# Why don't people believe in God? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 21, 2013, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-people-believe-in-god/666766 "2013-08-21T00:49:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 31
**Author:** ![simster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/simster/32/1047_2.png) [@simster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/simster)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2013, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-people-believe-in-god/666766/601 "2013-08-22T21:30:09Z")
> [@Timo](#): > > Hmmm, maybe… > > But get this. If you knew what was right for your child, would you let him/her do something, would you give him/her something, that may be harmful to him/her? > > For example, and don’t get mad at this example, if your seventeen year old asked to go to the borders between Mexico and the United States where people are sneaking drugs and where they may bump into a drug lord, would you let him/her? > > If your seventeen year old asked for a car, and you knew that if you gave them a car, they would crash and have major injuries. > > You would prevent it if you can right? would you would prevent it if you knew what was coming? > > Same with God, what you ask may not always be good for you. God can see ahead, he knows what is happening. He knows what is good for you even when you don’t. > > For more: > [Why doesn't God answer my prayers?](http://www.bibleinfo.com/en/questions/why-does-god-not-answer-my-prayer) Lets see - God knows how many infants are going to die of ‘x’ this year -yet he still allows it -regardless of the prayers of his ‘faithful’ ones to the contrary - so, what is that good for? Is he controlling the population or simply killing off potential Hitlers? (missing the obvious facts that Hitler was allowed to live, etc). Yep - if my 17 year old wants a car and has shown me that he’s ready - damn skippy he’s going to get one - I may make him/her help pay for it - but yeah - he’s going to get one. Sorry your parents told you you were not ready yet. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2013, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-people-believe-in-god/666766/602 "2013-08-22T21:30:10Z")
> [@Timo](#): > > I corrected myself. Isaiah 7:14. Oh…nevermind. This is embarrassing. . Not as embarrassing as thinking there’s only one religion that believes there’s a god. Could you come back to that at some point? It was not a minor misunderstanding, it was a huge hole in your basic knowledge about other faiths. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2013, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-people-believe-in-god/666766/603 "2013-08-22T21:30:12Z")
> [@Timo](#): > > But aren’t you…? > > I corrected myself. Isaiah 7:14. Oh…nevermind. This is embarrassing. . Have you read _any_ of the Biblical quotes you used to casually dismiss all the Old Testament prophesies yourself, or did you just use the “translations” provided by those apologist sites? ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2013, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-people-believe-in-god/666766/604 "2013-08-22T21:31:37Z")
> [@Timo](#): > > Isaiah 7:14 - Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. Can you read Hebrew? A lot of posters here can. That passage does not say “virgin,” but “young woman.” (Other translations get it right.) And in those days, biological knowledge being what it was, a virgin giving birth wasn’t considered all that unusual, and it was happening all over the place. What makes you think this particular passage refers to a particular future event? ---
**Author:** ![Timo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c4cdca/32.png) [@Timo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Timo)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2013, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-people-believe-in-god/666766/605 "2013-08-22T21:44:18Z")
You’ve got me stumped with this. But check this out 🙂 Matthew 1:18-22 I know it’s a book from the New Testament but bare with me. Read all of that. And then check this out. 22 All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: 23 “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel”(which means “God with us”). You see the word Immanuel and virgin? Now…back to Isaiah 7:14. Old Testament by the way. This could either be a coincidence…or not…But virgin and the name Immanuel can not be a coincidence. Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel. Yes, I know, Isaiah was talking to Ahaz, the King. Isaiah asked Ahaz to ask God anything, Ahaz said that he would not test the Lord his God. Then Isaiah said that he would give Ahaz a sign. A virgin will give birth to a son, named Immanuel. And a virgin did give birth to a son. ---
**Author:** ![simster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/simster/32/1047_2.png) [@simster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/simster)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2013, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-people-believe-in-god/666766/606 "2013-08-22T21:51:13Z")
> [@Timo](#): > > You’ve got me stumped with this. > > But check this out 🙂 Matthew 1:18-22 I know it’s a book from the New Testament but bare with me. > > Read all of that. And then check this out. > > 22 All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: 23 “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel”[g] (which means “God with us”). > > You see the word Immanuel and virgin? > > Now…back to Isaiah 7:14. Old Testament by the way. This could either be a coincidence…or not…But virgin and the name Immanuel can not be a coincidence. > > Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel. > > Yes, I know, Isaiah was talking to Ahaz, the King. Isaiah asked Ahaz to ask God anything, Ahaz said that he would not test the Lord his God. > > Then Isaiah said that he would give Ahaz a sign. A virgin will give birth to a son, named Immanuel. And a virgin did give birth to a son. You’ve got that exactly backwards - Mathew (or the author of, more correctly) is trying to build his case and is referenceing Isaiah to do it - basically - he’s attempting to use circular reasoning much as you are - of course, here again - he’s a) ignoring that the ‘sign’ had already been fullfilled - b) ignoring that it has nothing to do with Mary or Jesus or… c) that lots of ‘virgins’ were having kids, so, saying one was going to do it and name it “common name of the day that means something specail” - isn’t all that 'prophetic. for (a) - he was doing what alot of modern folks do - say that "there must be a secondary, hidden or future meaning’ to this stuff -and there is nothing to back up those claims. ---
