Expert: Marilyn - 3/30/2008

Question
QUESTION: Hello Marilyn, how was your vacation? I just wanted to show you a few posts this Atheist person wrote to see if you could help me understand him better than him understanding me, here  I will paste a post in which he is replying to another fellow Christian.


Here it is.....................Your comment: ****Do Atheist Believe in Love (if I'm not mistaken they Do)? If so, that's a HUGE contradiction because guess what.....GOD IS LOVE!!!!!

Love is an emotion. If you reduce your god to an emotion you leave him at the mercy of humanity. Not a being at all just a feeling. You lack the rational thought to debate the issue of non belief.

Also, it's pointless to try to use the bible to prove god. Even your casual sunday school theist wouldn't bother.
Here's the problem with using the bible to prove that god exists. First we'll make these two assumptions:

a) The Bible proves the existence of God.
b) The Bible is reliable because it is the word of God.

Criticisms:
1) If (a) is true, how do we know that the Bible is reliable?
2) If (b) is true, how do we know that God exists?

As you can see above one relies on the credibility of the other and that essentially cancels them both out.

Do a little research before you jump into philosophical arguments about belief. You can't debate an atheist using theist beliefs.

I'll even be so kind as to point you in the right direction. Let's take the ontological argument (Anselm's version) to start. Here's how a theists would present it:

1. There is some thing than which nothing better than can be thought (on a scale of goodness) that exists at least in our minds. (At the very least the previous sentence should put the idea into your mind if nothing else has.)
2. For things that are good it is better to exist in reality than to exist only in the mind.
3. Thus if the thing which nothing better than can be thought existed only in our minds then it would not in fact be the best, since we could think instead of something that did exist in reality, which would be better. Therefore, by contradiction, it must exist in reality.

Any mindless baboon can copy and past scripture but it takes an intelligent, rational mind to think it through and present the logical process that supports your belief. Good luck

ANSWER: Hi Junior;

I need to correct an error--the Jewish temple didn't have a dome, it had a flat roof, but the ornaments and tops of columns, etc. were covered in gold.  

I had a nice break. Thanks for asking.

“Love is an emotion. If you reduce your god to an emotion you leave him at the mercy of humanity. Not a being at all just a feeling. You lack the rational thought to debate the issue of non belief.”

Hard to argue with this one.  Christians have a horrible tendency to put God in a box and think we’ve got Him all figured out, of course, when we go back to look He’s not there, but that doesn’t seem to stop us.  

The verse, “God is Love,” means a heck of a lot to believers who have experienced Jesus’ redemptive work, but for a person who knows nothing of love except that he loves his family and his family loves him, it’s trite and foolish.  

Jesus speaks of pagans loving those who love them and demands we be different, but for the atheist, Jesus’ words are sentimental malarkey.  To the atheist mind, Jesus is an inherently impractical, though admirable figure of history; an incurable romantic—-too bad He had to go and get Himself killed.

“Also, it's pointless to try to use the bible to prove god. Even your casual sunday school theist wouldn't bother. Here's the problem with using the bible to prove that god exists. First we'll
make these two assumptions:

a) The Bible proves the existence of God.
b) The Bible is reliable because it is the word of God.

Criticisms:
1) If (a) is true, how do we know that the Bible is reliable?
2) If (b) is true, how do we know that God exists?”

First, a):  proofs that you and I would find undeniable, such as the amazing consistency of the biblical text through time though written by numerous authors; the reliability of the promises of God; the amazingly, supremely above and beyond human moral standards the God of the Bible exhibits, essentially His Absolute and Utter Perfection Above Anything We Can Comprehend (the atheist would laugh and say, “Ha, if you don’t count His murderous behavior in the Old Testament!”); that and the historicity of Jesus and other biblical characters won’t cut it with the atheist.  He’s a scientist. He thinks he values truth and he thinks the Bible doesn’t hold up to scientific examination.

Unlike the agnostic, who isn’t sure whether God exists or not, the atheist has firmly made up his mind.  He’s placed his faith in the belief God does not exist.  Unfortunately, for him, he’s failed to see the lack of logic such a belief exhibits.  You may attempt to point this out to him, but don’t unless you thoroughly understand the argument posted below and are prepared to argue this point inside and out.

The atheist believes there’s no God by faith.  Just as he will fail to dislodge you from those things you believe by faith, you will also fail to dislodge him from those things he believes by faith, unless the Holy Spirit is with you and uses your words to make a crack in his protective shell.

The basic argument is the impossibility of proving a negative.  If God exists but chooses not to show Himself to a given individual, that individual will find no evidence of Him.  Here’s the primary crux of the issue:  ABSENCE OF EVIDENCE IS NOT EVIDENCE OF ABSENCE.  

To believe that God is unproven (as an agnostic does) is a reasonable intellectual position.  To believe in God requires faith.  There is evidence for God, as I have discussed elsewhere, but ultimately a person MUST believe by faith, not by scientific proof, and that’s exactly how God wants it.  An atheist has a positive belief in the absence of God.  This requires either actual proof or at least evidence of absence (an impossibility) or a belief based on faith without evidence.  So in essence an atheist is arguing that his faith-based belief without evidence is superior to a theist’s faith-based belief which has evidence, but not proof.  As a matter of logic such a position is ridiculous.
   
