Are atheists irrational?

[blü 2]

Your response underscores the nature of the problem, "He'll have to try harder than that," indicating you plan to continue to remain stubbornly opposed to any evidence or any love of Christ demonstrated to you.

What evidence demonstrated to me are you speaking of, specifically?

What aspect of that evidence would suggest it was from a supernatural being?

What aspect of that evidence would suggest the supernatural being is Jesus?

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

What a rude response.

It was in keeping with what I was replying to.

I regret taking ten minutes of time to bother to tell you the exact nature of how God offers me specific, measurable, otherworldly knowledge.

You did no such thing.

It must be true that I should not waste time sharing Jesus with such a hardened skeptic.

Yes: your failures of logic and crappy arguments are somehow my fault.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

@BilliardsBall - what I got from your post about the so-called "gift of knowledge" was that when you get a gut feeling about something, if it turns out to be correct and you decide it was unlikely, you call the gut feeling a communication from God.

Do you now understand why I was so dismissive of it? When someone tries to convince me of something that irrational, my instinct is to assume that I'm being sold a bill of goods. This is especially the case with you, since you claim to be a pastor and say you have experience evangelizing. One would assume you've put thought into these issues and considered - and hopefully addressed - objections to what you're saying.

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe you really do believe that what you're saying is reasonable.

 

[BilliardsBall]

What evidence demonstrated to me are you speaking of, specifically?

What aspect of that evidence would suggest it was from a supernatural being?

What aspect of that evidence would suggest the supernatural being is Jesus?

My prior post was this: Your response underscores the nature of the problem, "He'll have to try harder than that," indicating you plan to continue to remain stubbornly opposed to any evidence or any love of Christ demonstrated to you.

Your questions have nothing to do with my prior post, other than to confirm my stance.

 

[BilliardsBall]

It was in keeping with what I was replying to.


You did no such thing.


Yes: your failures of logic and crappy arguments are somehow my fault.

I DID take over ten minutes to give you examples of where God told me and another things about strangers we had no way of knowing or intuiting. What is your response?

 

[BilliardsBall]

@BilliardsBall - what I got from your post about the so-called "gift of knowledge" was that when you get a gut feeling about something, if it turns out to be correct and you decide it was unlikely, you call the gut feeling a communication from God.

Do you now understand why I was so dismissive of it? When someone tries to convince me of something that irrational, my instinct is to assume that I'm being sold a bill of goods. This is especially the case with you, since you claim to be a pastor and say you have experience evangelizing. One would assume you've put thought into these issues and considered - and hopefully addressed - objections to what you're saying.

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe you really do believe that what you're saying is reasonable.

You have the order backwards--100% of the time I first get the prompting or sense of God communication and after, the knowledge tests as true.

This is consistent with the scriptures that show people were contacted by God, then wrote down the prophecies they heard, then time revealed the prophecies correct, demonstrating God's prescience.

Going back to me, sometimes I pray, "God, anything there for me?" and there is silence, and sometimes I hear something like, "His father has cancer," and it's always true.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

I DID take over ten minutes to give you examples of where God told me and another things about strangers we had no way of knowing or intuiting. What is your response?

Your post explained how you take your gut feeling as a sign from God if you think your gut feeling was impressively correct. Explain how this is any sort of reasonable way to tell whether something is or isn't a message from God.

Edit: and as for how you keep harping on about your "10 minutes": I don't owe you a thing. What you're doing is an old sales tactic: you try create a quid-pro-quo relationship in order to demand something of me. You're trying to manipulate me and I'm not going to play along.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

You have the order backwards--100% of the time I first get the prompting or sense of God communication and after, the knowledge tests as true.

This is consistent with the scriptures that show people were contacted by God, then wrote down the prophecies they heard, then time revealed the prophecies correct, demonstrating God's prescience.

Going back to me, sometimes I pray, "God, anything there for me?" and there is silence, and sometimes I hear something like, "His father has cancer," and it's always true.

I don't believe that for a second.

See if this sounds correct:

- you try to communicate with God a lot.
- you have gut feelings a lot.
- it's pretty common for you to have a gut feeling right after praying.
- not all of your gut feelings after praying are accurate. When they aren't accurate, you don't take them as communication from God.
- when they are accurate, you take them as communication from God.

