Ask your difficult questions of an Atheist.

What’s a neo atheist ?

 

That question has been asked and answered with citations no less. I am not here to continue posting references that you demand only to refuse to read them. Google is your best friend.

You made claims I asked 2 more questions and again like the rest of the thread you and all other neoatheists are incapable of responding to even the most simple questions much less answer anything at all.

This thread has been a mega failure for neoatheists.

Nothing more than a ledger of dead end groundless claims.

I do love the one about the official dictionary with official definitions, I am still laughing myself to tears over that one.

 

quoted from dial the truth ministries.

 

You’ve done no such thing.

 

About us needing a savior and forgiveness?

human beings cannot live without a sense of purpose. Scripture teaches that we were made to know God and to return God's love-that's the sum and substance of every persons reason for living. Made in God's image (see Genesis 1:26-27), we sense this truth about ourselves even when we cannot explain it clearly. Our built-in sense of purpose is so strong that when people turn away from God, they will turn to something else in order to make sense out of their lives, to define some purpose for their existence (see Romans 1:18-22). The earliest chapters of Genesis set forth this purpose and extend its meaning into our work and daily activities. We are to cultivate the earth, to name the animals (as we do even today in discovering new species), to exercise dominion, becoming cocreators (or partners) with God in caring for the earth's resources. Our work actually furthers God's creative purpose. When we do our work well, it reflects God's glory and gives him praise. God's purpose can sustain us in triumph or tragedy, in despair and disappointment, and in moments of great joy. Our life and work indeed have purpose: to bring glory to God.

do you believe in God? Every building has a builder. I believe everyone deep down inside knows that they have a desire to seek God, but because we have free will, some people freely choose to supress the truth because they want to follow their own desires. People dont want to seek God because they dont want to stop being their own God, but being your own God is a quick fix that comes and goes. God is drawing everyone that ever lived to Him. Even though people arent aware of their sin, the law of God is still written on their hearts.If you search your feelings, you know it to be true. The void in the human heart that can only be filled by knowing Jesus Christ is like Princess Leia saying I know somehow ive always known. People mistaken the law written on their heart for other things and also suppress it at the same time. can you also think about everything i mentioned? Its important to know where one comes from, like, anybody adopted would want to know who their parents are. the bible fits together like a puzzle piece because every nation has laws and every crime has jail or fines (which is what hell is like). The Bible is not a Jewish Book, it is God's Word, given to ALL mankind.
the word "gospel" means "good news." The truth is that it is great news: God isn't mad at me. I know how to be forgiven of my transgressions against Almighty God. Jesus died for my sins, then rose from the dead!

quoted from Shintoism exposed by Jesus is Savior.
The religion of Shinto is in opposition to Christianity. In its purest form it teaches the superiority of the Japanese people and their land above all others on earth and that is diametrically opposed to the teaching of the Bible. According to the Bible, the Jews are God's chosen people through whom He entrusted His words. "What advantage then hath the Jew? or what profit is there of circumcision? Much every way: chiefly, because that unto them were committed the oracles of God" (Romans 3:1,2). However, though the Jews are God's chosen people, they have never been designated better than any other people (Galatians 3:27), and they've never been taught that they were direct descendants of the gods, as Shinto teaches its people. Thus, Shinto is Satanic! Shinto fosters a pride and a feeling of superiority in the Japanese people. This type of pride is condemned by God, who says, "...There is none righteous, no, not one" (Romans 3:10). The same lesson was learned by the Apostle Peter who concluded: "Then Peter opened his mouth, and said, Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons" (Acts 10:34). Since Shinto teaches the basic goodness and divine origin of its people, there is no need for a personal Savior. This is the natural consequence of assuming one's race is of celestial origin. Christianity teaches that all of us need a savior because our sins need to be punished. God, through Jesus Christ, took that punishment on Himself so that all mankind could be brought back into a proper relationship with Him. Jesus plainly stated in John 14:6, "I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me." Furthermore, the Kojiki and Nihongi, as the basis of the Shinto myth, are found to be hopelessly unhistorical and totally unverifiable. The stories and legends contained in these works are a far cry from the historically verifiable documents of both the Old and New Testaments. The concept of kami is both polytheistic and crude, surrounded by much superstition. This is in sharp contrast to the God of the Bible, whose ways are righteous and beyond reproach. Immorality abounds in the stories of Shinto; while the Bible is quick to condemn acts of immorality (Matthew 5:2. Shinto finds little acceptance apart from Japan since everything of Japanese origin is exalted and that which is non-Japanese is abased. Shinto is a textbook example of a religion invented by man to explain his ancestry and environment while taking no consideration of anyone but himself. While Shinto teaches that the kami might commune with those who have made themselves worthy through ritual purification, the God of the Bible promises to be present to anyone who calls upon Him for forgiveness (Romans 10:13). No amount of personal purification (a form of salvation by works) will make a person worthy of the presence of God in his life (Romans 4:5). Only faith in the shed blood of Jesus Christ on the cross can accomplish cleansing from sin and make us acceptable to a holy God... “For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.” (2nd Corinthians 5:21). What a wonderful Savior! "Be it known unto you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, whom God raised from the dead, even by him doth this man stand here before you whole. This is the stone which was set at nought of you builders, which is become the head of the corner. Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved." -Acts 4:10-12

