Learning To Think Spiritually

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EX-ATHEIST.COM

Learning To Think Spiritually

By A.S.A. Jones

My twenty years of atheism ended when I discovered Biblical truths through a change in the way I had been interpreting scripture. My autobiographical account can be read here: From Skepticism To Worship

Learning to think spiritually isn't about accepting the supernatural. I am referring to that part of the human intellect that allows the mind to understand things that are not readily made obvious or explicitly stated. It is the same skill involved in interpreting poetry or in detecting the nuances that are present in higher literature. Most people already have this ability; they just need to learn how to apply it when it comes to the issue of God.

If you are an atheist who is interested in seeing if he can tune into God, I recommend that you first read "The Tao of Pooh" by Benjamin Hoff. It's short, sweet and easy to understand. Atheistic in its philosophy, this book will put you on the path to understanding truth in paradox. A paradox is that which appears to contradict, but upon closer examination, really does not. "The Tao of Pooh" removed much of my arrogance and knocked the owl right out of me, effectively diminishing two barriers that had allowed me to shut God out of my perception.

Okay! Now that you ran out and did that, I've devised some lessons in spiritual thinking for you. Think about the following examples and how they apply to the concept of God before reading my analysis. No peeking! Have fun!

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LESSON 1: THE TRUTH OF AN ILLUSION



Which do you see? A face behind a candlestick, or two faces looking at a candlestick?

ANALYSIS

There is no change in information yet the information can be interpreted in two ways. Neither interpretation can logically be proven to be more correct. For more optical illusions, visit this link http://www.geocities.com/buddychai2/...html#TWOFACES. We all have access to the same data concerning reality, but our interpretation of that reality can be a matter of focus. It's the same with seeing the reality of God; Focus on the material (for which there is concrete and objective evidence) and the immaterial (character assessment, basis of morality, etc.), along with God, will vanish.

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LESSON 2: THE HIDDEN PICTURE



There is a 3-dimensional object embedded within the pattern. Seeing it is a matter of focusing your eye beyond the scribbles. If you focus on the design of scribbles that you know is there, you will never see the object that you don't know is there. For more stereograms, visit Eyetricks at http://www.eyetricks.com.

ANALYSIS

Like many others, I saw the gospel as a bunch of scribbles; I thought it was just a bunch of nonsense until my focus changed.
This is a stereogram. At first glance, the eye detects only patterns of scribble. You may try to make sense of the scribbles in the same way that people will look up into the sky and pick out clouds that resemble familiar objects. If you look at this picture long enough, you may imagine seeing faces or animals in it, but if you only look directly at the picture, anything you see will only have a subjective reality. In other words, what you are seeing isn't really there, but merely a construct of your imagination.
However, this picture contains an objective reality. If you aren't familiar with this type of artwork, and if you haven't experienced seeing one of these hidden three dimensional images pop into view, you may think that I am a liar or a lunatic when I tell you that this poster contains a definitive and detailed image of a galloping horse. I am telling you that something exists based on my own visual perception and, until you see it for yourself, you won't have any reason to believe me.

When I read the Bible with the mindset in which it was intended to be read, I perceived the objective reality of its god. Just like with this poster, if you only look at it superficially, you won't see the hidden picture. The visual effect of a stereogram is produced through the careful placement of points comprising one image from two slightly different perspectives. You need two eyes to see the hidden 3-D picture. If you cover one eye, you will lose the image; its picture is a function of depth. The Bible is a spiritual stereogram and its effect, the perception of the reality of God, is produced through a careful design of ambiguity and paradox, which allow you to discover truth from different perspectives. You need two aspects of the intellect to see the reality of God in its pages; you need to utilize both the logical and spiritual (or poetic) component of your thinking to see Him. If you use only one in the absence of the other, you will lose the effect. It's like covering one eye. The truth of the Bible, like the poster, is also a function of depth. I think that the reason why a lot of people aren't seeing its truth today is because we have become a nation of shallow thinkers.

The spiritual, or intellectual effect that is produced in the Bible is no less powerful than the visual effect found in the stereogram. When you 'see' it, you'll know it. The hidden picture in both the Bible and the stereogram isn't the product of a child's random scribbling. Both are a product of intentional design. The Bible was written in three different continents over a span of 1500 years and in three different languages, yet it remains consistent in its inconsistencies, ambiguities, paradoxes and ironies. It may have been penned by over forty men, but it is evident to me that it was designed and directed by one author, by one mind. His signature is all through it! To create such a book, with no higher direction to maintain these common threads and produce the effect, would be the equivalent of creating the stereogram by accident. It ain't gonna' happen. And that's why I believe this book is inspired by the God it describes.

When you find yourself being criticized for your belief in God, keep in mind the following: You know that something exists from a primary perception and you are being told by one who has not yet had the perception that it cannot be real. It's like being at Kitty Hawk and witnessing the Wright brothers' first flight only to come home and have some egghead patronizingly explain to you, in great scientific detail, that heavier than air flight is 'utterly' impossible. This really did happen. Up to a year after their initial flights, Scientific American, the U.S. Army and most American scientists still thought that the Wrights were guilty of playing a hoax on the American public. What would you do if you found yourself in this dilemma? You were there! You saw the plane take off and land! So did many others. You can either dismiss the argument of the egghead as coming from his own ignorance and lack of perception, or you can begin to doubt your own perception and question your sanity along with your ability to reason. Did you REALLY see that plane take off? Maybe you just imagined it all. Our senses can play tricks on us, but they can also inform us of reality. How do you know if your senses are being deceived?
If I ever begin to doubt that I actually saw a galloping horse in the above stereogram, all I have to do is look at it again and when it comes back into focus, I have my confirmation that it is there. This is why a Christian always keeps his good book handy. If I ever begin to doubt that my perception of God is valid, all I have to do is pick up the Bible and start reading, and, sure enough, His reality comes back into focus and I have my confirmation. I get the impression that a lot of Christians who were raised up in the church take their faith for granted. Their belief that the horse is real, isn't based on their own perception of it, because they've never managed to see it for themselves. Instead, their belief that the horse is real is based only on the testimony of others who claim to have seen it. See Him for yourself! If you haven't yet seen it first hand, it will blow you away when you finally do. It's the difference between knowing God and knowing about God.

