Louemma, re #28
The Atheist can blame no one but themselves when they choose not to believe in God. As can you be blamed for holding the beliefs, political, social, scientific, etc., that you do. I am advocating here that all beliefs, including religious, be examined rigorously as to their source & nature. Upon penetrating beyond the superficial scans that most do in the name of alleged deep research, even you may find that everything that looked at through the lens of Church teaching as you know it, may have a more inclusive and competent basis of understanding than what you now wield.
“That blame can not be laid on any one’s doorstep but the one who lives in disbelief, thinking that they exist for no reason at all.” In a way, the holding of the thought about the reason you think you exist is the blockage from why you really are here.
“The problem with this particular atheists that I see from her post is not only does she not believe in God,she makes it very clear that she don’t like God either.” That goes with the territory, eh? False god=what’s to like?
“That is because she don’t know him & how do you show someone something they don’t believe exists but at the same time they don’t like what it is they think don’t exists.Pretty messed up,wouldn’t you say?” Exactly my point relative to where I stand relative to both you & atheists.
“Also let me add that in the years of your study on Jesus,how do you feel comfortable with the fact you , instead of telling people like Lucy how to find a break through in her disbelief,you agree with an atheists by you yourself claiming that the Christian God is only a figment of one’s imagination?” That is pretty simple. Anything that is a thought is incomplete and relatively insubstantial. If you are thinking of ice cream, usually you are not also thinking about God. (But now you will, lol!) Having God as a a matter of faith & not Knowledge has you having god as an intermittent in your attention as an item of contents, not as Being. You see, religionists tend to make a HUGE confusion with taking faith, which is synthetic knowledge, for Knowledge such as Augustine had near his end, or as St Theresa of Avila might have had. That is far different from faith, & is not a state restricted to Catholics by any means. Though religions might be about god, God has little if anything to do with religions except to be the Light to them to the extent they can bear it, if at all. Also, I am responding to you because you asked me a question. Lucy hasn’t.
“Years and years of Bible and prizes won are only works,to place a stumbling block in the way to spreading the good news to a lost person and showing them the way to the Father by way of the son is the most important work that a child of God could do for the Father.” That is absolutely correct. But What is the Son, & what is the Father. They are not your thoughts about them.
“You claim to know Jesus but Jesus plainly says in John 14 that if you know him,you know the Father.” I never claimed to know Jesus; I never met Him. But if He was, & said what He did in fact, then surely He was the Son of God. As to the Father, no one can say, as all words concerning the Father are misleading.
“Here you claim to know the Lord but yet you turn around & say something such as The Christian God is Imaginative & you say this in the defense of an Athestist And turn around and blame others for the reason the Athestist is in disbelief.” What do you think “knowing the Lord” is? Is it believing Biblical contents by dint of your birth, contents which you take as a basis for claiming knowledge when you only have faith? Faith is wonderful, Angel. It is a wonderful raft to get you across the raging torrent of living in such times as ours. But it is not Life itself. There will come a point when you reach the other side and do not need the raft. Then you will rejoice and laugh. You will laugh as you have never before, deeply and sincerely, like a baby, or someone who has escaped a certain death.
I am not blaming others for the atheist’s disbelief. I am simply saying, that on no other grounds than having faith themselves, the posters on here up to where I made that comment could have given a better accounting of themselves as faithful. As someone in a previous post asked, how does “get thee behind me, Satan!” in large letters encourage one to inquiry about the faith? Similarly, how do vacant answers that are scoffs &, to the atheist, foundationless faith based answers, do the job? Only Love, a synonym of God, can be inclusive, for Love evidences Presence. Love knows nothing of religion, or dogmas, or bibles, except as temporary tools until one awakes. No argument will convince of God, or not god. That is always a matter of grace or the fullness of time. In the mean time, I do like what John said: “Little children, love one another.”
Perhaps you remember the story of the Peace of 1915? On Christmas Day that year, the bitter shooting between the Germans and the allies stopped. Gifts were exchanged, carols sung, soccer matches played. Men in different uniforms talked of their families and their loves and their lives. The generals were horrified, and banned such practices from then on. How could men who knew they were the same shoot at each other and kill each other? But they did, because they had faith in their side, and even asked God to help them win. Both sides asked God, their common Father, to slaughter His other children. But those few who experienced that Christmas knew, and would never forget the truth. And that, Angel is why we have the Golden Rule, faith or no faith, and of whatever religion and philosophy. In essence, Lucy Fur is none other than yourself, a Child of God, wearing another mind set for the moment. Don’t you love a costume ball? I do. I love when we can dance and have cease fires.