Ex atheist champion now believes in god

He had a belief that says belief is a mistake, does not make sense to me, maybe he meant that "the belief in God" is a mistake, but anyway, atheists will see him maybe as a person who had mental problems at his old age of 81, and will insist that his previous beliefs before he get these mental problems are the correct ones, and they will keep worshiping evolution or the coincidence, their Gods, while the ones who believe in God will see in this an evidence maybe that they are right? whatever, in all cases, as they say there is a thin line between genius and madness, same in belief, each will claim he is on the genius side and the other is crazy?

but that does not mean one is right and the other is wrong, even among those who believe in God, they will sometimes see God as a super power, despite God is the one who created power, some will see God as an old man sitting on a cloud, despite God created both the man and the cloud, some will see God as a light, despite God created light, some will see God as infinity, despite God created infinity, and despite God existed before anything we know, and before the language that made words to describe what we knew, and before man, light, wind, river, ocean.... they are all God creatures and even time and place, God existed before place, yet they try to put God in a place, and God existed before time, yet they still ask when?

I think it has much to do with the confusion between knowing God and seeing God, and later the try to control God, as this man says:

he wants to put God in an image he can see, as a "person", despite God created persons, so he can't be a person, as many before him did but in different ways, he is nothing more than those who said the Sun is our God, or the Moon, despite God created both, but they needed to control God by putting him in the image of Sun or Moon, and they thought then they knew it all, and later when they found that there are so many Suns in this universe, they said, there is no God.

later they will come and maybe say, God now is an intelligent person maybe? and maybe later if this man lived longer, he will say again, nah God does not exist, and atheists may cheer up and say his mental problems are gone now, and believers may say, he now has mental problems ... even after all this God will still exist.

 

So according to you, atheists who express their opinions are irrational, hateful spammers spreading BS and religious people just use their common sense. Right. If we don't agree, it's simply we haven't seen "the light" yet.

Oh the irony.

 

So is that a yes or a no then? You seem to be fudging around the question. Either deny that with age generally comes a cognitive decline are accept it, But give an answer.

 

In his case, at 81 the answer would be no. Physical decline is very apparent and starts in the 30s but mental decline is much latter and varies. I can a statistically significant number (takes away your "anecdotal" excuse) of people that made it well past 81 with no noticeable mental decline.

So are you saying a transcript of what he says at 81 shows less cognitive ability than your posts; yes or No?

 

Be that as it may, can't you see that, even as along the way you say
"There is no God" and yet in the end-game of your life, when you
will start "suffering from mental decline", you will ultimately come to God,
our GOD? Though you now "refuse to accept" our God is the Beginning and
the End, the First and the Last, may you come to realize that everyone of
us is His creation and in the end, we will come to Him at last!

 

mark Oppenheimer disagrees. he's someone who interviewed Flew. Not someone like you who assumes Flew is flawless the second his opinion can be used to support your own.

"In 2007, Flew published a book titled There is a God, which was listed as having Roy Abraham Varghese as its co-author. Shortly after the book was released, the New York Times published an article by religious historian Mark Oppenheimer, who stated that Varghese had been almost entirely responsible for writing the book, and that Flew was in a serious state of mental decline, having great difficulty remembering key figures, ideas, and events relating to the debate covered in the book. Where his book praises several philosophers, (like Brian Leftow, John Leslie and Paul Davies), Flew failed to remember their work during the Oppenheimer's interview. The article provoked a public outcry, in which atheist PZ Myers called Varghese "a contemptible manipulator.""

I have no problem admitting that "your god" serves as hope for those nearing the end of their lives who have very little else to cling on to. They are vulnerable and frightened, just the type the religious like to prey on... but i don't see how that is an endorsement of your gods existence.

It;s also worth pointing out that flew in no way has accepted any religion or even the notion of an intervening god. So if you were expecting to use this frightened old mans words to prop up your myths, don't bother. Though i doubt that will stop the religious just making stuff up. it never stopped them when Einstein and Darwin died. there is something particularly odious about lying about the dead.

