A loving letter to Atheists, asking you to "listen" with you heart;?

Question

ponder what I am saying before you answer~ did you have a loving relationship with your father and did he set rules and regulations and sometimes get angry when you were disobedient, did he provide for you and teach you how to love and respect your mother?
If you did have that, then how is it, I wonder, why you cannot relate to a loving heavenly Father, who receives you with unconditional love because of what His only begotten Son did in your behalf and wants to do you good? We all are sinners and we are saved by His Grace, none of us are "good" when compared to a Holy perfect God~please ponder this, not as an insult or forcing anything on you, just to meditate on it and if you choose to respond after thinking about it, please show respect in your response~I mean this with the utmost respect, not criticism or judgementalism or condemnation; simple and pure and honest question: I know you are all intelligent, but again I ask you to "listen" with your heart; I mean no offense

Answer 1

I appreciate you asking nicely. I have pondered.
The difference is that my father is a real person. Alive and well, and I don't need 'faith' to believe in him.

I hope you will understand that I find it much harder to have a relationship with someone who I cannot see, feel or even see the impact of his existence in any way. I also have a difficult time with the power structure in many religions which puts men, often hypocritical men, in charge of speaking the word of god on his behalf.

Answer 2

Obviously you are not trying to be offensive but the concept is.
First of all, I make mistakes but I definitely do not believe that I am a bad person who can only be saved by the benevolence of the deity that made me that way to begin with.
Secondly, my father laid rules & regulations but never was any punishment eternal. Never. And to top that off, he didn't lay a trap out for me to see what I'd do, even though he supposedly knows beforehand (omniscience)-the trap being someone else leading me on.
Third, my father did not 'create' me on his own. 'It takes two to tango'. At a minimum, there is at least a dual nature to everything and a monotheistic religion does not support that.
My heart is with nature. If there were only one male deity that made everything natural, surely it would reflect more of the single masculine.
Also, there are events and stories from the past that involve a lot of emotion (heart) and I can not comprehend anything to be loving, yet so condemning.
(P.S: As long as I live, I do not see myself committing anything as horrific as what Hitler did, yet that religion preaches that I would end up in the same place, just for feeling compassion for other cultures and using sense based on the capacity to comprehend information I have been given.)

Answer 3

"did you have a loving relationship with your father and did he set rules and regulations and sometimes get angry when you were disobedient, did he provide for you and teach you how to love and respect your mother?"

Uh... still have that loving relationship. My family rarely set ANY rules - except don't eat while watching tv, and don't eat in your room - and those were set by my mother. My father doesn't care.

I was never disobediant as a child... if I say, stole candy... I don't remember any negative consequences. I had a wonderful easy childhood.

My father never TAUGHT me to love and respect my mother. Why would he need to?

"why you cannot relate to a loving heavenly Father, who receives you with unconditional love because of what His only begotten Son did in your behalf and wants to do you good? "

Because 1) He doesn't exist. Or at least is highly improbable to exist. 2) Has no evidence. 3) Wants me to murder and hate homosexuality. (And I'm bisexual myself - your god wants me to hate myself - twisted ain't it?)

"We all are sinners"

Sin doesn't exist. Immorality and bad ethics do. But not sin.

Answer 4

There are a myriad of reasons people choose to reject belief in God. While your idea about this being related to the relationship between a person and their father is food for thought, in truth...it is not entirely fair. I do believe, and I have embraced faith in God the whole of my adult life, but there really are so many reasons for rejecting belief. The horrific things the Catholic Church did in the early centuries is enough for some. While belief in God is simple, there indeed are many complexities surrounding the rejection of faith. With all due respect, this seems a little narrow and possibly harsh. :)

Answer 5

Yet another christian trying to convert by comparing one thing to something else that is completely unrelated.

My father is a REAL PERSON.

You want to make a real comparison? You should say something like "You remember when you had an imaginary friend? You would always talk to that imaginary friend & seek guidance from him/her?" Do not use a FLESH & BLOOD person (my father... who happens to be an @$$hole by the way) to compare to a fairy tale written 2000+ years ago.

No, wait... thinking better here...... You're comparing god to my father....My father is an @$$hole who cheated on my mother & abandoned my sister & i when we were very young.... so does that mean you think god is an @$$hole too?! I find it humorous that you compare god to everyone's father when you do not even know anything about our lives. Comparing god to MY father doesn't make me see anymore your way than i did before i started reading this.

Why can't you just mind your own business, and just live your own life? Why do you have to save everyone & help everyone to see your way?? Did it ever occur to you that your way may not be the way your "god" even wants you to follow? What if everything you've read in the bible or were told in church was a lie? What then? What happens to your meaningless existance? Will you still try to fulfill yourself by spouting this rubbish to non-believers about listening to "god" with their hearts?

LMAO @ Sluggabohn (sp?) Looking with your spleen! Brilliant!

Answer 6

I really don't think this is an appropriate use of Yahoo! Answers. You are not saying anything antagonistic or outwardly judgmental, that is true, but you are taking into question a spiritual belief held by many. Atheists have just as much right not to believe in God as you do to believe in Him. What if an atheist posed a question on here asking all religious people to listen to scientific knowledge and meditate and ponder on it- you can believe there would be a lot of religious people reporting you. Please do God the ultimate justice by letting others live and believe as they choose without trying to sway their opinions with father-related pathos.

Answer 7

The heart is a blood pump. You can't listen with it.

What makes you think your god exists? There are thousands of gods, hundreds of religions - is the right one the religion that you specifically happened to be born into? Why believe any of them? You believe all are false except one; we just go one extra. There is no need and no reason for believing in any gods. You really, really don't get it, do you?

Read The God Delusion and then get back to us.

Answer 8

Read my lips. I have no heavenly Father. All your talk about God's rules and regulations is utterly meaningless, because GOD DOESN'T EXIST. Your talk of a loving relationship is moot, because there isn't anything to have a relationship with.

If you want to get any further with us, you'll first have to convince us that your imaginary friend isn't imaginary. *Then* you can start talking about relating.

Answer 9

My heart is a blood pumping organ, it cannot hear anything. What the theistically infected are really asking is for atheists to dumb themselves down enough to fall for the big lie, religion/gods/higher power hogwash.

I listen to my intellect and it says all gods are imaginary. My intellect basis this on fact, on the fact that their is no evidence gods exist. Gods are man made concepts, designed to comfort those afraid of reality.

Answer 10

I say this with the utmost respect, honor, and love and without any judgementalism or condemnation: What evidence is there that this "heavenly father" exists? No one to date has provided one single scrap of evidence other than saying he exists. You can say something exists until the cows come home but that is not supplying evidence. I ask you patiently and kindly to "Listen" with your mind, your knowledge, your intelligence and your reasoning ability. Let your heart pump the blood thru your arteries to nourish your body.