What can an atheist say to a Christian to convince him. I was a Christian for 30 years and have thought this myself.
I think the only way you can convince a Christian to even listen at all to you is to slowly chip away in his belief of hell. As long as he or she believes in hell they are not gonna listen. If you can convince hell is not real then they can open eyes and ears and see for themselves how ridiculous some of the stuff in Bible is
I agree with what most say here; "they have to do it on there own,"
However, i've seen incredible ground covered in discussions between a non-believer and a believer when done in the epistemological way. Recommend reviewing Anthony Magnabosco on Youtube, he has some superb examples of how it's done...
I think you're right. As a kid I asked myself why are descriptions of heaven and Earth so similar to the sky and volcanic activity underground? Is that coincidence or an obvious sign that ancient people who didn't understand made it all up? You know the conclusion I reached. But to your point, when hell became BS I stopped fearing my inner thoughts and embraced everything about nature, which led to good thoughts about humanity and our place in the cosmos.
You have good thoughts about humanity??
@JeffMurray Well, as a whole. From a cosmic perspective I do. On the ground it's a lot uglier but I try to keep the cosmic perspective in play.
@KevinMR Cosmically we're an accident. I wouldn't even say a happy one. All we've done is be awful to each other and the planet at large.
@JeffMurray cosmically we may be an accident but a pretty frikken amazing one. We're a way for the universe to know itself. That is amazing. On a more locality galactic level, you can look at least 60 light years in every direction and find nothing as evolved as us. So yeah, as flawed as we are, I assure you we're still all special.
@KevinMR Depends on your definition of amazing. If it's simply that we're rare and unlikely, sure, but that's basically a circular argument. The universe doesn't know itself any more or less than it did before we existed and will after we're gone. I mean, if you also describe HIV as amazing then I guess we pretty much agree.
ah, easy--Gehenna is on earth, a trash dump outside of Jerusalem, and our Norse/Angle scribes just had no better analogy than their understanding of punishment in an "afterlife," which btw is not even in Hades' (a Greek god) mythology.
The Bible--even a corrupted English version--is very clear, beginning with Samuel (accepted) to King Saul (rejected) you and your sons will be here with me, to the wisdom of Solomon, No one knows where they go when they die, All go to the same place, to various NT statements made by "Jesus," No one has ever gone up to heaven, The kingdom of heaven is within you, There is only One Immortal but i would caution you that all you will most likely do here is lose a friend ok.
There are other vv that really bring the deception home, Esau (whom Yah "had hated" ) giving up his birthright for a bowl of "red stew" that he was so hungry for he was "about to die," and then apparently inheriting anyway, as it was Jacob (you, basically) who was more or less forced to leave, and in the OT No son of man (which is how Jesus referred to Himself) may die for another's sins; the lifesoul that sins, dies, but i would keep that one to yourself for now.
Ppl who believe they are going up to heaven after they have died are in the Cult of Sol Invictus, descended from Mithraism (Apollos waters), but they are not going to appreciate being enlightened ok
About hell:
If they have kids, ask ‘em how bad they’d have to be for you to sentence them to eternal torture.
Yes. I asked myself the same question. I would still love my kids regardless if they were homosexual or didn’t do what I wanted them to do . I would never want anything bad to happen tonthem
EXACTLY my point!
But, “god” loves you!
Virgin birth? Resurrection of the dead? Those sound just as far fetched to me. Probably more so as we have the here and now to compare it to.
Talking snake? 40 days of rain at 1,085,166,768 miles³ ? Flaming bush? Hearing voices? (well, I can believe that one - so count that out).
@AtheistInNC Also, Yeah, and where was the Ventilation? All the room for all the animals, not to mention the food for them.
You would need 2 modern ocean liners to load all that.
ha those were never meant to be taken literally ok guys, there are perfectly reasonable analogies for all of those