Are All Atheists "Fools"?
My atheist friends often have Psalm 14:1 lobbed at them as if the verse ends the conversation like a holy grenade! It says, "The fool has said in his heart there is no God".
But the verse does not mean all atheists are fools. It means anyone who "says in his heart" there is no God is a fool. In other words, anyone who denies God for merely emotional reasons is foolish. An issue this profound is not to be determined by one's psychological state or emotional disposition.
The person who has genuine intellectual questions or objections concerning God's existence is not the biblical definition of a fool. God will honor and answer in the humble quest for truth. The honest inquirer is in a better position before God than the emotionally closed-minded.
Since I'm talking about the Hebraic-Christian Scriptures, they repeatedly say we must humble ourselves before God. Think about it. If God exists, humility is certainly in order in seeking Him. "Draw near to God and He will draw near to you". "Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God", etc.
This shouldn't be hard for the atheist intellectually. Most of my atheist friends agree that humility is in order in the quest for any truth. Don't you agree?
(On the other hand, I can see how horrible I would feel (at least at first) if, say, Islam was proven to me to be true. I would be forced intellectually and emotionally to acknowledge Allah and Muhammad. I would have to begrudgingly and reluctantly bow before them. That would suck! I would acknowledge Allah's existence, but probably continually resist any relationship or love for him until he smote me!
But I must say that my emotional resistance to Islam is mostly for intellectual reasons! Thankfully, I am confident there is nothing forthcoming in Islam that will serve as an adequate defeater of Christ's claims.)
BTW, I am aware of Christ's injunction against calling anyone a fool, yet he himself did. Keep in mind that Christ is forbidding unwarranted name-calling (literally "empty head") from people who are themselves often foolish!
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Andrew Ferley on -
Obvious troll about an obvious troll is... obvious?
Least I hope so, falling to a troll in a thread about your own proposed foolishness is an irony that is far, far too delicious!
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Permalink Reply by Skycomet the Fallen Angel on -
Who's King Nipple? I love trolls! Let me at him!
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Permalink Reply by Will Sloan on -
Nice! Thanks for the share!
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Permalink Reply by Heather Spoonheim on -
And yet you continue, Kevin, muttering on about the Christian mythology like it is any different than the Sumerian, Islamic, Greek or myriads of other mythologies. You have still not addressed the question, posed to you multiple times, at how you derived your literal, although revisionist, view of Christian mythology. It's becoming more and more clear to me that you have nothing to offer in response and I find your intellectual dishonestly on this issue rather repugnant.
"The person who has genuine intellectual questions or objections concerning God's existence is not the biblical definition of a fool. God will honor and answer in the humble quest for truth. The honest inquirer is in a better position before God than the emotionally closed-minded."
And so I ask you again, honestly and intellectually, what was the answer you received?
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Permalink Reply by Jesus_Was_A_Man_Or_Myth_Or_Both on -
Further, at most there have been 10+Billion Christians in the history of Earth = this is less than 10 percent of all reasoning humans who have lived on Earth and less than 5 percent if you include all infants who died before they were 1 years old on Earth.
Which is more foolish:
1. A God who only pays attention to 5 percent of his creation, or
2. A Christian who worships a God who manages to ignore and punish in various aspects most of humanity?
How close minded do you have to be to insist that your minority ideas are anywhere close to the truth?
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Permalink Reply by Kevin Harris on -
I would say both 1 and 2 are equally foolish (and caricatures).
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Permalink Reply by Ryan E. Hoffman on -
Well, you got that almost right. Take out the parentheses and you're there.
I love how Christians claim something is a cartoon when it's an actual depiction of the majority of believers. If Sharron Angle or Sarah Palin didn't exist, they could be a character on SNL. Yea, it's cartoonish. Guess what? It's also how it is. That's why we laugh at people like that.
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Permalink Reply by Skycomet the Fallen Angel on
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I was once a christian of the "reform" faith and was lost on #1 and #2. However, the post he wrote could have been stated better.
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Permalink Reply by Kevin Harris on
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Your question commits the fallacy of the Complex Question. I don't hold the view that Christianity is a myth.
For what it's worth, I'm trying eliminate "revisionism".
The formula for determining whether Christianity is myth would be:
Historian's criteria for determining myth + earliest historical facts about Christianity = ?
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Permalink Reply by Jacob LeMaster on -
Complex questions can but do not have to be fallacious... Religions/Belief Systems/Myth's/Fables are based upon a fallacy of defective induction.. IE Argument from Authority.. If we are subject to not use fallacious arguments then each post you have made recently is instantly fallacious.. So please bring something new the table good Sir!
As well a myth is a sacred narrative explaining how the world and humankind came to be in their present form.
The bible walks like a duck does it not?
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