Why did not god make me a believer?

[LinusLinothorax]

Third possibility is that you are the one who does not understand, which fits the 3rd and 4th exampke of the earlier post.

But you understand, obviously. Go and elaborate the verses then. Tell us how "May Allah destroy them! How are they deluded?" doesn't mean what it says. Looking forward to your non-response.

[Sar1n]

But you understand, obviously. Go and elaborate the verses then. Tell us how "May Allah destroy them! How are they deluded?" doesn't mean what it says. Looking forward to your non-response.

If you don't understand, you can either accept that you don't understand and maybe try to find out, or accept some tales to make you feel like you understand. That's fine as long as it's just your choice, but when you claim those tales as truth, start worshipping them, build temples to them and above all, try to make other people accept them as truth, then we have a real problem.

[Prodromos]

If you don't understand, you can either accept that you don't understand and maybe try to find out, or accept some tales to make you feel like you understand. That's fine as long as it's just your choice, but when you claim those tales as truth, start worshipping them, build temples to them and above all, try to make other people accept them as truth, then we have a real problem.

All these seem harmless to me, except maybe "forcing" beliefs on other people, but ironically enough, the idea that you shouldn't force your beliefs on other people, is itself a belief, so why's it okay to force that belief on other people? I think when people say that we shouldn't force our beliefs on them, I think what they really mean is only they get to force their beliefs on us.

[basics]

mishkin,

Who is to say that God won't draw you to Christ for your own regeneration? It took forty years for Him to put me on my knees. In all that time did I give Him much thought, any thought? Not really, but He made all that possible by organising my circumstances to fit His timeline whereupon I was brought to Jesus and converted.

[mishkin]

Seriously I do not understand anything. Seriously, a religion should be something much simpler.

Thank you all for your answers.

[Prodromos]

Mishkin, what do you think of this video?

[mishkin]

A synopsis to decide if I should see it or not?

[Prodromos]

Well, you made this thread almost asking to be converted. From what I've read and seen, the story in that video is often what makes people convert to Christianity. It's only 12 minutes.

[mishkin]

Well, you made this thread almost asking to be converted.

The question was why any god gives a predisposition to religiosity / a religious environment in which to develop to some people and not to others.

[Prodromos]

The question was why any god gives a predisposition to religiosity / a religious environment in which to develop to some people and not to others.

The world is our environment. There are usually "missionaries" to spread the word of any movement or ideology. Even in Mecca there are smuggled Bibles and such. There's millions of articles, videos, etc. online, such as the one I posted. So at some point maybe it's a choice not to believe in it.

[mishkin]

So at some point maybe it's a choice not to believe in it.

Some believe without a doubt, do not have to make any decision, others consciously decide to believe in god and others do not have that choice because they can not believe in something that undoubtedly for them does not exist. For the last ones I would like a "religious" explanation.

[Cope]

Some believe without a doubt, do not have to make any decision, others consciously decide to believe in god and others do not have that choice because they can not believe in something that undoubtedly for them does not exist. For the last ones I would like a "religious" explanation.

That would depend on what your personal barriers to belief are. There are a wide range of reasons why people reject God and/or religion.

[mishkin]

It is not "rejection" of god. Atheists do not reject or refuse to love god. They do not close their eyes and refuse to see him for obstinacy or any other reason.

I think that the only reason why people do not believe in a god is because they find his existence impossible (or enormously improbable, so unlikely that it is absurd to consider his existence seriously).

[Cope]

It is not "rejection" of god. Atheists do not reject or refuse to love your gods. They do not close their eyes and refuse to see him for obstinacy or any other reason.

Atheism is a rejection of God and or Gods: I didn't say it was an intransigent rejection.

I think that the only reason why people do not believe in a god is because they find impossible (or enormously improbable, so unlikely that it is absurd to consider his existence seriously) his existence. As the existence of other things that I will not mention for not offending anyone.

That depends entirely upon what you mean by "God". If you've constructed a mental caricature of God (ie. an old man sat on a cloud) then what you're really considering "absurd" is your own projection. If you instead view God as the original substance from whence the universe was derived, he becomes a much less an absurdity and much more a logical deduction.

[alhoon]

The question was why any god gives a predisposition to religiosity / a religious environment in which to develop to some people and not to others.

We can't know. But we (Christians) believe most of us have this predisposition and those that don't will be judged but may be Saved still depending on their actions. But not anything God does makes sense to our imperfect minds and incomplete knowledge.

Even in Mecca there are smuggled Bibles and such.

That's pretty disrespectful.