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LESSON 3: CURIOSITY & INTERACTION

Very good! If your browser presented you with a black rectangle devoid of any visible text, you have successfully completed an example in spiritual thinking. Lesson: Some things that are really present aren't always obvious. You may have had prior experience with using your mouse and discovered that it could reveal hidden text. In other words, you were prompted to check for hidden text based on subjective experiential reasoning. How did you know there was text in this black field? What objective evidence did you find that led you to search for hidden text? Chances are good that you either simply guessed correctly, without any evidence, or perhaps you discovered the text by accident. Think about how many other times you perform actions that are based on subjective reasoning as opposed to objective deduction. If you had to be told to highlight this box, then you must admit that perhaps there are other hidden realities of which you may not be aware.

Is this an error on the part of the web designer? Not!

ANALYSIS

Use your mouse to highlight the black box. Discoveries usually require a seeker.

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LESSON 4: THE MOBIUS STRIP

The Mobius strip is a figure that has only a single surface. If you take a narrow strip of paper, give it a 180 degree twist and join its ends together, you have created a Mobius strip. You have taken a piece of paper that had two sides (front and back) and turned it into a model with only one side. Take a marker and try to color one side of the Mobius strip. You will find that there is only one surface to color.

ANALYSIS

The Mobius strip is a paradox; logically, an object with only one surface can't exist - one dimensional reality would be a point having no breadth, no height, and no width - yet you have just constructed a model of one that you can hold in your hand. The Mobius is used in topology and theoretical physics to explain more complex properties.

The closer a model approaches reality, the more of a reality it becomes. For example, you can have a model car at 1/5th scale. It looks like a car, but its wheels are plastic and it only has a non-functional engine under its hood. It isn't really a car, but just a model of a car. But if you start to make changes to make it a better representation of a true car, changing its size to full scale and giving it a working combustion engine and rubber tires, soon you will have an actual car.

In an atheistic philosophy, there are certain things that concern the reality of life that must be accepted as illusion because, without God, that is the only thing they can be. We live our lives as if they have a real and genuine purpose. Most people will say that their lives have meaning, regardless of their philosophy. But a life that is created by chance, and natural selection, can have no inherent or objective purpose or meaning. Instead, such a life can only have a self-assigned, subjective meaning. A non-objective, self-assigned meaning is purely imaginary! It is a subjective opinion of what can only be a subjective reality. Conversely, a life created by design and a designer, such as the one described in Christianity, is given an objective purpose; its meaning is genuine and inherent. We may have different, subjective opinions as to what that purpose is, but these are subjective opinions concerning an objective reality.

We say that all people should be treated equally, yet it is evident that not all of us are equal. Some of us are born with physical attributes that allow us to succeed on the basketball court; others of us trip over our own feet. Some of us are born with a higher capacity for intelligence; others aren't very bright. When we say that we should be treated equally, despite the fact that we are all not equal, we are appealing to an idea that is baseless in an atheistic philosophy. In Christianity, however, our equality is based on the existence of our souls, which are all equal in the sight of God. We see how Christianity defines a property that is necessary for equality to be asserted.

Atheism doesn't allow for people to be genuinely special. But if a couple presents their newborn baby to you and say, "Look at how special and beautiful she is!," it will not be well received if you reply, "Not really. She is only a product of your copulation, a random selection of your genes." But if the Christian God is real, we can claim that people are special without being hypocritical, because every person would be uniquely created.

If morality is relative, then morality can only be a subject reality. In other words, morality is reduced to opinion. When we legislate any morality, we are actually forcing other people to live by our opinions. Majority rule is an ad populum fallacy; so is rule by force, because might does not make right. When we throw a person in jail because he has robbed a house, he is being imprisoned because of another man's opinion that stealing is wrong. Once again, the opinion in question concerns a subjective reality and is, therefore, purely subjective and a matter of preference. Our entire justice system becomes illusory. In order for our justice system to have credibility, it has to be based on an authority that exceeds the mere opinion of men. But with a God who establishes morality as an objective reality, we are no longer dealing with the opinions of man's preference, but the opinions of men concerning God's preference.

The above is not a demonstration of God's existence through an appeal to consequence. In reality, we do think our lives have meaning. We do think that we should all be treated equally, and we do think of some people as special. We do believe in a right and a wrong, even though we may disagree over what is right and wrong. We see all of these matters as realities, yet atheism does not allow us to logically maintain these beliefs as real. God becomes a better model for reality as we know it, than atheism.

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LESSON 5:TRUTH IN HUMOR

A skeptic is about to enter the forest to conduct a scientific study of great importance. Just as he begins his hike, he is met by a six-year-old boy who frantically warns, "Mister! Don't go into those woods on account of there's a monster that lives there and he'll eat you for lunch!"

The skeptic condescendingly pats the boy's head and smugly explains that there are no such things as monsters, and then he enters the woods and promptly gets eaten by a bear.

ANALYSIS

Moral of the joke: The skeptic is smart enough to know that there are no such things as monsters but dumb enough not to take heed. Like the boy, Christians are attempting to describe that which they can't fully comprehend.

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LESSON 6: PARADOX IN POETRY

Here is a poem that I wrote. Some readers will understand what the poem intends to convey and some will not. Try to explain the poem to yourself before going to my explanations of logical vs spiritual interpretation.

The Paradox of Biblical Jabberwocky
by A.S.A. Jones

The sky was dark, the earth was bright,
Its green was all a gray.
It dawned on me that very night,
I must leave this world to stay.

No bricks or wood could my home make,
No fire could keep me warm.
The truth had been a grave mistake,
Its safety had brought harm.

The Son of Man, The Son of God,
By chance, there was a plan.
What made sense was very odd,
That God should be a man.

