My Response to 'The Theist's Guide to Converting an Atheist'

[lion57389]

there is evidence for God, its called JESUS.

[Powerjew666]

Well said. I don't understand why christian's can't leave well enough alone(no offense to anyone of The Christian faith, just speaking from past experience). People have tried so much to convert me, one person even called me out when I refused. I just don't get it. Sometimes I think they take The Bible too literally. I thought that The Bible was just a book of Jesus' teachings or whatnot, what he thought.

I like being an Atheist

[MastaChefSteve]

oh... nice glasses btw

[MastaChefSteve]

UFO's and crop circles are proof of aliens? That is the stupidest thing I have ever heard. You guys claim that God and his word is man made yet you think crop circles are not?

[indignantatheist]

@MastaChefSteve I'm saying that UFO's and crop circles is better evidence for aliens than whatever religious people argue is evidence for god. HOWEVER... what I'm not saying is that UFO's and crop circles are evidence. They're not. They're merely better evidence than what Christians and Muslims and Jews and whomever else claim to be evidence. Internal conjecture. Skewed beliefs.

[Brownster88]

God hasnt revealed himself to man? NO miracles? Wow, I guess you converted me, oh wait you havn't, you wanna know why? Because I have experienced BOTH. So because you have taken drugs that caused you to hallucinate, you then question your own reality? I had a friend who had a similar experience. THEN he had a true experience with God. Only diference between you to is that he was a little more "open to anything being possible", not so, "I am absolutely right".

[indignantatheist]

@Brownster88 - How has god revealed himself to you? What kind of miracles have you been party to? If god has done no more than whispered to you inside your brain, than that is NOT evidence. If your miracle isn't something that positively suspends the laws of physics, you've got no case. Lemme have some examples of your evidence. I am open minded, but I think you believers confuse the term 'evidence' with 'subjective conjecture.'

[Brownster88]

@indignantatheist God has revealed himself in many ways to me personally, in this last 2 or 3 months alone, I can not tell you the amount of times that Me and one friend would discus something and how it should be or w/e, not tell anyone what we talked about, and then a preacher get up and say word for word what we talked about alone in our home. Also, I suffered with insomnia for over a year, and no matter what I did or took it would not change, I prayed about it recently and within the week

[Brownster88]

@indignantatheist within the week I was sleeping normally from midnight to 9 am. And let me tell you it had to have been God because I tried for over a year to sleep properly, nothing I did could change it. and he changed it near instantly. Hope I explained those two examples correctly on here, and that you understood them, idk if you will believe them but they are true, also sorry for the delayed response

[indignantatheist]

@Brownster88 When I was religious, the same thing happened to me. Things would seem as though there was an outside force who was privy to my conversations and whose influence on others was equally as mundane as even my private thoughts were reflected by the words and actions of others. But hearing your private conversations echoed in sermons is not evidence of anything. Just go check your horoscope and tell me it's evidence. It all works on the same principal, the Forer/Barnum Effect.

[Brownster88]

@indignantatheist I think you misunderstood, I am not talking an echoed, or oh hey he talked about what we did, I am talking about, like earlier this summer, a preacher I never heard preach before, from out west came here he doesnt know me I dont know him, never heard of him prior to this summer, and I am telling you he said WORD FOR WORD what me and my friend discussed and we told no one.

[Brownster88]

@indignantatheist Also, how do explain miracles?.. this past week at a big confernce, they saw deaf ears opened, people walk from wheelchairs, and many hundreds of other things. All stories, and lies, setups, really? I was gonna go myself, but I didn't have the money to get there, but friends of mine went, they saw it first hand...

[indignantatheist]

@Brownster88 There's nothing miraculous about someone who can kinda walk but is usually in a wheelchair, getting up and kinda walking because he believes he's been healed; in the same way an adrenaline-filled mother can lift a car to save her baby.

My sisters husband was born with his legs only half developed. He cannot walk and, without the use of his arms, cannot support his own weight with his legs. He has been wheelchair bound his entire life. Let's see him walk. Perhaps regrow his legs?

[Brownster88]

@indignantatheist possibly. but with a lack of faith it will never come.

[indignantatheist]

@Brownster88 It's not possible. And he does have faith. He's a Christian.

[indignantatheist]

@Brownster88 Malfunctioning ears, hips, eyes, if they're broken, they will not work. It's simple, really. So when you say that deaf ears were opened, well, I don't believe it. I'd be willing to say that they were partially deaf and they felt like they could hear better... but honestly, how do you know if they could better? How do you know the deaf person wasn't stretching the truth? I did that quite a bit as a faithful person, stretched the truth.

