Atheists are actually Christians....

AfterInfinity
if there were a god...why would he think like a human?

He wouldn't.

Isaiah 55:8-9

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways,”
declares the Lord.
“As the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.

reply to post by FlyersFan


Good. So we've got that established. So why in the hell should I listen to any human being who pretends to understand God? Obviously, in order to understand God, they'd have to be having inhuman thoughts, inhuman emotions, and generally inhuman sensory packages which would utterly befuddle our pitiful outdated human hardware, right?

Now do you understand my skepticism? You cannot give a dude the sort of biography and powers he needs to be your almighty guardian angel, then pretend to have some sort of common ground that helps you understand exactly what he wants and why. God is literally beyond human comprehension, according to your scripture. He's not even in the same galaxy, doesn't matter what we're comparing. So how the hell does anyone here understand him when they've never been anything but human? Stop lying to yourselves. Seriously. It's annoying.

Or maybe since people around here are so good at figuring out what inhuman entities are all about, they can ask my pet squirrel what it thinks about the merits of acorns vs walnuts. Same principle, different direction. Message me if you want to have a try. My squirrel is getting awfully agitated over its little bowl of acorns. Maybe you'll finally give me a reason to take you guys seriously.

AfterInfinity
So why in the hell should I listen to any human being who pretends to understand God?

You wouldn't.

Not Ted Haggard. Not Jimmy Swaggart. Not Jim or Tammy Baker.
Not Muhammad. Not Anjem Choundary. Not Ayatollah Khomeini.
Follow a human ... you can fall into error with them.


If someone wants to read up on what these, and others, say ... and then pick and chose what sounds reasonable and what doesn't ... that's another thing. Sometimes people have good advice. But blindly buying into what these, and others, say simply because they claim to know what God wants ..... BAH! No human knows the mind of God.

AfterInfinity
Now do you understand my skepticism?

Sure. I don't think I gave you a hard time about it. Did I? I don't remember ...
Skepticism is healthy. I wish more people would use their brains and decide what
is real for themselves instead of just following indoctrination. There'd be a lot less
death and destruction on the planet if people thought that way.

So how the hell does anyone here understand him when they've never been anything but human?

I can tell you why Christians think they understand God. Because the vast majority of Christians believe that Jesus is God Incarnate and, by reading the gospels, we can learn something about God and Who He Is. Not fully .. of course. But a glimpse. The big problem comes when people think the scriptures are complete and explain everything literally. They do not.

Jesus Himself said that He had many more truths to teach, but that the people of that time He was with weren't ready to hear it. It has to make you wonder .... WHAT were those many truths that He couldn't tell the people back then?

AfterInfinity
Obviously, in order to understand God, they'd have to be having inhuman thoughts, inhuman emotions, and generally inhuman sensory packages which would utterly befuddle our pitiful outdated human hardware, right?

Pretty much.

You've stumbled across Augustine's Doctrine of the Incomprehensibility of God. This article might be beneficial: The Incomprehensibility of God.

The God who has revealed Himself in Scripture tells us that He is going to be “incomprehensible” to us. But does this mean that God is going to be irrational or illogical? No. It means that God is beyond man’s capacity to understand or explain exhaustively. In this sense, God is beyond human reason and logic because He is infinite and we are finite.

The doctrine of incomprehensibility is the opposite of rationalistic “reductionism,” which reduces God to human categories in order to make Him “manageable,” “coherent,” and “explainable.” Incomprehensibility allows God to be GOD.

This doesn't mean that we can't understand him in part, or know him, just that there are aspects of God that we cannot understand, no matter how much we think about them, because he is of a fundamentally different nature than we are.

reply to post by adjensen

This doesn't mean that we can't understand him in part, or know him, just that there are aspects of God that we cannot understand, no matter how much we think about them, because he is of a fundamentally different nature than we are.

So we can understand him in part? Which part? The part he allows us to comprehend? Ever seen those movies where a select group of people are each given a secret task that they cannot share, and so they go and complete their tasks in mutually secretive fashion, and it turns out they were all the cogs in a death machine?

To quote Admiral Ackbar: It's a trap!

reply to post by AbleEndangered

Wouldn't God use an Avatar to represent himself?

Every mountain, star, insect, ocean and person is an avatar of "GOD". See where I"m going with this?

reply to post by FlyersFan

I can tell you why Christians think they understand God. Because the vast majority of Christians believe that Jesus is God Incarnate and, by reading the gospels, we can learn something about God and Who He Is. Not fully .. of course. But a glimpse. The big problem comes when people think the scriptures are complete and explain everything literally. They do not.

Huh. Frankly, I see a lot of discrepancies between Jesus and God in the Bible. Jesus is kind and humble. God is violent and proud. Jesus raises people from the dead, God puts them there. Jesus explains patiently, God demands unquestionably. Jesus advises compassion and remorse, God uses men as gambling chips when he plays poker with Satan.

I don't think Jesus reflects God very well. Militarily speaking, Jesus was actually the perfect mouthpiece for God because with Jesus as the poster child, no one would ever guess what God is actually like. But that's just me speculating. And even speculating, it sounds more convincing than what I hear in church.

Jesus Himself said that He had many more truths to teach, but that the people of that time He was with weren't ready to hear it. It has to make you wonder .... WHAT were those many truths that He couldn't tell the people back then?

Hmph. Study Buddhism and find out.