I found my life in dying, then;
My weakness made me strong.
Self-hatred let me love again,
Set apart, I now belong.

ANALYSIS

It occurred to me that I had been reading the Bible with the mind of a scientist when it was written to be read by the mind of a poet. In science, we aim to be explicit. We try to state directly what we mean so that what we have to say will be uniform in interpretation. Conversely, much of the reading and writing of poetry takes place between the lines and not within the lines. Much of what is written in poetry is implied and relies upon the subjective experience of both its author and reader in order to relay its truth.

Now, I am no stranger to poetry and I enjoy reading it. When Lovelace wrote 'to Althea from prison', "Stone walls do not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage," I would never have become indignant and accused Lovelace of not making sense. Logically, stone walls do make a prison, and iron bars certainly do make a cage! If you break this statement down into its components, it won't make any sense. But I knew what he meant. He was saying that even though one can be confined to a cell, one can be free in their mind. You have to examine the writing within the context of what you know to be true about human nature in order to understand it. This is why logic alone is an insufficient tool by which to examine the human condition and that is what the Bible is all about.

The following is a presentation of logical vs. spiritual interpretation of my poem:

The sky was dark, the earth was bright...

Mr. Owl: "Logically, if the sky was dark, the earth under the sky would also be dark."
ASAJ: "However, when the moon is out, the sky remains dark but the earth is lit."

Its green was all a gray...

Mr. Owl: "Green cannot be any other color except green. If green was gray, it would be gray. One can have a greenish gray, but that isn't what the text says."
ASAJ: "When lighting conditions are just right at night, the green grass does appear to be gray."

It dawned on me that very night...

ASAJ: "This isn't a true paradox but irony; get it?"
Mr. Owl: "No, I do not 'get it'."

I must leave this world to stay...

Mr. Owl: "This sentence cannot logically make sense because to stay is to stay and to leave is to leave."
ASAJ: "Look beyond the understanding that logic permits. I had to 'leave the world', that is, I had to leave the material world and turn to God in order to live and not die by my own hand (stay)."

No wood or bricks could my home make, no fire could keep me warm...

Mr. Owl: "Of course, bricks and wood can make a home! Show me a fire that won't give off heat! This is nonsense!"
ASAJ: "Is it? I was cold and alienated and nothing - not a house, not a family, not a good career - could provide me any comfort."

The truth had been a grave mistake; its safety had brought harm...

Mr. Owl: "What is truth cannot be in error and what is safe, brings no harm."
ASAJ: " But I was mistaken about the truth I perceived and my perception of that truth had indeed brought me harm. I considered death to be final, an end to suffering, but also an admission to the futility of life, and I found myself eagerly anticipating the grave (note the irony of the truth being a 'grave' mistake, a mistake about the afterlife). Also, I thought that God belief was illogical and indefensible. Atheism was a safer, but not necessarily more truthful intellectual viewpoint. In any case, my atheistic philosophy had failed me. It had sucked all of the life out of my existence (yes! Another paradox!)."

The Son of Man, The Son of God...

ASAJ: "Here's another one! Isn't it odd that a title of deity refers to such as 'The Son of Man' and becomes allegedly fulfilled by one proclaiming to be the Son of God?"
Mr. Owl: "No comment."

By chance, there was a plan...

Mr. Owl: "Things either happen by chance, or they are planned. To say that an event occurred by both chance and plan violates the law of non-contradiction!"
ASAJ: "The expression 'by chance' is also used in place of 'it just so happened'."

What made sense was very odd, that God should be a man...

Mr. Owl: "An oddity does not make sense! What makes sense, makes sense! God can't be God and be a man at the same time!"
ASAJ: "Yes, Mr. Owl, I agree it is very odd for God to come as a man but it makes sense to me and other Christians!"
Jesus came as a man so we could relate to Him and be taught by Him in person, but He was fully God.

I found my life in dying, then...

Mr. Owl: "You found no such thing! If you die, you are not alive to find anything."
ASAJ: "I died to my self and in doing that I found a new life in Jesus Christ."

My weakness made me strong...

Mr. Owl: "A weakness does not make you stronger. By definition, it makes you weaker!"
ASAJ: "I was psychologically weak. I had no integrity, no enthusiasm for life. But because of my weakness, I was broken by adversity. I was too weak to have faith in myself because I had failed miserably. In my acknowledged weakness, I turned to Christ and I was made strong through Him."

Self-hatred let me love again...

Mr. Owl: "I can love people without hating myself. You're a nut who deserves to be shot!"
ASAJ: "I'm glad that is the case with you. However, I didn't know how to love people until I was born again. I had to hate the evil things that I saw in myself in order to allow Jesus to fix them. When he took over my heart, I found that I could forgive people for any real or perceived fault they had. That's the key to loving people."

Set apart, I now belong...

ASAJ: "In the world, not of the world, I now belong to the Kingdom of God."
Mr. Owl: "The only thing that you belong to is the Imaginary Friends Club."

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TRUTH IN PARADOX

'soul': the spiritual principle embodied in human beings.
I didn't think that I had a 'spiritual principle'. I prided myself on pure intellect and logical thinking and 'spiritual' things didn't make any sense to me. I discounted spiritual matters as emotional matters and I had made myself as unemotional as I could in order to avoid having emotions interfere with my rationality of thought. When I began reading the bible differently, I no longer saw contradictions of logic, but paradox after paradox. Being confronted with paradox forces one's mind to think ABOVE logic but not against it. For example, examine the statement, "Never less alone than when alone". If you break this sentence down into its components, logically it cannot make sense. Yet this phrase describes a very real type of individual; it is describing a person who considers himself to be his own best company. It tells of an individual who is content to spend hours lost in his own thoughts. You have to examine the paradox in the context of what you know to be true about human nature in order to understand it. It is assumed by the author that the reader will not be ignorant of this information.