Second, b):  fulfilled biblical prophecy proves the existence of God; no other god has the kind of track record Elohim has in terms of fulfilled prophecy—correction, all other gods have absolutely NO track record because either they don’t prophesy anything or their prophecies have failed to come true.  Here’s some to run past your atheist, once again I point out, you must have read these, meditated upon them, prayed about them and have a complete and full understanding of them before you present them:

1)  The book of Daniel was written in the 6th century B.C.  The book states that he was a slave of Nebuchadnezzar and became a scribe and advisor to same.  When Darius conquered Babylon, Daniel served under him.  Both were before Alexander the Great, therefore Daniel’s prophetic writing about him is significant.  In Daniel 7, Daniel describes a vision of various beasts rising from the undifferentiated sea of humanity.  The first is Babylon, the second is Darius and the third is Alexander.  This beast is a leopard, symbolizing the swiftness of Alexander’s conquest and his cunning.  The four wings symbolize the four generals who helped Alexander.  The four heads, symbolic for leadership, are the four generals who inherit his kingdom after his death because he left no heir.  Alexander the Great and his generals fulfilled this prophecy.

2)  See Daniel 9:25:  The “seventy-sevens” are weeks of years, an important sabbatical time-measure of the Jewish calendar.  Jewish years are 360 days long.  “From the issuing of the decree” to rebuild Jerusalem (see Ezra and Nehemiah) until the “Anointed One,” Jesus...the decree was issued in the month of Nissan in the year 445 B.C., from that date begins the count down to Messiah (The Anointed One), after the first sixty-nine weeks.  In other words, God gave the exact year (give or take a few for human miscounting) Messiah would be revealed, thus explaining why Anna the prophet and the old priest waited in the temple so enthusiastically and expectantly for Jesus to show up.  

After the “sixty-two sevens” Messiah will be “cut off,” in other words, suffer a violent death, and be left with nothing.  From the Jewish point of view, this means no descendants, childless and more important to Christians and radical Jews, never having attained physical possession of kingship of Israel.  This prophecy says that Jerusalem will be rebuilt in “times of trouble” and be destroyed by kingdom yet to come.  At the time Daniel wrote the prophecy, Jerusalem had been left a ruin, sacked by Nebuchadnezzar.  So he’s talking about a rebuilding and yet another sacking.  Jesus died in A.D. 29 and the Jewish temple was again destroyed, by the Romans, in A.D. 70.

Daniel wrote his book in the 6th century B.C., years before Ezra and Nehemiah who lived in the 5th century B.C.  He wrote about the rebuilding of the temple and the coming of Messiah, Messiah meaning, “The Anointed One,” and Jesus was undeniably anointed for who could utter such wisdom and irrevocably change the world except He be anointed.  Daniel prophesied about the Roman Empire and its crushing power, see chapter 7—the fourth beast.  He prophesied how Messiah would die and when and that Jerusalem would again suffer destruction.  

Jesus, Himself, restated a detail of this prophesy adding an important, unpredictable feature that could only be revealed by God, Matthew 24:1 & 2, “Jesus left the temple and was walking away when His disciples came up to Him to call His attention to its buildings.  “Do you see all these things?” he asked.  “I tell you the truth, not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down.”

When the Romans came some seventy years after Jesus’ death, they sacked the Jewish temple and burned it.  But because the dome had been covered with gold and the gold had melted when they burned the building, they threw every, single stone down trying to get at the gold that had dripped between the rocks.  

3)  read Psalm 22 and compare it to the Gospel descriptions of Jesus’ last hours.  How could David, who knew nothing about crucifixion and certainly nothing about how that would feel or what would happen during the event, predict the sensations and even the exact activities and precise words that would be uttered?  One might argue, Jesus, being an incredible Person, might have the presence of mind to utter the words, but what about the lots cast for His clothes, etc.?  

This “Sunday School theist” thinks that fulfilled prophecy proves the Bible and from there the Bible can prove God.  The atheist’s assumptions begin with his foundational belief God doesn’t exist, therefore he can see no other purpose for the Bible except to pretend God uttered it to various writers and thus misses fulfilled prophecy as a proof of God’s existence.

He’ll likely tell you that the all the “sevens” mumbo-jumbo is bogus, which makes him look like he’s uninformed; he’ll probably argue interpretations of the text as being subjective and twisted to match what we want them to say, but if he goes there, he’ll look like an ass because these prophesies are pretty clear and easy to interpret from hindsight.  But he might do it anyway and then try to twist out of whatever trap he discovers himself in.  If he clings to his faith, he’ll find a way to refute you one way or another, but deep down, IF he’s honest, he’ll know he’s conning himself.

“1. There is some thing than which nothing better than can be thought (on a scale of goodness) that exists at least in our minds. (At the very least the previous sentence should put the idea into your mind if nothing else has.)
2. For things that are good it is better to exist in reality than to exist only in the mind.
3. Thus if the thing which nothing better than can be thought existed only in our minds then it would not in fact be the best, since we could think instead of something that did exist in reality, which would be better. Therefore, by contradiction, it must exist in reality.”

