COGwriterAt the Christianity Today website, an author (Shawn Graves) asked and provided some answers to the question, Why are there still atheists?
Poster's Note: Still? In this age of blossoming scientific inquiry and because "knowledge will be increased" , which to religionists is probably one of the most threatening disasters to their narrow minds they can imagine, there will be more an more people waking up, losing their literalist religion and coming to their senses.
"Spiegel asserts that for many atheists, it’s not “cool, rational inquiry” that led to their atheism. Rather, in many cases it’s complex moral and psychological factors that produce atheism. For example, Spiegel points to research suggesting that some prominent atheists had broken, defective relationships with their fathers. Others live in perpetual disobedience and rebellion—resisting lifestyle changes required upon adopting theism. And still others confess that they just don’t want there to be a God. Spiegel contends that immorality has cognitive consequences—it impedes one’s ability to recognize that theism is true.
No doubt he’s right. Surely some people accept atheism due in part to such powerful motivational factors."
Poster's Note: The idea that those who have come to other conclusions about the origins, inerrancy, and historical reality of the Bible do so so they can break God's laws, be immoral and do what they want is one of the oldest and most stupid and mistaken notions about why many grow older and wiser about all things Biblical. Bob Thiel shrinks in knowledge as far as I can tell. Good science, good investigation of history, good archaeology, good cosmology, good paleontology and good theology done well is THE REASON. The Hebrew Concept of God becomes the ever shrinking one in light of our growing understanding of the realities of where everything in the Universe comes from and how it may have arrived without the need for magic. Science informs religion and corrects it's mistaken notions about how the world and life works and where it came from. Men don't really come from mud and women don't really come from spare ribs. Evolution is a fact and only those who either cannot read or have the kind of faith that not only is based on what they don't know, but also what they won't know cling to creationism and the ridiculous notion that real humans are contained in some meager "6000 year plan of God." Humans have roamed America for at least 12,000 years and Europe and the Middle East and Africa for over 200,000 years.
A good long sit down with "Foundational Falsehoods of Christianity" by Aron Ra, who you'll dismiss because he has long hair and probably likes football, could be enlightening. However since your method of searching out a matters is 1. Assume your conclusion and 2. Assert your conviction (then repeat) you will never grow in either the grace or knowledge you claim to understand.
Religion does not inform science and never has or will. Good science done well has NEVER had to apologize to the church and go backwards into the Biblical explanations of things.
Dr. Bob asserts....
Now, actually one of the reasons that there are evolutionary atheists is, believe it or not, in the 19th century various male “intellectual” were looking for excuses to not have to abide by biblical standards of sexual morality. And back then, some of them even admitted that is why they embraced the concept that life randomly evolved without a creator God.
Posters Note: Bullshit Bob. No one is looking for excuses, they are searching out a matter, which even the Bible says "it is the glory of a king" to do so, even if it was not encouraged among the rabble, and this kind of apologetic is a pathetic attempt to skirt real issues.
The various 19th century "intellectuals" were looking for answers to the questions the growing fields of science were bringing to the table to be explained and understood in reality. Many of the early critical thinkers were ministers and deeply religious with a love of science and a mind open to the fact the Bible may not need to be taken too literally in it's mythologies about creation, floods and the grand exploits of a rather insignificant cultic people writing up for themselves an amazing pedigree, while in captivity.
"I would also add hypocrisy to the list. The fact that evangelicals, for one example, are more likely to be involved with fornication than the general public, despite biblical admonitions against it, turns people off."
Poster's Note: Your shallow and childish judgments and explanations from the Bible also turn people off. Majoring in the minors does as well and you are good at it. I would also add delusional thinking to the list of reasons some men feel the need to mind everyone else's business and pretend to know more than they actually do. Claiming your double portion of the spirit and thus claiming to be a genuine prophet in the Biblical mode, being anointed for a cold, also turns people of faith off and would turn anyone into a scoffer.
"There are also scholars, for example, like Bart Ehrman, who started out as Protestant but when they learned more about church history, realized that Protestantism simply did not fit with much of the Bible...."
Poster's Note: Bart did not just come to feel Protestantism simply did not fit with the Bible. You are misrepresenting his journey and his conclusions. You obviously have never read one book Bart Ehrman wrote in full. I'd start with "Misquoting Jesus" before you get too sure you have the sure word of anything.
"But I would like to add that it is illogical to be an atheist. While there may be many reasons that people may doubt the existence of a personal God, such as the one that the Bible teaches about, the reality is that any that conclude that there cannot be a creator/god are being foolish:
1 The fool has said in his heart,”There is no God.” (Psalms 14:1, NKJV)
Poster's Note: Rather you should say Bob, "In my opinion it is illogical to be an atheist" To those who have done the hard work of inquiry for their lifetimes as opposed to sitting in their living room chairs pontificating over things they know next to nothing about, it is completely logical to question the Sunday School version of life. No Bob, the fool has said in his heart, "there is only Bob Thiel's rendition of God and Bob knows the mind of this god better than they all."
Ignore-ance is clinging to not only what you don't know, it's clinging to what you won't know.
Bob continues...
"One of the reasons that it is foolish to conclude that there is no God is because humans should realize that we are finite beings. No human has been to ever place in the universe, no human has lived forever, no human has been to every possible dimension that may exist in the universe. Since no human has done that, for any human to conclude that there cannot be a god or any type is illogical. Why? Because no human has enough possible proof that God cannot exist. Doing so with limited “evidence” is foolish."
Poster's Note: This is the completely invalid argument that you can't know anything unless you know everything. That is, in order to have any knowledge at all, you have to have infinite knowledge of all and only God has that. So before you can really know anything for sure, you either you have to be God himself or you have to have that very special relationship with God that reveals to you real and complete knowledge above all other knowing. This, of course, is exactly what religion claims to provide. It is also bogus and pure apologetic for pretending to know what don't know in fact.
"But, despite the fact that some claim to be atheists, God’s existence is logical."
Poster's Note: To YOU Bob...to you.....
In Non-Compliant Love
Dennis
"Apostate Former Minister and Scoffer Falsely So Called"