I am an atheist, and to answer your question OP i is due to my upbringing and the fact i can't get away from Christianity. from ages 5 to 11 I lived in a household where Christianity was forced down my throat from sunrise to sundown. Christian radio was played all day long. It never got shut off. Christian t.v. was always on. Church several times a week, between Sunday morning and evening services Tuesday service and choir practice on Thursdays and of course bible studies and potlucks. It was such a huge part of my childhood and very traumatic.

I consider my self a survivor like someone who has survived abuse rape or cancer. ( I am an abuse survivor so yes i have some authority to make that comparison)
You may survivor something but part of it is always there. You can never truly escape it. It is always there in your past and you can never forget what you experienced.

I was harmed by Christianity just like I was harmed by abuse.

reply to post by spartacus699


It's the other way round.

Many so called "Christians" only pay lip service and stand up mouthing words in church purely because of peer pressure. Many will indicate on a census or other form "christian" simply because of the stigma associated with putting "atheist" there.

There are many, many closet atheists - many more than you realise.

reply to post by calstorm


Ever seen Carrie? They came out with a remake very recently, but I liked the original better. Less focus on special effects and more focus on the story. Also, the character was more believable. Chloe Moretz is just way too attractive to play the role of the drab, withdrawn, socially inept teenage girl raised by a zealous mother whose greatest fear is that her daughter will fall in love and consequently have sex (the ultimate sin, apparently) just like she did.

If you watch the movie...you can see clearly exactly how such an upbringing constitutes as abuse. I have no trouble believing the way you worded it. No trouble at all.

reply to post by windword

windword
reply to post by AbleEndangered

 

Wouldn't God use an Avatar to represent himself?

Every mountain, star, insect, ocean and person is an avatar of "GOD". See where I"m going with this?

Indeed, Most Excellent point!!

Also remember there are two sides to the coin...

Does this mean, God has a bad side?? or an Anti-God?...or is God a Force of nature? or is God the only force of nature?...

Side Question: At the surface, does Satan fulfill this Anti-God force??

reply to post by AbleEndangered


Maybe everything that's bad for one thing is good for something else...me eating salad requires that the lettuce die first. Right?

reply to post by AfterInfinity


I have, and I plan on watching the new one at some point.

My grandparents were very big into demons were the cause of everything that went wrong, and when you are a little kid and told that your bad behavior was the result of demons telling you to do bad things, and being told that your neighbor is sleeping around because she has a demon in her, gives plenty of nightmare fodder.

reply to post by AbleEndangered

Indeed, Most Excellent point!!

Also remember there are two sides to the coin...

Does this mean, God has a bad side?? or an Anti-God?...or is God a Force of nature? or is God the only force of nature?...

Nope. God has no bad side, not in my book.

God is everything, including the forces of of nature.

Side Question: At the surface, does Satan fulfill this Anti-God force??

I don't believe in "Satan". Not on a "God" level.

I believe that we are spiritual beings, having a physical experience. There are "levels" of spiritual dexterity. It may be, that at a slightly higher level, that there are competing agendas that we think of as evil. But I think things sort themselves out by design.

calstorm
I am an atheist, and to answer your question OP i is due to my upbringing and the fact i can't get away from Christianity. from ages 5 to 11 I lived in a household where Christianity was forced down my throat from sunrise to sundown. Christian radio was played all day long. It never got shut off. Christian t.v. was always on. Church several times a week, between Sunday morning and evening services Tuesday service and choir practice on Thursdays and of course bible studies and potlucks. It was such a huge part of my childhood and very traumatic.

I consider my self a survivor like someone who has survived abuse rape or cancer. ( I am an abuse survivor so yes i have some authority to make that comparison)
You may survivor something but part of it is always there. You can never truly escape it. It is always there in your past and you can never forget what you experienced.

I was harmed by Christianity just like I was harmed by abuse.

How exactly where you so harmed?

reply to post by spartacus699


Read my post two above, there i s much more, and i may post tomorrow but falling asleep right now.

AfterInfinity
Frankly, I see a lot of discrepancies between Jesus and God in the Bible.

It's hard to find God in the Old Testament. A lot of it is myth and folklore and people claiming to have a directive from God ... but in reality they are mass murdering and raping and using God as an excuse to do so. The New Testament is a separate book for good reason. It is capable of standing on it's own very well.

Study Buddhism and find out.

Have you seen a comparison of Jesus teachings and Buddahs? Very similar. Christianity kind of looks like a cross between Buddhism and Judaism.

reply to post by FlyersFan


NT and OT go hand in hand in my opinion. The Word of God is the Word of God. Make any changes and both versions are instantly suspect because that means their "absolute truth" wasn't absolute at all. Which means they are flawed. Which turns the whole friggin' thing on its head, for obvious reasons. The fact that there are two different testaments is telling enough.

AfterInfinity
So we can understand him in part? Which part? The part he allows us to comprehend? Ever seen those movies where a select group of people are each given a secret task that they cannot share, and so they go and complete their tasks in mutually secretive fashion, and it turns out they were all the cogs in a death machine?

No, it's not that there are parts that I can understand, and parts that you can understand, and they are different parts, but that there are aspects of God that we, as substantially different beings, simply cannot understand.

One example would be God's eternal nature -- many people say things like "how can God have no beginning? How can he always have existed?" because everything that we know, from ourselves to the universe to abstract things like ideas, all have discrete beginnings and, we assume, will have eventual endings. But God doesn't, he just is. Always was, always will be. God has no relationship to the concept of time -- because he is eternal and external to this reality, everything, past, present and future, exists in the moment for God. As Christians (and Jews, and Muslims,) we accept that, but we can't say that we really understand it, because we exist in time and so we see everything through that filter.