A testimony of the Truth

[Guest Thomas I believe]

by the way the athiest's we keep hearing from on this board do not sound happy, you all sound angry and frustrated. Jesus can help you with that.

Actually, quite happy, thank you for asking.

What is happy ?

[secondeve]

I did say, you know, that some people were better off and happier as Christians. I'm not one of them. You don't think I've examined all the evidence? Ultimately, you take a leap of faith to believe in something that has either never been seen to happen before or since, which is far from commonplace and rejected by every natural law & observation- the resurrection of Christ- or which can be explained just as readily by science. I've seen people claim Christianity is true because the universe had to start at somewhere, and to have a beginning, there has to be a creator. Who created God, then, if he has a beginning? Or where did he come from? Or wait- if you believe that God has no beginning and no end, how is that different to athiests believing the universe has no beginning and no end? Whereas you believe from day to day that, while science has brought you medicine, a knowledge of the planets, light & space, of gravity, taught about orbits & that the world is neither flat nor the centre of the universe, shown you lava in the bowels of the earth and explained why things like global warming and deforrestation are future dangers, it is wrong on the similarly-arrived at point of how we came to get here, even though the conclusion fits in with carbon dating, fossils, the age of the earth, selective breeding, genetic theory, the current geological and tectonic configuration of the world and cycles that we can observe from day to day. And what's more, your faith- rather than a trust in what can be observed by everyone, not just the "chosen" - once, taken up, denies the possibility of further exploration of other possibilities. I am more an agnostic in that I admit the possibility of a god or gods that I can't see, but as there are other, better explanations at present for why things are the way they are, I'm not going to go with the least probable outcome. Bog this conversation down all you want in abstract definitions like 'what is happiness' and 'what is truth' that not even the best philosophers in history have agreed on- it won't help you a single jot.

And getting worked up at what seeminly makes no sense is a far cry from being unhappy in the rest of one's life. We get annoyed here because we get frustrated- as do you all, sometimes- but that doesn't make any of us emotional cripples in every other facet of our existence.

[Guest Thomas I believe]

Bog this conversation down all you want in abstract definitions like 'what is happiness' and 'what is truth' that not even the best philosophers in history have agreed on- it won't help you a single jot.

Eve, Im not trying to bog down anything. Im just sharing what i believe is the truth. Jesus Christ the son of God died for all of us that we would have life. The only true happiness i have found is in Him. That is my belief , my hope. You said its a leap of faith and yes it is. You have to go beyond man's thinking, beyond science. Eve look at the world seriously. Does man do that great of a job with it. We are destroying this world, can science deny that ? can we deny the truth that we have really messed things up ? So what is the solution eve ? If its not God how can a human being be truly happy ? Are you truly happy Eve ?? Eve i wish you could experience God's love for just a minute even. Nothing compares to Gods love.On my worst days He is always there, protecting me, loving me, guiding me,teaching me. So when i speak of truth and happiness it is what i mean. Only One can set us free, Only One can bring us true Joy, Only one can be the absolute truth. He has laid it all out from the beginning. Its up to all of us, do we take the leap of faith or dont we. Do we believe or dont we. That choice is ours and ours alone.

[followerofjesus]

The Lord will hide his face of someone w/ a reprobate mind.

[secondeve]

Thomas:

I know that man is destroying the world. I also know more than one person who thinks that, because this world isn't the point, because man is sinful and because of how much damage has already been done, there's no point trying to fix it, because once everyone who deserves to goes to Heaven, earthly ties won't matter. I also fail to see how bringing happiness makes a theory true. Don't get me wrong- I understand the role of religion in making some people better than they otherwise would be and in providing comfort to others. But this doesn't make it correct. Man has stuffed the world up, but it's scientific knowledge and humanity which will fix it. God has never stepped in before and halted wars or helped the world- all he did, according to the Bible, was create it and speak to one or two men who, even if they might have been chosen by God, were still human and flawed- which God knew, and yet he left helping men to other flawed men rather than do it himself. The whole of human history is a stuggle for improvement and happiness. As for me, I think that struggle is worthwhile in and of itself without God behind it. And yes, for the umpteen-thousandth time, I am happy.

