Believe in God and follow HIM , Atheists!

[Peter_Plato]

You are misunderstanding.
Atheism is not a religion or a belief system. And many atheists have better morals than many God-believers.
Most follow sold moral rules for the good of humanity…and would never follow the commands of a God who orders people to kill or stone their own children or murder other tribes or buy fellow humans as slaves or offer their daughters to be brutalized…commands found in many religious scriptures.
Many of these scriptures are very immoral and Atheists try to have better morals than those found in some holy books.

.

So are you counting all those “atheists” who simply don’t think of themselves as atheists who, neither, act morally nor feel any compulsion to but simply do not even think of God or of atheism for that matter, but are merely self-interested and go through life without concern for anyone or anything but themselves, who truly “lack a belief in God” because they don’t even give the entire question a second thought?

Are these “atheists” counted among the “many” moral atheists even though many end up committing crimes or just go through life availing themselves of all it has to offer without giving back anything in return?

You see, these individuals don’t think of themselves as “atheists” because they truly do “lack a belief in God.”

Vox Day, in The Irrational Atheist makes a very interesting observation concerning what he calls “low church atheism.”

I previously referenced the number of atheists being held by the prison system of England and Wales, where it is customary to record the religion of the prison population as part of the Inmate Information System. In the year 2000, there were 38,531 Christians of twenty-one different varieties imprisoned for their crimes, compared to only 122 atheists and sixty-two agnostics. As Europe in general and the United Kingdom in particular have become increasingly post-Christian, this would appear to be a damning piece of evidence proving the fundamentally criminal nature of theists while demonstrating that atheists are indeed more moral despite their lack of a sky god holding them to account.

However, there also happened to be another 20,639 prisoners, 31.6 percent of the total prison population, who possessed “no religion.” And this was not simply a case of people falling through the cracks or refusing to provide an answer; the Inmate Information System is specific enough to distinguish between Druids, Scientologists, and Zoroastrians as well as between the Celestial Church of God, the Welsh Independent church, and the Non-Conformist church. It also features separate categories for “other Christian religion,” “other non-Christian religion,” and “not known.”

At only two-tenths of a percent of the prison population, High Church atheists are, as previously suggested, extremely law-abiding. But when one compares the 31.6 percent of imprisoned no-religionists to the 15.1 percent of Britons who checked “none” or wrote in Jedi Knight, agnostic, atheist, or heathen in the 2001 national survey, it becomes clear that their Low Church counterparts are nearly four times more likely to be convicted and jailed for committing a crime than a Christian.

Studies have shown that those without religion have life expectancies seven years shorter than the average churchgoer, are more likely to smoke, abuse alcohol, and be depressed or obese, and they are much less likely to marry or have children. Their criminal proclivities strongly suggest that they are less intelligent on average than theists and High Church atheists alike, and they also outnumber their High Church counterparts by a significant margin…
Source: The Irrational Atheist, Vox Day p. 20-21

You see, it is very important when making claims about “atheism” that we not “hand-pick” the representatives of “lack of belief” and truly account for all representatives including those which do not provide the shining examples we seek to portray. These would also include, for example the leaders of atheistic regimes whose “morality” has been responsible for tens of millions of deaths in mostly communist countries.

So let’s not forget that “many” atheists have morals that are also much more barbaric than many God-believers if we are keen to tell the whole story and not just one side of it.

Note: in case you missed Mr. Day’s conclusion concerning the higher propensity of atheists to commit crimes. The total proportion of the atheist community in prison is 31.8% of the total number of inmates while this community only represents 15.1% of the total population of Britain. So their representation in prison far exceeds the proportion of atheism in the population.

 

[roselily]

You are misunderstanding.
Atheism is not a religion or a belief system. And many atheists have better morals than many God-believers.
Most follow sold moral rules for the good of humanity…and would never follow the commands of a God who orders people to kill or stone their own children or murder other tribes or buy fellow humans as slaves or offer their daughters to be brutalized…commands found in many religious scriptures.
Many of these scriptures are very immoral and Atheists try to have better morals than those found in some holy books.

.

O DadyGirl, Religion is a belief system, I see that Atheist has many organizations also; so Atheist is a religion, I have seen some people in CAF under religion write–Atheist. See all humans are not perfect, only through God can become perfect.God ways are higher than human ways.

**Romans 3
10as it is written:
‘There is no one who is righteous, not even one;

Matthew 5
48Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Isaiah 55
6 Seek the Lord while he may be found,
call upon him while he is near;
7 let the wicked forsake their way,
and the unrighteous their thoughts;
let them return to the Lord, that he may have mercy on them,
and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.
8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord.
9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.
**

 

[roselily]

Humans have been arrogant in the beginning of the world so they reject God from the earth.