[Brownster88]

@indignantatheist So if you had a copy of their medical reports which proved that. Which alot of people have, xrays etc.. how would you react then? doubt what your seeing?

[indignantatheist]

@Brownster88 If they had medical reports before and after, if they had tangable proof that the IMPOSSIBLE had been accomplished, I'd think that it was their faith, not god, that healed them.

There is lots of evidence for the placebo effect, for people making miraculous recoveries, and from people defying rationality and medical science... but there's no evidence that any of it was supernatural.

[Brownster88]

@indignantatheist Well, see with you mentality towards things, God could come down to you, with a group of people there watching, tell you he was God, reveal the truth to you, and you would still rationalize it away. No matter what happens in you life you are determaned that there is no God and nothing a noone can change that. You have chosen the faith you want to follow. But I find it very ironic how obsessed you are with a God that you claim does not exist.

[indignantatheist]

@Brownster88 Look, if there were real evidence for god, I would not have a problem with belief. But there is NO evidence for god and if I saw him, I would not be able to believe my own senses. I've hallucinated before. I know what it's like.

There's a nice quote that goes something like this; I consider god like a cop considers crime, like a doctor considers illness, like a pastor considers sin. Not to glorify or adulate but to arrest, contain, and rectify.

[indignantatheist]

@Brownster88 Your mentality is to attribute the unknown or the seemingly miraculous to god, my mentality is we live in a universe governed by natural order and the natural order does not change, we just don't fully understand it. God is an unnecessary assumption, without evidence, and the more people attribute to him, the less evidence there is.

[Brownster88]

@indignantatheist I do understand your point of view, I was at one point in my life basicly agnostic, allthough I never was athiest, but I do understand some of the ways you think, even though I do not agree with them anymore.

[indignantatheist]

@Brownster88 And as for your insomnia, your mind created it, if you believe in god enough, your mind can cure it.

[ScentedNectar]

A fulfilled prophecy would only tell me that something was predicted correctly for some unknown reason, not that a god exists. All those various conversion worthy proofs, would only show that the thing being called proof is real, not that it actually proves the thing that it claims to be proving, which is a god.

[octoberboiy]

By the way why do you guys even suggest such a thing as aliens if there is 1. No proof of aliens EVER. 2. No Way of PROVING that there is aliens. Frankly you athiests need to for get of the idea of Aliens period because in your words... there is no EVIDENCE so i don't believe

[indignantatheist]

@octoberboiy - Belief in aliens is nothing like a belief in god. For example: alien life can be provable one day when our technology advances sufficiently... however, belief in god can never be substantiated by technology due to the nature of his invisibility, omnipotence, omnipresence, and all-around extra-natural characteristics.

[octoberboiy]

@indignantatheist Actually yes it can... what if the aliens are in another dimention that science can never attain... does that still mean they don't exist? And technically if you did find evidence of God you'd just claim it to be science.

By the way... how do you know that God won't prove himself eventually? If you can claim to believe in Aliens because you plan to prove it eventually then you should believe in God to... or neither of them

[indignantatheist]

@octoberboiy - If aliens are in another dimension we could never find, than it's of no use to speculate about them.

God has not, in the course of human history (all 500,000+ years), revealed himself to man. What makes you think he will now? There is no evidence for god, therefore he does not exist.

As for aliens, there's more evidence (UFO's, crop circles, etc) for them than there is for god. I don't believe in UFO's, but I'm just saying...

[ScentedNectar]

@octoberboiy Aliens have a degree of plausibility. But not gods, by any accepted dictionary definition. Eg, some definitions have a requirement of 'supernatural', but if something supernatural proved itself to me by manifesting, I would consider it to be part of our natural world/universe/multiverses/wha­tever, just a part that we don't understand. Also, 'supreme' is another, being that it is really an opinion if it attempts to apply to everything in relation to a claimed god.

[octoberboiy]

@ScentedNectar Actually you are going by a human interpretation of Aliens... how do you know if they are anything like that?

[ScentedNectar]

@octoberboiy It wouldn't matter how I interpret them, other than for them to be a life form that is not from earth. It's ok if they are beyond my understanding as long as they fit the basic definition. They are still plausible, while anything fitting the various god definitions is not.

[octoberboiy]

@ScentedNectar in that case that proves what i've been saying about evolutionists never believing anything. If God were to prove himself to you you'd probably say he was an alien.