But the other thing that I take from your description of "communication from God" you receive is that it's never in a form that could be verified by anyone else. No booming voice from the clouds that scares your travel companions, no rivers turning to blood, no angels appearing in the sky before the multitudes (or even a group of shepherds), etc. It's only ever just a thought that pops into your head. Am I right?

 

[BilliardsBall]

Your post explained how you take your gut feeling as a sign from God if you think your gut feeling was impressively correct. Explain how this is any sort of reasonable way to tell whether something is or isn't a message from God.

Edit: and as for how you keep harping on about your "10 minutes": I don't owe you a thing. What you're doing is an old sales tactic: you try create a quid-pro-quo relationship in order to demand something of me. You're trying to manipulate me and I'm not going to play along.

You still have the order reversed.

First I get the feeling, than I get a word of knowledge. Every time this 1-2 order has occurred, part 3 was confirming the knowledge, which knowledge wasn't 50/50 yes/no or "what's for dinner tonight?" Further, this was knowledge like me telling a person I've never met that father has a terminal disease and then moving through that knowledge through a person's hostility to a reformed relationship where the gospel went out.

What you would have, therefore, is "You get gut feelings, and when you get specific gut feelings, you know without any way of knowing a piece of knowledge that is life-transforming to another, who is privately hoarding such knowledge, and therefore, this is all coincidental."

No.

 

[BilliardsBall]

I don't believe that for a second.

See if this sounds correct:

- you try to communicate with God a lot.
- you have gut feelings a lot.
- it's pretty common for you to have a gut feeling right after praying.
- not all of your gut feelings after praying are accurate. When they aren't accurate, you don't take them as communication from God.
- when they are accurate, you take them as communication from God.

But the other thing that I take from your description of "communication from God" you receive is that it's never in a form that could be verified by anyone else. No booming voice from the clouds that scares your travel companions, no rivers turning to blood, no angels appearing in the sky before the multitudes (or even a group of shepherds), etc. It's only ever just a thought that pops into your head. Am I right?

I don't understand how this can be so when the score is X:0. I've never heard God's voice without it being spot on. SPOT ON.

There have been times where God is like, "Go share the gospel with X," and I respond, "With THEM? Really?" and I get the green light and the person trusts Christ about ten minutes after we start chatting...

No.

What also is wrong about our conversation here is where you write, "I take from your description of "communication from God" you receive is that it's never in a form that could be verified by anyone else." What else is it but verification when someone I met five minutes ago says, "You are right, my girlfriend did break up with me this morning, but I told no one else. How did you know?!" or "My father is dying of cancer now!"

You don't owe me a quid pro quo for writing you other than this, actually READ WHAT I WRITE. I confirm these messages from God each time with someone else's verification!

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

I don't understand how this can be so when the score is X:0. I've never heard God's voice without it being spot on. SPOT ON.

So not only do you think God has a perfect record, but you do too? When you think God is communicating with you, you're never wrong?

You never, ever think "this was a communication from God!" but end up being mistaken?

What also is wrong about our conversation here is where you write, "I take from your description of "communication from God" you receive is that it's never in a form that could be verified by anyone else." What else is it but verification when someone I met five minutes ago says, "You are right, my girlfriend did break up with me this morning, but I told no one else. How did you know?!" or "My father is dying of cancer now!"

I meant that nobody else sees or hears the "communication".

You don't owe me a quid pro quo for writing you other than this, actually READ WHAT I WRITE. I confirm these messages from God each time with someone else's verification!

From your description, it doesn't seem like you do. You seem to confirm that they're surprising or remarkable, but don't confirm their source.

And I question how surprising or remarkable they are, since I don't trust you to give an unbiased account. All in all, your description sounds a lot like how people describe Theresa Caputo, for instance, though she ends up being not that remarkable once you scratch the surface.

Edit: based on what you've said so far, I see no reason to exclude these possibilities:

1. You're pretty good at cold reading, but don't realize it.
2. You're worse at measuring your own success than you realize.
3. You're simply lying.

 

[osgart]

to be perfectly rational would mean you know everything there is to know. irrationality is in everyone, until they know better, than they can be more rational. But perfectly rational I think is asking too much of humanity.

The unknown can make anyone irrational when trying to account for it.

personally as an atheist I still enjoy making leaps into the unknown and taking a stab at what may or may not be of reality.

 

[MonkeyFire]

Atheist aren't necessarily nihilistic. But, nhilisim is neither faithful nor reasonable. It's nothing at all.

