I also lost my atheist father and my mother asked me to pray and believed in the supernatural. I was indoctrinated around 9-12, so I was a non-believer before. I also appreciated the Christian friends I made there and tried my best to conform... But I could never believe what I was taught about God. So I guess I'm now a baptized and confirmed non believer. I like how genuine is your testimony and how you describe how you accepted to believe in a specific God without much reasons. Most of my theist friends did too.
Thanks for sharing. I hope you also find the true genuine life in Christ, that’s not forced, and not just knowledge, but it would come from your heart 🙏🏻
I am sorry to hear about your father, you have my sympathy. I am an Atheist and one thing your father said is that I agree with is maybe it is true but I just can't believe you. What he was trying to explain to you is that a personal experience is only good to the one having the personal experience and no one else. Let me try to help you out. If a Muslim or a Hindu came up to me and told me they had a personal experience that their god is real(or in the case of Hindu's their gods) that wouldn't convince me, just like you having a personal experience didn't convince your dad(or me). Please understand that people of other religions have personal experiences(AKA personal testimony) that convince them their gods or a god is real. Now at best only one of these could be true, or maybe none of them are true, that is possible. Now the good news is there is zero empirical evidence that any god's exist. If you go by the demonstrable evidence your father is no longer suffering, he is most likely in the same state he was before he was born. To me it makes no logical sense that a loving and just god would send most people to his torture chamber for eternity(AKA the Christian & Muslim god. You do know that the Jews don't believe in eternal punishment of Hell, that is a Christian and Muslim invention. Now wouldn't you think god would have told his people about eternal punishment of Hell? That is a pretty important detail to leave out to the Jewish believers(AKA his chosen people). One question, how come you reject your mothers church, but you accept the fun church? We Atheist call that picking and choosing. If god's message was really clear then there would be only one church. It is one of the things I find hard to believe that Christians can't see the problem here. Anyways, please know that there is no good reason to believe in a heaven or a Hell and that your father is not suffering anymore. Peace
Thanks for sharing. Honestly I used to have the same mindset as you do, I understand where you’re coming from. One thing that gave me confidence about Christianity, is knowing that Jesus being a person, died, and resurrected. He wasn’t like gods of other religions, those gods, even if existed, they died and stayed in the grave and they’re no more. Jesus resurrected showing His Devine and supernatural nature as God (this is also a historical fact). I agree that you said God is loving and just, therefore He has to give people justice in accordance to their sin. I know one thing for sure, that we as sinful people, are corrupt, but our loving God gives us many chances to repent and gives a lot of grace, because He doesn’t want anyone to end up in hell. But because of our free will, we choose to remain in sin. Based on the Bible God did say many times to his people about the eternal punishment of hell (don’t know why some don’t take the words of Jesus seriously). To answer your last question, I didn’t want to keep going to my mom’s church, because I found it being a place of just following rules and men made traditions (not based on the Bible) there wasn’t any excitement or love for God that I saw in those people (nothing against them personally). I think you can call it picking and choosing, yes, I did choose to go to a different church where it’s not just about men made traditions and rules, but it’s about living life with God the way he said to in the Bible. I also wondered why there’s many different churches and not just one, I guess some of my current thoughts: everyone has their own style and way of worship towards God, for me it’s important that the message is based on the Bible and not twisted or sugar coded by human opinion. Last reason why I know Jesus is the right way: if you take a look at other religions you’ve listed and many more, they’re all about earning favor from god by doing good things and then ending up in heaven or a better place. In Christianity it’s not how that works, you can’t earn your way into heaven, it’s by grace through faith that we are saved and it’s a gift from God, not a result of our works/earnings. There’s no other religion where god died and resurrected for his people, but Jesus did it because he loves us and doesn’t want us to be suffering in hell. It’s up to you and every person it they choose Him. These facts (and yes, these are true facts, not just my observations or opinion) were enough for me to put my faith in Christ. 🔥
@@1Alyaa Thank you for the reply and you are welcome. If you go by the evidence Jesus resurrection is not a historical fact, far from it. I am not sure if you even know this but the gospels where written decades later after Jesus' death story through oral stories told from one person to the next. There are zero contemporary writings of Jesus during his lifetime and we have no eyewitnesses of anything he did during his life. Did you know the gospels were not written by Mark, Matthew, Luke and John, those are just surnames given to these gospels and there are lots of errors and contradictions in them. I didn't say god was a loving and just god. You misunderstood what I meant. I am saying only a cruel and un-just god would send most people to a torture chamber for eternity, not to make them better people, because the torture never ends. That is not love, that is cruelty in the most possible way, nothing could be more horrible. 