[ScentedNectar]

@octoberboiy Nonsense, he wouldn't be compared to the definition of an alien, only a god, to see if he fits one of the accepted definitions. If he doesn't end up being a god though, people would look for another explanation, perhaps including whether he is an alien. But not until the god he's claiming to be is ruled out.

What definition of a god are you using?

[octoberboiy]

@ScentedNectar Atheists would make up their own NEW definition because of thier personal bias against religion

[ScentedNectar]

@octoberboiy I can only speak for myself, not other atheists, but I accept the standard dictionary definitions. As long as the thing one believes in fits under one of those standard definitions (and all the theistic ones do indeed), then I consider it a god one is discussing. How do YOU define god? Just so that I know what we are talking about, whether it's a god or some other concept that you are calling a god. People vary in this, so I need to know. Do you believe in the Christian god?

[octoberboiy]

@ScentedNectar I do believe in Yaweh the omnipresent, omnicient, God of the universe. Other Atheists, on the other hand, may not see God this way if he were to appear before them... they would come up with some rediculous scientific explaination for it. (By the way can you please spell God with an uppercase G? It symbols respect even if you do not believe in him)

[ScentedNectar]

@octoberboiy I spell god in lowercase almost all the time. Above it shows no disrespect because I referred to the Christian god. I just didn't mention that they give him the name "God". He is still a type of god in the general meaning of the word, a noun rather than the name of a specific one. I often do disrespect the names of various gods by not capitalizing them, but that's no bigger a deal than if I do it to a human's name, or a dog's. I don't fear the wrath of beings that aren't real. :)

[ScentedNectar]

@octoberboiy I don't think, if he were real, that I could ever respect the god of the bible. He tortures people for thought crimes, scours their minds looking for thoughts that offend him 24/7. No wonder people convince themselves that they love him, adore him, thank him, etc. They know deep down that the failure to do those thoughts as commanded means being tortured forever and ever. Even human torturers, the most evil of them, don't do that.

[octoberboiy]

@ScentedNectar Whatever punishments anyone receives from God... is direct consequences of thier behavior. In the bible the nations God commanded to destroy were the Godless wickedly perverted nations that were so evil it was beyond repentence... many times God pleaded and pleaded with these nations but they were entirely selfish and preverse. They needed to be destroyed so their wickedness would not spread to other nations. In the book of Jonah, God asked Jonah to go to the Ninevites and tell

[ScentedNectar]

@octoberboiy Really? They needed to be destroyed? Why didn't your god just leave them alone after they die? Why wake them just to cause them suffering? Is he too powerless just to destroy the evil and let them live happily? Is some sick sadistic test, worth more than the happiness of people you are ordered to believe he loves? Why design a test that would torture just for saying bad things? Blasphemy is something that no repentance is allowed for. Guaranteed hell. Is that fair?

[ScentedNectar]

@octoberboiy True consequences are things like the obvious results of behaving harmfully or foolishly. Real life here and now in this lifetime consequences. Are you only good because your god has ordered you to have certain morals, like the killing of gays and people who wear more than one fabric at the same time? Jesus ordered that these old testament laws were to be kept. Even gave shit to people for not killing their disobedient kids. Read the bible yet? The whole thing as written? Horrid!

[ScentedNectar]

@octoberboiy Your god's morals are insane. Modern, godless secular laws are far more logical, fair and sensible. Actual harm is examined and assessed. Laws are revised and improved. Has your god come back yet to revise his old pro-slavery laws? The ones that say it's ok to make slaves out of other nations? How about the ones saying that unmarried women who have sex should be killed? Would you like those laws to return? It would be what the bible writers' god wants. The many many writers...

[octoberboiy]

@ScentedNectar First of all the Mosaic laws are abolished... they were only for the Hebrews. Second of all Jesus clarified what he thought about slavery later in the book of Philemon. Third of all Jesus only said to follow the TEN COMMANDMENTS... and Paul clarified that the old Mosaic laws were abolished in his books. You need to read the Bible again in CONTEXT.

[octoberboiy]

@ScentedNectar them to repent... When they did repent God forgave them. God is a loving and kind God... he tries to do the best for the human race as a whole. He sent Jesus down here to Earth to save the wickedest of Sinners.

As for the forever and ever part... that is incorrect doctrine... some religions may believe that but the BIBLE does not say that. The fire of hell will eventually go out and God will restore the Earth to its original beauty.

