David,

Let me get this straight. You were born an atheist (just like every other human being) then one day when you could read you decided to read the gospels and despite all their contradictions and requirements for considerable leaps of faith you decided that what they said was true and despite the lack of any corroborating non-biblical evidence decided that a person called Jesus was your personal saviour. Boy, how could I be so dumb as to not take on your faith!

Now please don't spoil this story by telling me that between your birth and ability to read the gospels in a rational way that you, like the overwhelming number of other Christians, were influenced to believe in Christianity by those around you. Please don't tell me that you were born into a Christian family and were indoctrinated into the faith. Please don't tell me this otherwise I'll have to inform you that there is a strong possibility that you, like most other Christians, are living a delusion.

I do have an open mind which is why I was able to deprogram myself and revert to the human default condition - atheist. Believe it or not I had the same beliefs as you (wrt God and Chistianity) but through a fair degree of personal reflection came to realise that I was deluded.

Shanno,

Man is not born Atheist – the default position as you put it. We are all sinners and in need of God’s Salvation. What that means is our default position is - by design - a relationship with The Creator of the universe. But because we are born in sin (separation from God) with all have a spiritual void that only God can fill entirely.

Of course that void can be filled with other man-made gods or spiritual beliefs and I agree with your last post that people are mostly the result of their environment. You can be born into a religious family/ county and therefore end up following that trend.

Not so with Christianity though.

At some stage in your adult life you have to make a decision about who Jesus really is. Gathering the facts about Him is a combination of intellect, experiences, and reason. But the decision to believe the Jesus accounts – AND accept Him as your Lord and Saviour – requires faith.

You call faith in the existence of God a delusion. So you have already made up your mind about the non existence of God without the critical requirement of "faith". Naturally you have gambled your life away by not engaging faith in your decision making. (what if your are wrong?)

You can develop a thick skin and reject the Bible and its message – and the ample stories that support that message – with your own critical analyses and philosophies. But without faith it is impossible to know God let alone discover the truth.

Faith is a gift from God alone (same as Love and Wisdom in their true meanings of course)

You don’t have faith because you haven’t accepted God’s gift.

The way back to God is by letting go of your ego and asking God for faith.

coach,
Your argument is based on a series of personal assertions regarding the existence of God. They might be true for you and I respect that spiritual maturity but its not mine; the problem is that you don't respect the right of others to approach this spiritual mystery from a different direction. I worked in the east kimberely region of WA for 16 years and mostly with aboriginal communties. It meant walking a cultural line between two cultures and maintaining a sense of the self over a long period. The aboriginal culture proposes in its dream time concepts, a series of philosophical / spiritual questions of identity in relation to the mystery of existence. It does not resolve that mystery but it does explain our relationship with our immediate environment in terms of a holistic mystery whose nature we understand but not meaning.

Jewish culture has much in common with Aboriginal culture, as do a number of other cultures but not christianity. Christianity requires deterministic answers to this mystery which limits its ability to evolve understanding of a dynamic mystery. The phenomena of the existence of a universe which itself swims in a void where neither time or space exist, is beyond our level of understanding but it is our spiritual journey. Christianity has failed for me because it has become spiritually egoistic in that it claims to know the answers before it has developed knowledge.

The fact is that when you rely on a book, that is the result of secular decisions based on idealogical imperatives at different ages; it is a long way from the issues of a universe floating in a void.

Do you realise that a Moslem could take your argument and simply by substituting god with allah, Mohammad for Jesus, Koran for bible and Islam for Christianity the argument would be equally valid as a defence of Islam? Needless to say if a Moslem were to use the same argument you'd accuse him of being delusional. Of course, the Moslem would also accuse you of being delusional. At least one of you must be wrong. A rational look at the data suggests you both are - but it would be delusional of me to think you will ever see it that way. Religion, however, will eventually die through natural selection.

As to the question 'what if I'm wrong' re the existence of god. What's the big deal? If there is a god responsible for the origin of the universe as we know it why on earth should I believe it is anything like that described in that book of fables written by ignorant men in unsophisticated days? Am I really to believe that this so called god created a man from dust and having forgotten to give him a means of procreating then took a rib and created a woman who in turn from the advice of a talking snake ate an apple which in turn meant that those of us who don't believe the story are to be confined to the bowels of hell? Give me a break!

Actually Coach I'm surprised you have the time to respond to any of these posts, afterall with all the homosexuals, adulterers and naughty kids in the world you really must have a lot of stoning to do.

Is attacking a Christian's faith really time well spent? Once the leap is made, the leaper is fairly impervious to criticism from outside, even civilly expressed criticism. I don't mean we stop thinking, I mean the way we think becomes so different. We can listen and engage, of course, but it's difficult to dislodge us or disconcert us. Yet, so much energy (and often, fury) is devoted to pulling the rug out from under our belief. In particular, I've noticed we are often attacked with rationality, as though it were an effective antitheist weapon. Yet, the way we think doesn't strike me as irrational at all. Meanwhile, there might be some things we can agree about and co-operate on.

Dear Shanno, you and another olo poster 'Robert' seem to have the same experience.
I gave my life to Christ as a result of an increasing sense of enquiry and urgency to make sense of life and to experience personal renewal. That was in my mid 20s. I had a number of quite amazing experiences along the way, too many to mention here. One that always stands out in my mind though as a 'seed' event was the loss of my school bag at the Aspendale train station. I had been attending a youth group at the local methodist Church, and so God was on my mind to a degree.
When I lost my schoolbag it was like the end of the world, so many important thing were in it. I searched high and low,...nothing. Then in desperation, down in the subway underpass with not a soul around, I prayed. "Oh God.. please bring back my schoolbag" you could have blown me over when a station person came around the corner and asked "Is this your schoolbag"? :)

Yes, I know, coincidences do happen. But you will have to simply trust that I'm old enough now to be able to weigh up trends, coincidence and the miraculous.
I reflect on the Gospels because I find a living Christ in them, you sound like you had a 'bad church experience' or that someone you loved and respected as a Christian role model let you down. But for you to say now you are an atheist, but 'once held the same beliefs as me' stretches the credibility a bit. Even if I WANTed to be an Atheist for either moral or economic reasons, I could not, Christ's reality is too compelling. I might end up a disobedient or backslidden Christian but to deny Christ? -Unthinkable!