Atheists, this is not meant to blast you or to start an argument, I would just like to point something out....

Question

Atheists, you are a very logical people. I truly understand that. I always try to be logical too. You want things to make sense to you. You want things to be black and white, no inbetweens, because when it comes down to it, the answer is always right there and it is a logical one. My logic is different from yours. We can all agree on that. Because I do believe there is a God. And just for the sake of making my point I would like to tell you what He says.
God said in the book of Isaiah:
"Just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts."
When we think of things we use human logic. But, God says His thoughts are higher than our thoughts. Our logic is nothing to God. He is the one that created our brains and He knows what we are thinking. He knows our logic. That is why He made it a point to point out to us that His thoughts and ways are higher than ours.

Now, I know that you won't agree with me, but I just wanted to share that with you and maybe give you some insight on why Christians think differently than you do. Because we realize things on a much higher scale.
Maybe you can understand that?

What I meant was, just to clear things up is because we do believe in God, we think of things on a much higher scale. We realize that God made our brains and that His thoughts are higher than ours. And because we do realize this, our logic is different from yours.

I wasn't trying to be condescending or arrogant, honestly. I apologize if you really think that. Can't you see my attempt to have a logical discussion about some of the differences between us?

Answer 1

I understand you to be saying that the natural man can not understand the things of God, that they are foolishness to him.

In order for us to believe in him, God gives us faith. Faith is a form of logic, because it is a system of reasoning.

Isaiah 1:18 Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.

The bible tells us to let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Philippians 2:5.

His ways are indeed higher than our ways, and his thoughts higher than our thoughts.

Answer 2

Very well. I enjoyed your question. I think that anyone can draw meaning from this existence, regardless of their beliefs. But I often hear religious people say that a certain death (say a child or young person in an accident) was "god's time" for them, and that isn't the case. Sometimes they treat an afterlife as the icing on top of the cake, and today is a "before life" that they must relinquish some types of human enjoyment to save themselves from hellfire (see very old ideas like the seven deadly sins if you're interested in the historical roots- no enjoyment of food, sex, money, etc). And there is the concept to control the earth yet to "be not of the world," as the evangelicals put it, as if all the beauty around us were a plague unfit for humanity, which is never the case. Ann Coulter, who does not represent most citizens (but who has a strong following), claims that Christians should be able to "rape the earth," as given to Adam in Genesis. What type of world do these people leave to our children? Life is inescapably precious in a universe with a trillion galaxies, and light years of distance between the closest stars. Some people consider this world "corrupted by sin," and do not make the most of being a part of it. Of course, these are my generalizations and will not apply to everyone. I am glad that you find purpose in your own life, and a belief in an afterlife doesn't reduce this at all. Also note that I believe I have a purpose -- I make my own, alongside my family, it just doesn't require belief in some continued existence after death. NH Baritone: I often notice the same thing. I wonder if it is a sort of cognitive dissonance: Outwardly believing in a theistic system, while the subconscious recognizes the permanence of death and the frailty of life. Interesting.

Answer 3

Atheist- What she is saying is Our God is Intelligent like no other here on Earth.

Its just a tough subject for a lot of people.

Some think they Know it All- when we all know so little. (Everyone in any religion or not).
The afterlife we will know soon enough and Will it matter about dinosaurs/monkeys or these little fights we have when we really have no idea what death will be like? We only have hearsay of those that say they have died.
People are the only thing that truly matter while we are here and the legacy we leave to others after we are gone.

I want my children to be proud of who I was not despise me.

We come from different backgrounds and we can learn from anyone. I get ideas from all kinds of people on how to deal with situtatians. Because I don't know it ALL.

I know My God is Loving( He has shown so much Mercy to me) no matter how He is portrayed through any one elses eyes.
It will Not matter when I will be there held accountable for myself.
What kind of an example am I being for My Lord?

Thats the Best way I can answer this.
Ms. Meloncholy- I pray God Blesses you in Everything You Do for Him.

**I understand both of what she was saying and what it looked to the Non believers.**

† Every Day Prayer Warrior †

Answer 4

God also said in Exodus 35:2- " Six days shall work be done, but on the seventh day there shall be to you an holy day, a sabbath of rest to the LORD: whosoever doeth work therein shall be put to death."

So for the sake of making MY point, are you doing God's work by killing people working at Wal-Mart on Sunday? After all, if the bible is God's word, how can you fail to obey his holy command?

Or do you, like everyone else who hides behind scripture, only follow what's CONVENIENT to your particular needs? That's all non-Christians do too, you know, with the main difference being that we don't need a fairytale to justify our actions.

So either start humming "Sunday, Bloody Sunday" by The Cure and follow your God's commands like you insist WE do, or accept that you're just the same as we are.

Answer 5

I understand what you're trying to convey, though I'd perhaps have been a bit more diplomatic. I think most atheists understand that logic as we understand it is not the highest mental law to a theist, and I think we'd be willing to accept that if theists weren't so busy trying to convince us that they were right. What gets your average atheist, agnostic, and even smaller theistic groupings like the neo-pagan community and such riled is the fact that the Abrahamic religions have so much earthly power, and that they abuse it left and right to spread their own ideologies. It's not a question of convincing a Christian or a Muslim as much as about resisting their aggression - for me anyway. A Jehovah's Witness or a Muslim Brotherhood representative who corners me on the street may not be threatening me with violence, but what he is doing is aggression, because he is not respecting my right to believe whatever I'd like to, even if it is a flying spaghetti monster. And I know that, even if I express the fact that I am not interested, he'll just take that as a personal challenge to "show me the way". When I'm interested in Buddhism or Wicca, or Tao, I have to go and find the information and the people. Thoughts and beliefs cannot be forced on people - if they're going to believe it, it will happen in its own time and place.