**Author:** ![DrFidelius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drfidelius/32/3447_2.png) [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2013, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-people-believe-in-god/666766/607 "2013-08-22T21:55:22Z")
But Isiah didn’t say “virgin.” He didn’t write in English. He wrote “almah” ( I apologize for not having Hebrew font handy) which means “young woman.” ---
**Author:** ![simster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/simster/32/1047_2.png) [@simster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/simster)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2013, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-people-believe-in-god/666766/608 "2013-08-22T21:57:19Z")
> [@DrFidelius](#): > > But Isiah didn’t say “virgin.” He didn’t write in English. He wrote “almah” ( I apologize for not having Hebrew font handy) which means “young woman.” thats why I keep ‘virgin’ in quotes - ---
**Author:** ![DrFidelius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drfidelius/32/3447_2.png) [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2013, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-people-believe-in-god/666766/609 "2013-08-22T21:59:33Z")
> [@simster](#): > > thats why I keep ‘virgin’ in quotes - If I recall correctly, the Hebrew word for a young girl how has not yet “known man” is “bethuwlah.” ---
**Author:** ![Timo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c4cdca/32.png) [@Timo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Timo)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2013, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-people-believe-in-god/666766/610 "2013-08-22T22:16:53Z")
> [@simster](#): > > You’ve got that exactly backwards - > > Mathew (or the author of, more correctly) is trying to build his case and is referenceing Isaiah to do it - basically - he’s attempting to use circular reasoning much as you are - of course, here again - he’s > > a) ignoring that the ‘sign’ had already been fullfilled - > b) ignoring that it has nothing to do with Mary or Jesus or… > c) that lots of ‘virgins’ were having kids, so, saying one was going to do it and name it “common name of the day that means something specail” - isn’t all that 'prophetic. > > for (a) - he was doing what alot of modern folks do - say that "there must be a secondary, hidden or future meaning’ to this stuff -and there is nothing to back up those claims. hmmmm, (I’m learning a lot from this, so thanks guys) And yes, I’m using another apologist’s (haha learned that word today) website so I don’t have to rewrite. What do you guys think of it? [http://protheist.com/questions/bible-questions/does-the-hebrew-word-almah-mean-a-virgin-or-not](http://protheist.com/questions/bible-questions/does-the-hebrew-word-almah-mean-a-virgin-or-not) ---
**Author:** ![Timo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c4cdca/32.png) [@Timo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Timo)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2013, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-people-believe-in-god/666766/611 "2013-08-22T22:18:04Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > Not as embarrassing as thinking there’s only one religion that believes there’s a god. Could you come back to that at some point? It was not a minor misunderstanding, it was a huge hole in your basic knowledge about other faiths. Wait… could you quote that fully? ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2013, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-people-believe-in-god/666766/612 "2013-08-22T22:19:38Z")
> [@Timo](#): > > hmmmm, (I’m learning a lot from this, so thanks guys) > > And yes, I’m using another apologist’s (haha learned that word today) website so I don’t have to rewrite. What do you guys think of it? > > [http://protheist.com/questions/bible-questions/does-the-hebrew-word-almah-mean-a-virgin-or-not](http://protheist.com/questions/bible-questions/does-the-hebrew-word-almah-mean-a-virgin-or-not) I think you should read the book yourself, instead of relying on a website that tries to blame the Jews . Are you also anti-evolution? That website is. ---
**Author:** ![CurtC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ce73a5/32.png) [@CurtC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CurtC)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2013, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-people-believe-in-god/666766/613 "2013-08-22T22:27:24Z")
> [@Timo](#): > > Read all of that. And then check this out. > > 22 All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: 23 “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel”(which means “God with us”). > > You see the word Immanuel and virgin? Skipping over the “Immanuel” thing, this is a pretty important clue to tell us who wrote the Bible. In the original Hebrew, Isaiah doesn’t say “virgin,” it says “young woman.” But more than 100 years before Jesus was born, the Hebrew Bible (basically the Old Testament) was translated into Greek (the translation is called the Septuagint), and they made some mistakes. One mistake they made was translating the Hebrew word for young woman (“almah”) into the Greek word for “virgin.” Whoever wrote the book that we call the Gospel of Matthew went digging though the Old Testament to try to find prophesies that Jesus fulfilled, and he thought he found one here. What that tells us is that the writer of the book of Matthew was fluent in Greek, but not in Hebrew. He couldn’t have been one of Jesus’s disciples, he didn’t read Hebrew, and he was desperately looking for anything that he could find that would indicate to the Jews that Jesus fulfilled their prophesies. ---
