livingto-serve:

I wasn’t trying to challenge you. I just wanted to state my beliefs. And I’m not about to rebuttal you. I respect that you live well without faith. And yes, some Christians refute that there was an Adam and Eve and see the Torah (first five books of the gospel) as fictional stories designed to teach a lesson. I have not ignored any of your points. But I still believe, I will tell you that much. After everything in my life I have been through, and the miracles I have seen happen, how can I, personally, not have faith? And not believe in a God who loves me? If anything, reading your rebuttal has made my faith grow. Because faith starts out as small as a mustard seed, and can grow into one of the biggest trees. (Matthew 13: 31-35).

So, this is not a rebuttal at all. But I did want you to know what I believe and what many other Christians/Catholics believe in. Your points make perfect sense; I’ll admit that. But does that keep my faith from growing? Does that automatically cease my theological thinking? No. I will admit that I am semi-ignorant to biblical texts and doctrine, but I still believe in God. I still have my faith. And I believe in Heaven, the angels and saints.

In shorter words, I respect your beliefs. But they don’t change mine.

Just wanted to state your beliefs?  I once held your beliefs.  Granted, you didn’t know that about me, but you should know that as an Atheist running an Atheism blog I come across the “why I believes” quite often.  As I stated previously, I’ve heard your set of reasons many times over.  So, if you weren’t trying to challenge me, were you trying to inform someone who’s already informed?  Where’s the sense in that?  After all of the miracles, how can you not have faith?  After all of the Hindu and Muslim miracles, why are you not a Muslim or Hindu?  Did you know that Hindus and Muslims have ways of supposedly casting out evil spirits?  “Oh, Satan does that”?  No.  Satan cannot cast out Satan (Mark 3:23-25) and you know damn well they don’t invoke the name of Jesus.  Your doctrines tie quite a knot around any possible answer you may have had.  Therefore, miracles can be explained in three ways:  1) a god who is for everyone no matter the religious affiliation 2) a case where a believer makes the fallacy of correlation implying causation (i.e. praying for a job and getting it; praying for someone to be healed of cancer and the caner going into remission) 3) some unknown variable yet to be considered.  In the supposed days of Christ, epilepsy was considered to be demonic possession.  Everything you think you saw in church can be explained outside of the context of Christianity.  Yet you would choose to be ignorant of other religions?  Yet you would choose to continue believing even after a sound rebuttal like this one and the one I provided before this one?  Again, if your faith is solid, test it!  If it cannot stand up to scrutiny, it isn’t worth living by.  I used to believe god loved me; I wholeheartedly believed the things I experienced in church.  Then it dawned on me; are there any natural explanations for all this?  Yes, yes there are.  So, my rebuttals made your faith grow?  Of course, faith thrives in ignorance.  You would rather drown out the noise of reason, evidence, and inquiry.  Mustard seeds don’t grow into trees by the way.  Mustard seeds come from various mustard plants.  Conduct your own research; the Bible is wrong about mustard seeds.  The infallible “word of god”?  Not quite.

Of course your faith will continue to grow because it thrives in ignorance.  Of course you won’t cease theological thinking.  It’s seemingly all you know.  You are semi-ignorant of some Christian doctrines and wholly ignorant to anything that disagrees with your faith.  This is the type of negative faith I’m against.  Your faith doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.  I guarantee you; everything you think is supernatural can be explained naturally.  Speaking in tongues?  Glossolalia.  Miracles?  Try other religions.  Healing?  Fraud and the fallacy of correlation implies causation.  Prophecy?  Nostradamus.  Interpretation of tongues?  The United Nations; I have never seen this “gift of the spirit” in church.  All I have is third party accounts; not a great piece of evidence.  You should also believe in UFOs and cryptids based on third party accounts.  In shorter words, I don’t respect the kind of beliefs that avoid and ignore sound rebuttals.  However, that doesn’t mean that even the most bullheaded of beliefs aren’t subject to change. 

(via )