Answer 6

I understand what you're attempting to do and I admire you for it. However, to a logical mind, the wording of your statement comes across as condescending and arrogant.

I know that this is not your intention and I feel bad for the flack you've been receiving from other responders. I know that you're just trying to have an open discussion but it's not going to work in this forum.

As you stated, your logic is different from theirs. As a result, you're not going to be able to convince a hard core atheist to change their thoughts on this subject.

Next time, just say "Let's agree to disagree" and leave it at that.

Answer 7

>You want things to make sense to you.

While true, this is rather misleading. As a freethinker, I do want things to make sense to me, but I want to do that through discovering the Universe as it is, NOT by believing a simpler version of reality just to appease myself as you are implying. You should be careful how you say things because you seem to be trying to make wanting things to make sense to us look like a wrong or close-minded thing.

>My logic is different from yours. We can all agree on that. Because I do believe there is a God.

Wrong. I do NOT agree with that. Your CONCLUSION is different, yes, but I find it highly unlikely that your LOGIC is different. If you really think that the reasoning process you use is different from ours, rather than merely the evidence you have available, then I would say it is highly likely that you are not actually being logical. But I won't press you too far on this point for the time being, instead I will look at your specific point:

>God said in the book of Isaiah:
>"Just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts."

Okay, this is the real point of your question (which isn't exactly a question, but I'll ignore that point for the moment). You seem to be saying that you can't show belief in God to be illogical because God might run on a higher form of logic than we do and be able to think in ways that are entirely outside the capabilities of our own universe. This doesn't actually make sense. As a counterexample, what if you read a book which said that it was by the Flying Spaghetti Monster (just as the Bible is supposed to be by God, through his prophets) and that the Flying Spaghetti Monster exists in a higher universe where the logic is more complete than our own? Would that justify you believing in the Flying Spaghetti Monster? Of course not. Why doesn't it? I'll give you a moment to think about it...

...

Done thinking yet? No?

...

Okay, hopefully you were bright enough to think it over and come up with the reason on your own. If not, I'll go over it for you. Despite the possibility that God may exist, and that he may exist in a higher universe which runs by a more complete logic than our own, WE OURSELVES are limited to the logic available in THIS universe. Whatever logic God MIGHT have access to, we DON'T have access to it, and we cannot possibly determine anything about God's existence or the logic which he uses save by what is available to us in this universe. It DOESN'T MATTER what logic God uses because, quite simply, we can't use it! The statement 'God exists' MUST be tested with the logic available to us. Anything else is not 'outside our logic', because in terms of our own reasoning ability there is no 'outside', there is only ever what is logical and what is illogical, and unless we are uploaded to a higher universe, the existence of such a higher universe DOES NOT CHANGE THAT. You seem to possess some amount of intelligence, so I hope you understand what I'm talking about here.

Keep in mind that this is just a single objection which already shows your reasoning to be invalid. Even if it did not work, there are several other objections I can think of off the top of my head that would still make belief in God unjustified.

At any rate I hope I've got you thinking. :)

Answer 8

you seem to think that you are informed enough that you can be a good spokesperson for " believers ", but all you've done here is prove how ignorant you are, and what a lousy spokesperson you make.
You say that you don't want to offend anyone, as you go on offending people with your " superior logic". ---How illogical is that?
Something is either logical or it's not . Logic doesn't come in a variety of forms or flavors. It's kind of like being pregnant , you're either pregnant or you're not.
If I say that my logic is " higher " than yours, does that make it so?
Doesn't your superior logic tell you that it is illogical to use the very book, that another person doesn't believe, to prove to that person that the book is true? --- It's like proving the existence of Superman by quoting from a Superman comic book.
Does your " logic " tell you that a person who is insane enough to believe in invisible and inaudible creatures, is qualified to teach sane people what they should believe?

Answer 9

I notice that you targeted Atheists. Is that because your black and white thinking only encompasses people who believe in your god and those who do not? What about the many non-Abrahamic religions of the world?

I do not dis-believe in the god of Abraham. He may be a very elusive and distant god (not unlike an absent father), but that does not automatically mean that he does not exist.
I do know that he has never made his presence known to me.

My god is personable, has a sense of humor, and does not claim to be the creator of the universe nor the only god in existence. He has made himself known to me and actively effects my life.

Answer 10

This makes no sense. I know your not starting an argument which is good though in the USA we have what is called freedom of Religion and that is what an Atheist or a Christian decides on their own.

How can you say our logic is nothing to gods? did you ask him or he tell you? See my point? All any one has is their faith in if they do or do not and it is not polite to tell someone that their beliefs are wrong. Different than yours sure, but not wrong. We all should be open to others ideas and cultures. One may be right or all may be wrong. That is the great mystery of it and all you can do is either have faith in it or not in it.

neither can argue a solid point as to an existance or not so why try just accept we all have our beliefs and they differ and that is ok.

As long as you live a descent, honest life that is what is more important. How you treat others, your family. That is what i feel is most important.

(So four of you actually do not believe in the freedom of choice? figures why don't you go spend some time in Afghanistan then, choice and freedom of will is what makes us unique, religious people are no smarter or less smarter than Atheists, each is of their own merit.)

Answer 11

While, as a Christian, I sympathize with you I would like to point out two things.

First, this isn't a question and as such violates the Y!A community standards. So many, many posting here are like this one. May I suggest that you rethink what you are wanting to know and put it in th form of a question.

Second, I am completely lost when some one says, "My logic is different from yours." I do not know what that means.

HTH

Charles