2 part question for you. Part 1. Do you think it is fair that a person who rapes children then murders them and live a wicked and cruel life would be deserving of not being punished, but rewarded by god if this person repents before they die and accepts Jesus as lord and savoir? Part 2. Do you think a person like your dad who lived a good life(not perfect, no one is) but this god didn't bother to provide even one good reason to believe he exists, does your dad deserve eternal torture? I am not talking about being tortured for a year, not a 100 years, not a million years, not a billion years, not a trillion X a trillion x a trillion years, but eternity. Think about that, and that is the fate of most people because they don't believe because god won't give them even one single piece of good evidence he exists. I can see you haven't given your beliefs critical thought. 1. One, it is not a gift. A gift is a thing given willingly to someone without any conditions or payment. But that is not what Jesus' is offering here because there are stings attached. The more accurate word as applied to the facts is a "THREAT". A threat is a statement of an intention to inflict pain, injury, damage, or other hostile action on someone in retribution for something done or not done. So to be correct here, - "GOD GIVES US A THREAT". Either become a slave to him to worship & praise him(this is the something done or not done part), or he will throw you into a furnace(the throwing you into a furnace is the retribution part). 2. You are not an expert on other religions, as most other religions focus on making one self a better person so they can reach the next level of existence. Of course just like Christianity they all appear to be man made. I mean it makes no sense at all that no one saw Jesus raise from the dead. If god really wanted his people(the Jewish people) to believe he rose from the dead then Jesus would have after he resurrected gone out and shown all of Jerusalem he rose, it wouldn't be some secrete. I saying if god wanted people to believe Jesus was the Messiah. 3. The Gospels claim when Jesus died, the sun went out for 3 hours, the dead rose from their graves and walked around Jerusalem meeting with the living and there was a great earthquake. Yet none of these events were recorded anywhere(except in the gospels decades later). I would expect many writings of all these events, yet we don't have even one contemporary writing. The only place we find these is in the gospels. Clearly these are just legend stories, most likely based on a real man, but the stories got exaggerated as the stories were told from one person to the next, not uncommon thing for people to do. I can't believe these bible stories because people raising from the dead, walking around Jerusalem and meeting with the living would have been written down at the time, not just in Jerusalem but would have spread all over the middle east, but it didn't, only in the gospels are stories like this found. In other words the bible stories don't match the written historical records of the time period. Not to mention Herod the great, a well documented person never had the 2 years and younger children put to death, it never happened, the historians at this time kept records on his atrocities and this was never recorded and it would have been recorded if true. Again only in the gospels do we find this story. 4. Do you know the story of Abraham and Isaac - another horrible immoral story in the bible where god asks Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac. God is supposed to be all knowing, so no need to put Abraham & his son through this horrible test(of a human sacrifice) god would already have known Abraham would do this. Did you ever hear of Jephthans daughter?(we don't know her name because women where property of their father or their husbands according to the bible). Well, you see this all knowing god of the bible made a deal with a man named Jephthan(See Judges 11). If god would help out Jephthan defeat the Ammonites he would give a burnt offering sacrifice on the 1st thing that came out of his house when he returned victoriously from defeating the Ammonites. Of course the all knowing god would have known that it would be his only child, a daughter(the bible didn't tell us her name, maybe because the bible is misogynistic - I mean we knew Abraham son's name, just saying). So when Jephthan came back victoriously his daughter was 1st out of the house so she would be a human sacrifice(a burnt offering). Unlike the Abraham story, god did not come to the rescue, instead he allowed Jephthan to sacrifice his daughter as a burnt offering to god for allowing him to conquer the Ammonites. God had the power to stop it, either by himself telling Jephthan to not sacrifice his daughter, or he could have sent one of his angels like he did with Abrahams but god didn't, instead he wanted Jephthan to sacrifice his daughter as a burnt offering. Please understand Malisa, a burnt offering is when you burn the body of the sacrifice, which in this case is a human sacrifice. I not saying the daughter was burnt to death while alive, maybe she was stabbed in the heart 1st so she wouldn't suffer what is considered the worst and most torturous way to day, which is being burnt alive. You know being burnt alive is the most possible torturous way to die, but when it is done you are dead, except this is the punishment Christians believe most people deserve. I can't understand why you don't think about what you believe in. This is not a loving god, but a cruel god. Lastly, faith(as belief without evidence - Hebrews 11:1) is something I never use as you can believe anything using faith. That is why all religions use it, if they had good evidence they would use the good evidence. I know all religions have bad evidence, but a ton of bad evidence still equals zero good evidence. I really hope I am right, that would mean most people would be saved from this cruel god who threatens you to love him, if you don't he will torture you for eternity in the most horrible way, which is what a cruel and evil being would do. Peace.
