Famous Atheist Now Believes in God (page 5)

heathen

I don't agree that the God of christianity and Islam are the same God . That's a complete load of crap from where I stand . Islam wasn't even a religion until the 6th or 7th century AD . Judaism was around in the circa 16th century BCE .

Triple A

Here is a conversion story. I only copied the start of the story. The home page has an audio of his testimony given to Focus on the Family.

http://www.forgivenforlife.com/1a-testimony.html

My Story

by David Berkowitz

My name is David Berkowitz, and I am a prison inmate who has been incarcerated for more than twenty-two years. I have been sentenced to prison for the rest of my life. My criminal case is well known and was called the Son of Sam shootings.

It was eleven years ago, when I was living in a cold and lonely prison cell, that God got a hold of my life. Here is my story of Hope...

funkyderek

I don't agree that the God of christianity and Islam are the same God . That's a complete load of crap from where I stand . Islam wasn't even a religion until the 6th or 7th century AD . Judaism was around in the circa 16th century BCE .

Yes, Judaism may have been around since c. 1500BC but Christianity wasn't. It's an offshoot of Judaism, as is Islam.

Abaddon

Firstly... yes, and, so, what?

So a famous atheist at 80 decides it must be something like Intelligent Design because things are too complex to have arrisen without a directing intelligence.

In doing so he ignores the fact that Intelligent Design's founding principle (complexity is impossible without a designer) actaully falsifies Intelligent Design, as of course ID provides no explanation for HOW the Intelligent (and complex) Designer came about. Ngh!

Essentailly he is saying you there must be a chicken as you can't have eggs without chickens AND AT THE SAME TIME saying that the chicken that laid the egg didn't require an egg to come from.

Can anyone else see why ID is utterly stupid?

And can anyone see why biologists tend to be biologists and philosophers tend to be philosophers, and why very few biologists advance philosophy and very few philosophers advance biology?

just2laws

Fellows like Flew are not just facilating in opinion or going with their intuition, but they follow 'where the evidence leads them'

That is the problem. There is no evidnece. All they do is reach a conclusion based on their interpretation of the evidence, none of which is conclusive. They conclude the window was broken by someone, but say it was because of a brick that is nowhere to be seen.

MegaDude

Many people who've had a horrendous experience with religion deal with it by dismissing the idea of a creator.

Strawman argument. You are essentially accusing all people who've had bad experiences with religon and who have become atheists as reaching that decison BECAUSE of the bad experience with religion. I think you will find many who have become atheists because they believe there is no evidnece for god, not because they are in a sulk.

LT

Greetings.

The God of the OT isn't vastly different from Allah.

Same shit different mountain (or meteoric rock).

How is life? Have a dandy Christmas man!

...

All this we are god bit. Yes, quite. Thou art god, as Heinlein put it. And the noosphere, or what ever Teilhard called it is an intreiguing concept. Basicaly the minds in the Universe are evolving to a unity. Idea used in Julian May's 'Many Coloured Land' books.

Thing is, if it is right, what difference does it make to my life compared to my base-leve; assumption. Which is I amn a clever funking monkey with opposable thumbs on an utterly unremarkable planet orbiting an average sun nowhere in particular?

I feel quite happy with life knowing I will live on in my friend's memories and the stunning album that shall sell millions when I get round to it. Thinking of myself as god, when it wouldn't actually make any appreciable difference to my experience of life, just seems a load of bollocks.

heathen

I don't agree that the God of christianity and Islam are the same God . That's a complete load of crap from where I stand . Islam wasn't even a religion until the 6th or 7th century AD . Judaism was around in the circa 16th century BCE

Yes, but what is the real appreciable difference between them (assuming you're not talking about the distinct New Testament god)? You live life according to a set of rules. If you don't you are punished, sometimes with death. They both ask people to believe what was (to a bronze-age or iron-age pastoralist) an utterly logical explantion of creation, which in both cases is provably utter rubbish. It's the difference between a mid-sized four door sedan made by company x and company y.

jst2laws

Heathen,

I don't agree that the God of Christianity and Islam are the same God . That's a complete load of crap from where I stand . Islam wasn't even a religion until the 6th or 7th century AD . Judaism was around in the circa 16th century BCE .

Mohammed made no attempt to disguise the fact that Allah (God) was the same "God" as that of the Jews. Claiming to be descended from Abraham through his son Ishmael he claimed to worship the God of Abraham. This is the belief of all Moslems. If you have a hard time accepting that the violent God of the Moslems has anything to do with the God of Christians and Jews consider this: Moslems expect Allah to remove the heathens from their land, with violence. Jews took over the promised land by removing heathens from there own land, with violence. Christians wait for God to remove heathens from the planet, with violence.

All three worship the God of Abraham, All three expect God to bless the destruction of their enemies. All three approve of violence against their enemies

Personally I thing the man Jesus would be disappointed with the answer to his own question, "When the son of man returns, will he find the faith?" Steve

MegaDude

You are essentially accusing all people who've had bad experiences with religon and who have become atheists as reaching that decison BECAUSE of the bad experience with religion. I think you will find many who have become atheists because they believe there is no evidnece for god, not because they are in a sulk.

Not at all. You assumeth too much. It's just been my experience that people who have had a horrendous experience with organized religion many times throw out the possibility of creator simply because they view the possibility of a creator and organized religion as all rolled into one ball of wax. People's criteria for believing what they do can be as different as night and day.

flower

My experience has been the opposite. Those I know, myself included that have gone through horrendous religious experiences have turned out to be some of the most avid researchers and seem to search a lot more deeply for truth and evidence of a creator than those who have just accept the concept of a creator simply because its what they have always known.

Personally, I can remember when I first left the JW's a few years ago and for a while considered myself a born again christian. I couldnt even fathom the possibility that there was no god and I thought anyone who did must be really 'out there'. I can even remember getting ripped into here for posting judgmental things here about people who were now athiests after being raised jw's.

Then I started doing my own reading and researching with a free mind and a lack of blind faith. Thats what caused my newfound agnostic point of view..not the horrendeous upbringing, and not because I lump god and abusive religions into one ball of wax.

freedom96

I believe in the possibility of some evolution, after God started creating things.

Euphemism

Hey, if that's what Dr Flew feels, more power to him.

I think that's the key word, though... feels. Dr Flew's change of heart was not based on reasoning or logic, because as DrWtsn and AlanF mentioned, positing a creator raises as many questions as it answers.

Given that neither atheism nor theism can solve the infinite causality paradox, the proper course according to Occam's razor is to minimize entities, which is what leads me to choose atheism.

SixofNine

I understand that Famous Amos now believes in God too.

Famous Atheist Now Believes in God

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