All the way from beginning to end, the bible contains paradoxes that push one's mind to look beyond what is written to that which is being implied. Skeptics view these paradoxes as errors but if they are indeed errors, they are consistent in the writings of the more than 40 men who authored the books of the bible. I find it strange that men who were intelligent and literate enough to write in that early time could be so ignorant of their own culture and religion to have made mistake after mistake after mistake in issues regarding it. Instead, I think it is more probable that the skeptics are ignorant of the matters about which these men wrote and unable to grasp their culture and way of thinking. Many of these alleged errors are due to poor reading comprehension and the inability to grasp what is being said within the context of the whole.

Some of these paradoxes are presented as a unit, making them unlikely errors. For example, Proverbs 26:4-5 states, "Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou also be like unto him. Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit." A contradiction in logic would render these two statements as meaningless but there is a truth to be found in them (See "The Games Skeptics Play"). Other paradoxes are not so obvious and do not occur in close proximity to each other.
A second type of paradox deals with morality. Paradoxes of this nature deal with the law and push the reader into the spirit of the law (See 'Why I Believe God is Real') in order to understand them. Examples of moral paradox include issues of divorce, adultery (Deut 24:1-4 vs Mark 10:2-12), and God setting Himself above His own commandments. What appears to be ambiguity or contradiction or nonsense in the 'absolute declaration of law' can be reconciled or deemed as irrelevant when the reader understands the spirit of the law.

Not all of the paradoxes contain meaning, but serve as arrows to direct the reader toward higher meaning. The accounts of the death of Judas and many other alleged discrepancies are irrelevant to the truth of God, yet they serve as stumbling blocks to those who are shallow or legalistic in their thought. In this way, the Word of God becomes a sieve, separating its readers through a series of screens. Paul describes this sieve in 1 Cor: 1. Those who have made themselves too big, get trapped in the holes, while those who have allowed themselves to be made small, pass through to see the hidden truth. Jesus Christ makes reference to his own device of conveying God's truth in parables (Luke 8:10) so that "...though hearing, they may not understand."

If you are a skeptic, you are probably scoffing at the above. I would like to take this opportunity to point out to you that Friedrich Nietzsche, poster boy for existentialism, was very fond of intentionally using words that would be misinterpreted by careless, superficial readers. Walter Kaufmann, who edited Nietzsche's 'Ecce Homo', included this in his introduction:
"Nietzsche had an almost pathological weakness for one particular kind of ambiguity, which, to be sure, is not irremediable: he loved words and phrases that mean one thing out of context and almost the opposite in the context he gives them... The former is bound to lead astray hasty readers, browsers and...nonreaders."

When a man does this type of thing, it is considered a matter of genius. When similar devices are employed in the bible, there is no reason to discount them as foolishness. Of course, it is not the 'hasty' reader that is being sifted out in the Bible, but the spiritual Pharisee who is being left in the dark.

The reason for doing this can be found in the Zen philosophy. The Masters of Zen don't seek to enlighten their students with the truth; they seek to confound them in order that they discover the truth for themselves. Herein lies the difference between knowing how to do multiplication and merely memorizing and regurgitating multiplication tables. If the truth about God could be told, we could know ABOUT Him, but in seeking and finding Him for ourselves, we can KNOW Him. For me to have been so profoundly changed through a minute faith in Jesus Christ is a miracle. Psychology tells us that the hardest thing to change in a person is their personality; we can modify our behavior, but our nature remains. The words of Christ didn't TELL me how to change. Like a Zen Master, He gently led my mind to experience truth. That's why the changes were so powerful.

Paul goes on to explain the hidden stereogram in 1 Cor 2. What is the hidden picture created by paradox? It's a mirror. A mirror without flaw or distortion that allows a person to view his own soul through the eyes of a perfect, good and just God. It's the perception that results in being born again. It's the truth about one's own nature and the nature of the One above it. Skeptics see differences in scriptural interpretation as proof that there is no biblical truth. But these differences exist because the mirror reflects the soul of each person that stands before it. Only a person completely devoid of a selfish nature can see the truth perfectly. Only a man without sin, without any fault, is able to perceive moral truths or to judge any action as right or wrong. Only a good and perfect judge can know the soul that drives the deeds of any man.

MORE TO LIFE THAN LOGIC

When one starts thinking spiritually, it isn't that they are thinking unclearly or illogically. They are simply thinking from a different perspective.

Many principles, such as love, kindness, unselfishness and mercy, which are readily accepted as good by both Christians and non-Christians, can be destroyed by logic. For example, examine the following logical argument:

• To be just, one must give to another exactly what that individual deserves to get, no more and no less.
  To be fair, one must treat everyone equally.
  To be merciful is to give an individual more than what they deserve to get (in reward) or less than what they deserve to get (in punishment).
  Being merciful is therefore unjust.
  Unless everyone can be treated with the same degree of mercy or kindness, to be merciful or kind to any one person is to be unfair.

The consequence of attempting to live by this logical, sound and valid conclusion wouldn't be desirable. The above argument would demand that we not give to one person in need if we couldn't give the same amount to every person in need. Before we gave anything to anyone, they must be worthy of it. We would find ourselves living in a world without grace, without mercy, without forgiveness and without kindness. We would find ourselves justifying revenge and holding grudges and keeping score, all in order to be fair and just. How can logic result in such a world? What is wrong with the above argument? (See "The Games Skeptics Play")

Because logic or surface thinking can destroy that which is good and logically justify both good and bad behavior, the spiritual mind is not only useful when it comes to discerning that which is good, but it is necessary to have in order to actually do that which is good, especially when a person finds themselves outside of the influence of societal pressures. I can give you all kinds of logical reasons not to give any of my hard-earned money away to charity. In fact, years ago, when I had an excellent salary, I managed to not donate a dime to anyone and I felt totally justified. But in loving Jesus Christ, I acquired His spirit of giving. This spirit became me; I owned it, I didn't have to act it. Spiritual thinking allows a person to be changed from the inside. Our minds and our laws might OBLIGATE us to do good, but our spirit DESIRES us to do good.

