This is a non hostile question to atheists.?

Question

I am trying very hard to make sure my calm tone is coming through in my question. I would really appreciate a response with the same courtesy. And the only reason I am putting this in here is because I see a lot of angry responses to many Christians angry questions. I'm not even sure how much of this is a question but rather a response to some...responses. I have heard it said many times that there is absolutely no evidence to believe in a God. But I in fact have seen many evidences to the contrary. So why all the debate and confusion? The responses to most evidences I read show a closed minded attitude. Let me explain. If someone claims to have encountered an evil spirit, what is the typical response? Probably to tell them to lay of the crack pipe, am I correct? Even if they may have been in the presence of more than one person and they all saw it. If they told you they had not been smoking anything, would you believe them then? You would probably consider them to be a liar. CONT....

Now, this sort of thing happens all the time, but most are just tossed aside. Was there evidence? Yes, but it wasn't considered because someone, with no other reason to discredit their story, said it conflicted with what they believed to be possible. Let me give another example and I am not making this up to prove my point. My grandfather's friend was doing an evangelistic series in India less than a year ago. He encountered huge people open to the truth of the Gospel and he sent an email of some healings he was able to perform in the name of Jesus. There was a girl brought to him with a visibly shriveled hand. He prayed that if it was his will that God would heal her. Before their eyes, her hand grew! To the same size relative her other one. That night he also prayed over a man who had a demon in Him and he was healed as well. Now there are thousands of people in India who would attest to the truthfulness of this story, but I doubt it would be accepted by the crowd reading this.CONT2

Now why am I telling you this stuff? I am telling you this that Christians do have evidence for what they believe in. Just because an Atheist does not feel satisfied because he or she can put it in a test tube does not make it any less true. The Bible describes an invisible battle between good and evil going on around us. Some data to support this is that the struggle between good and evil is the archetype for every thing we know in the world. Imagine a movie without good and evil. It is all we know. I'm sure there is a naturalistic explaination for that, but why do you choose that one instead of the one I just offered. I submit that it is because every piece of evidence would be and has been rejected by someone who chooses to never believe it. It isn't that it isn't possible or even likely, but rather the closing of one's mind even to the possibility. Let me say this as well. I PROMISE you that if you honestly seek the truth, listen to me now, honestly seek the truth with an open CONT

mind and did not try to prove it wrong at the same time, the truth would be shown to you. This will only work if you are honestly wanting to know the truth, not just confirm your own beliefs, understand? If you go to God in prayer and say, God, I am skeptical at heart as to your existence, but I earnestly want to know the truth. Please help me to see the evidence all around me of your existence. Help me not to close my eyes and my mind. You said that you are the way and the truth and the life, I am stepping out in faith to believe you, help my unbelief. If you ask God that with SINCERE heart, he will answer you. I know this seems like I am trying to convert you, but if you want real evidence to become real to you..this is the way. You don't really have anything to lose, you can always say, hey I tried with a sincere heart to find God. This can't be dear god please help...this sucks forget it kinda thing. Who knows maybe this is more for agnostics who actually haven't totally closed off

Now that prayer won't make lightning bolts come from heaven, it might be a gradual thing, but you don't have to surrender all your logic to see that there is evidence. All I want is the rock hard calcium deposits of unbelief and skepticism to fall off your eyes. If that happens, I guarantee you'll like the view. Love to all, thanks for reading.

I have just read all arguments against what I just said and I understand completely. I know there have been plenty of people in the past that have believed things considered to be strange. I also understand that most interpretations are naturalistic. People didn't understand natural phenomenon and applied supernatural origins to them. That is one interpretation of the data. What is the data? And what is a different interpretation of that same data.
Data: Many people have believed many things concerning origins and the supernatural, E.G. Zeus and other mythological gods.
Other interpretation: Over the years the original events have become distorted similar to playing a game of telephone or gossip. Or a possible combination of both that and confusion about natural occurances. The most accurate record is found in the Bible since it has very accurate historical information other places as well. Also over the ages Satan has worked to confuse humans about everything in an attemptCONT