The Trinity cannot be completely understood. After all, no finite being can completely comprehend an infinite God. But we can apprehend the Trinity, just like we apprehend but do not completely comprehend the ocean. When were standing on the beach, we can apprehend that theres an ocean in front of us, even though we cant completely comprehend its magnitude.

quoted from the jesus is savior article on gene simmons.

I believe in a relationship with a Creator and a Savior. Religion is people trying to find meaning and purpose apart from repenting. Repentance is not just I'm sorry it's a change of heart and mind. People don't want to seek God because they don't want a genuine change of heart and mind. Repentance is not just I'm sorry it's a change of heart and mind, and becoming a new creation.

also quoted from jesus is savior.

 

You can believe whatever you want. But it’s all human contrivance and not based on fact. There are so many contradictions with our ever loving God who allows 20k children under five to suffer and die everyday. So, what’s the purpose ?

 

but I do, every time neoatheists dodge the question, I LMFAO,

104 pages and the neoathests have not answered so much as one easy question.

Neither have they posted their official words dictionary that everyone is pining to see.

 

friend, your religion wont save you, nor can your spirituality or good deeds save you. being in tune with cosmic forces wont save you either. None of those things mean anything. Jesus is calling all of us and has been since before time began. even in our sins and troubles, He still calls out and desires all to be saved; no, not from your pains here on earth but from your separation from God the Father for all eternity. Hell, death, sin-they are all very real and very much a problem that we cannot fix. No, we cannot fix any of those things, but Jesus Christ can by His atoning death on the cross. We have a problem, friends, and it is sin. No matter how big or how small, we just can never be good enough to be close to the Father. The Ten Commandments are not so much a code to live by, but a ruler to show us how far off the mark we are. Sin is the issue, and as long as we have unconfessed and unatoned sin, we are forever lost. What we need is to acknowledge what we are and trust in Christ's death on the cross for our sins. Once there, then we call call Him Lord and Savior and King. We must confess Him as Lord over our lives with nothing else between us. It is not so much "Do we know God?" but "Does the Lord 'know' us as children, His children by faith alone?" If we are His, then we will hear His voice when He leads and guides us. If you are not hearing God's call and direction, that may mean you are not even a child of God. Please, today, call out to the Lord and confess your sins and ask Him into your heart as Lord and Sovereign King.

Having a relationship with God is the answer and the meaning of life, not religion. The meaning of life is repenting of sins and accepting God as your Creator and Savior. We were created in Gods image. We were created to know God and to return Gods love. When people turn away from God, they turn to other things to find meaning and purpose. The restlessness in the human heart can only be filled by seeking God and making Him a part of your life. People confuse Bibical Christianity and having a relationship with God with name it and claim it and indulgences and the prsoperity gospel and other hocus pocus, but Christ was not about those things. Just because Jesus is part of Catholicism that doesnt mean that he isnt God. There is no real peace anywhere else but in havng a relationship with God. Happiness is not found anywhere but in a living saving relationship with Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the Jewish Messiah. There is a Youtube video called Isaiah 53, the Forbidden Chapter, if you are interested in knowing more about that. could the man whose birth defined time and space actually have been crazy? In CS Lewis Mere Christianity, he said for Christ to have talked as He talked, lived as he lived, and died as he died, He was either God or a raging lunatic. The leaders of Jesus' day did not seek his death because He was simply a good man (or a madman)-or simply because He was a threat to their authority. Jesus was charged with blasphemy for claiming to be God. (Mark 14:61-64). Eyewitnesses saw Jesus after He rose. There are not one or two, but hundreds of eyewitnesses to prove it really happened.