 

Who cares about that professor? look at the macro:

middleages until 20th century: 100% believed in god. = crusades, diseases, hunger, ignorance, witch burning, prosecutions etc' etc' etc'
20th century - today: less and less and less of the world population believe in god = welfare, technology, doubled life expectancy, science, DP

Too bad I can't find it again, there was one website with a graph showing a decreasing exponential relation between various figures (GDP, life expectancy, baby deaths, etc') vs. "degree" of Religiousity in most world countries. In other words, the more religious the country is, the poorer and miserable the people are. That can not be doubted. (an interesting exception was the USA, whose point was out of the graph...)

I say: RELIGION is the childhood-sickness of humanity. Humanity has to get over it in other to survive.

And if one of you guys still haven't seen the 2008 film "religulous" with bill maher, its a must!

 

Correlation does not imply causation.

I'm atheist, so don't think I'm defending them.

But you could just as well say that poverty and all over horrible living conditions causes an increase in religiosity.

Oh wait, that's just as bad for them!

 

Try to focus Stox, you're all over the place.

In this little snippet, you are saying that Mr. Flew didn't accept religion even though he was in a frightened state.

He only got to the point of acknowledging the existence of God. He may continue on to realize the omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence of God. He may acknowledge his sin and his need for a savior and then receive the free gift of salvation. The only fear he should have is that he might cling to his sin while the clock runs out on his life but God is sovereign and would probably allow him enough time to seek because he said keep on seeking and you will find.

 

Its not the ones who express their opinions. Its the ones who express their opinions and judgement about people of all religions with hate and making them out to be mentally crazy, but the point is people of faith are numbering more and more everyday. I guess atheists want to convince the whole world that their crazy lolololol, or maybe its the other way around. Its good because people that havent made up their minds will see right through this hate and spamming.
God does work in mysterious ways doesnt he, and it looks to me like hes working through these atheists.

Tbarr, the fact that he is in fear shows the seed of faith has been planted in a very basic way. lets all pray that this seed keeps growing

 

You keep saying that. As far as I know, there is a greater percentage of atheists/agnostics in the world than ever before in history. True, this may not be satisfying for many.

Maybe at some point people will re-explore spirituality without the shackles of old traditions and the superficiality and hypocrisy of organized religions. In the end, most people belong to a religion out of conformism, as with most things, not a real spiritual thirst and independent thinking.

Believing what your parents taught you is not exactly a credit to one's character.

 

Sorry buddy, but I have brought many links to support that there are many many more people of faith then atheists in thsi world today. If you want to , you may look through my posts, but im not gonna go fishing for it just to post it again.

The fact that you assumed that im christian because my parents are christian is another prejudgement made by yet another atheist who are the number one in accusing christians and people of other religions of judging them. I went through a period of my life of looking through all religions and even trying to understand the logic of atheism but in the end I saw it just didnt make sense to believe that this incredibly ordered world could have come about without some form of intelligence. Now im a christian forever and because of this journey, nothing can change what I believe in anymore. Notice that I never start it off by spreading false information about atheism or making websites that spread hate and making fun of other religions or atheism even. It kind of shows that im secure in my belief and in my lord.

I think we all need to do some SOUL searching once in a while.

Yet another case of the pot calling the kettle black.

 

The "logic" of Atheism starts with the desire to not be accountable to God. The best way to accomplish this is to deny his existence. The "incredibly ordered world" is a very strong and constant witness for God's existence. I even find rare diseases to be a strong witness because each one points out some incredibly complex system that is right. Every time I hear something like Wiskott-Aldrich Syndrome, I think for every case of that disease, 199,999 people have an incredibly complex system that is right whilst one has some deficiency in the same complex system.

I also see so called Atheists working tirelessly to make 'godbegone', trying to convince themselves that God does not exists, and/or trying to convince us they really don't believe in God. In a way, this weakens their arguments in that they wouldn't work that hard to prove that the Loch Ness monster, the Easter Bunny, or Superman doesn't exist. There is something contridictory about someone who protesth (or posts) too much.

 

What do the so-called Atheists have to proudly declare their being so? What do they advocate?
Are they up to anything good for humanity by being not only unbelievers, but also destructionists
of peace-loving faithfuls whose primary distinction from them is to believe in one supreme GOD who is
the source of all life and everything for the goodness and well-being of all, including them who claim to
be "atheists"? Can anyone who proudly claim to be an atheist come forward and honestly declare goodwill
and favorable blessings towards other people? Or don't they just simply weaken the integrity and trample
upon the beliefs and tenets of the religious and other believers just to prove that they are happy and
proud of being anti-God, which to them could probably be a magnificent performance and testimony of
their being alive not because of any other Supreme Power but their own? May the Almighty God have mercy
on their souls!