[Prodromos]

That's pretty disrespectful.

What is?

[Elfdude]

All these seem harmless to me, except maybe "forcing" beliefs on other people, but ironically enough, the idea that you shouldn't force your beliefs on other people, is itself a belief, so why's it okay to force that belief on other people? I think when people say that we shouldn't force our beliefs on them, I think what they really mean is only they get to force their beliefs on us.

A stunning realization. I'd encourage you to explore more SJW and leftist ideas.

[basics]

It is not "rejection" of god. Atheists do not reject or refuse to love god. They do not close their eyes and refuse to see him for obstinacy or any other reason.

I think that the only reason why people do not believe in a god is because they find his existence impossible (or enormously improbable, so unlikely that it is absurd to consider his existence seriously).

mishkin,

The sad thing is that they do close their eyes to God but really it is not what they can't see, it's what they cannot feel in their hearts for Him that is the stumbling block. The Jews always sought signs whilst the Gentile seeks wisdom yet over the years the two have tended to converge leaving man in general desolate of God. By that I mean that signs and wisdom are both gifts from God yet man still cannot see them or accept that they do exist, why? Principally that is because their minds have been blinded by the power of sin and Satan and so can only be unblocked by God through Jesus Christ and Him crucified to defeat that power. When He said, " I am the Way, the Truth and the Life," He spoke truly simply because in Him all the signs converge bringing real wisdom to those that never deserved it but yet are saved. That's the wonderful love that God has and it's yours if you seek Him.

[conon394]

By that I mean that signs and wisdom are both gifts from God yet man still cannot see them or accept that they do exist, why? Principally that is because their minds have been blinded by the power of sin and Satan and so can only be unblocked by God through Jesus Christ and Him crucified to defeat that power. When He said, " I am the Way, the Truth and the Life," He spoke truly simply because in Him all the signs converge bringing real wisdom to those that never deserved it but yet are saved. That's the wonderful love that God has and it's yours if you seek Him.

Kinda a back hand slap however. Too Bad if you live in China or North America circa 0 AD because you missed that opportunity - or anyone born say in 500 BC. Kind of a slip shod god really. OK I guess I redeem them from my own folly and infantile rage and punishment but only slowly so a lot more die in sin... Because why He likes that kind of thing or what.

[ByzantinePowerGame]

Read Hippias Major and read Phaedo.

God is all around us, proof of God is all around us, we just have to observe the natural phenomenon that evince objective truth.

Observation of the natural world reveals a great deal about the nature and being of God/divinity.


First and foremost [in my view] would be aesthetics. If beauty is objective [and I believe that it is, Socrates believed that it is, Plato believed that it is, Aristotle believed that it is, and it clearly is]. But my saying "it clearly is" doesn't prove it or even provide evidence of it, and my listing a handful of famous learned men who believed in line with my point doesn't support my point. I don't have the time nor the inclination to write 6-10 paragraphs about aesthetics and beauty, so I will simply summarize the objective nature of beauty, the sense of aesthetics inherent in all of us, thusly... Find some nude photograph of Claudia Schiffer from when she was 20-30, compare it to a picture of a clothed Andrea Dworkin... Then with an honest face, try to declare that Dworkin is beautiful and that Schiffer is not. Beauty is not in the eye of the beholder, we all have an innate and inherent sense of what constitutes beauty.


Read Hippias Major where Socrates and Hippias agree that "the beautiful is that which is pleasing through hearing and sight." Ode to Joy, Moonlight Sonata, For Elise are pleasing through hearing and are beautiful beyond description. A young boy putting his right hand under his left armpit and trying to simulate farting noises is not pleasing through hearing. It is not beautiful and no honest person with a functioning sense of aesthetics could dare claim that is pleasing in hearing, and therefore, beautiful.
If beauty is objective then it exists in the form of a transcendental ideal and thus there necessarily must be a God.


If beauty is subjective and anything is beautiful just because somebody says it, then if I defecate on a canvas and call it art, call it beautiful, and you have absolutely no logical or logically consistent basis to tell me that it is not beautiful [or that it is not art for that matter] because the term beautiful is arbitrary as it is disconnected from any transcendental ideal.


Second, I would suggest the cannons of logic, they are clearly non-material in that they are not made up of matter and they are an abstract concept. If materialism is correct then there is no valid explanation for the existence of the cannons of logic.

Along very similar lines, would be the laws of physics. If materialism is correct then there is no reason for the laws of physics to exist and indeed they should not exist because they are non-material.




http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/phaedo.html

https://www.loebclassics.com/view/pl...LCL167.335.xml