Jesus rising from the dead wasnt a fairy tale conjured up in the minds of crazy or deluded men; this is factual history. Some religions were birthed when an individual claimed to have a vision or get a message from an angel, but there is no way to prove these events are true; theyre based on an elleged personal and private experience. On the other hand, God had hundreds of people see Jesus after He rose to show the world that this truly is the Son of God who has power over life and death. Jesus fulfilled the messianic propehcies. Prophecy is the ultimate supernatural proof. Some may ask, "With all the world religions, how do you know Jesus is the only way to God?" Prophecy. Only Jesus of Nazareth fulfilled all the ancient predictions about the coming MEssiah (or Christ) made in the Holy Scriptures. HUndreds of years before Jesus' birth, prophets foretold where the Messiah would be born (Micah 5:2), the specific Jewish family lineage He would be born through (Genesis 49:10, Isaiah 11:1), that He would suffer and die for the sins of the world, between lawbreakers, and be buried with the rich (Isaiah 53:8, 9, 12), to name just a few. There is even one prophecy in the book of Daniel, written five hundred years before Jesus's birth, that predicts the exact year the Savior would die for the sins of the people-and it's the same year Jesus died (Daniel 20-27)! The historical evidence of Jesus is better authenticated than that of such figures as Tacticus and Aristotle from ancient times. We have no reason to doubt Christ's early life. Eyewitnesses saw Jesus after He rose. There are not one or two, but hundreds of eyewitnesses to prove it really happened. Jesus rising from the dead wasn't a fairy tale conjured up in the minds of crazy or deluded men; this is factual history. These witnesses were so absolutely certain that they saw Christ after He rose that many endured severe persecution and even died for Him as martyrs when they could have denied Him and lived. The Gospels are not like reading some fascinating fictional account of the most wonderful human being the human mind ever conceived, for they arent fiction and the human mind didnt concieve Jesus. He concieved us. No fiction writer could invent such a character. The perfection and sublimity of Jesus Christ is beyond the capacity of the human intellect and imagination to construct. To read the Gospels in earnest is to come face to face with the living Son of God, Who is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of His nature (Hebrews 1:3). No mere human being could act like He acted, speak as authoritatively as He spoke, empathize like He empathized, serve people like He served them, instruct like He instructed, exhibit the wisdom He exhibited, live sinlessly like He lived, sacrifice like He sacrificed, and prove Himself to be God in the flesh and the Messiah, exuding divinity with every breath. The Bible is the only book in the world that contains hundreds of very detailed prophecies. If the text contains prophecies that do not come true, what does that say about that book? People will answer that the book is false. And that's absolutely right. If a book predicted something that didnt come true, the book could not be trusted. When the Bible was written, 25 percent of the content predicted future events. And every single one of those prophecies has some true in the minutest detail, except for the few remaining prophecies about the return of Jesus Christ to earth. Statistically, there is no way that man can predict the future with 100-percent accuracy Who is the only one who can do this?God. Only God could know the future. The book of MIcah (5:2) tells us that the Messiah will be born in Bethlehem-not in Jerusalem, Atlanta, or New York. And Jesus was born in Bethlehem (Luke 2:4-7). The Book of Zechariah (11:12, 13), says that this Messiah will be betrayed for thirty pieces of silver. Jesus was betrayed for thirty pieces of silver (Matthew 26:15). Adam and Eve may seem like a fairy tale, but a lot of technology that exists today like hovercraft seems science fiction or would seem like science fiction in the past. if we repent of our sin, then confess and trust Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, we will be saved from our sins! If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. There is a void-something is incomplete and people with try to fill it with various things. It is a common misconception that joy only comes from external sources. True joy is not found in hobbies but in Christ. That void exists because humanity is separated from God by sin and is homesick for God. All people have that same desire some people supress it. People are separated from where they come from and they try to fill that void with other stuff. I've been on the other side, Christ has touched my heart, transformed my life, I'd rather have Jesus. I accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. The glamour of travel relationships popularity and religion means nothing to me. I believe in a relationship with God, not religion. In religion, man is primary, God is secondary. religion is people seeking for God subconciously. religion is indicative of mans search for God. from the very beginning of time, religion was introduced onto the human stage as a substitute for God's plan. “What else does this craving, and this helplessness, proclaim but that there was once in man a true happiness, of which all that now remains is the empty print and trace? This he tries in vain to fill with everything around him, seeking in things that are not there the help he cannot find in those that are, though none can help, since this infinite abyss can be filled only with an infinite and immutable object; in other words by God himself. quoted from dial truth ministries article on ozzy.

quoted from billy graham.

what about someone who has never heard the Gospel? Is he condemned to hell ? People dont go to hell because they havent heard of Jesus. They go to hell because they have transgressed the law of Almighty God, which is sin (1 John 3 4). Titus 2 11, a very interesting verse, says, "For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men." God wants to reach each person, and is making Himself available to all. Romans 1 20 also tells us that Gods invisible attributes are clearly seen in nature, so that men are without excuse. Since His Grace appears to all men, but there are some who go to Hell, the bottom line is that people are rejecting God and wanting to selfishly choose their own way in life.