This is a fancy philosophical argument, but when you cut it down to its basics, it has nothing to do with whether God exists and doesn’t really say much of anything.  I have never heard any theist make such an argument and I would feel no obligation to respond to such a complex rhetorical straw man.  This is a distraction from serious discussion, no more and no less.  You have no obligation to respond to what he thinks a theist would think and say...what does he know about how a theist thinks?  

The atheists I’ve read about or encountered think of themselves as scientific and logical.  They believe in evolution and by extension, without naming names or really comprehending the logical extensions, they believe in Chance.  Chance is the god whose sacred text is evolutionary theory.  Chance created everything.  The atheist hasn’t fully thought out what it means to believe in evolution.  He has just enough Christianization in him to make him think his morals originate in some logical foundation rather than in the Judeo/Christian ethic.  He may even have some scientific research to back his view, such as the research done into altruism and its selfish roots.  By and large, the atheist is either a person who was churched but never “got it” or he’s never darkened the doors of a church at all.  Since modern education includes no biblical teaching, save perhaps “The Bible as Literature,” he doesn’t have a clue how you think about it; an even more vague idea of the history and culture of the Old Testament than you do, and as a result, the Bible is only good for picking Scriptures out of context so they can be debunked.  

Hitler took evolutionary theory to its logical extension.  He’s been accused of being an anti-Semite, but in truth, his objective was clear and it had nothing to do with anti-Semitism.  His objective was to separate the master race from all the corrupting blood that had infected it.  Evolutionary theory preaches the survival of the fittest.  Killing off the lesser types is good evolutionary practice.  The logical extension of this doctrine means that any thug big enough to take your stuff away from you should have it.  It means Stalin had every right to murder those countless millions because he was fitter than they.  It means Hitler was right to murder those stupid Christians who protected Jews, the Jews, the Gypsies, the retarded, the infirm etc. etc.  It means Ghengis Khan had every right to take over all the territory he could because he was the fittest.  It means abortion is ok, especially if the aborted is less than perfect.  We’re only animals, so who cares.  There’s no life after death.  This life is all there is.

This life is all there is...the logical extension of that is, as Solomon decided, “eat, drink and make merry for tomorrow we die.”  The famous magician, Penn, of Penn & Teller embodied the atheist lifestyle.  Make a lot of money and spend it on yourself.  Sex is fun, therefore, have sex.  Lately, he’s gotten married and has two kids and maybe he’s decided to stick to one woman.  But in photos, his eyes seem empty of joy.  

Without Christianity’s dominant influence in a culture to curb it, atheism is hideous.  Once again I refer you to the regimes of Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Ghengis Khan, the most well known atheists of any time who established regimes based on their atheistic world views.  There’s no “First Atheists’ Hospital of Somewhere.”  There’s no “He Ended Slavery in the Modern World” atheist, or “She Gave Her Life Serving Broke, Poor Slobs in Some Third World Country” atheist.  Their world view is predicated on evolutionary theory, though it’s not always expressed as purely as these world leaders expressed it.  

It’s important to remember, the atheist believes what he believes by faith.  Atheism is a religion every bit as much as Christianity or any of the other religious faiths of the world.  Though you may feel you’ve thoroughly skewered his doctrines etc., he may not agree.  I debated evolutionary theory with an atheist.  He admitted, “You’re good,” but he never sent me the promised debunking of my last sally.  Getting through an atheist’s shell depends on the Holy Spirit, getting him to change his mind depends on his own honesty with himself.

Always glad to hear from you.

Marilyn



---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Hello Marilyn, thankyou for your follow up answers, I can always use them, lol

If the jews didnt build the dome in Jerusalem, then who did??

And why did mohammad want to go to Jerusalem so badly for??? What was  his purpose.

Also I have been reading the Aramaic Bible from the Eastern Texts from the Peshitta, by George S Lamsa, very interesting.

Blessings.

Answer
Hello Junior;

You know I don't normally take this long to answer questions.  I apologize for the long wait.  I have been grappling issues around my father's sudden decline in health.  We had to place him in hospice on Friday.

The Jews did not build the Dome of the Rock.  The Dome of the Rock is a Muslim mosque built on the Jewish temple site.  

Check out this site for information on Mohammed & Jerusalem:

http://www.palestinefacts.org/pf_early_palestine_jerusalem.php

Muslims believe that Mohammed went a "night journey" in which the angel Gabriel took him to Jerusalem where he stood on the "holy rock" and was lifted up into heaven.  While he was in heaven, he met many holy prophets and messengers who were gathered there specifically to schmooze with him.  He led them in prayer and then he was taken back to his hometown.  The Dome of the Rock is built on this supposed site of this "miracle."


The above site attributes the miracle to be wholly fiction.  The "miracle" story was invented to give Islamics a place to go on pilgrimages because for awhile Muslims couldn't go to Islam's "holy" sites.  In fact, Mohammed never went to Jerusalem and as far as I know, the city is not mentioned in the Koran at all.

Sincerely,

Marilyn