Is Pain And Suffering The Only Way To Convince Atheists That There Is A God

[viole]

>>Since it's unproven, it doesn't count.<<

You are wrong. I do know being right in this situation is important in that it will determine our destiny. You claim it is unproven and that is clearly wrong. The most important part of Christianity is The Resurrection. Why don't you investigate that for yourself? If you can prove that it is wrong, then you destroy Christianity and will become world famous.

This is where I conclude there is no point in discussing further. The Greek myths were proven false because there was no Mt. Olympus. None of those locations could be found.

Mount Olympus - Wikipedia

Ciao

- viole

 

[SkepticThinker]

. I was going to give you a facepalm, but an eyeroll should suffice.

What part did you not understand of "the Bible says otherwise. The existence of God cannot be proved or disproved. The Bible says that we must accept by faith the fact that God exists>"

This is by design since we have a positive test this time instead of a negative test. The negative test led to the destruction of everyone in the world except for Noah.

There isn't an argument to convince a non-believer if they do not want to believe. The change happens within oneself. We've all gone through this.

A good argument and/or good evidence should be enough to convince anyone whether they want to believe it or not. Being convinced of something isn't really a matter of choice. You're convinced or you're not.

 

[james bond]

Mount Olympus - Wikipedia

Ciao

- viole

Bwahahahahahaha. Before there was one.

 

[viole]

Bwahahahahahaha. Before there was one.

Before there was one what?

Ciao

- viole

 

[james bond]

A good argument and/or good evidence should be enough to convince anyone whether they want to believe it or not. Being convinced of something isn't really a matter of choice. You're convinced or you're not.

I've said it many times, but I can't convince someone else of that. I may be able to persuade someone to my way of thinking, but religion is different. One has to persuade themselves which faith to believe in; I think atheism takes faith just the same. Otherwise, it doesn't last.

How do I know? Even Jesus couldn't give the "right" faith to someone, and he was very persuasive.

 

[james bond]

Before there was one what?

Ciao

- viole

Before they started calling it Mt. Olympus.

 

[viole]

Before they started calling it Mt. Olympus.

Wow, they could read the Future. What a miracle, lol.

Ciao

- viole

 

[SkepticThinker]

I've said it many times, but I can't convince someone else of that. I may be able to persuade someone to my way of thinking, but religion is different.

I disagree that religion is different from everything else. Either an argument/evidence is convincing, or it isn't.

One has to persuade themselves which faith to believe in;

Which is why I don't accept "faith" as a reasonable argument/evidence for anything. "Faith" is the excuse people give when they don't have a good reason to believe something.

I think atheism takes faith just the same. Otherwise, it doesn't last.
How do I know? Even Jesus couldn't give the "right" faith to someone, and he was very persuasive.

I'm not sure what you mean.

Does it take faith to not believe in ghosts? Big Foot? Pixies? Superman? Why should it take faith to not believe in god(s)?

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

The Greek myths were proven false because there was no Mt. Olympus. None of those locations could be found.

Any good Zeus adherent will tell you that Mt. Olympus is supernatural, so don't go looking for it. It's beyond the purview of science or the senses.

But all you need to do to realize that Zeus created man and the earth is to look at the beauty and complexity all around you. How could that have happened by accident?

 

[Stevicus]

>>Since it's unproven, it doesn't count.<<

You are wrong. I do know being right in this situation is important in that it will determine our destiny. You claim it is unproven and that is clearly wrong. The most important part of Christianity is The Resurrection. Why don't you investigate that for yourself? If you can prove that it is wrong, then you destroy Christianity and will become world famous.

This is where I conclude there is no point in discussing further. The Greek myths were proven false because there was no Mt. Olympus. None of those locations could be found.

The resurrection was never proven. It's just another story.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Again, what I'm saying is how does one prove an unprovable God? One can only force atheists to believe if all atheists are to believe. And I'm not referring humans causing other humans pain, but divine pain and suffering.

If there's no reasonable path to belief in the Christian God, there must be plenty of unreasonable paths, since there are a lot of Christians in the world.

What unreasonable thing convinced you? That might be a good starting point.

 

[james bond]

If there's no reasonable path to belief in the Christian God, there must be plenty of unreasonable paths, since there are a lot of Christians in the world.

What unreasonable thing convinced you? That might be a good starting point.

>>What unreasonable thing convinced you?<<

Pascal said that it's better to be safe than sorry if eternal punishment is what's in store for the non-believer. Who wants to be in pain for 24/7 or in a state of woe. I don't think that's an unreasonable argument even though it's not a good argument for belief.

I can say that the universe is too beautiful and too complex to have just occurred at random. All mutations are the opposite in not being beautiful nor complex. I don't think this is an unreasonable argument. However, this isn't what led me to God.

You already made your judgment, so does it really matter? It seems pointless.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

Pascal said that it's better to be safe than sorry if eternal punishment is what's in store for the non-believer. Who wants to be in pain for 24/7 or in a state of woe. I don't think that's an unreasonable argument even though it's not a good argument for belief.

