Fountains of Spring

goodreasonnews:

liberalchristian:

goodreasonnews:

liberalchristian:

goodreasonnews:

giovannypanginda:

Jeff Schapiro of The Christian Post writes:

A few months ago Patrick Greene was an atheist who was threatening to sue Henderson County, Texas, if the county didn’t remove a Nativity scene from its courthouse lawn. Today he is a believer in Christ who underwent a radical change of heart that was catalyzed by the compassion of one Christian woman.

What a stupid reason to believe something. I bet there are plenty of neo-nazis out there who have shown moments of compassion. That doesn’t mean I’m gonna get a fucking swastika tattoo.

Then… don’t? What’s a smart reason to believe in something? That it’s been proven to be tr… oh wait, that doesn’t ever work. 

I’m trying to keep it short as I know you have a limited attention span and inability to process lots of words, but I’d love to hear what brilliant, undeniable, provably valid reason you have to be atheist. 

That aside, I’m pretty sure this story was made into a movie?

Dearest LC,

As Billy Shakespeare said ‘brevity is the soul of wit.’ That being said, I appreciate you taking my limited attention span into account.

You’ve asked me two questions and I’ll answer them both. A good reason to believe a claim is if the best, deductively gathered evidence points to that claim being a true one. See, I only want to believe things that are true. Therefore, I put the claims I’m presented with through a rigorous process. If the claim doesn’t meet my standards I don’t accept it as true. That does not mean I assert it is false, but I don’t accept it as true.

My reason for being an atheist is simple: I’ve been presented nor discovered any acceptable evidence of a supernatural power responsible for creating existence. I don’t assert there is no god, just as I don’t assert there is no bigfoot. When I see some bigfoot evidence, I’ll reconsider the claim based on the new evidence. Same for god. That’s what atheism is, LC. I know you don’t accept that definition, although I’m still not sure why, but honestly, tough titties. That’s what it is.

By the way, this “atheist activist” that this article was about was a fucking joke for years in the atheist community. He wanted to sue a guy over a religious bumper sticker.

Here’s a blog post about him from 2008 when he was harassing the entirety of the atheist community.

I wouldn’t be surprised if he was lying about being an atheist the whole time just to get press as a “convert.” I’m almost certain the guy’s mentally unstable, but of course none of that matters. The fact is it’s a stupid reason. You haven’t made a counter argument to that. If a Muslim was nice to you would you suddenly bow toward Mecca? If you can see what a ridiculous scenario that is, surely you can see what an asshole this fella is.

No, I accept that as a better definition for agnostic, based on my own experiences with the differences between the beliefs of those who call themselves agnostic, and those who call themselves atheist, and how they express those beliefs. But that’s beside the point.

No, it’s not beside the point, that’s the fundamental disagreement between us and your stubbornness against acknowledging what “agnostic” and what “atheist” really means is the reason I keep getting messages from people telling me that you’re just some nut who doesn’t know what she’s talking about.

I’ll explain it again, and again and again. Gnosticism refers to knowledge (about god). Theism refers to belief (about god.) Because of my knowledge of the atmosphere of the moon and of Mick Jagger I know there is no Mick Jagger on the moon. About that I am a Gnostic Atheist. I don’t believe, based on direct knowledge, that there is a Mick Jagger on the moon. About Mick Jagger living on Earth, I am a Gnostic Theist. I believe there is a Mick Jagger on Earth based on direct knowledge. About bigfoot I am an Agnostic Atheist because I have no knowledge of a bigfoot and, therefore, have no belief in it. I don’t assert it’s false, but because I do not believe it to be true, I am an atheist. Anyone who does not have a specific belief in a god is an atheist, whether or not they use that term.

I highly suggest this further reading.

There was an article by an atheist who claimed to lose faith because his brother asked a question about God that his mother didn’t want to answer. The rest of the article was a justification for why that wasn’t a stupid reason to stop believing in God, and I didn’t buy it.

So, you do think it’s stupid to investigate a claim and then to dismiss when your investigation goes unsatisfied?  Say you were a cop and you heard a struggle and then shouting in my house. You rush over and find my door locked from the inside. You kick open the door and find me there, covered in blood with an axe in my hands and my wife hacked to bits on the floor. I’m breathing heavy and look like I’ve just been in a struggle. You say “hey, did you kill your wife?” and I say “uh…no.” You say “ok…wait a minute, what’s that axe about?” and I say “uh, nothing, I was gonna chop down a tree later, I was returning it, I don’t have an axe, what this old thing?” Wouldn’t you say you have good reason to believe I killed my wife? You asked a question and didn’t get a good answer. This boy asked a question about god and didn’t get a good answer. Seems like plenty reason to sway a belief. If there were any truth to the god claim, these questions wouldn’t be hard to answer.

My nephew asked me once if castles were real. That was an easy question to answer. Then he asked me if dragons were real. That was also easy: of course not. Why would god want to be more difficult to determine as real than a castle?

If you don’t believe in God, then you don’t believe in God- but there is nothing in science that says God doesn’t exist,

There is nothing “in science” at all. Science is a method, it’s a formula, it’s a language. It’s not a faith, there are no doctrines, nothing is sacred.

and the belief in God does explain some evidence. I.E., why the universe exists, and why it holds life.

Believing in God as an explanation for the unexplained is about as useful as believing in the Flying Spaghetti Monster or Zeus’ lightening or that thunder is literally angels bowling.

Muslims have been nice to me,

Me too, but I still think Islam is full of baloney.

particularly in Ghana, they fed me and made me clothes and asked me why America hates Muslims so much. I would wager that if I started bowing toward Mecca, there would be more to it than that ‘niceness.’ Same with this guy’s story. But I don’t really care why someone believes in anything, and I’m not sure why you do either, especially since you seem to think that this guy was an atheist joke.

Beliefs inform actions. We all live in this world together. People with irrational beliefs are fucking it up for everyone. That’s why.

There are plenty of more credible atheist conversion stories out there to worry about. I’m only a bit offended that you compare Christianity to neo-Nazism. 

I never compared Christianity to neo-nazism and you know I didn’t, what a childish reading, LC, you should be ashamed. What I obviously said was that an individual’s kindness doesn’t make me think they have a worthwhile belief system. If a Christian is nice to me, I’m happy but I’m not suddenly a Christian, just like if a neo-nazi is nice to me I’m not suddenly a bigot. There’s no comparison between Christianity and Nazism there. The situation is the same, but the characters are different TO HI-LIGHT THE LOGICAL FLAW.

Why can’t LC read what is right in front of them? And I’m not talking about the bible.