 

The logic of atheism starts with the conclusion is there is no evidence for god beyond the fallacious argument from design (the fallacious argument which Flew relies on) and thus we have no reason to assume the claim that one exists is true, And certainly not the claim that any particular god exists. As you have no doubt done with the claims that unicorns, elves, pixies, goblins, Thor and Vishnu exist. But for some reason you think your god is entitled to special concessions that even you don't give to other gods and random shit that someone made up.

We would if fanatics were trying to tell us what to do, say, draw and think on the grounds that the loch ness monster demands it.
We would if people were mutilating childrens genitals on the grounds that the easter bunny expected it.
We would if people we trying to get the concept of "superman design" taught as a science along-side evolution.

You really are clueless about why people oppose the idea of god so fervently aren't you. We don't oppose religion simply because it's ridiculous, we oppose it because it's a manipulative poison designed to get otherwise good people to do atrocious things. We make fun of it because it's ridiculous... but we oppose it because it's poison.

what, except religion, could justify the mutilation of a childs genitals for no good reason?

 

I never assumed you were christian, what are you blabbering about.

Wow there are a lot of people here that are so entrenched in their religion they assume anyone who thinks otherwise must be because they are against them and their beliefs. That's intellectual immaturity for you.

The fact is I'm not atheist. However, in most discussions, the atheists / secular humanists / scientists are the only one who actually are rational and objective in their arguments, so I side with them for the sake of reason.

What I believe and why I believe it, without any proofs, is personal. I would never dare to force anyone else to espouse it. That's fanaticism.

This "common sense" you guys are talking about have always been the enemy of real knowledge and discovery.

It used to be common sense that sickness was cause by demons (which make sense when you don't know otherwise).

It used to be common sense that the earth was flat (which make sense when you don't know otherwise).

It used to be common sense that the earth was a few thousand years old (which make sense when you don't know otherwise).

It used to be common sense that the sun was orbiting around the earth (which make sense when you don't know otherwise).

Religion and ignorance has always come hand in hand.

If it's common sense for me to believe that the moon is made of cheese, I will say that those who don't believe it are really just trying to deny the obvious reality of the cheese-like substance of the moon when you look at it and I will give them a special name: the cheese denyers.

Grow a pairs guys and admit you can't build social laws and an education system based on religious beliefs because they're mostly a bundle of superstitious traditions. What you believe is your own thing, but if you can't prove it with evidence or reason, it should have no incidence on the rest of society.

 

Sorry I allready proved my common sense argument allready. Its people like this who still think the universe and all the complexities that encompass it came about through random sense, and this is teh COMMON SENSE that im talking about. Many scientists understand that this is impossible. There had to have been an order or some intelligence to it.

If your correct then , im still gonna try to throw my leaves up in the air and if I do it long enough they will come down and transform magically into a cat. This is what atheists are asking me to believe in and im sorry , I just dont believe in that kind of magic.
Thanks

 

Again, Nobody in science believes anything even remotely similar to the claim that things come about by random chance, And even less that throwing leaves could even spontaneously generate a complex organism - Which ironically, and embarrassingly, for you, is actually closer to what you believe. That's what your god done wasn't it? Make things from nothing? He wont be happy when he finds out that you have been openly mocking his method.

So much for "thou shalt not lie". I guess like most things in religion picking and choosing which bits to believe in becomes a very selective process when there is an agenda to propagate. The fact is pong, You are no more a "christian" than i am, You just use it as something to hide behind.

WWJLA

 

Usually the Christians turning to atheists, not the other way around.

 

In classic Stox fashion , your trying to twist the facts around as you usually try to do.

Remember Intelligent design? Opps didnt mean to bring that sore spot up
As I have stated a million times and have proven you wrong on yet a million more, I claimed many times that the intricacies of this universe could not have come about , out of thin air and out of random chance and that some intelligent force had to have been guiding it and as usual you cant confront this .

I predict one day stox you will confront that awesome question and i will be shaking hands with you in my church hall.
God bless you