This would be better than conflating being an atheist with irrelevant paraphernalia, ie. a/gnosticism, origins of the universe, whether we are led by science or astrology, believe in equal {marriage] rights, etc. etc.

I saw this awesome Atheist Test on HelloQuizzy:
A single question, “Do you believe in a god”?
With only one button to click on to answer “NO”.

It really is that simple!

That kind of love makes me feel all warm and fluffy inside. Where do I sign?

I realized another question may arise from my previous reply, such as “Don’t other religions KNOW that their god is real as well?” I suppose they feel they do, and quite possibly God has a plan for them as well. I believe the only way to heaven is through Jesus Christ, but I recently watched an episode of “30 days” where a practicing Christian goes to live with Muslims for 30 days. It was eye-opening. It’s on Hulu.com, if you’re interested at all.

Anyway, sorry for hijacking your discussion here, people. I’m done now. Carry on. God Bless.

The reason I believe in God is not because I’m a Christian or vice versa. Although I didn’t go to church when I was younger, I’ve just always believed. I don’t have all the answers for either side of the arguement, but I suppose I was “comfortable” with the concept of God rather than the idea that there is no God. I was probably still going to hell, though.

I had an experience within the last few months that led me to accept Jesus as my Savior. The story is that I signed up to be part of prayer vigil after going to church just a couple weeks on a regular basis. Anyone who signed up for a certain time was to be at the church at that time, and pray for an hour for all people with prayer requests and anyone else we wanted to pray for. Only 3 people were at the church each hour, and we went to one of the three rooms that are empty.

I had never prayed for more than a couple minutes and I didn’t see how I was going to pray for an hour. The time I chose was 11pm and I got there early after watching a playoff basketball game. I watched as one of the 10:00 guys had his hands in the air and was praying fairly loudly, but not loud enough for me to hear him. He walked up to the podium where our preacher usually preaches, prayed with his hands up in the air some more and then got down on his face and stomach to pray. Hmm. I’d never seen that before. None of that stuff was me. I had no idea what I was going to do but pray for a bit. At 11, I entered a room that had a table, a lamp, a radio with some cds and a booklet with a recommedation on how to start to pray. I read through it and started to pray with a “Well, here goes!” type of approach.

I then prayed for and hour and a half.

What happened that night was amazing. I know I’m not persuading anyone by writing any of this, but 15 minutes into the prayer, I KNEW there was a God, and he was there with me. I just KNEW. I’d believed before, but not to the extent I do now. I hadn’t gone into it thinking “This is going to be GREAT! I can’t wait!” I thought I was going there to pray for a few people. I just KNEW he was doing miracles as I prayed. I also knew He was not answering other prayers of mine, for reasons only He knows. I suppose many non-Christians would like a better explanation, but that’s the best I can do. The closest I can come to a better explanation is comparing it to one of the Author’s other comic between Jesus and Mo. I am now “pretending really, really hard.” Only now I know I’m not pretending.

I see your points and don’t yet have a good answer for the last one. God bless and thanks again for the reply.

As far as I can see, your reasoning seems to be along these lines:

You believe that anyone who does not believe in god will go to hell for ever when they die.

The reason you believe this is because you believe the christian god exists and this is what he wants.

The reason you believe in the christian god particularly (instead of any other flavour) is that you are american and christians there are the majority, so the chances are an american is likely to be a christian.

The reason you believe in god generally is, as far as I can see, because you are a christian.

Your reasoning appears to be entirely circular – ie, there is no reason for any of your positions except that *that is your position*; I think you would have to admit it is not very persuasive to anyone approaching the question with an open mind.

Moreover, there are numerous other problems with your position.

You say that god has given us free-will, and that if through that free-will we choose not to believe in him, he will torture us for ever (though by comparison, if I burnt down a school tomorrow killing a thousand children I would be forgiven as long as I said sorry to him afterwards).

Every action we commit is the product of our thoughts, conscious or un/subconscious. Every thought in our minds is ultimately described by the movement of atoms in our brains. God is infinite, all-powerful, all-knowing and created everything there is. There isn’t any part of the universe he can’t reach, and nothing in existence was created by anyone else. He created every particle and atom in the universe and the forces which govern their motion and behaviour; he set them moving, and he knows exactly where each one is at any point. He knows the whole history of everything from the beginning to the end. So he knows every thought in our heads, and every thought we will ever have, and that everyone who will ever be born will ever have. He is also perfect, so nothing can be in any way other than how he wants it to be.

Something which is perfect cannot be better than it is. It cannot be altered in any way that would improve it. You cannot add something to something which is perfect and improve it. If god is perfect he cannot want anything. He knows how everything is, and how it is going to be, and that is exactly how he wants it to be. Therefore if a person lives their whole life never believing in god, he knew that was how that person was going to be, he created all the matter which constitutes them which made them that way, and that is exactly how he wanted them to be. I can’t see how it would then be fair to punish that person.

“Purushottam – indeed. Though is there a difference between believing there is no god, and not believing there is a god?”

Jesus H.
“Here’s nobody coming to see me.”(c) Lewis Carroll.

Does that mean somebody is coming?