[ScentedNectar]

@octoberboiy Repent? For what? Not believing? Who is harmed by that? Your god's ego? What a loser he is to have such poor self esteem that he gets upset if people don't worship him. Wow, that's the ultimate in petulance and narcissism. Good thing he isn't real, because he punishes humans for the nature you believe he gave us. The free will that you think is valuable yet it's horribly punishable. But, hey, that's ok, god'll stop hurting you after a few million years of torture cuz he's so loving!

[octoberboiy]

@ScentedNectar The bible does not say ANYTHING about a million years... I don't know who you've been getting your information from. I am a part of the Seventh Day Adventist church and we read the Bible in context... not by making up our own interpretations.

[ScentedNectar]

@octoberboiy My mistake, I assumed that it would be millions of years. How long DOES the bible say that people will be tortured until, before your god puts out the hellfire that he lit, and tossed them into, in the first place? Hey, wait a minute, the bible says that he will torture people he hates (oops,that's loves) forever! I guess when the fires go out, he keeps them in teeth gnashing agony some other way. Do you really approve of this? He's not real, so it's safe to think his ways are evil.

[octoberboiy]

@ScentedNectar First of all in 2 Peter 3:13 the Bible says: "Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness." If the wicked were to burn forever and ever how would there ever be a new earth? Also its clearly says: "Ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him." 1 John 3:15. If they were burning forever it would be eternal life (a life of pain but still eternal). And as for the first thing you said, Jesus does love us

[ScentedNectar]

@octoberboiy It doesn't say that the new earth will be repopulated with the sinners taken out of their hell punishment, does it? Didn't think so. Please read the actual thing. It's quite sloppily written. Tons of contradictions. Because there were lots and lots of authors and mixing of various manuscripts and revising. Many books were thrown out due to being unpopular in the church's politics centuries ago. Did you know that? Did you know no originals exist of texts it was derived from?

[octoberboiy]

@ScentedNectar Actually the dead seas scrolls were found (these were the orginals of some of the books) and when they were compared the translation was almost exactly the same. Second of all the word of God is whole. Everything God wanted to be into it is in it.

[ScentedNectar]

@octoberboiy Some parts of the scrolls were found to be the appear in the bible stories too. Not all though, and not written as the bible is. Has the bible been that distorted over the years that it no longer is the same as the original message? And where is that message? The scrolls are just one version of some older writings, long lost. Who wrote them? Why do you believe them over say, Hindu writings which are older and more traceable? How do you know they are your god's word?

[ScentedNectar]

@octoberboiy If Jesus loved you, then it was because he was a good natured human. Your god, even in pretend-human form does not. Read the bible and you will see for yourself. Don't go only by the minister-filtered selections you hear in church. I'm not even saying to not believe in a creator of some sort, but the bible will show you that their version cannot and luckily is not, true. Don't you want to read it for yourself cover to cover as your god wants you to? Or is secondhand good enough?

[octoberboiy]

@ScentedNectar I have read the bible cover to cover... maybe you need to... i've read the bible myself. and as for that website anyone can distort anything to mean what every they want. That doesn't make it right. Anyway it has been great having this conversation with you. I hope that some of what i've said you will think about it.

[ScentedNectar]

@octoberboiy Ok, see you around. I hope you think about some of this too. :) And remember, no one is reading your mind, ready to disapprove of your thoughts or commanding that you love them and remind them about it frequently (prayer). There is no hell. There are real world consequences to harmful behaviour, but no one will be awoken after death to be tortured, or rewarded for being a good yes-man either. Enjoy life without that hell fear. :)

[ScentedNectar]

@octoberboiy At evilbible ddot com, there are some very interesting examples of horrible things Jesus said and ordered. Killing, intentional confusion to prevent salvation, and other nice things. And everything there is straight from the bible itself, and IN context. Seriously, it's very good that this evil main book character is not real.

[octoberboiy]

@ScentedNectar he tries everything to save us... but Sin cannot abound in his presence... if someone wants to be stubborn and refuses to do right they will influence others to do wrong as well. For the world to be pure God will sadly have to destroy those who refuse to be pure. Ezekiel 33:11 says "As surely as I live, says the Sovereign LORD, I take no pleasure in the death of wicked people. I only want them to turn from their wicked ways so they can live.

[octoberboiy]

WHy did you make this video if you agree with him?

[indignantatheist]

@octoberboiy - I do not agree with him... so that's why I made this video.

[xchainlinkx]

I'd like to think aliens are closer than we think, but they hide their own signals so we can't physically notice any response...