**Author:** ![Timo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c4cdca/32.png) [@Timo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Timo)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2013, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-people-believe-in-god/666766/614 "2013-08-22T22:28:24Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > I think you should read the book yourself, instead of relying on a website that tries to blame the Jews . > That website is. I agree. But then I would also need some background knowledge, plus be able to interpret hebrew, which I can’t- yet. At least not now. However, I’m still interested to know your thoughts. Can’t you say the same that the website you gave me (The Tanakh site) was to blame the Christians for their beliefs? ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2013, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-people-believe-in-god/666766/615 "2013-08-22T22:36:41Z")
> [@Timo](#): > > I agree. But then I would also need some background knowledge, plus be able to interpret hebrew, which I can’t- yet. At least not now. However, I’m still interested to know your thoughts. > > Can’t you say the same that the website you gave me (The Tanakh site) was to blame the Christians for their false beliefs? No. The website I gave you had the Old Testament verses that _directly_ prophesied what would have to take place for someone to be declared the Messiah without a single hidden meaning or mistranslation among them. The fact that Jesus fulfilled _not a single one_ of the prophecies is there fall all to see, no mistranslation or imaginative reinterpretation necessary. Your apologist sites do not dispute those claims-they merely try to shoehorn in other badly reinterpreted verses and then claim their “hidden meanings” should take precedence over the already accepted and clearly written verses. ---
**Author:** ![DrFidelius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drfidelius/32/3447_2.png) [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2013, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-people-believe-in-god/666766/616 "2013-08-22T22:41:01Z")
Oh, and aside from that one line in Matthew, where is Jesus ever referred to as “Emmanuel” in the New Testament? ---
**Author:** ![Timo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c4cdca/32.png) [@Timo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Timo)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2013, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-people-believe-in-god/666766/617 "2013-08-22T22:48:31Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > No. The website I gave you had the Old Testament verses that _directly_ prophesied what would have to take place for someone to be declared the Messiah without a single hidden meaning or mistranslation among them. The fact that Jesus fulfilled _not a single one_ of the prophecies is there fall all to see, no mistranslation or imaginative reinterpretation necessary. Your apologist sites do not dispute those claims-they merely try to shoehorn in other badly reinterpreted verses and then claim their “hidden meanings” should take precedence over the already accepted and clearly written verses. Okay, I see, well said by the way. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2013, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-people-believe-in-god/666766/618 "2013-08-22T23:29:17Z")
> [@Timo](#): > > Wait… > could you quote that fully? Right here: > [@Timo](#): > > However, I don’t know, and this is a genuine question, but are there like other religions where many people claim to feel their God to be true? Or is it more of statues and idols? > [@Marley23](#): > > Are you kidding? Everybody thinks their religions is true and their god is real. You would probably figure this out if you took five minutes to read about any other religion. > > The Jews banned idolatry long before the Christians showed up, and Muslims are even more strict about it than Christians are. ---
**Author:** ![Timo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c4cdca/32.png) [@Timo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Timo)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2013, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-people-believe-in-god/666766/619 "2013-08-22T23:32:35Z")
Okay, be right back, I was in a middle of typing a thought, but I realized I don’t have time to finish it because I agreed with some friends to chat, mingle, and eat at 8 PM and it’s, from where I am, 7:31 and I gotta leave. So don’t think I disappeared cause I gave up. I’ll be back tomorrow! ---
**Author:** ![Timo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c4cdca/32.png) [@Timo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Timo)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2013, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-people-believe-in-god/666766/620 "2013-08-22T23:37:39Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > Right here: “Not as embarrassing as thinking there’s only one religion that believes there’s a god. Could you come back to that at some point? It was not a minor misunderstanding, it was a huge hole in your basic knowledge about other faiths.” Oh haha 😃 yeah, don’t know much about other faiths. When you worded what you said above, I was like…no…it can’t be, I can’t be thaaat stupid. But you proved me wrong. haha that’s why I asked you to quote it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-people-believe-in-god/666766.md?page=30) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-people-believe-in-god/666766.md?page=32)