On Jun 16, 8:40 pm, Mark Isaak <eci...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> On Fri, 15 Jun 2007 12:40:57 -0700,LindaLeewrote:
> > [...]
> > Since fear of God (and God's punishment) is the reason many atheists
> > reject God, yes, a night spent experiencing the supernatural would
> > probably be a very terrifying night for such people.
>
> You are greatly ignornant on the subject of atheism. Fear of God's
> punishment could be a reason for rejecting God, but rejecting God does
> not equate to disbelieving in God. In fact, one logically must *not* be
> an atheist in order to believe in God enough to fear him.
Atheists loudly complain about the Christian concept of Hell as God's
punishment.
>
> On the other hand, rejection of God can lead, over time, to ignoring
God,
> which can become a sort of atheism by default.
>
> On the third hand, fear of God's punishment is an extremely rare reason
> for rejecting God. At least, I have never heard of it happening. A
much
> more common reason for rejecting God is hatred of God for what he has
> done. Usually this happens when people who are raised to believe that
> God is Good have bad things happen to them, despite their sincere
> prayers. The God they were promised was demostrably not there. Of
> course, the problem is more with the promises than with God, but it's
not
> like "God is good" is a fringe belief.
People *often* feel God is not good because someone they loved has
died, which is so illogical as to be almost unbelievable. All living
creatures will die. If Mom or Dad or your baby dies before you do, it
isn't because God is bad; it is because death is a fact of life.
> Getting back to atheism, there are three main reasons (that I know of)
> why people choose it. The first is similar to the above reason for
> rejecting God, except more impersonal. The theists say that a God has
> certain qualities which people can observe, those qualities are not
> observed, ergo God does not exist.
>
> The second is probably the most common. Quite simply, there is no
reason
> philosophically to expect a god. Yes, there are plenty of so-called
> proofs of God, but they were debunked centuries ago.
Such as?
> Today, they are
> only used by the faithless to try to convince themselves.
>
> The third reason is the main reason why I became an athiest: the theists
> showed me, by their words and actions, that atheism was the morally
> superior position.
That's ludicrous. I've seen the posts on alt.atheism and the posts of
the atheists here, and they exhibit no evidence of being morally
superior to anyone else (although they profess to be so), rather
they're morally 'low' people. In addition, you decided to reject God's
existence because those who profess belief in Him are not perfect?
Does that really make sense to you? That seems rather illogical.
> Consider, for example, Nomen's quote: "I truly
> believe someone has to be insane not to believe in God the Creator ..."
> I simply do not want to be around someone filled with as much bigotry as
> he is.
I don't see that as bigotry. I see that as being unable to understand
how someone sane could miss the fact that God exists. I also believe
if their minds were healthy, they'd acknowledge their Creator.
> Note that I am not saying that these are good reasons,
That's good because they're really not.
> nor am I trying to
> convince anyone. I simply offer these observations in hopes that they
> help you understand atheists better.
You've confirmed some previous observations is all.
>
> --
> Mark Isaak eciton (at) earthlink (dot) net
> "Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of
> the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are
> being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and
> exposing the country to danger." -- Hermann Goering
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