Thank you for such an informative post. I am aware of all this info you posted. I’m not going to say what I agree with and what I don’t agree with, because I’m not here to debate with you or try to disprove you. I was once in your shoes and I understand where you’re coming from. If you believe all this stuff you wrote, all power to you my friend, I used to believe it too, but then it stopped making sense to me. I shared what changed my mind about being an atheist and what I know are facts, just because you don’t believe what I said doesn’t make it invalid. Atheist have to put a lot of faith into what they believe, probably more than Christians. Also, just a side note, there are some contemporary writings out there, you probably didn’t do your research all that good. To answer your questions: 1. I do think that if a rapist or murderer genuinely repents and puts their faith in Jesus they will be forgiven. God will give grace to a person like that if that person repents. Like I said earlier, grace is not something anyone can deserve, but God gives us grace anyways. Because I’m Christ we’re a new creation. 2. In the case with my dad who lived as an atheist, God gave a lot of evidence to my dad that proved His existence, my dad chose not to believe that evidence, which happens to be your case as well. That’s a choice, God can’t take away our free will. If someone doesn’t want to live for God here on earth then why would they wanna be with Him in heaven. Anyone not living for God, even if they’re “a good person” lives in sin. According to the Bible wages of sin is death. Just wanted to answer your questions, everything else you wrote is very interesting information. I think it’s not for you to say if I gave my faith critical thought or not (that’s just your biased opinion). I clearly said what changed my mind about atheism, if you choose not to believe me, that your choice. But I do hope that you’ll understand where I’m coming from.
@@SalemK-ty4ti *The Historical Method & the Resurrection Of Jesus Christ* The historical method, is a methodology/science which is employed by historians to infer facts about the past (i.e. historical facts). Below I am going to present four positions which are widely accepted by the vast majority of historians as historical-facts--this includes non-Christian historians agreeing to these facts. This methodology does not assume the Bible is an inspired text, but rather treats the Bible like it would any other literature of antiquity (so these facts are derived purely from a historical methodology alone, without any theological premises). The four historical-facts are: 1. Jesus was murdered and buried. 2. Three days afterward, his body went missing from the tomb. 3. Accounts of Jesus’ appearance to both his disciples and unbelievers/skeptics were reported over the course of many days. 4. These appearances transformed his followers and some previous skeptics into courageous preachers of Christianity (which involved persecution and death for a large number of them), with Jesus’ resurrection becoming the central focus of their teaching. I will now post some example quotes from non-Christian historians below (regarding these facts). *1. Jesus was murdered and buried.* "Jesus' death as a consequence of crucifixion is indisputable." - (atheist) Historian Gerd Ludemann. "One of the most certain facts of history is that Jesus was crucified on orders of the Roman prefect of Judea, Pontius Pilate." - (agnostic/atheist) Historian Bart Ehrman. *2. Three days afterward, his body went missing from the tomb.* "When every argument has been considered and weighed, the only conclusion acceptable to the historian must be that . . . the women who set out to pay their last respects to Jesus found to their consternation, not a body, but an empty tomb." - (non-christian and Jewish) Historian Gerza Vermes. "The historian... cannot justifiably deny the empty tomb... [because] if we apply the same sort of criteria that we would apply to any other ancient literary sources, then the evidence is firm and plausible enough to necessitate the conclusion that the tomb was, indeed, found empty." - (agnostic/atheist) Historian Michael Grant. *Fact 3 & 4 - check above for details.* "It may be taken as historically certain that Peter and the disciples had experiences after Jesus' death in which Jesus appeared to them as the risen Christ." - (atheist) Historian Gerd Ludemann. "I know in their own terms what they saw was the raised Jesus. That's what they say and then all the historic evidence we have afterwards attests to their conviction that that's what they saw. I'm not saying they really did see the raised Jesus. I wasn't there. I don't know what they saw. But I do know that as a historian that they must have seen something." - (non-Christian) Historian Paula Fredriksen. “We can say with complete certainty that some of his [Jesus'] disciples at some later time insisted that . . . he soon appeared to them, convincing them that he had been raised from the dead.” - (agnostic/atheist) Historian Bart Ehrman. "That Jesus' followers (and later Paul) had resurrection experiences is, in my judgment, a fact. What the reality was that gave rise to the experiences I do not know." - (post-liberal) Historian E.P. Sanders. These stated historical-facts above led the Jewish historian Pinchas Lapide to conclude that the existence of these historical-facts could only be explained because Jesus Christ had resurrected from the dead as a historical-fact also: "I accept the resurrection of Easter Sunday not as an invention of the community of disciples, but as a historical event. " - (non-Christian and Jewish) Historian Pinchas Lapide. All these facts also led world renowned atheist philosopher Anthony Flew to say: "The evidence for the resurrection [of Jesus] is better than for the claimed miracles in any other religion. It’s outstandingly different in quality and quantity.” - (ex-atheist) Philosopher Anthony Flew *Some more quotes.