to discredit the Bible. Now I also realize that this can cause circular reasoning to occur. However it would also be circular logic for you as well. After all, you would continue to believe that the sociological explanations are all naturalistic, even though it could be incorrect. This is making my head hurt. What I am sure of is that you will never ever be able to test tube God. For two reasons: 1. Jesus called the priests wicked for wanting a sign that could have proved his divinity. They had seen enough evidence with his other miracles, but continued to disbelieve. It was an insult to Him. And He does not do parlor tricks. So don't hold your breath waiting for one. If that makes you more hardened against the truth I am sorry. it sure didn't help the pharisees either.
2. The other side. Satan has an extreme interest in making people believe he doesn't exist. That way people let their guard down. You don't lose sleep over the boogey man do you? You can't summon him either.CONTINUED

He would rather you turn blue in the face proclaiming your allegience to him if he would just appear to you, than get on camera. Think about what he has to lose if people were constantly on their guard from a real fallen angel who wants to ensure they never get to heaven. Hello revival! There is or was a society of satanists in montreal Canada that actually took photographs of materialized fallen angels and then painted from those pictures. Obviously they were in on it and would kill anyone who tried to talk about it. If you would like to read about that true story, you can type A trip into the supernatural by roger morneau into google, there should be an extremely long excerpt from his video interview about his encounters there(and how he got out alive), or you can buy a book of the same name on amazon. Don't worry I don't get any money or anything from that. It's just a good book. Like I said, none of this matters unless you are willing to be open to it.

I believe you are right Pico I am biased towards the Christian view. Otherwise I would not be writing persuasively. But I when I tell you the story about the withered hand and such I look at it in the context of what I believe. You see, if I hear a story in real life that confirms the Bible I will not assume that the Bible could be wrong about who performed it as well. Just like if a complete ape-man transition skeleton were found, most evolutionists wouldn't say hmm this data matches our previous theory, it must have some other explanation. This evidence only reinforces what I believe, it doesn't make me confused about it, or go looking for other explanations. I suppose you could be right about God being different that what what our human expectations might be, but I am pretty sure that His Book keeps us pretty close.

Answer 1

Why does nobody adress the healing issues??

I have seen instant healing too....lady feet and lags swollen 5x normal size, had not walked in almost ten years. Some prayer and desperation, it went away within 5 minutes. She walked within 10.

Why does nobody want to talk about Jesus miracles either? Winessed by thousands?? Answer: Prophesy must be fulfilled. Bible says last days will bring much unbelief, lovers of themselves and not G-d, people will elect and hire teachers who tell them what their burning ears wish to hear.....2Timothy 3 & 4
must be fulfilled, and we are living right in the middle of it. We must accept that prophesy is being fulfilled, and its not about arguing someone into heaven.

Bless you brother.
David

Answer 2

I can't respond to all of this and I'm sorry to say but I don't believe your story about your grandfather's friend. I see it as either you are lying or someone lied to you. I have no reason to believe the girl's hand grew just because you told me it did. I understand you said there were many witnesses but I haven't heard from them. I've never heard this story before nor have I heard of anyone trying to investigate it. I could easily tell you that my head fell off in India and I grew a new one while hundreds of people watched.

If the hand story is true, how does anyone know that God caused the hand to grow and that it wasn't some other magical power? What would make you throw out the idea that it may have been an evil power that was trying to fool your grandfather's friend into thinking it was God. Maybe a hundred gods got together and used their magic at that moment to make the hand grow. If it were true, all that story would prove to me is that something happened which could not be explained. It would not be evidence of any particular God or power.

*You are now saying that God and the Devil cannot be 'summoned' to perform parlor tricks. Who knows for a fact that that isn't true. What if I know the opposite to be true? I'm guessing your saying healers are chosen by God to perfom these miracles. I don't see why the Devil or any other god could not do that as well. You are coming from a Christian standpoint and defining everything using Christian knowledge. I'll always believe that if there is a God it may be nothing like the Christian God you are describing.

