I’ll take your comment to mean that you remain in death, and a child of the devil (1 John 3:10, 14).

Bill

An object lesson.

–Sirius Knott

I had a very nice conversation with Lucy. Besides that, I just quoted the Bible.

I haven’t talked to you in a while. Have you repented and put your faith in Jesus?

Thanks,
Bill

You seem to be saying that a variety of options negates the possibility of their being a correct option.

Now some we can dismiss pretty much immediately. For example, pain and suffering are real and not illusory. No matter how much we deny their existence, they inflict themselves upon us and others. Most of us aren’t masochists, so this suffering happens pretty much whether we want it or not! So Buddhism and Christian Science take a nose dive. By a process of elimination, you could come upon the correct answer.

OR

You could simply examine the claims of the one option Bill and I are suggesting to you: Christianity. [I call it a SHORT CUT!]

I should say that no one’s ever been argued into the kingdom of God before, so I’m not trying to convince you. [Don't scratch your head. I know that might seem to make little sense.] If the Holy Spirit don’t guide you into truth, nothing I could say would convince you. Fortunately, He is found by whomever seeks Him.

I do not find God to be a dictator. He created me. As my Creator, He knows how I best operate and how I might have life and have it more abundantly. The operations manual [Bible] simply describes how I should operate so that my joy will be full and my life fruitful.

The fact that I must come to him by faith is only logical, since the sort of God Christendom preaches would be wholly undeniable if He showed up in full glory. Free will would be eliminated. We’d have no choice but to worship! Nothing else would seem appropriate or even possible! You and I only have the freedom to reject Him because he loves us enough to not want a forced, mandatory, robotic sort of love in return.

Think about it,
Sirius Knott

Interesting thoughts.

This has been the friendliest conversation with an atheist I’ve ever had, and I appreciate your time. I know I can’t convince you of anything, but God can, and I hope He will.

Thanks,
Bill

http://ichigostarfish.wordpress.com/2008/03/19/an-atheists-heaven/

:)

Despite it being a huuuuge if for me, I will play along. So, lets suppose there is a God AND it’s the Christian one AND it’s the Christian version you think is true.

Firstly, I think I would be quite depressed. The World would suddenly be revealed to be under the grip of an inescapable dictator, demanding that all worship him. No longer would what I considered to be right and wrong matter, the important thing would be to slavishly follow his rule. (And judging from the oder of the commandments, worshipping him trumps the other important bits).

Presumably, I would go to hell for placing living a good and happy life above following the bible and praying on my list of priorities. Needless to say, I would be a very unhappy bunny about going to hell, but it would still fit with my Marcus Aurelius quote – “If there are gods, but unjust, you should not want to worship them”. This version of God sounds a bit narcissistic and I wouldn’t want much to do with him/her.

One important point – I don’t see faith as a virtue. This isn’t to say religious people are bad. There are millions of wonderful Christians, Hindus, Jews, etc, (Though I do think it a teeny shame if someone needs a belief in an afterlife in order to do good things), I’m not saying faith is necessarily bad either, I just don’t think of it as I do of kindness, empathy and generosity. If I got really lucky and my ideal kinda God was, in fact, the God, she wouldn’t care about who believed in her or not.

The reason I don’t worry about the huuuge if is – I have hundreds and hundreds of equally huuuge ifs. The “What would happen to me if there is a Christian God?” is equal in my mind to the “What would happen to me if there’s a Hindu God/Muslim God/Greek Gods/Pagan God?” etc, etc. None of us can possibly cover all the bases with every god demanding so many different things of us, (oddly enough, as different as they all are, they do share a common trait of all being demanding though!).

On the subject of the ten commandments: I think I’ve broken 1, 2, 3 and 8 and then also 9 and 10 (assuming the word “covet” means sort of “think about/consider”). I’m a long way from perfect but I don’t think I’ve lived a terribly bad life and I would think that if breaking the commandments sends you to hell that hell’ll be a really busy place.

Finally, another quote I quite like from (I think) Bertrand Russell, when asked what he would answer God if god asked him why he didn’t believe in him.

“Not enough evidence god, not enough evidence”

P.s. Lets hope the Romans or the Muslims or the Incas or the Aborigines or the Buddhists or the Vikings or anybody else isn’t right, otherwise all the Christians and the Atheists would end up outside of heaven, arguing with one another – now wouldn’t that be hell! :)

Thanks again, and have a fab day,

Lucy

My point in asking whether you’ve kept the Ten Commandments was to prove that you haven’t really lived a good life, and if the gods are just, you’re in big trouble. Would a just God overlook lying and stealing? Does a just Judge let guilty criminals go free? If someone killed someone you were close to, and they pled guilty, and asked the judge to forgive them, would you be happy when the judge let them off?

What IF it really is true that the God of the Bible exists (I realize that’s a big IF for you, but please play along)? The first commandment is to keep Him first in your life. Not only have we all failed to do that, but you deny His existence. Also, He provided a way for your sins to be forgiven, and you reject this gift. You breathe His oxygen every day without giving Him a second thought. You have no intention of acknowledging Him, much less thanking Him. If the Bible is true, and you ignore Him your entire life, what should He do with you?

Thanks,
Bill