Agreed that it's not a good argument. Pascal's Wager can be refuted in multiple ways (see Spoiler below if interested in some of the counterarguments to there being nothing to lose by accepting Christianity).

Doesn't that makes accepting it unreasonable?

I can say that the universe is too beautiful and too complex to have just occurred at random. All mutations are the opposite in not being beautiful nor complex. I don't think this is an unreasonable argument. However, this isn't what led me to God.

That is also not persuasive.

It's also not an argument - just an very subjective opinion: The universe looks too beautiful and complex to you to not have been designed and created by a god. It doesn't look like that to me, especially if I have to believe that something as complex as a god created it while itself being undesigned and uncreated. If a god can exist would a designer or creator, then anything else can as well.

Spoiler: refuting Pascal

• What if God exists and is offended by those who only believe because they are hedging their bet?
  
• What if the Muslims are right and you meet Allah on judgment day?
  
• What reincarnation occurs, and you come back as a maggot for that attitude?
  
• What if there is a god that rewards people of reason and punishes faith based thought?
  
• What if the universe is run by demon that punishes those that believe in gods?
• What if there is no god and you went to church every Sunday and gave tithes for nothing?
• What if there is no god and you failed to mature authentically believing that you were being watched 24/7 and thinking that faith was a virtue while disesteeming reason and a liberal education?

 

[Milton Platt]

Atheists always claim they have to have evidence that God exists, but history shows us different. Once you provide the evidence, then end up forgetting like that which happened to Jesus Christ or they want even more evidence such that every atheist must be convinced.

Then the Bible says otherwise. The existence of God cannot be proved or disproved. The Bible says that we must accept by faith the fact that God exists:

"Jesus performed countless miracles, yet the vast majority of people did not believe in Him. If God performed miracles today as He did in the past, the result would be the same. People would be amazed and would believe in God for a short time. That faith would be shallow and would disappear the moment something unexpected or frightening occurred. A faith based on miracles is not a mature faith. God performed the greatest “God miracle” of all time in coming to earth as the Man Jesus Christ to die on the cross for our sins (Romans 5:8) so that we could be saved (John 3:16). God does still perform miracles—many of them simply go unnoticed or are denied. However, we do not need more miracles. What we need is to believe in the miracle of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ."

Does God still perform miracles?

Lawrence Krauss is a professor of physics at Arizona State University. He said evidence for God would be as follows.

"Now, it would be easy to have evidence for God. If the stars rearrange themselves tonight and I looked up tonight—well not here, but in a place where you could see the stars, in Arizona, say,—and I looked up tonight and I saw the stars rearrange themselves say, “I am here.”

The Craig - Krauss Debate at North Carolina State University | Reasonable Faith

Later, another atheist responded that he would not accept the stars rearranging themselves because people south of the equator would not be able to see this.

Thus, the only way I see to convince atheist is pain and suffering. If they knew God brought this upon them, then they would have to believe. It's like they brought it upon themselves. You asked for it. You got it. Of course, this is what I think happens in the afterlife. The existence of God cannot be proved or disproved in this life.

I have a video on pain and suffering. Maybe this is one of the methods.

You've answered your own question.....you cannot prove the existence of a god....and that is what an atheist would require. No evidence equals no belief.

 

[Revoltingest]

Atheists always claim they have to have evidence that God exists, but history shows us different. Once you provide the evidence, then end up forgetting like that which happened to Jesus Christ or they want even more evidence such that every atheist must be convinced.

Then the Bible says otherwise. The existence of God cannot be proved or disproved. The Bible says that we must accept by faith the fact that God exists:

"Jesus performed countless miracles, yet the vast majority of people did not believe in Him. If God performed miracles today as He did in the past, the result would be the same. People would be amazed and would believe in God for a short time. That faith would be shallow and would disappear the moment something unexpected or frightening occurred. A faith based on miracles is not a mature faith. God performed the greatest “God miracle” of all time in coming to earth as the Man Jesus Christ to die on the cross for our sins (Romans 5:8) so that we could be saved (John 3:16). God does still perform miracles—many of them simply go unnoticed or are denied. However, we do not need more miracles. What we need is to believe in the miracle of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ."

Does God still perform miracles?

Lawrence Krauss is a professor of physics at Arizona State University. He said evidence for God would be as follows.

"Now, it would be easy to have evidence for God. If the stars rearrange themselves tonight and I looked up tonight—well not here, but in a place where you could see the stars, in Arizona, say,—and I looked up tonight and I saw the stars rearrange themselves say, “I am here.”

The Craig - Krauss Debate at North Carolina State University | Reasonable Faith

Later, another atheist responded that he would not accept the stars rearranging themselves because people south of the equator would not be able to see this.

Thus, the only way I see to convince atheist is pain and suffering. If they knew God brought this upon them, then they would have to believe. It's like they brought it upon themselves. You asked for it. You got it. Of course, this is what I think happens in the afterlife. The existence of God cannot be proved or disproved in this life.

I have a video on pain and suffering. Maybe this is one of the methods.

