Actually, as I understand it this means that you are the perfect sacrifice for everyone else’s sins.
The reason why this is so is not at this point clear to me, but **jesusguy **assures me this is true.
No worries. The Big Man has personally assured me that jesusguy is going straight to Hell.
It may not be a problem, but it should be unnecessary to ask. If God says yes, great, If God says No, then it is no different to pray to a carrot or a stone.
The quotes were from another human, not God or a God, we just take the Human’s word for it!
I think that a of Atheists have already prayed etc. and since nothing happened they saw they were praying in vain! I think it is ego that makes people think one has all the answers. As I stated many times it can be proven that the Bible was written by many different humans and it is their mind that decided what God was like. Then they realized it was not of God but another human no different than themselves!
Like I said, why is this a good thing? Doesn’t seem like you’re helping at all.
Do we stand before God as soon as we die? I thought the bible said that we would sleep in the grave until Judgement Day.
Depends on which infallible Bible you read.
It always amazes me when religionists claim that atheists have never actually tried prayer. Of course we (a great many of us) have. As you note, nothing happened.
Doesn’t matter if atheists have tried prayer or not - there are plenty of ‘faithful’ people out there who presumably have more than a ‘mustard seeds’ worth of faith - praying constantly - praying to cure cancer, praying to stop the next hurricane, praying that thier team wins…
For all those prayers, nothing has yet come to pass* - let alone getting a mountain to move or a mulberry bush to drown itself.
*except for half the folks at any given sporting event
Well, which one is the infalliblest?
First we hear that atheists have this sort of Oedipal issue, that bad feelings toward a biological (or even adoptive) father lead to bad feelings toward a heavenly father, and so a failed family relationship leads into rejection of the divine.
:rolleyes:
Then we hear this crap about trying prayer and being disappointed with the lack of results – as if praying to a thing that we do not believe exists in he first place makes the vaguest lick of sense.
:rolleyes:
I was raised to believe in jehovallah, so one day, when I was about 8 or 9, I prayed for wisdom, in the vein of that solomon dude. Now I am pretty confident that jehovallah is a phantasm. So I guess my prayer for wisdom worked.
:dubious: :smack:
Or something.
Don’t be foolish. The point is that the failure of prayer is why many people of faith became atheists.
Indeed. For me that was a big one.
Realising, after years of daily prayers, that you never actually get an answer.
Not even a simple “Hello”.
You’re just praying away at a void.
Then, one day, you decide to stop talking to the wall, and see what happens. Which is of course; nothing. No change at all. No angry God, no increase in bad luck or anything.
Then I realised there is indeed really nothing out there, the doubts were right.
Immensely liberating.
we’re nearly 300 posts into this thread… has ANYONE’S mind been changed?
Hands?!
Yes, Hans has changed his mind.
But Franz still wants to PUMP YOU UP!
This says a lot about your motivation for starting this thread. When you say things like the above you make it clear that it’s not about helping people; it’s about telling people that you’re right, they’re wrong and if they don’t listen to you God’s going to get them real good. It’s a petty malicious outlook cloaked in smug self-righteousness and protected by a torrent of tortuously-interpreted Bible verses, which converts no one and leaves us with the impression that either God is spiteful, capricious and cruel or that Christians are. And as neither option is likely to sway anyone in your favor, we’re once again forced to the conclusion that that’s not what you’re here for.
There’s a famous (probably apocryphal) quote about a missionary speaking to an “Eskimo” that you may know:
Eskimo: ‘If I did not know about God and sin, would I go to hell?’
Priest: ‘No, not if you did not know.’
Eskimo: ‘Then why did you tell me?’
If we were unaware of “the Truth” your approach would actively endanger our souls, so it’s clear you’re not talking to us for our benefit. Is this some sort of spiritual Amway scheme, where you gain treasures in heaven for converting X number of people who then must also convert X number of people?
“The gods of the Disc have never bothered much about judging the souls of the dead, and so people only go to hell if that’s where they believe, in their deepest heart, that they deserve to go. Which they won’t do if they don’t know about it. This explains why it is so important to shoot missionaries on sight.” -T. Pratchett, Eric
Remind me not to put on that video tape the missionaries sent me the other day.