Following is a conversation I'm having with an avowed atheits (so-called), who believes that he had a genuine faith in God back when was nine years old:
Gary, if you are a believer in rational thought, then you should be able to admit, rationally speaking, that believing and then disbelieving are total opposites, and you you're going to try and tell me that you had a genuine, experiential belief, or at least try and put for the idea that you had a truly abiding faith?
Alright, then, declare that you don't believe in the existence of your own parents, and THEN we can talk about the possibility that you had just as much of a belief in God back then.
I have already stated to you that faith in God is not on the same plane as faith in the existence of one's own parents. Your parents are not spiritual beings, and yet you operate as if God should reveal Himself in the same manner.
What part of the differences do you not understand? I mean, I'm willing to answer your questions with rational, sound answers, but you keep blundering off into the same fallacies. How much more clear could I possibly make it to you that faith in God is at a level that He has mandated for all of humanity, and that you shaping your beliefs around the weaknesses of your own physical senses is not where the Lord operates. He makes Himself more real to His TRUE followers than what we can see with our eyes. Don't you get that...? Oh, well, maybe not. You've never been there, have you? That's by your own admission.
So, perhaps I'm being a bit unfair asking you about something you've never experienced because of your lack of faith. You ASSUME you had that level of faith, and what I'm sharing with you is that such thinking is wrong, as is evidenced by where you are right now in your beliefs...or lack thereof. Grasp the obvious here, ok? Your belief in the existence of your own parents is based upon the physical and rational proof for their existence. Your lack of faith in God is based upon the lack of physical proof for His existence that you subjectively demand be presented...at the exclusion of all the beauty and laws that govern all of nature, and therefore screams of intelligent design that you choose to not accept as evidence for the intelligent design that's all around us.
Gary, what it boils down to is what I said before: You want a god that is subject to you and your demands rather than to accept the One who is above your desire for what you think as to how He should conduct Himself over His own creation. That's the problem. Your having lapsed into unbelief is evidence of the fact that there was a serious flaw in what you thought was your "faith." That wasn't faith when it so easily became shaken to the point that you fell out of the tree...so to speak.
You declare disbelief in your own parents, perhaps you will then see the absurdity in your assumptions that your faith in God was ever as intact and as strong as your belief in your parent's existence. This isn't that hard to grasp, Gary. You're spinning your wheels because you think that your faith was that strong and as well established, when in fact it wasn't. Claiming otherwise is utter futility.
You have no way of knowing whether or not I truly believed/repented at age 9. The fact is, you refuse to contemplate the possibility that I did. You refuse to contemplate the possibility that I did because, if true, it would destroy your entire worldview.
Rational, critical thinking requires considering all possible explanations for a given situation.
You have excluded one possible explanation because it does not fit with your worldview. You are unwilling to consider the possibility that your world view is wrong. That is not rational. thinking.
Gary, if you are a believer in rational thought, then you should be able to admit, rationally speaking, that believing and then disbelieving are total opposites, and you you're going to try and tell me that you had a genuine, experiential belief, or at least try and put for the idea that you had a truly abiding faith?
Alright, then, declare that you don't believe in the existence of your own parents, and THEN we can talk about the possibility that you had just as much of a belief in God back then.
I have already stated to you that faith in God is not on the same plane as faith in the existence of one's own parents. Your parents are not spiritual beings, and yet you operate as if God should reveal Himself in the same manner.
What part of the differences do you not understand? I mean, I'm willing to answer your questions with rational, sound answers, but you keep blundering off into the same fallacies. How much more clear could I possibly make it to you that faith in God is at a level that He has mandated for all of humanity, and that you shaping your beliefs around the weaknesses of your own physical senses is not where the Lord operates. He makes Himself more real to His TRUE followers than what we can see with our eyes. Don't you get that...? Oh, well, maybe not. You've never been there, have you? That's by your own admission.
So, perhaps I'm being a bit unfair asking you about something you've never experienced because of your lack of faith. You ASSUME you had that level of faith, and what I'm sharing with you is that such thinking is wrong, as is evidenced by where you are right now in your beliefs...or lack thereof. Grasp the obvious here, ok? Your belief in the existence of your own parents is based upon the physical and rational proof for their existence. Your lack of faith in God is based upon the lack of physical proof for His existence that you subjectively demand be presented...at the exclusion of all the beauty and laws that govern all of nature, and therefore screams of intelligent design that you choose to not accept as evidence for the intelligent design that's all around us.
Gary, what it boils down to is what I said before: You want a god that is subject to you and your demands rather than to accept the One who is above your desire for what you think as to how He should conduct Himself over His own creation. That's the problem. Your having lapsed into unbelief is evidence of the fact that there was a serious flaw in what you thought was your "faith." That wasn't faith when it so easily became shaken to the point that you fell out of the tree...so to speak.
You declare disbelief in your own parents, perhaps you will then see the absurdity in your assumptions that your faith in God was ever as intact and as strong as your belief in your parent's existence. This isn't that hard to grasp, Gary. You're spinning your wheels because you think that your faith was that strong and as well established, when in fact it wasn't. Claiming otherwise is utter futility.