 

You really don’t know what “ official” means do you. It only applies to a particular subset. Any university class can prescribe a dictionary as their “official” source though it may not be for all universities. That’s why we have glossaries.
No, you have done no such thing. You still haven’t defined any term.

 

puhlease spare us the usual neoatheist blather and post a citation for 'the official definitions' from the 'neoatheists official definition book'.
I never claimed to personally define anything, that is another typical example of a neoatheist bogus redd herring.

 

Why bother. If it’s not your meaning from a dictionary of your choosing, it means nothing. how do you know I’m a neo atheist ? I don’t deny the existence of god.
If you just claimed YOU never defined anything, let alone a neo atheist, then I’m right, you never defined neo atheist, dah.

 

That's an unfair comparison to be applied to either the pro or the con side of the argument.

 

I suggest you take up the issue directly with Above Alpha whenever he becomes available again.

 

No, the issue is with hypocrites who offer up that Alpha has degrees while in conversation to add legitimacy to their own argument. It’s not with Alpha whomever. .
Besides, claiming someone might have a bunch of degrees is not the same as actually having them. There is nothing in the post that provides any proof. It’s really laughable.

And that comes from someone who has four, maybe six degrees, so they must know what they are talking about.

 

Sure, like the degrees are from U of MUS,
The university of “ make up s.h.i.t.

 

Ah so then you affirm the existence of god

 

false analogy
anything anyone says means what they explain it to mean and neo atheists rarely if ever use a comprehensive definition from a dictionary. Countless examples have been demonstrated here and other similar threads that they cant seem to comprehend anything past the first line of a definition and then argue tooth and nail the remaining variants and senses are invalid.

I did not claim to invent the definition.

 

For someone who claims to do neither himself, how can you not understand such a basic concept? Just because you don't deny the existence of God doesn't mean you affirm it. You can do neither. You've claimed to do so yourself in the past.

 

I didn’t say that.

 

He’s ( Kokomo) is argumentative and has way too much free time in his hand. I don’t know he knows what he believes.

 

Get your story straight.

 

How can you identify a neo atheist ?

 

Wherever it's from, it's from a person who doesn't understand the science.

 

The claim was that the company that made the quantum computers did the later video review of the robotic assembly and reported that the computers became nonfunctional. You can laugh all you want to and assume that it is irrelevant and unprovable, as if it's as easy as brushing off the claim that the moon is made from blue cheese.

Here's something for you to ponder. Physicists are abandoning the notion that space-time contains the fundamentals of our reality, and are leaning towards the idea that the fundamentals cannot be discovered without analyzing what is hidden behind the manifestation of consciousness. And in the field of quantum mechanics, the Copenhagen interpretation is falling out of favor.

 

reasons for Jesus quote.
Former Atheist & Philosophy Professor On How Studying Philosophy Convinced Him Of God
By
James Bishop
-
January 17, 2019
3673


By James Bishop| Philosopher Edward Feser perhaps has one of the most well articulated and detailed testimonies I recall having read (which at this point is quite a few). Feser is a professional philosopher after all, so it shouldn’t be too much of a surprise. Nonetheless, in this short post I have attempted to summarize Feser’s journey while also attempting to outline some of the key moments that had taken place within it.

I am confident that this summarized testimony will be helpful to those who don’t necessarily have the time to read through the 7000 word testimony on Feser’s own website. However, I do encourage reading the full testimony for there is much in the details not included here.

As a way of biography, Feser is a well-known philosopher in the profession having penned numerous academic articles on several subjects ranging from the philosophy of mind to metaphysics. He is the Associate Professor of Philosophy at Pasadena City College, previously a Visiting Assistant Professor at Loyola Marymount University, and a Visiting Scholar at the Social Philosophy and Policy Center.