 

[BilliardsBall]

So not only do you think God has a perfect record, but you do too? When you think God is communicating with you, you're never wrong?

You never, ever think "this was a communication from God!" but end up being mistaken?


I meant that nobody else sees or hears the "communication".


From your description, it doesn't seem like you do. You seem to confirm that they're surprising or remarkable, but don't confirm their source.

And I question how surprising or remarkable they are, since I don't trust you to give an unbiased account. All in all, your description sounds a lot like how people describe Theresa Caputo, for instance, though she ends up being not that remarkable once you scratch the surface.

Edit: based on what you've said so far, I see no reason to exclude these possibilities:

1. You're pretty good at cold reading, but don't realize it.
2. You're worse at measuring your own success than you realize.
3. You're simply lying.

God will speak to you at 8 PM tomorrow, EDT.

Thanks,

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

God will speak to you at 8 PM tomorrow, EDT.

Thanks,

And if he doesn't?

Edit: how will I know that it's God?

 

[SkepticThinker]

I don't understand how this can be so when the score is X:0. I've never heard God's voice without it being spot on. SPOT ON.

There have been times where God is like, "Go share the gospel with X," and I respond, "With THEM? Really?" and I get the green light and the person trusts Christ about ten minutes after we start chatting...

No.

What also is wrong about our conversation here is where you write, "I take from your description of "communication from God" you receive is that it's never in a form that could be verified by anyone else." What else is it but verification when someone I met five minutes ago says, "You are right, my girlfriend did break up with me this morning, but I told no one else. How did you know?!" or "My father is dying of cancer now!"

You don't owe me a quid pro quo for writing you other than this, actually READ WHAT I WRITE. I confirm these messages from God each time with someone else's verification!

Have you ever asked your God for the cure for cancer? Or Alzheimer's Or Parkinson's disease? Or poverty? Or how to facilitate world peace? It seems to me you could be solving all the world's ills with your psychic powers, rather than limiting it to trivial matters like guessing if someone broke up with his girlfriend recently.

 

[blü 2]

the Bible says persons like you should not be receiving proof from me before you have a chance to come to your senses! No offense, but Jesus's Word is my law.

Irrefutable evidence of a real Jesus stands on its own. The believer, the unbeliever, the impartial onlooker, can all examine and assess it (and by definition fail to refute it).

The bible plays no part in that. If Jesus is real ─ has objective existence ─ then you can give us a satisfactory demonstration of him.

If not, then he only exists in imagination.

There's no third way.

 

[BilliardsBall]

And if he doesn't?

Edit: how will I know that it's God?

This is the problem. If you won't know/can't know/don't know when God speaks to you, how can you criticize what I understand is God speaking to me?

 

[BilliardsBall]

Have you ever asked your God for the cure for cancer? Or Alzheimer's Or Parkinson's disease? Or poverty? Or how to facilitate world peace? It seems to me you could be solving all the world's ills with your psychic powers, rather than limiting it to trivial matters like guessing if someone broke up with his girlfriend recently.

I agree and understand.

1. You are confusing a word of knowledge, meant to bless or edify a hearer, with a word of healing, meant to bless the recipient.

2. I have prayed for persons' healing and I have seen such healings.

3. God has a long view (eternal salvation) along with what's expedient to you and I. Some people need to hear a word of knowledge to be saved, others could receive a physical healing but reject God, still.

Which would be more compelling for you to be saved? Special knowledge revealed or a loved one healed?

 

[BilliardsBall]

Irrefutable evidence of a real Jesus stands on its own. The believer, the unbeliever, the impartial onlooker, can all examine and assess it (and by definition fail to refute it).

The bible plays no part in that. If Jesus is real ─ has objective existence ─ then you can give us a satisfactory demonstration of him.

If not, then he only exists in imagination.

There's no third way.

Your definition is incomplete. With Christianity and with other areas, say, scientific paradigms, irrefutable proof sometimes meets stubborn persons.

I've spoken to people who wept openly as I shared Jesus with them and still refused the opportunity to trust Christ.

Who is this "impartial onlooker" you describe? No person is purely impartial. I'm not as a Christian, you are not as a hardened skeptic. You are describing an abstract ideal.

I'm more than aware that atheist friends have received sufficient proof of Jesus's love, power and abilities but resist based on hardened hearts and consciences.