Posted on 01/09/2011 10:52:40 PM PST by grassboots.org
Can an atheist further the kingdom of God? Can God take sin and use it for his glory?
Genesis 50:20 But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive.Unevangelist Chris Redford, who goes by the moniker “Evid3nc3” on YouTube, has produced a series of videos about his “deconversion.” He attempts to show that belief in God is supported by a series of sociological or psychological props, which he intends to kick out from underneath Christians everywhere and convince them that atheism is the true perspective of the world. Previously articles I wrote dealt with a video of his “testimony” and his denial of the efficacy of prayer.Acts 2:22 Ye men of Israel, hear these words; Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs, which God did by him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also know: Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain: Whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death: because it was not possible that he should be holden of it.
Acts 4:27, 28 For of a truth against thy holy child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed, both Herod, and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles, and the people of Israel, were gathered together, For to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done.
While Redford’s efforts are a great evil, in some ways he unwittingly does a service to the church. Though his attacks on God’s existence are totally ineffective, his shots often end up...
(Excerpt) Read more at wp.me ...
bfl
For example, one fine fellow was arguing that when God rested on the seventh day, that meant He was physically tired (apparently the idea was to discredit the author of Genesis as having an unsophisticated view of God). When someone pointed out the more precise meanings of the Hebrew text for the passage, he held fast to the English meaning alone, being that his argument needed the equivocation that the translated word "rest" afforded him. Even in a long discussion, he would yield to neither reason nor relevant information.
Atheism is not an intellectual position. It is one of closed heart and closed mind. The only arguments that are ever made for it assume their own conclusion, as there is no other way to get there.
spell check has betrayed me... should be “...for enlightened skepticism.”
In my previous discussions with Redford, he admits that he is not 100% sure of the existence of George Washington, so that shows you a little bit where he is coming from.
I think it is informative to consider what one can be absolutely certain of without any need of faith what-so-ever.
I find only two things:
1) I am a thing that can have experiences.
2) There is something that needed no other thing to have its being through.
The rest of what I believe has to be based in part on induction, and faith. But it seems a pretty reasonable induction that the natural world is real including George Washington. Even more so that I am a supernatural thing and an all encompassing supernatural thing is what satisfies certainty number 2.
So, are you agreeing with Redford that it is not certain that George Washington existed?
I have faith that George Washington existed, and think it unreasonable to doubt that he did. Just as I have faith that God exists and think it unreasonable to doubt that He does.
Those who only wish to trust what they can know with absolute certainty are fools pretending to be intellectuals. Even so, I find when I approach them it instructive to point out what one can really know with absolute certainty, and it points toward the soul and God, albeit not establishing much about them.
Put it another way. Demanding absolute proof is an unreasonable standard that materialist and atheists often use to attack religious views. But no view survives such a standard, and materialism/naturalism is even more venerable than views that admit the obvious reality of God and the soul. Any useful information a mortal can know is based in part on faith. Without faith, we can not function.
Dang spell checker likes to betray us ursine freepers. Hard enough to type with paws.
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