[Guest Thomas I believe]

We all need His mercy through the love that is in Christ.

[eric]

Good post acts412, but you'll never convince these dyed-in- the- wool atheists, because of their pride. It would be like admiiting defeat to them Some of them have been around this particular board long enough to hear and know what and where the christian belief comes from.

Now I wouldn't be as presumptuous enough to say that christians in some circumstances are any more happy than atheists, because some are not, but at the end of the day we have enough faith to know we are only sojourners and know God has something better in store for His faithful followers when we leave this planet.

Actually they are knocking something they know nothing about and back one another out of peer pressure and pride. They flick through the pages of the bible hoping to find something to flaw our belief, but like an insurance policy they skip the fine print. However we have to do what Thomas I believe suggested ,and pray that the Lord will remove the scales from their eyes before it's too late.

[nebula]

One night, I was very tired and alone in my study. I didn't reach, as I usually did, for a book of religious argument. I grabbed Lewis Carroll's "Through The Looking Glass", plopped myself down in a comfy chair and sleepily began reading. I skimmed through the pages and stopped at Humpty Dumpty's explanation of 'Jabberwocky' to Alice. A thought occurred to me that if I were to read 'Jabberwocky' the same way I read the bible, it wouldn't make any sense at all. I put Carroll's book aside, folded my hands and stared at the wall, lost in thought.

The Bible didn't make sense to me. But why did it make sense to others? What were they seeing that I didn't? Did they so desperately want there to be a God that they had deluded themselves into thinking that there was one? It was New Year's Day, 1998. I made a resolution to read the entire Bible again, only this time I was going to read it as I would poetry or fiction, and not as a proposal of fact.

In the months that followed, I kept my resolution and I began noticing a change in my way of interpreting the Bible. Intellectually, I found that my mind could logically accept two very different interpretations of almost everything I was reading. One interpretation of any verse or passage would render the whole story as nonsensical. But the other interpretation allowed the whole story to make sense.

If my mind was capable of accepting interpretations that allowed the whole book to make sense, then what was it in me that wanted it not to make sense? This book was reading me as surely as I was reading it. Every time I found fault with its god, I ended up finding a fault of my own. What was I doing when I condemned this god for commanding Moses to kill? Was I arrogantly making my morality superior to that of the being who allegedly authored all of morality? Was I condemning the actions of an entire nation, which was trapped in a kill or be killed situation? What was it in me that wanted to express outrage at Jesus Christ for telling me that I had to give away everything to be considered worthy to follow him? Was it my own selfishness?

Wow! I've never heard an atheist being open-minded towards the Bible like this.

[Guest ChrisW]

I agree with you Nebula.

It's great to ask yourself these types of deep questions, and seek advice from others that are believers in Christ. You have to start somewhere, and by asking questions such as those, GOD can do a great work in your heart

[Brandli5]

Why is it that a testimony of an unhappy athiest becomming a happy Christian is seen as generally representing the truth, while stories of unhappy Christians becoming happy athiests are seen either as lies, the results of self-deception or minority cases? If you're really after the truth, you listen to all evidence equally, not take one side and stick to it in the face of whatever anyone else says. I believe some people are happier and better off as Christians, but I'm yet to meet anyone here who thinks the same of athiests. Obviously, you think we're all going to hell and so can't be happy for us, but hey- it's your God who supposedly gave us critical faculties, allowed us to inherit the sinful flaws of humanity and will then punnish us for using one in service of the other.

If a person does not repent of thier sins and believes in Jesus christ lord our God then that person will have an enternal life without Jesus.

I do not know one person who could be happy with that?? They think they would be happier without Jesus, but in real life its not so.

Seeking the "truth" is as simple as reading the bible, and looking at our lives before we have Jesus in it. We can see the differnce in the joy, and peace of knowing the lord Jesus forgives us for our sins and then we are allowed to know we can live with Jesus enternally in his kingdom for us.