I see that continues today for a lot of people.

It is a fact.

We all have to obey to God if we want happiness.

True!

 

[roselily]

I was actually replying to another poster, but - great comeback! I personally speak Catholic, but I did study a bit of Calvinist out of academic interest. (And I can’t take credit for the pictures, they’re built into the software I’m using…)

And this thread topic is interesting: what is the best approach to take with an atheist? What sort of arguments should one use (or avoid)? Having met a few atheists in my day, I seriously wonder!

So lovely,

I thought God will have ways to let us know Him, And I no need to write all those, I just think about it is fine.

John 10
27My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me. 28 I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand. 29 What my Father has given me is greater than all else, and no one can snatch it out of the Father’s hand. 30The Father and I are one.’

 

[roselily]

We are not a bag for ideas, so to put the best “morals” or so in it. Why don’t they do it with all the atheists? Show me a true believer in Christ who is an alcoholic or addicted to drugs or all sort of weird things…

True.

 

[Mount_Carmel]

The sad thing is atheists cant believe because God has given them a harden heart. So it is essentially up to God if they recieve a new heart to believe.

I don’t think it God who dishes out hardened hearts, ‘While it is said, To day if you shall hear his voice, harden not your hearts, …’.

 

[roselily]

I don’t think it God who dishes out hardened hearts, ‘While it is said, To day if you shall hear his voice, harden not your hearts, …’.

True.:angel1:

 

[RichardG]

What I want to ask atheists, is this. What do you base your own morals on. Some people would say, what you get from your parents. A friend of mine says that morals are defined generally, that you shall not hurt another. By who decides what hurting another person means? It’s a rather subjective statement. Truth cannot be subjective.

 

[LibralAteoJesus]

There is no reason for me to believe in things that aren’t realistic, scientific and natural, any religious god appears to me to be man-made from whatever culture it may be. Atheism, theism, agnosticism and deism aren’t religions and goodness exists in nature so is violence when needed, both are well scientifically explained.
Religious morality is relative, it evolves by the time when people stop taking their primitive violent texts literally, religious morality differs to what religion or sub religion a person belongs to, many people do terrible and violent things out of their religious convictions and based on the immoral verses, dogmas and texts in their religion.
Goodness is in compassion, non violence, ethics and in treating others well.

 

[Memaw]

The sad thing is atheists cant believe because God has given them a harden heart. So it is essentially up to God if they recieve a new heart to believe.

God doesn’t give them a hardened heart, He just allows them to do it themselves. It’s called FREE WILL. Pray for the GIFT of Faith. God Bless and a Holy, Blessed New Year, Memaw

 

[Linusthe2nd]

You decided to become a Christian at some point in your life, didn’t you? In order to do that, you had to use your own reasoning. Even if the conclusion you reached was that your own reasoning is unreliable, you still had to trust the reasoning that led you to that conclusion. Why did you trust your own reasoning when deciding to become Christian?

Our reasoning based on our observation of reality, Philosophy if you like. And this as verified by Divine Revelation; but ultimately the grace of God who helped us to see the Truth. Upon who else should we rely, empiricists I suppose, men and women who are clearly biased.?

Linus2nd

 

[Linusthe2nd]

There is no reason for me to believe in things that aren’t realistic, scientific and natural, any religious god appears to me to be man-made from whatever culture it may be. Atheism, theism, agnosticism and deism aren’t religions and goodness exists in nature so is violence when needed, both are well scientifically explained.
Religious morality is relative, it evolves by the time when people stop taking their primitive violent texts literally, religious morality differs to what religion or sub religion a person belongs to, many people do terrible and violent things out of their religious convictions and based on the immoral verses, dogmas and texts in their religion.
Goodness is in compassion, non violence, ethics and in treating others well.

And your opinion is unbiased I suppose?

Linus2nd

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Interesting this.

On reflection, though, it is holding a baby, watching a child play, stroking my cat, watching snow fall, gazing up at the sky, intentionally stepping out of myself in an act of love, sitting in silence, hearing an honest laugh, interacting with or being genuinely interested in other persons in my life that brings me closer to God.

I find reasoning doesn’t so much get me closer to God as functions to defray doubt or skepticism that comes up into my mind when I begin to try to rationalize to myself or to others why I know that God is.

Reasoning is more like map-making than it is actually exploring the ground.

Reasoning doesn’t “get you there” so much as explicates or reiterates how you arrived.

In other ways, reasoning is more a defensive or “shoring” mechanism than an effective one.

I am finding it more and more a challenge to “get into” the mindset or thought patterns of atheism to work out how these might be resolved leaving no stone unturned.

Don’t forget the stars. I think one of the reasons there are so many atheists today is that we can’t really see the stars like people were able to do before the advent of the industrial revolution.

Linus2nd