TUNING INTO GOD

As a skeptic, I always asked Christians for proof of their souls or proof of their god; how did they KNOW, as they claimed, that their belief was sound? When I finally 'saw' what they 'saw', I tried to convey this evidence, but found that I was no more articulate in my attempts than they were in theirs.
In John 18:37, Jesus says, "Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice." In Mark 4:9, He says, "He that hath ears to hear, let him hear." As an atheist, this seemed nothing more to me than a bit of circular logic. Nevertheless, when my ears were opened, it proved itself to be true.

To those who are blind, we can intellectually explain how color is created by varying wavelengths of light and how those wavelengths are detected by the eye, but we can't tell them what the color red looks like. To those who are deaf, we can intellectually explain how sound waves are produced and how it is that sound waves are detected, but we can't explain what a noise sounds like. It is no different with the spiritually deaf. We can try to explain but we can't make a non-believer recognize the truth that has become obvious to us. No one is able to transfer a perception to another, but we can try to remove the intellectual barriers that allow people to remain blind to that truth.
It wasn't that I was without the capability to perceive the truth; my obstinacy wouldn't allow me to see it. I was too full of myself and too blinded by what I thought were logically sound arguments to see that which was right under my nose.
Just as God can be perceived, He can also be shut out. We train our senses to tune out certain stimuli, such as the noise of traffic, or joint pain, which comes with age (I never knew how much pain I was in until a pain pill took it all away!). A large ego doesn't want to submit to any authority. A self-sufficient and self-righteous person believes they have no need of God. The immoral want to continue in their activities with a free conscience. Pride in my intellect and my anti-Christian bigotry allowed me to shut Him out for over twenty years.

It's as if the truth of God is being spoken all around us, but we can't always hear it. This world teaches us to tune Him out. His spirit is like the low pitched hum of a fluorescent light. If you busy yourself with distraction, or if you keep your own thoughts turned up so high in your head, you won't even notice the light. Picture yourself in a large crowd of people. If you are in the midst of the crowd, concentrating on your own thoughts, the conversations around you become a drone in which no particular words can be discerned. But if you focus your hearing on one voice or another, you find that you can follow a conversation. You have to be still. You have to be quiet. You have to train yourself to listen for it, and if you do all of those things, you will hear Him. You will have tuned into God.

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The spiritual mission of Ex-atheist.com is to present the truth of Christianity from an ‘outsider’s’ perspective and to remove the intellectual barriers and misconceptions that can inhibit serious consideration of that truth.

Many Christians say that their faith in God is based on Biblical inerrancy, the historicity of the gospels, or the inadequacies of evolution, yet none of these issues played a significant role in my decision, after 20 years of atheism, to believe in the divinity of Christ. I created the site in an effort to encourage those whom I had once tried to dishearten.

A.S.A. Jones
I wasn’t born again yesterday.


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From the article :-

'It was New Year's Day, 1998. I made a resolution to read the entire Bible again, only this time I was going to read it as I would poetry or fiction, and not as a proposal of fact.'

Fascinating! I wonder how many Christians on Theology Web will take to hear the authors advice to read the Bible as if it were fiction.

'In the months that followed, I kept my resolution and I began noticing a change in my way of interpreting the Bible. Intellectually, I found that my mind could logically accept two very different interpretations of almost everything I was reading. One interpretation of any verse or passage would render the whole story as nonsensical. But the other interpretation allowed the whole story to make sense.'

And practice double-think (literally).

'If my mind was capable of accepting interpretations that allowed the whole book to make sense, then what was it in me that wanted it not to make sense? This book was reading me as surely as I was reading it. Every time I found fault with its god, I ended up finding a fault of my own. What was I doing when I condemned this god for commanding Moses to kill?'

Don't question orders to kill.

Good advice for atheists reading Theology Web

[Hired Gun]

'It was New Year's Day, 1998. I made a resolution to read the entire Bible again, only this time I was going to read it as I would poetry or fiction, and not as a proposal of fact.'

Fascinating! I wonder how many Christians on Theology Web will take to hear the authors advice to read the Bible as if it were fiction.

Reading it as fiction took the 'pressure' off of me to hyper-analyze the text. In other words, I sat back and actually understood what I was reading instead of playing lawyer with every line. This statement wasn't intended to advise anyone of anything; It is merely an objective statement describing my mindset as I attempted to understand the Bible. If anything, it is my advice to non-believers , specifically, the type of non-believer that I was, that being a legalistic, anti-Christian Pharisee, to approach the Bible as a work of fiction in order to be fair-minded. Please note that I did not say that the Bible is a work of fiction; I simply said that I read it as I would have read a book of fiction. I did this to change my attitude and to get past any preconceived ideas that I may have had toward Christianity in general.

I can see how quickly scanning through the text of the article would allow one to mistakenly infer that I am equating 'reading the Bible as fiction' with 'reading the Bible, which is fiction'. I can also appreciate intentional misunderstanding, but that would be accusing you of double-think (reading the Bible as fiction = Bible is fiction).

'In the months that followed, I kept my resolution and I began noticing a change in my way of interpreting the Bible. Intellectually, I found that my mind could logically accept two very different interpretations of almost everything I was reading. One interpretation of any verse or passage would render the whole story as nonsensical. But the other interpretation allowed the whole story to make sense.'

And practice double-think (literally).

'Double-think' is the practice of denying what the mind knows to be true. If you read the above quote carefully, you will see that it is referring to 'equal-think', not double-think. Is double-think what Nietzsche required of his readers? Is double-think the quality necessary to understand double-entendres? Is there no such thing as legitimate ambiguity in your philosophy? Or do simply discount all Biblical understanding as 'double-think'?

'If my mind was capable of accepting interpretations that allowed the whole book to make sense, then what was it in me that wanted it not to make sense? This book was reading me as surely as I was reading it. Every time I found fault with its god, I ended up finding a fault of my own. What was I doing when I condemned this god for commanding Moses to kill?'

Don't question orders to kill.

Good advice for atheists reading Theology Web

I did question the order to kill and this led me to a new view of God, when taken in context of the whole Bible. If one places God on the same level as men, then God is a murderer. But recognizing God as 'God', as portrayed in the text, allowed me to accept that God's divine characteristics would permit Him to take human life without rendering Him immoral. When a man takes another's life, he can't restore it. God, however, can.

