Shallow views on christianity

[Ambrose]

I have seen through recent atheist debates that many atheist take very shallow views on religion or Christianity. Ill take a quote from a debate in a science forum in a debate on justification for belief in God/Gods.

"That's the point of believing. so that you can ask for things or avoid bad things."

While i realize that this is not the view of all atheist i can tell that many of them take this standpoint. That we believe in god because no evidence exist that he does not exist and if we do we can get convienences and avoid bad things. Please give me your opinions on this. All opinions are welcome.

 

[childeye]

I must start with the term God. The term imlplies an absolute that exists as a moral imperative. Everybody has their own image of God for we all believe something to be true, even atheists. For myself as a human being, I believe Love is the moral imperative, because I can see that evil exists in it's absence. Therefore I am Christian because I see a divine Love displayed at the cross.

 

[Jethro Bodine]

"That's the point of believing. so that you can ask for things or avoid bad things."

Is it not the atheist who wants the bad things of religion to go away so they can enjoy good?

 

[Ambrose]

It just upsets me that we are apparently either incredibly misrepresented or we are simply not even looked at by a lot of people.

 

[Danus]

The debate between atheist and Christians if often a category error. Most of the arguments amount to proving what the color blue taste like.

When dealing with nonbelievers it's important to keep a few things in mind.

1. No one can effectively argue the existence or non-existence of God; Not in logical terms. Practical perhaps, but that's about it since the proof for or against is not a collective logical experience either way.

2. There are practical arguments that often are collective experiences. Most can feel pain, or experience loss/heart ache, injustice or understand the need for love to some degree.

3. Since there are practical collective experiences in life, then the gospel is it's own defense. You need not prove anything about Christ since he ultimately will do that for each believer.

What we often walk away with in these debates is no credit for proving Jesus, and we are angry or hurt for that; but what we need to understand is that the credit does not belong to us. It belongs to God alone. So, the best thing we can do is verbally defend the gospel, true, but ultimately live it.

No one argues anyone to God who is not on a path to God in the first place. For example; in the story Alice in wonderland, Alice comes to a fork in the road. She stops not knowing which direction to take. She meets the Cheshire cat. He says; "what the matter?"

Alice says to the cat' "I don't know which way to go." "that's easy"; says the cat. "Where are you trying to get to?" "I don't know." says Alice. "Well then I guess it doesn't matter"; says the cat.

Did he tell her which way to go? No, because that's pointless since she has no destination in mind.

Atheist are a lot like Alice. We needn't worry about them. rather we need to focus on those who have a destination in mind since they are the only ones to whom we might point the way.

The defense of Christianity speaks for itself only to those who will believe.