An Open Letter to All Young Christians - Please Convince Me.

Imagine that %50 of the people on earth were blind. They would think that the other %50 was crazy when they talked about colors and light, and that no such things could exist. Now imagine I show up and open your eyes. How long are you going to deny the existence of colors and light now? That's how predestination works. We are all blind, until God comes along and chooses to open our eyes, and when He does we can hardly deny His existence for long. That is not to say that one day we'll wake up and be a Christian, it's often a very slow process of opening our eyes. But you can see that God doesn't have to remove our free will to open our eyes.

 

Still the fact remains that you don't open your own eyes, or come to your own conclusion or make a free choice to be Christian, God has to do it first. You basically argue that God created some people just to go to hell. That doesn't seem very loving.

 

And there we find why predestination is such a hard pill to swallow.
The truth is, I don't know how to answer you. And that really hurts to say. That's what makes atheism so appealing, is that you can say "I don't know, but someday we will know." With Christianity, sometimes you have to say, "I can't know." And that's not an easy thing to do. The thing that we have to remember is that our perspective is INCREDIBLY limited. Us trying to understand God is the finite comprehending the infinite.
What I do know, is that for God to save even one person is incredibly loving, for that one person was deserving of Hell. And I have no right to be mad at God for not choosing me, because I have done nothing to warrant being chosen. (This is of course not a realistic situation, as if you are mad at God for not choosing you, it's apparent you have been chosen.)

 

@j32400 -- I am saying that it may well all be wrong, but I have special reason to believe the bits that conflict with my worldview are wrong.

Can you divulge what this "special reason" is?

I would do both. If I only get to chose one, I'll have the medicine. Prayer and medicine serve two completely different purposes. That's like asking someone if they want an encyclopedia or a pencil to write an essay with. I'd really like to have both, but if I only get one I'll take the pencil.

That says an awful lot though. When it comes to matter of health, you rely on the science rather than the Bible/Biblical methods. Why not do this with other areas of science?

The Bible clearly states that if you are sincere and a believer in Christ, your prayers will come true.

Mark 11:22-24

And Jesus answered them, “Have faith in God. Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.

Matthew 21:21-22

“Truly I tell you,” Jesus replied, “if you have faith and do not doubt, not only will you do what was done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain ‘Be lifted up and thrown into the sea,’ it will happen. If you believe, you will receive” whatever you ask in prayer.

Matthew 7:7-8

“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.

etc etc.

There's a LOT here to get into. While I'm willing to debate/discuss Christian apologetics, I've learned from past debates that we have to start with the basics. As too often, I've punted hours into a discussion, only to find out that we were talking past one another. Though, the itch to showcase the genocide, slavery and oppression in the Bible is pretty tempting!

Before we continue. 3.5 quick questions, if I may.

Do you care whether or not your beliefs (regarding a god) are true?

Why do you believe in a god? (Give us the best reason, if there are many)

If I were to debunk the primary reason as to why you believe in a god, would you continue to believe?

Bonus Q: If not, what would change your mind?

[Please address these questions directly if you can. I've noticed that very few of my questions in the previous post were answered. Seemed more 'preachy' than 'debatey'. While that isn't intrinsically bad, I would greatly appreciate it if we could go back and forth engaging with one another. Question, response, question, response+counter, etc etc]

 

i have one thing to say to this post.

tips.

 

What I meant to say was that my belief in the Bible's inerrancy and my knowledge of science's fallibility are why I trust the Bible over science.

In the first two, Jesus was talking to the disciples, and giving them that power. It wasn't given to everyone. As for the last, Jesus was saying that as children ask their parents for things, so we should ask God. That doesn't mean He will give us everything we ask for, just as we don't give our children everything they ask for.

Of course I care that my beliefs are true.

My main reason is that I look at the intricacies of nature, and the science of how it all works on both massive scales and microscopic scales, and the order to me speaks of a God. As to why I believe in the Christian God specifically, I don't think that's really relevant for the discussion at hand, is it? If so, I will give it.
I am aware that you will not like this reason, because it is not scientific, and thus cannot be attacked as such. But that is the honest reason of why I believe in a God.

As to what could change my mind, I'm honestly not sure. I doubt anything you can say to me will change my mind, but perhaps I underestimate you.

My apologies. Which questions did you not think were answered, and I'll try to answer them as directly as I can.

I addressed this in my post. In the old testament God was acting as a general and king, not a father.

Emphasis on "The deepest mysteries of the universe" God is, by definition outside of the universe. We are limited by this universe. God is not.

 

What was it like before the big bang?

--- Double Post Merged, Jun 8, 2016, Original Post Date: Jun 8, 2016 ---

Haha ok, first off, says who? Second off, one does not simple fly into a black hole...Third, mathematicians (and physicists) are usually wrong... Fourth you claim this is certain when it has never been done, and we have no experimental data... Finally, we don't even know if there are other universes.

 

4762's post was flawed, science might not be able to answer every possible question but that does not invalidate science. Science as of this time has explained by far the most quandries and has ACTUALLY answered them, not just claiming truth but with hard evidence.

 

Never said it did.