools.
Someone needs a dictionary or grammar training.
”
but in childlike faith you can except Him and learn, ”
this only makes limited sense if you replace except with accept. (only the meaning attempted to be conveyed, not the truth of the statement)
I refuse to consider advice from people with limited command of English grammar.
It is also irritating when they try to redefine the meaning terms.
Jeremy D.,
Out of curiosity, what’s with this ‘(jmd 1990)’ business? Is 1990 your birth year? I apologise if I sound rude, disrespectful or anything.
Anywho, I’d rather doubt (or even deny outright, as in some cases) the existence of gods on the basis of my sense of reason than accept the proposition of some god’s existence based on ‘faith’. If that makes me a fool according to fundie Christians (or indeed, for that matter, religious people of any stripe), then so be it. Let me be a fool a trillionfold! I’d simply say that their definition of ‘fool’, like their defintion of ‘morality’, is very warped, to put it kindly. IMHO, they’re the real fools for embracing faith to the exclusion of reason when it comes to this and other theology-related debates.
Typo: ‘defintion’ should have been ‘definition’.
Also, the message conveyed by that last sentence would maybe have been better communicated if I replaced ‘debates’ with ‘matters’.
Then again, that’s just my excessive obsession with detail. You all probably knew what I meant.
“…and after that JUDGEMENT, Where will you spend eternity, Heaven or Hell?”
What happens when we’re “judged”? Do we get a chance to plead our cases or does god just rip us to pieces? Most people are good and don’t deserve “punishment”. Meanwhile god’s bouncing off the walls in “heaven” (or wherever) waiting to wail the crap out of us for our “sins” after we’re dead. Sounds like god’s the “sinner” here.
Who dreamed up all this crap in antiquity anyway? What’s it still doing in the 21st century?