Why do atheists hate Jesus?

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M*W: Sensory perception is subjective of course. I have all of my five senses with a surprising clarity of a sixth, but I don't sense the presence of a god.

 

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This is ridiculous, your rebuttle is completely superfluous and hollow; I never asserted that my personal spin was anything but that, my own personal spin. You said it yourself, "that you insist on foisting on the object of your ridicule". Once again, I never intended or insisted it to be a basis of ridicule for anyone but myself.

Furthermore, I never said I agreed with the claim you have bolded above. I never asserted that love is only possible by people who know Christ, I merely said that it was said to me. So what does it matter in the slightest what denomination it was? It's not a rare occurance to run across a Christian who can't understand how someone can love (or have peace or joy for that matter) without Christ. If to you that last claim seems to beg for a source, then I have to conclude that (a) you don't know very many Christians or (b) the ones you know are a very odd breed of them that I haven't come into frequent contact with.

 

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M*W,

So you put all your faith in tabloids and $9.99 paperbacks? No one here wants to take away your faith but dont insult us with sensationalism.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_fathers
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ante-Nicene_Fathers

I am curious to know if have you read 'Ante-Nicene Fathers' in Latin OR at least the English translation?

What about what the Bible says about the issue?

Why not just go straight to the Bible? If you dig deep enough, you can find a "church father" who advocates most varying opinions about whatever one is trying to "prove."

 

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Fair enough. So we understand that your personal spin is not to be equated with Christian doctrine and Biblical teachings, regardless of any assertion or implication thereof that you might set forth.

When you use a straw man argument, we of course investigate its origin and attempt to assist you with obtaining understanding. And when you assert something that is contrary to the Bible (in the context of asserting a supposed Christian point of view), we of course inquire as to the source, hence the question about which particular sect or denomination you were affiliated with.

Be of good cheer.

 

Franklin:At the age of eighty-four, just previous to his death, in reply to inquiries concerning his religious belief from Ezra Stiles, the President of Yale College, he wrote as follows:

Here is my creed: I believe in one God, the Creator of the universe. That he governs it by his providence. That he ought to be worshiped. That the most acceptable service we render him is doing good to his other children. That the soul of man is immortal, and will be treated with justice in another life respecting its conduct in this."
Jefferson: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

 

What in the study of evolution convinced you that God could not be responsible for evolution? In a mechanical universe such as ours, if God created it one would expect a mechanical force such as evolution to create life. Sure, evolution takes the mystery out of life and puts a real damper on those who wish to use that mystery as a rational for God's existence. However, it still doesn't kill God.

 

In 1790, just about a month before he died, Franklin wrote the following in a letter to Ezra Stiles, president of Yale, who had asked him his views on religion...:

“ As to Jesus of Nazareth, my Opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think the System of Morals and his Religion, as he left them to us, the best the world ever saw or is likely to see; but I apprehend it has received various corrupt changes, and I have, with most of the present Dissenters in England, some Doubts as to his divinity; tho' it is a question I do not dogmatize upon, having never studied it, and I think it needless to busy myself with it now, when I expect soon an Opportunity of knowing the Truth with less Trouble...." (Carl Van Doren. Benjamin Franklin. New York: The Viking Press, 1938, p. 777.)

 

It's just not necessary to postulate a God when there's a perfectly reasonable naturalistic explanation.

 

That's assuming the basis of your belief in God is that only the supernatural lightning stike by God could have created life. The basis for belief in God is more varied than that.

 

So Franklin questioned Jesus' divinity? So what? He didn't say on his death bed that he didn't believe in God, did he? Come on, Franlin was a quaker.

 

Ben Franklin was a Deist.

 

It is an argument that theists use.

 

Dumb theists use that argument. Smart theists use the argument that God created evolution.

 

Just because you aren't familiar with what a particular sect or denomination might preach, doesn't mean it isn't Christian. I was raised in a US Southern Baptist environment (my church titled itself "Shades Mountain Bible Church", so I'm not sure what denomination it ascribed itself to, but the beliefs were primarily baptist). If you'd like to investigate this specific church's doctrines/beliefs/etc, then go ahead, but know that they declared themselves Christians, and it seems they upheld the requisite beliefs to do so. If you don't agree, that's between you and them.

 

How does that argument go?

 

God created our universe, the universe created us through evolution, ergo God created us through evolution.

 

What created God?

 

No, it's not even as simple as that. There are entire voluminous books written on this subject (a great one to mention if you are interested in doing some research is The Blind Watchmaker by Richard Dawkins), but I'll briefly elaborate on how evolution puts the idea of an intelligent creator under an intense microscope at the least, and in the trash can of history at the most:

First a rudimentary lesson in evolutionary education. Evolution by natural selection states that life moves on a one-way street: from simplicity to complexity over a very long period of time. One can trace fossils through ancestors to find that many share common ancestors. Take homo sapiens for example; they have a common ancestor with the chimpanzee (which is not to say that humans evolved from monkeys, unlike the embarrassingly inaccurate Creationist argument; "If we evolved from monkeys, then why doesn't a monkey today have a human baby? HMM?"), which can be traced back to an even grander common ancestor, back to less complex organisms, back further even to single celled organisms, back all the way to the first catalysts of life, amino acids.

Okay, so now let's address your question. You may ask, "Well what came before the amino acid? And still, what came before that? And that? AND THAT?! Eventually, you have to stumble upon God, otherwise there is no other explanation." This, as we can see, directly contradicts the very fundamental and solid statement of evolution; to regress to more and more simplicity and then erect a Creator God who has to be immensely complex directly betrays what the fundamental behaviors of this universe would have you conclude. However you end that infinite regression of "what came before?", it's going to be something simple and easy to understand. By retreating into a God answer, you've in essence, answered nothing concerning our above question; you've only provided more to explain, and what an explanation it would require for a God so intricate, he has been actively involved in even the thought life of every individual ever to walk upon the earth!

You may be quick to point out that science does not answer this question either. I agree, it doesn't. Neither alternatives are very satisfying. Science does however provide grounds for an educated guess (and I would also point out you the countless times in history where a scientific answer to a then apparent impossible mystery has come swiftly after such a off-limits declaration). Thus, we have in the realm of speculation, a significant favor of there being no God.

Once again, this is a very brief explication, if you have more questions, you should pick up the book I recommended above for a much more educated and well written argument.

 

Why is it that things like energy and other things in science are allowed to be causeless to an atheist, but something like God "oh no, it just can't be causeless"...wtf?

 

They aren't.

Celpha Fiael, nice points. I have been looking for that book by Dawkins, but I have a few others. "The Ancestor's Tale" is fascinating, alot more interesting than the Genesis account.