Is there a god?

Dinah:   I couldn't make it happen quicker, or all at once (as has happened to many) - I had to let it sink in, in the time it took my particular mind took to acknowledge that maybe this or that was God's doing.  

Sim:  There is no grist to the above.  In fact, it's another testimonial without flesh.  If there was a process, especially an intellectual process that's seemingly being described, then, what was it?  Specifically.

When someone says, "I had to let it sink in...", what, exactly, was sinking in, and how was it sinking in?  If the claimant cannot go into detail or explain the assertion, then the claimant is just blowing the usual "testimonial" smoke.

Many always have and always will dig their heels in and say 'no' to letting themselves experience this extraordinary new way of seeing things for even a moment, that keeps encouraging your mind to just allow the possibility that it may be 'true'  - if you can get past the long-held resistance, the refusal to see 'a new-to-you reality' that had been there all the time.  A bit like the fact that all men are equal - a racist will deny this with all his passion, because of the way he sees things - (whatever race he belongs to). 

Sim:  Now, apply all of the above to Einstein, Edison, Sagan, Lincoln, Adams, Twain.  They, according to this poster, would have just "dug their heels in" and resisted......WHAT?  Superstition!  Tall Tales!  Myths!  Folklore!  ASSERTIONS!

A Hindu would say the same of this poster if she "dug her heels in" and would not be able to accept the assertion of reincarnation.

Dinah:.... to see everything around us is actually wonderful if we stop wanting it to be how we want it to be

Sim:  Barnes and Noble has reams of material that serves this kind of purpose;  therapy is available; family and peer support can work wonders.

Dinah:.... - and the sense of the unconditional love from God, who loves us whatever we are like or do, is so powerful.

Sim:  This is the power of imagination on display.  The real God is described in the real Bible.  There is no love in that real God.  That God is his way or the hellway.  That God is the king of all historical god killers, having been depicted as the destroyer of millions if not billions.

This God of love sent Anne Frank to a fiery, forever torment;  this God of love loves only Himself (read the first four commandments of the Ten Commandments)

This is the God of love that Mark Twain described as a "thug."  This is the God of love that Thomas Paine described as a "devil, not a god."

Nothing so maniacal could have the word "love" attached to it.

Dinah:   The God of the Old Testament was appropriate to the understanding of the society of those days (maybe, I can only guess) -

Sim:  ...a good guess if taken to its logical conclusion.  That God is fiction, and of course, represents the people at that time.  He was meaner, badder, bigger and more powerful than any other god--which was the same kind of description all of the societies had for their gods.

Dinah:....and came to an end with the birth of Jesus -

Sim:  And there's Jesus, purported to having said:  "I have come to fulfill the Laws of Moses...."  Some of those laws were concerning slavery, in favor of.  Some of those laws concerned homosexuality, if favor of killing them.

Dinah: ... who was born because the old way of trying to get people 'to be good' wasn't working. 

Sim:  Specifics?  What was the "old way"?  Good lord, God was their leader, he rode around in a little taxi-cloud by day, and in a fireball by night.  He frequently climbed down from the cloud and went into a Tent For Meeting With God, and caused Moses' face to glow in neon.  After the meetings, Moses had to wrap a scarf about his head and face, so he wouldn't blind his followers.   God was HANDS-ON.  (Note:  It's this kind of outlandish story that a previous atheist now believes....good lord.)

Dinah:   Then God became about only love, and explaining everything through the words of Jesus.

Sim:  Right, still "my way or the hellway....the gnashing of teeth....Anne Frank still roasting...."  And "now, only about love" speaks volumes.  What was God before this epiphany?  The "thug" as Mark Twain described?  Remember, in this "love" God created, allowed, and provided the guidelines for slavery.  In this "love", God said to kill homosexuals.  In this "love", God wanted people to kill anyone, including their own sons, daughters, mothers, fathers, if they advocated a different belief system.  In the New Testament, God is absent, only talked about, referred to, and never apologized for. This silence concerning God's deportment in the Old Testament makes for accomplices. 

Dinah:    The new covenant, or promise, that if we too can live with love as our prime impulse, with that intention at least (as our human nature always fails us, which God understands), then heaven on earth can at least stand a chance of realisation.