He has authored numerous books including Aquinas, Five Proofs of the Existence of God, Scholastic Metaphysics: A Contemporary Introduction, and The Last Superstition: A Refutation of the New Atheism. Feser was also once an atheist naturalist until he converted to Christianity.

Feser explains that he was a convinced atheist naturalist for a period of 10 years in the 1990s and that his transition away from it “was no single event, but a gradual transformation.” He was brought up Catholic but ultimately lost his faith while a teenager around the age of 13 or 14. His atheism stayed with him well into his university years as a passionate philosophy student.

While at university he discovered a new interest in existentialism and existentialist philosophers, particularly Soren Kierkegaard. This interest led him to discover other existentialists such as Friedrich Nietzsche and Walter Kaufmann of whom he both appreciated but especially Kaufmann in particular. In the more modern philosophical climate, the atheist analytic philosopher J. L.

Mackie proved appealing to Feser, and he considered Mackie’s book The Miracle of Theism to be a solid piece of philosophical work. Feser remarks that Mackie’s book was “intellectually serious, which is more than can be said for anything written by a “New Atheist.”” Philosopher Kai Nielsen would also appeal on issues of morality and religion. According to Feser,

“What really impressed me was the evidentialist challenge to religious belief. If God really exists there should be solid arguments to that effect, and there just aren’t, or so I then supposed… Atheism was like belief in a spherical earth — something everyone in possession of the relevant facts knows to be true, and therefore not worth getting too worked up over or devoting too much philosophical attention to.”

However, when he examined analytic philosophy in some more detail during the course of his studies it would, before long, bring his “youthful atheism down to earth.” The genesis of Feser’s transition away from atheism came about when he first begun to look into the philosophy of language and logic. Over the several following years, during which he weighed information and arguments presented in his course materials, he reasoned that the existing naturalistic accounts of language and meaning failed to satisfy,

“I already knew from the lay of the land in the philosophy of language and philosophy of mind that the standard naturalist approaches had no solid intellectual foundation, and themselves rested as much on fashion as on anything else.”

Feser’s journey continued on to unexpected places. He moved towards Aristotelianism, especially in regards to ethics (rather than metaphysics), and then toward Platonic realism. The further he ventured on this philosophical voyage the more he discovered that philosophical materialism “was shallow and dogmatic” and that “Naturalism came to seem mysterious at best.” Despite these uncomfortable truths, he sustained his “commitment to naturalism for some time.”

However, just shy of the turn of the century, Feser, while still a grad student, was given an opportunity to teach a philosophy of religion course, followed by opportunities to teach intro to philosophy courses. Teaching in philosophy of religion required that he taught the arguments for and against the existence of God as proposed by notable historical figures like Anselm and Thomas Aquinas to his students. However, as still an atheist naturalist, Feser recounts how he was not particularly unbiased in his manner of teaching as he “taught the material the way so many professors do:

Here are the arguments; here are the obvious fallacies they commit; let’s move on.” Despite this monotonous approach, which soon begun to bore him, he could not shake the realization that many of the historical individuals (philosophers and theologians in particular) who had presented these arguments in their time “were obviously not stupid.” This awareness motivated Feser to really grapple with the content and approach the subject material in a slightly fairer manner,

“So, it seemed to me that it would be interesting to try to give the arguments a run for their money, and to try to make it understandable to the students why anyone would ever have accepted them… I still didn’t agree with the arguments, but at least teaching them was getting interesting.”

Over time, as Feser examined the arguments presented in favour of God’s existence the more he was compelled to accept them. This also marked a period of transition,

“As I taught and thought about the arguments for God’s existence, and in particular the cosmological argument, I went from thinking “These arguments are no good” to thinking “These arguments are a little better than they are given credit for” and then to “These arguments are actually kind of interesting.” Eventually it hit me: “Oh my goodness, these arguments are right after all!”

Feser could no longer rationally sustain his philosophical naturalism in the face of these arguments. In fact, not too long after, and perhaps to his own surprise, he was trying to convince and convert his wife’s skeptical physicist brother-in-law of the truth of philosophical theism while they were on a train trip through eastern Europe.

Feser leaves us with words which almost certainly have their routes in the 17th century philosopher of science Francis Bacon, a devout Christian and the father of the scientific method, who once remarked that “a little philosophy inclineth man’s mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men’s minds about to religion.” Feser reasoned similarly:

“When I was an undergrad I came across the saying that learning a little philosophy leads you away from God, but learning a lot of philosophy leads you back. As a young man who had learned a little philosophy, I scoffed. But in later years and at least in my own case, I would come to see that it’s true.”