[Dee Dee Warren]

What happened to my post?? Hmmmm, well I will say it again. I as one of the owners of TheologyWeb am very appreciative of the support that Ex-Atheist.com gives to this site, and have always enjoyed that article so it is our pleasure to be able to host it here.

[stevencarrwork]

Today @ 09:53 AM
Hired Gun:


I did question the order to kill and this led me to a new view of God, when taken in context of the whole Bible. If one places God on the same level as men, then God is a murderer. But recognizing God as 'God', as portrayed in the text, allowed me to accept that God's divine characteristics would permit Him to take human life without rendering Him immoral. When a man takes another's life, he can't restore it. God, however, can.

It was Moses, Joshua and the Israelites who took the lives of their fellow humans, according to Exodus and Joshua.

That makes them murderers according to your definition.

Was it murder for human beings to kill other human beings?

Did God restore the Amalekites to life.........?

You wrote 'But if the Christian God is real, we can claim that people are special without being hypocritical, because every person would be uniquely created.'

What made the Amalekites so special?

[Hired Gun]

[QUOTE]

Today @ 08:04 AM post located here
stevencarrwork:



It was Moses, Joshua and the Israelites who took the lives of their fellow humans, according to Exodus and Joshua.

According to the text, God used Moses, Joshua and the Israelites as instruments to take the lives of those whom GOD described as 'wicked'.

That makes them murderers according to your definition.

When a man takes it upon himself to murder other human beings for selfish reasons, that qualifies the man as a murderer, by human standards. These men were allegedly acting in obedience to God, not their own selfish desires.

Was it murder for human beings to kill other human beings?

You tell me. Was it? I notice that you make a distinction in the above statement between 'murder' and 'kill'. If there is no distinction between these two words, your statement would read, "Was it murder for human beings to murder other human beings?"

Is taking the life of other human beings always wrong? If so, we have just discovered a moral absolute. As an atheist, I used to point to this slaughter by Moses as despicable, yet I had to admit that I thought that the U.S. bombing of Hiroshima was a necessary act. I chose to see the killing of the Amalekites as evil because it was a convenient way to condemn Christianity's god.

God tells us not to kill, yet directly orders Moses to kill. Were the U.S. soldiers murderers? If men can take lives and not be considered immoral, then why can't God do the same and not be considered immoral?

Did God restore the Amalekites to life.........?

When one considers the Bible in its entirety, God restores all to life, though their eternal fate may differ.

You wrote 'But if the Christian God is real, we can claim that people are special without being hypocritical, because every person would be uniquely created.'

What made the Amalekites so special?

Are you asking, "If the Amalekites were so special, why did God destroy them?" Please clarify.

[Alien]

In an atheistic philosophy, there are certain things that concern the reality of life that must be accepted as illusion because, without God, that is the only thing they can be. We live our lives as if they have a real and genuine purpose. Most people will say that their lives have meaning, regardless of their philosophy. But a life that is created by chance, and natural selection, can have no inherent or objective purpose or meaning. Instead, such a life can only have a self-assigned, subjective meaning. A non-objective, self-assigned meaning is purely imaginary! It is a subjective opinion of what can only be a subjective reality. Conversely, a life created by design and a designer, such as the one described in Christianity, is given an objective purpose; its meaning is genuine and inherent. We may have different, subjective opinions as to what that purpose is, but these are subjective opinions concerning an objective reality.

This argument has always bothered me. "Purpose" is essentially subjective because it can only be applied to something with a mind (a rock can't be said to have a purpose) and the purpose is something generated within that mind. Thus, I can form a decision to attempt something and that becomes my purpose. So, to say that an atheist can't have a "real and genuine purpose" is untrue; he forms the purpose within his mind and that's as "real and genuine" as purposes get. Adopting someone else's purpose as your own doesn't alter this. God's purpose is "real and genuine" in His mind and your purpose is to follow it - also "real and genuine". My purpose (one of them) is to lead as happy and fulfilling a life as I can while allowing others to pursue the same aim. That's "real and genuine" too.

I suspect that what Christians really mean here is that God's purposes are better than ours can ever be, and therefore more worthy of adoption.

Just as an aside, I found the "white on black" format of the page accessed by the "From Skepticism to Worship" link made it difficult to read.

[stevencarrwork]

Today @ 02:26 PM
Hired Gun:



According to the text, God used Moses, Joshua and the Israelites as instruments to take the lives of those whom GOD described as 'wicked'.



When a man takes it upon himself to murder other human beings for selfish reasons, that qualifies the man as a murderer, by human standards. These men were allegedly acting in obedience to God, not their own selfish desires.

What are 'selfish reasons'? How can we tell? When Iraq was invaded the Iraiq soldiers tried to kill British soldiers for the very selfish reason that they wanted to avoid being killed.

What can be more selfish than preferring yourself to be alive, rather than somebody else?

Is that what you mean , or have I misunderstood?

Am I morally allowed to kill for selfless reasons, as suicide bombers do? Do you think that suicide bombers are acting for their own personal gain?

You tell me. Was it? I notice that you make a distinction in the above statement between 'murder' and 'kill'. If there is no distinction between these two words, your statement would read, "Was it murder for human beings to murder other human beings?"

As far as I can understand, you claimed any killing of one human being by another was murder and that only God could kill.

Is taking the life of other human beings always wrong? If so, we have just discovered a moral absolute. As an atheist, I used to point to this slaughter by Moses as despicable, yet I had to admit that I thought that the U.S. bombing of Hiroshima was a necessary act. I chose to see the killing of the Amalekites as evil because it was a convenient way to condemn Christianity's god.

The US soldiers did not kill every Japanese man, woman and child.

God tells us not to kill, yet directly orders Moses to kill. Were the U.S. soldiers murderers? If men can take lives and not be considered immoral, then why can't God do the same and not be considered immoral?