Sim:  A promise?  A promise?  And all a person has to do is "....be as a little child..." as Jesus is purported to have said.  In other words, be what every con man down the historical pike has wanted his dupes to be:  gullible, trusting, innocent, illiterate, uneducated, malleable, non thinking....  Be as a little child, Jesus said. 

Maybe that's why Einstein once said about the personal God of Christianity--"Childish."

We could write back and forth forever.   

We have freewill - we can choose to act out of love or hate.  God didn't roast Anne Frank.

There is nothing I could say that you could not dismiss.  Mother Teresa saw the terrible poverty but dedicated her life to helping alleviate the suffering - she didn't lose her faith because she saw the suffering that exists.  

You are meant to be just who you are at this moment - and the next, and the next.  You will either keep to your convictions, or something may happen that changes them.  The same goes for me.  All the best.

Dinah:   We could write back and forth forever. We have freewill - we can choose to act out of love or hate.

Sim:  Free will?  Really?  Do you believe in "God's Plan"?  If you do, then you know there is no free will.  Do you believe in the predestination verses in the Bible (oodles of them)?  If you do, then you know there is no free will.  Do you believe that God knew all before he created, that he knows everything, and that he knows what you will be doing, deciding, thinking, saying next Thursday?  If you do, then you should know there is no free will.

 Dinah:  God didn't roast Anne Frank.

Sim:  Maybe, not yet.  So, how do you get her off the hook?  Did she accept Jesus Christ as her personal saviour?  She didn't.  Now, what?

Dinah:   There is nothing I could say that you could not dismiss.

Sim: That's because you've offered nothing other than "testimony."  In other words, another personal claim that does nothing, one way or the other, to support a real God.

Dinah:    Mother Teresa saw the terrible poverty but dedicated her life to helping alleviate the suffering - she didn't lose her faith because she saw the suffering that exists.

Sim:  Apparently, you haven't kept up with all that concerns Mother Teresa.  Is any of the below significant?

A letter from Mother Teresa:

In one publicly released letter to a spiritual confidant, the Rev. Michael van der Peet, she wrote, "Jesus has a very special love for you. [But] as for me, the silence and the emptiness is so great, that I look and do not see, — Listen and do not hear — the tongue moves [in prayer] but does not speak ... I want you to pray for me — that I let Him have [a] free hand."

Many news outlets have referred to Mother Teresa's writings as an indication of a "crisis of faith."[74] Some critics of Mother Teresa, such as Christopher Hitchens, view her writings as evidence that her public image was created primarily for publicity despite her personal beliefs and actions. Hitchens writes, "So, which is the more striking: that the faithful should bravely confront the fact that one of their heroines all but lost her own faith, or that the Church should have gone on deploying, as an icon of favorable publicity, a confused old lady who it knew had for all practical purposes ceased to believe?"[71]

Dinah:   You are meant to be just who you are at this moment - and the next, and the next. 

Sim:  ....so, there goes your standard Christian contention of free will.

 Dinah:   You will either keep to your convictions, or something may happen that changes them.  The same goes for me.  All the best.

Sim:  Yet another person who cannot, will not, rebut.  Why is that, I wonder?  When more than just testimony is required, the Christian becomes a no-show, much like the Christian God....so it goes...

Dinah:   There is nothing I could say that you could not dismiss.

Sim:  Again, I don't think you said very much, at least, anything of substance.

....you claimed to have been an atheist.  I asked what do you think atheism is all about?

....you claimed that God is all about "love."  But that's not the way the Bible protrays him.  How to reconcile?

....you claimed your transition was gradual, a thaw, without explaining the process of transition, the nuts and bolts.

....do you believe the Bible is literal?  That the earth is but 6000 years old?  That all the extraordinary stories are true as can be?

....are you aware of any contradictions in the Bible?

....are you aware of inaccuracies in the Bible? 

....Do you know that the contents of the Bible were voted on in Councils?

Testimony is nothing more than the standard claims of the Christian presentations that are geared mostly for "the choir";  but there is a real world to deal with.

Dinah:    Mother Teresa saw the terrible poverty but dedicated her life to helping alleviate the suffering - she didn't lose her faith because she saw the suffering that exists.

Sim:  You might want to investigate Mother Teresa....