Have you ever seen the movie, Touching The Void.
Pain...suffering...extraordinary effort to barely survive.
He wondered if this would make him find God.
Nope.
No God.
Rational thiought prevailed.
If what you say about pain causing conversion actually occurs,
then perhaps it only indicates which atheists are weak of mind.

 

[james bond]

Have you ever seen the movie, Touching The Void.
Pain...suffering...extraordinary effort to barely survive.
He wondered if this would make him find God.
Nope.
No God.
Rational thiought prevailed.
If what you say about pain causing conversion actually occurs,
then perhaps it only indicates which atheists are weak of mind.

Your example meets the conditions of the atheist who wouldn't believe if the stars rearranged themselves to say, "I am here." The viewer would be in Arizona. The atheist's argument was the ones in the southern hemisphere would not be able to witness such an event. His argument is one has to convince ALL atheists that God exists. In your example, one atheist passed the pain and suffering which meets that criteria in this life.

However, it could be a different story in the afterlife which I am referring to. There are no atheists in the afterlife. It has been prophesized that those living on earth during Armageddon will be engulfed in flames. That's painful physical death. Also, those who die and are judged bad will have their spiritually perfect self destroyed in the lake of fire. This could be mean an eternity of woe and other varying forms of punishment.

The takeaway to me is what happens to atheists before they cross the point of no return. Not all atheists experience this, but they end up hearing, seeing, sensing, etc. what they believed in their worldview. The voices they hear are what they believed and thus they are led astray. Perhaps in your case, you will hear the voices that which you deem "rational." I would make certain they are indeed that.

 

[Revoltingest]

Your example isn't meeting the conditions of the atheist who wouldn't believe if the stars rearranged themselves to say, "I am here." The viewer would be in Arizona. The atheist's argument was the ones in the southern hemisphere would not be able to witness such an event. His argument is one has to convince ALL atheists that God exists. In your example, one atheist passed the pain and suffering which meets that criteria. However, it could be a different story in the afterlife which I am referring to. There are no atheists in the afterlife. It has been prophecized is those living on earth during Armageddon will be engulfed in flames. That's painful physical death. Also, those who die and are judged bad will have their spiritually perfect self destroyed in the lake of fire. This could be mean an eternity of woe and other varying forms of punishment.

The takeaway to me is what happens to atheists before they cross the point of no return. Not all atheists experience this, but they end up believing what they believed in their worldview. The voices they hear are what they believed and thus they are led astray. Perhaps in your case, you will hear the voices that which you deem "rational." I would make certain they are indeed that.

I so often hear that we'd deny evidence of God were it presented.
But the evidence given as an example is typically fantastic & merely imagined.
So it would be using a hypothetical fantasy as proof.

 

[james bond]

I so often hear that we'd deny evidence of God were it presented.
But the evidence given as an example is typically fantastic & merely imagined.
So it would be using a hypothetical fantasy as proof.

That's my point. The Christians know there is no proof of an unprovable God as it is stated in the Bible. However, that isn't to say there isn't evidence. However, when presented with the evidence, the non-believers won't accept it. This is their mistake.

In your case, you think the Christian truth is fantastic and imagined. However, I compared it with evolution, origin of the universe, origin of life and other evolutionary thinking such as multiverses, aliens, dark energy, dark matter and evolutionary cosmology. The three main parts of Biblical chronology is Genesis, Noah's Flood and the Resurrection. Which is more fantastic and mythical? The truth is stranger than fiction.

 

[Looncall]

That's my point. The Christians know there is no proof of an unprovable God as it is stated in the Bible. However, that isn't to say there isn't evidence. However, when presented with the evidence, the non-believers won't accept it. This is their mistake.

In your case, you think the Christian truth is fantastic and imagined. However, I compared it with evolution, origin of the universe, origin of life and other evolutionary thinking such as multiverses, aliens, dark energy, dark matter and evolutionary cosmology. The three main parts of Biblical chronology is Genesis, Noah's Flood and the Resurrection. Which is more fantastic and mythical? The truth is stranger than fiction.

Yet the truth is still true and the fiction is still imaginary. Strangeness is irrelevant.

Why pick the scribblings of ignorant savages of millennia ago over careful modern research? Especially when those scribblings are clearly in error. For example, Noah's flood cannot have happened: it would have left traces that are nowhere found.

 

[Revoltingest]

That's my point. The Christians know there is no proof of an unprovable God as it is stated in the Bible. However, that isn't to say there isn't evidence. However, when presented with the evidence, the non-believers won't accept it. This is their mistake.

Consider that what you'd call "evidence", we find hollow.
Tis no mistake to be unconvinced by it.

In your case, you think the Christian truth is fantastic and imagined. However, I compared it with evolution, origin of the universe, origin of life and other evolutionary thinking such as multiverses, aliens, dark energy, dark matter and evolutionary cosmology. The three main parts of Biblical chronology is Genesis, Noah's Flood and the Resurrection. Which is more fantastic and mythical? The truth is stranger than fiction.

There's a difference though.
Scientific theories (eg, evolution) are testable, & observations (eg, effect attributed to dark matter) are observable.
(Note also that multiverses & such things are just speculations.)
Xianity doesn't have those features.