This is an article my daughter wrote about an honest dialogue she had with a pagan.
(Mandy was honest…the pagan was not.)
Sometimes Mandy is criticized for treating atheists unkindly.
Her methods are “too direct” and “unloving”.
I’ve been told I’m no better.
In fact, I’m worse because she probably learned from me.
This is something that occurs over and over.
When pagans are confronted with the truth, they call it “hate”.
Dismissing arguments because they are “unkind” is intellectually lazy.
Dismissing your own need for hope and purpose is deadly.
12 Responses
Something I really love, in those dark nights of the soul, we have a lot in common as people. We all come to similar conclusions about ourselves, we all seem to meet the same Lord. That is truth, that is evidence, that is a testimony to what we have witnessed. A witness statement is actually called “evidence.”
When have you ever been truthful? How can you be truthful when you have nothing to show as evidence to support your truth? Atheists are not stupid and cannot be indoctrinated into a state of mythical and emotional faith.
Keep running!
sklyjd, Did you even read Mandy’s post? You guys claim to be wise, but you become fools. You have exchanged the truth of God that you can’t help but know, for a lie. You are proud, and you cannot conceive of yielding yourself to a God that tells you that you need Him.
You will never find Him until you realize that you are lost without Him.
You hate Him, because you are controlled by your desire to destroy those who have found Him…
Those that KNOW He is real…
Because…
He has changed them, when they couldn’t change themselves.
I think that statement applies to you as well you have no evidence to support your truth and I won’t be indoctrinated by your mythical and emotional faith in nothing.
A PARABLE: THREE COFFEE BEANS AND FAITH
Jim had a horrible addiction to cigarettes.
He had a dream one night, and in the dream, a man told him that God could take the desire away, but, that Jim had to believe that He could.
“Oh, man, if that is what it will take, I will believe.”
The man handed him a bag of roasted coffee beans.
“Every time you feel the cigarette’s pull, say, ‘My trust is in God,’ and eat three coffee beans, one at a time.”
Jim looked inside the bag and asked, “What kind of coffee beans are these, anyway?”
“The cure is not in the beans. The beans are just beans. They are a reminder to you that your trust is in God.”
Jim woke up.
There beside him, in the bed, was…his wife.
No coffee beans.
No bag.
He looked under the covers, under the pillows, on the floor, on the bedside table.
No beans.
“What are you looking for?” his wife murmured with her eyes still closed.
He told her the dream, in vivid detail.
She snored before he finished.
“It was so real,” he thought.
He went into the kitchen, got a ziplock bag, poured some coffee beans into the bag, sealed it, got dressed, stuck the bag in his pocket, and poured a cup of coffee.
“Cigarette!” He grabbed a pack, stopped, laid it back down.
“My trust is in God.” He ate three coffee beans, one at a time, and went to work.
That day, he ate a lot of coffee beans, but each time the urge for a smoke came on him, he would quietly say, “My trust is in God.”
Two days later, he threw his cigarettes away.
10 days later, he was only eating three beans a day, first thing in the morning, but that was only because he started each day saying,”My trust is in God.”
The coffee beans just seemed appropriate.
Jim’s neighbor, Ray asked him if he could borrow a cigarette one day.
“I quit, ” Jim said.
Ray looked at him, puzzled. “How’d you do that?”
Jim told him about the dream and all that followed.
Ray laughed, went to his other neighbor, borrowed a cigarette, and went home.
A couple of days later, he started eating coffee beans.
No change.
He called Jim. “Hey, what kinda coffee beans were those?”
“Doesn’t matter,” Jim replied, “the power is not in the beans.”
“You serious? You really think ” God” did this?”
“Yep.”
Ray laughed and went home.
Ray never stopped smoking.
But four of Jim’s friends did.
They heard his story.
They believed him.
They put their trust in God.
And chewed their coffee beans as reminders.
If I may predict the atheist response…
“YOU THINK YOU CAN’T SMOKE AND BE A CHRISTIAN?!?!?!”
🙂
I know, but, it is just a parable. They probably will think,”What the…what does that have to do with…what?”
Just one question: if you’ve never known John and Amanda to be truthful, why are you now expecting them to answer your question honestly?
If you have known them to be truthful, then your question is void.
What scientifically testable and verifiable stand are you using to make the claim that atheists are not stupid?
Sure, some aren’t but some, almost all of them I have interacted with online for the past 20 years, are as dumb as a box of hammers. Really, Steve, most of them have little or no college, less than stellar career success, no significant contributions to society.
Honestly, one of them I interacted with recently summed up his academic creds by saying in all seriousness that he comes from a scientific background. Is that (no PhD, no published papers, no research…not even a BS in anything) the mad genius you speak of?
Besides, Steve, I was an atheist once and I was moved to faith without even setting foot in a church. How, exactly, was I indoctrinated?
Come on, sport, all you do on Christian blogs is embarrass yourself and harm atheism.
To be fair, having a university degree isn’t a very good indication of intelligence these days. Just about anyone can drop a few thousand bucks on the table and walk away with a few letters after their name…
Then again…
Since Atheists often care a whole bunch about those titles, it makes one wonder why they can’t get one.
True, a degree alone doesn’t necessarily make one intelligent but letters after one’s name do matter.
These self proclaimed experts in science, history, the bible…would not be able to write, teach, or speak about these subjects anywhere with their qualifications yet they demand everyone in the blogosphere marvel at their genius because they are super scientists.
One atheist I used to interact with wrote extensively about behavior as if she were a psychologist but there was no mention anywhere about taking even one class post high school.
Another wrote a book (painfully long and really bad high school germ paper packaged as a book) on leaving the church that is nothing more than quotes from the actual work of others (200 or so refs. cites) cobbled together with the inane ramblings of a yammering fool.
Sad, people really believe reading things online makes them qualified experts. Especially sad when, if these same experts applied for a job in academia, the real academics would never stop laughing.
Went kind of long there when all I really wanted to say is that Steve’s comment about atheists being smart is profoundly ignorant.