Answer 3

See, the most misleading part of the whole "atheist vs. Christian" debate is that atheists often come across looking close-minded. It's really not that way at all. Atheists are often very open-minded. But here's the thing: There is, in our eyes, no convincing physical evidence for God. The only evidence anyone ever offers us is "Just look around you at the beauty of the universe!!" or "No one knows what started the Big Bang, so God must have done it!!" -- Those aren't convincing arguments. This is why Biblical creationism doesn't hold up in the scientific laboratory. You can't test it, observe it, experiment with it, collect data from it, see it, touch it, measure it. You can't do anything with it. The concepts are abstract and often explained by making such claims as "God exists outside of the natural world" and "God exists outside of time" -- How is an average nonreligious person supposed to accept that?

And if God really does perform miracles, why can't he ever perform them in a setting where numerous skeptics can all witness it and verify it? Why can't a "healer" go on TV in front of a national audience and have God perform some supernatural feat that can't possibly be explained any other way? Again, it's always the atheists that seem close-minded, but no one has ever offered any evidence like that. Most atheists would gladly accept any sort of convincing proof like that, but there is none. And because of that, we remain skeptics.

Answer 4

I'm sorry buddy, but you need to shorten your question first of all. It's way too long and to rambling. I am not trying to be mean, i just feel as if you can get to your point in a much quicker fashion. Now, in response to your question, I am not an atheist, but neither am I a Christian. From my perspective, there seems to be a severe lack of general respect and courtesy in regards to religious based questions. Mostly, it seems that people ask questions in this forum specifically to start arguments. I often question the validity of such questions because they are often biased, and rude. The answerers of these questions also respond in a similarly rude reaction. Why all the fuss, you may ask? Perhaps these feel that the only way that they can connect with another human being is through degrading comments. Whatever the reasons, I do not think that the problem will be solved by the asking of a question on Yahoo Answers. I hope I was able to provide you with a sufficient answer.

Answer 5

That's correct. Many of us will not believe these stories. Why? Because it's never been fully documented, because there's no mechanism by which these things could happen, because you don't have any evidence besides anecdotal. And that's not a reason to believe in anything. People with 'evil spirits' usually have other problems that could easily explain the symptoms - mental problems, physical disabilities, or just looking for attention. Until they are proven and documented, we have no reason to believe.

I hope you have actually read my response, as I have put some time into it. I do not consider myself close-minded - I will consider what evidence you have before making my mind up. But anecdotes are out - they aren't real evidence, no matter how much you trust the source.

Answer 6

Large masses of people throughout history have also claimed that bigfoot exists, Zeus exists, and witches exist.

I don't believe in the gods and goddesses of ancient Rome, and I would guess that you don't either. Why not? Surely in that time masses of people were as convinced of their existence as you are that the Christian God exists. What is the difference? Atheists simply believe in one less god than you do.

The consideration and eloquence of your question leads me to believe that you're a fairly intelligent person, so I'd ask you to step outside of religion for a moment and look at world history from a sociological standpoint. See any trends? Religion is a comfort and a convenience, a solution to the question of purpose and an answer to the fear of death.

Is that just a coincidence?

Answer 7

I suspect that the ones atheists who're adverse are essentially the most widespread responders, and essentially the most verbose. That's only a slump; I can not end up it. Also it looks to me that Christians often say offensive matters with out knowing or proceeding to take action. For instance, "Ours is the one precise faith." Or "This is a Christian nation." I simply noticed a published query: "Why does not each person have fun Christmas? It's a laugh!" Such statements aren't deliberately adverse, however they evidently draw indignant responses.

Answer 8

So all you have is alegorical stories? Big deal. Last night I saw a big black wolf sitting in my room and he told me that I was to be the savior of all of wolf kind and that if I prayed to him three times a day, wolves would kill all the human-souled humans on the planet and wolves would reign supreme.

That's my testamony. Why don't you believe it? Could it be that I have no proof?

You say there was a hand healed. Fine, let's see the medical records. Let's see the documentation. Where is it?

Answer 9

It's the same reason that the only people that have seen the Virgin Mary in a pizza (or whatever) are Roman Catholics. I've never heard of the Virgin Mary being discovered by an atheist.

If you believe there are evil spirits, eventually you'll see them.

They're not real.

Answer 10

when Atheists ask for evidence they're usually asking for something more provable than anecdotal evidence read on Y/A. i mean ... you don't even provide an URL for evidence of your evidence. Atheists would prefer scientific evidence, no doubt or at least something backed up by a reputable study from a credentialed university.