Were the US soldiers obeying God's orders when they bombed Hiroshima?

When one considers the Bible in its entirety, God restores all to life, though their eternal fate may differ.

So God can kill people ,because he has the power to restore the killed people to life. But if they are beng restored to life , just to have further punishment, how does that justify God killing them?

If I take something from you, and explain that it is morally OK because I can restore it to you, and then restore it in such a way that you suffer because of the restoration, why should you agree to me taking that thing from you?

Are you asking, "If the Amalekites were so special, why did God destroy them?" Please clarify.

Don't put words in my mouth.

I just asked why the Amalekites were so special. Which word in particular did you want me to clarify? Of course, your answer might then give me food for thought, about why such special people had to be destroyed man, woman and child, but I can't comment on your answer until I have seen it.

[Hired Gun]

This argument has always bothered me. "Purpose" is essentially subjective because it can only be applied to something with a mind (a rock can't be said to have a purpose) and the purpose is something generated within that mind.

I disagree. A car has a real and genuine purpose, yet it does not have a mind. Its purpose is to transport people. It is specifically designed by an intelligence to fulfill a specific task, although a car doesn't have a mind that would allow it to fully appreciate its inherent purpose.

Thus, I can form a decision to attempt something and that becomes my purpose. So, to say that an atheist can't have a "real and genuine purpose" is untrue; he forms the purpose within his mind and that's as "real and genuine" as purposes get. Adopting someone else's purpose as your own doesn't alter this. God's purpose is "real and genuine" in His mind and your purpose is to follow it - also "real and genuine".

Once again, I disagree. Let's assume, for the case of argument, that a car did have a mind. My car may get the impression that it is a container for discarded toys and fast food wrappers. That would be my car's subjective, imaginary purpose. It's inherent purpose of transportation, however, would still remain.

My purpose (one of them) is to lead as happy and fulfilling a life as I can while allowing others to pursue the same aim. That's "real and genuine" too.

We disagree on the definitions involved. I feel that my understanding of these terms more accurately reflects their usage. Inherent purpose implies design. A stick may be used to dig a hole in the dirt, but this is not its inherent purpose. When a stick is used to accomplish such a task, it is because its user subjectively applied it to the task.

I suspect that what Christians really mean here is that God's purposes are better than ours can ever be, and therefore more worthy of adoption.

No, my argument needn't go that far. What I really mean is exactly what I said.

Just as an aside, I found the "white on black" format of the page accessed by the "From Skepticism to Worship" link made it difficult to read.

Arrgghh! This has been brought to my attention once before. I guess I should sacrifice style for clarity, but that cross looks so cool on black. Would it help if I made the text bigger? In any case, thank you for letting me know because now I have to give serious consideration to changing it.

[Hired Gun]

What are 'selfish reasons'? How can we tell? When Iraq was invaded the Iraiq soldiers tried to kill British soldiers for the very selfish reason that they wanted to avoid being killed.
What can be more selfish than preferring yourself to be alive, rather than somebody else?

Is that what you mean , or have I misunderstood?

Am I morally allowed to kill for selfless reasons, as suicide bombers do? Do you think that suicide bombers are acting for their own personal gain?

This is exactly my point. We can only guess and speculate using our own reasoning as to what constitutes a moral or immoral act. Christianity bypasses moral relativism by allowing us to position ourselves within the context of a divine personality who represents absolute righteousness. Our actions become judged by our state of heart, not the actions alone. A suicide bomber who is a sadist and who hates people and life to the degree that enables him to carry out a bombing for the sole purpose of destruction will be judged more harshly than a suicide bomber who believes he is sacrificing himself for the good of his country.

I made these statements in reference to atheists condemning the actions of God when moral relativism doesn't permit this type of condemnation.

As far as I can understand, you claimed any killing of one human being by another was murder and that only God could kill.

Yes, that is what I said.

The US soldiers did not kill every Japanese man, woman and child.

I detect some fallacious reasoning here. Is it moral to kill some percentage of the population? Does percentage of occupants killed determine the morality of the killing? If God commanded Moses to kill 90% of the population instead of 100%, would that make His orders more moral?

Were the US soldiers obeying God's orders when they bombed Hiroshima?

I certainly am in no position to give a qualified answer.

So God can kill people ,because he has the power to restore the killed people to life. But if they are beng restored to life , just to have further punishment, how does that justify God killing them?

If I take something from you, and explain that it is morally OK because I can restore it to you, and then restore it in such a way that you suffer because of the restoration, why should you agree to me taking that thing from you?

Your argument, restated, would read:

1. You can restore the life, which you take from me.
2. I will suffer BECAUSE of the restoration.
3. Therefore, taking my life away from me is immoral.
4. Therefore, I shouldn't agree to allow you to take it from me.

I disagree with the truth of the second premise. You are not going to suffer because of the restoration itself. You are going to suffer because of your sin. The #3 conclusion is therefore a non-sequitur. The #4 conclusion may be correct, but taking away your life does not entail agreement on your part.

Don't put words in my mouth.

It was my desire not to put words in your mouth that led me to ask you to clarify.

I just asked why the Amalekites were so special. Which word in particular did you want me to clarify? Of course, your answer might then give me food for thought, about why such special people had to be destroyed man, woman and child, but I can't comment on your answer until I have seen it.

The Amalekites were each seen by God as special and unique, in the same manner that all free will agents are special and unique. God's order to destroy a part of His creation in order to ensure the establishment of Israel, does not destroy the unique qualities of that creation.

[Alien]

Main Entry: pur·pose
Function: noun
1 a : something set up as an object or end to be attained : INTENTION b : RESOLUTION, DETERMINATION
2 : a subject under discussion or an action in course of execution
[M-W]

Today @ 11:36 AM post located here
Hired Gun:
I disagree. A car has a real and genuine purpose, yet it does not have a mind. Its purpose is to transport people. It is specifically designed by an intelligence to fulfill a specific task, although a car doesn't have a mind that would allow it to fully appreciate its inherent purpose.

