25 things which make it hard for me to believe in God

Great Debates
181

Nothing. Religion has nothing good to offer that isn’t already done better by other things than religion. And most of what it does offer is bad, not good. And that applies to both organized and unorganized religion.

Garbage. Personally I find worship a disgusting, self-hating concept. Humans don’t need it and don’t benefit from it.

Judging from the effects he had on history, not really. It would have been far better for humanity if he* had never existed.

*Or at least his myth, if he wasn’t real.

182

It is a proven fact, that the Bible was written by humans and called God’s Word by humans, So in reality if one believes the Bible they are not believing in God but the human that, wrote, said, or taught abut God. No one can say in truth they know anything about God or a God, It is handed down from other humans.

Muslims believe that an angel dictated a book to Muhammad there is just as much reason to believe that, as any writer or writers of the OT or NT.

O

183

Those sound like nice ideas, but can you prove they were not written, taught, or thought by just other humans?

184

The prophecies and scientific facts that are stated in the Old Testament, which science has proven, is very very improbable to have just been ‘thought of’ by peasants thousands of years ago. How could they possibly predict the prophecies if they didn’t come true until hundreds of years later? I recommend visiting the websites I listed. They can explain these issues much better then I can.

If you truly want to find God then you should earnestly try to talk to Him. Even if you are not a hundred percent sure He exists, if You direct your prayer towards Him or who you think He is, He will show Himself to you. This does not mean He will send an angel or bolt of lightning down but He will speak to you many different ways.

In my prayers.

Mike92

185

First, next time you pray pray for powers of observation.
Second, you misspelled disproven. The “science” in the Bible is all garbage. Many Christians say that the Bible is not a science book, and they seem to not believe in people like you.

As for prophecies, how did the witches predict Macbeth’s future? Magic must be real! Or maybe Shakespeare wrote it that way. It is easy to make predictions when you write after the fact. And we have fulfilled predictions, like the virgin birth, which actually weren’t even predicted. Oops.

186

I worship Victoria’s Secret models. I keep hoping more of their, um, secrets, will be revealed.

187

I don’t understand why theists tell atheists to pray and that god will reveal himself. It’s literally the easiest experiment ever and it never works.

188

Voyager, it has been proven that the Old Testament was written many years before the New Testament.

True, the Bible isn’t meant to be a science text book. It does however contain many scientific facts. Can you pleas elaborate on what science is ‘garbage’?

The virgin birth was predicted: "All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel” (Matthew 1:22-23). Note that the name ‘Immanuel’ means ‘God with us’. The Hebrew word for ‘virgin’ has been thought to mean ‘young women’ but many biblical scholars have rejected this theory as the original word Hebrew word (almah) has always referred to a virgin in old texts.

May I ask why you appear to be on the offensive concerning my response?

Snarky_Kong, if an atheist prayed and was never ‘shown’ God I would say it’s one of two things: They were not sincere in their hearts to try and talk to God, or they expect God to show Himself instantly at their command. If one is indeed a true atheist and not an agnostic then they would not, in their hearts, be truly praying.

In my prayers.

Mike92

189

“Facts”. You mean like how the best way to cure leprosy involves dove blood? By all means, I welcome you to name one or two prophecies which came true, or a few scientific facts in the bible, but I’ve heard many such arguments. They’re utterly unconvincing, and rely on massive reinterpretation of the argument at best and a complete misunderstanding of the facts at worst. And again, I have to ask - do you accept that the current evidence overwhelming points to an old earth and the big bang?

I’m not about to trawl through that shit looking for the nugget of Lindt chocolate. Those websites are terrible.

I did this for several years. I gave up when I realized that I had no reason to believe even for a second that I was doing anything more than talking to myself and feeling silly. Many atheists were christians their entire lives. Matt Dillahunty was on his way to seminary before he took a critical look at his beliefs. This idea that just trying to talk to god helps is false. It’s a sign of delusion, not rationality.

190
  1. It’s not a prediction if it is made after the event it supposedly predicts.
  2. He wasn’t named Immanuel.

Do you have any predictions to support your point of view?

191

No, it doesn’t. Why don’t you actually bring up some of these supposed “facts”?

First, neither atheists nor anyone else has ever been “shown God”; there is no god to show up. Not yours or anyone else’s. And second, your “if you don’t see my god, it’s because you weren’t trying hard enough” is just standard nonsense used to handwave away why only people who only already believe in something are the only ones who “see” it, and it’s used to explain away the refusal to show up of everything from gods to psychic powers. It’s not an argument that’ll persuade anyone.

192

Well, to be fair, Matthew is quoting Isaiah 7:14 which was written before the birth of Christ. But Matthew was also a Jew, writing for a Jewish audience and trying to convince them that Jesus is the messiah they’ve been waiting for. So he goes to great and sometimes ridiculous lengths to pull scriptures from the Old Testament and force them into being prophecies about Jesus - even some that were obviously never intended to be.

193

What’s the point in “earnestly trying to talk to Him” if he doesn’t answer in plain English or whatever language the petitioner speaks? How do I interpret a thunderclap or pictures falling off the wall?

194

Indeed. And the Messianic prophecies are as yet unfulfilled.

That the Earth was created in six days. That it was created bit that many years ago. The order of creation. That there was a worldwide flood. That there were only three pairs of humans ancestors to us all (Noah’s sons and their wives.) Should I go on?
If you wander down to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NY you will instances of Chinese ceramics with clear connections between them going back to well before the Flood supposedly happened. How odd that the descendants of Noah who repopulated China took up where the drowned original inhabitants left.

From Wiki

So Matthew was using a mistranslation. Of course Christian scholars who care more for the prophecy than for the truth think it must mean something different “in context.” My teachers, all of who actually read Hebrew and quite well, disagreed.
If nothing else you’d think Isaiah would make more of this miracle. Born of a young woman hardly merits additional comment, though.

Reviving zombie threads is seen as bad form around here. Plus, real science is vital to our survival. I don’t want my kids and their kids to suffer because some political clowns who think the Bible gives the answers stand in the way of mitigating global climate change.

195

Bah. Superstitious nonsense!

196

Dude the only evidence for the virgin birth is the same book that contains the badly understood translation of the prophecy about the virgin birth

Tell me you dont actually believe all those prophecies in Battlestar Galactica that came true by the end of the series actually happened in real life do you?

197

Contradictory. You said “He will show Himself to you.” Well, he didn’t. You said “Even if you are not a hundred percent sure He exists…” I’m not. I tried. He didn’t show himself.

Funny kind of God you got there. He only keeps his promises when he wants to. Kind of like a kid crossing his fingers behind his back.

198

The OT is older than the NT. But Star Wars is older than either. So Jesus was clearly copying from Anakin.

199

nm - confused luke with annakin,

200

I for one wait with baited breath scientific facts first revealed in the bible.