I would tend to refer to a car's "function" in this context, and reserve "purpose" for the designer, but lets not quibble over definitions. :)

Once again, I disagree. Let's assume, for the case of argument, that a car did have a mind. My car may get the impression that it is a container for discarded toys and fast food wrappers. That would be my car's subjective, imaginary purpose. It's inherent purpose of transportation, however, would still remain.

In that case, would the "purpose" of transportation have any more force as an "inherent" purpose than one that the car thought up for itself? Not being a travelling garbage can maybe, but say it decides to go off and drive around the world by itself in search of enlightenment?

There was a case where a child was conceived for the purpose of providing bone marrow for its sibling. (I'm grossly over-simplifying the parents' motives but lets pretend that was their only purpose). What is the child's inherent purpose, what is assigned to it by its parents (its creators) or whatever it might decide for itself? Or its "evolutionary" purpose of being a vehicle for its genes? Or whatever God might have in mind for it?

We disagree on the definitions involved. I feel that my understanding of these terms more accurately reflects their usage. Inherent purpose implies design. A stick may be used to dig a hole in the dirt, but this is not its inherent purpose. When a stick is used to accomplish such a task, it is because its user subjectively applied it to the task.

And a screwdriver makes a perfectly good opener for paint cans. :)

Are you saying that there is no value in the use of the stick as a digging tool? Is this so because the tree originally "intended" the stick as a bearer of leaves or whatever and that makes it forever unavailable for any other use?

But let's return to what you said.

But a life that is created by chance, and natural selection, can have no inherent or objective purpose or meaning.

Correct, if you define "inherent" as something designed into it.

Instead, such a life can only have a self-assigned, subjective meaning.

As opposed to a God-assigned, subjective meaning?

A non-objective, self-assigned meaning is purely imaginary! It is a subjective opinion of what can only be a subjective reality.

Imaginary as in non-existent? Are you suggesting that something subjective, like an opinion, doesn't exist?

Conversely, a life created by design and a designer, such as the one described in Christianity, is given an objective purpose; its meaning is genuine and inherent.

You seem to be of the opinion that a thought, opinion or judgement by God is somehow objective, while our thoughts etc are subjective. Can you explain why this is so?

Arrgghh! This has been brought to my attention once before. I guess I should sacrifice style for clarity, but that cross looks so cool on black. Would it help if I made the text bigger? In any case, thank you for letting me know because now I have to give serious consideration to changing it.

Bigger might be better, but have you considered yellow on black? Its a lot easier to read for most people and looks good too. :)

[stevencarrwork]

Today @ 07:32 PM
Hired Gun:



This is exactly my point. We can only guess and speculate using our own reasoning as to what constitutes a moral or immoral act. Christianity bypasses moral relativism by allowing us to position ourselves within the context of a divine personality who represents absolute righteousness. Our actions become judged by our state of heart, not the actions alone. A suicide bomber who is a sadist and who hates people and life to the degree that enables him to carry out a bombing for the sole purpose of destruction will be judged more harshly than a suicide bomber who believes he is sacrificing himself for the good of his country.

I made these statements in reference to atheists condemning the actions of God when moral relativism doesn't permit this type of condemnation.

'Our actions become judged by our state of heart, not the actions alone'.

I think actions should be judged by how much suffering they cause, not whether the person sincerely believed he was doing it for the sake of his country.

Why do you say that one sin will be judged more harshly than another?

Does God not abhor all sin? Are some sins less heinous than others, in God's judgement? (Humans judge some acts as less heinous than others, but we are not God)

As for your claiming that we can only guess and speculate about what consitutes and immoral act, I am happy to state that I believe torturing children for fun is an immoral act.

You may say that you can only speculate that that is immoral, but I think you can actually say with confidence that , deep down, you know that is wrong.

1. You can restore the life, which you take from me.
2. I will suffer BECAUSE of the restoration.
3. Therefore, taking my life away from me is immoral.
4. Therefore, I shouldn't agree to allow you to take it from me.

I disagree with the truth of the second premise. You are not going to suffer because of the restoration itself. You are going to suffer because of your sin.

The Amalekites were not going to suffer because of their sin - they were dead.

Only when God restores them to life will they suffer.

[stevencarrwork]

Today @ 09:27 PM
Alien:


You seem to be of the opinion that a thought, opinion or judgement by God is somehow objective, while our thoughts etc are subjective. Can you explain why this is so?

By definition , God's opinion on what is moral is just an opinion.

If opinions are subjective, then God's opinion is subjective.

How do we know God is good?

God says so.

How do we know that what God says is objective?

Because God said so.......

This is circular reasoning.

It can be hard to see why the morality of God is objectively good.

2 Samuel 6:6-7 When they came to the threshing floor of Nacon, Uzzah reached out and took hold of the ark of God, because the oxen stumbled. The LORD's anger burned against Uzzah because of his irreverent act; therefore God struck him down and he died there beside the ark of God.

Was it objectively good to kill Uzzah when he steadied the Ark to stop it falling when the oxen stumbled?

[JCA]

Today @ 06:00 PM post located here
stevencarrwork:

You may say that you can only speculate that that is immoral, but I think you can actually say with confidence that , deep down, you know that is wrong.

I think this is an important thing to note. Some of this is based upon our life experiences and how we are brought up.. but I think the majority of our 'conscience' comes from the simple understanding of what we don't like to happen to us..

For instance, I'm less liable to cause others pain if I have lived through it myself and come to the conclusion that pain is 'bad'. This is how it is easy to understand the 10 commandments.. they spoke of things that we all 'know' are 'bad', because they are things we would not want done to us.

This is what surprises me when people claim that Atheists can have no reference to base 'good' and 'evil' upon.. or moralistic thinking.. just from living I can come to sound moral decisions..

The fact that they then get backed up by Christs/Gods word, only makes it all the more sweet :)

IMHO.

Love and Peace

JCA

PS - Didn't mean to interrupt, but I saw that and had to ;)

[Dee Dee Warren]

Hired Gun!!! I am thoroughly enjoying your posts!! Good job