* "I humbly add I have spent more than 42 years as a defense trial lawyer appearing in many parts of the world and am still in active practice. I have been fortunate to secure a number of successes in jury trials and I say unequivocally the evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus Christ is so overwhelming that it compels acceptance by proof which leaves absolutely no room for doubt." - Sir Lionel Luckhoo (1914-1997). Sir Lionel Luckhoo is considered one of the greatest lawyers in British history. He's recorded in the Guinness Book of World Records as the "World's Most Successful Advocate," with 245 consecutive murder acquittals. “According to the laws of legal evidence used in courts of law, there is more evidence for the historical fact of the resurrection of Jesus Christ than for just about any other event in history.” - Simon Greenleaf. Simon Greenleaf was a Harvard law professor and legal scholar who wondered if Jesus Christ's resurrection would meet the stringent tests for evidence. Simon Greenleaf is also a man who put Harvard on the map and wrote the 3 volume masterpiece, "A Treatise on the Law of Evidence"; which today's U.S. judicial system relies on for rules of evidence and has been called: "the greatest single authority in the entire literature of legal procedure." "I was a committed atheist when I first heard a pastor preach a sermon that described the resurrection of Jesus. This pastor seemed to actually believe Jesus rose from the dead and was still alive today. I assumed it was just another example of 'blind faith'; another well-intentioned church leader believing something for which he had no supporting evidence. Worse yet, I suspected he possessed an “unreasonable faith” and trusted something in spite of the evidence. I was familiar with the rules of evidence and the process by which we can determine the truth about past events. As a detective, I was doing this for a living. I decided to investigate the resurrection as I would any unsolved case from the distant past. My journey led me out of atheism to the truth of Christianity. As I applied my skills as a detective, I became more convinced that the New Testament gospel accounts reliably described the life, ministry, crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus." - J. Warner Wallace. Wallace is a famous L.A. homicide detective who has had interviews on a number of T.V. shows (like Dateline).
@@1Alyaa Thank you for honestly answering my questions. I also apologies, I was wrong to say you haven't given critical thought. No one can know what anyone else is thinking. I was wrong, please forgive me. Also know I strongly believe everyone has the right to their own beliefs and although I can't see any "good" evidence for your belief in this god, I understand why you believe as I used to be a Christian. I absolutely believe that you believe your god is real, just like I believe Muslims believe their god is real and Hindu's believe their gods are real. My point is at best only one of these beliefs can be true, so this proves that billions of people are absolutely believing in fictional gods, if not all. Remember, the easiest person in the world to fool is ourselves. • I do have a couple of things to say and you don't need to reply to any of them. I hope you can understand that I see no evidence(anyone who says I see it is clearly misinformed). • Belief is acceptance that a claim is true as a result of being convinced. Now you can be convinced for good reasons or bad reasons & if you really want to be convinced of something you will be more prone to accepting bad reasons for being convinced. Try this experiment. I want you to choose to believe you can fly by flapping your arms up and down by your side. Do you believe you can fly now? Of course not, because beliefs are not a choice. • How did you determine god has given me a lot of evidence? You said god gave me a lot of evidence. What evidence? I know of a lot of bad evidence, but a lot of bad evidence still equals zero good evidence • You say ", I used to believe it too, but then it stopped making sense to me." So it makes sense to you that most people deserve to be tortured in the most possible way for eternity because they don't believe, & people that lived evil and wicked lives get rewarded with eternal happiness in heaven because they were sorry for all the evil and wicked things they did during their lives but repented before they died without ever being punished. That doesn't make sense to me. I don't understand how burning billions of people for eternity makes sense to you. • What method do you use to determine who has grace? Can you measure grace? Can you test grace? I am not looking for you to answer me, I just want you to think about these questions. • There is no faith in being an Atheist, it is just we don't believe any gods exist, that is it. Just like you don't need faith not to believe big foot exist. It is the same thing for everything you don't believe in, you haven't been convinced. All my beliefs are based on my life's experiences and learning(a lack of belief is not a belief). Like I said I never use faith. • The earliest writings of Jesus known are the extant manuscripts of the book Antiquities of the Jews, written by the first-century Jewish historian Flavius Josephus around 93-94 AD, contain two references to Jesus of Nazareth and one reference to John the Baptist. Now Josephus was born in 37 AD, that means he couldn't have been a contemporary since he didn't exist when Jesus existed. Jesus was either crucified in 33 AD or 30 AD. Now, don't take my word for it, do your own research if you care about what is true. Oh, if you do have just one writing of Jesus during his lifetime please share it, you will become very famous since no Christian scholar knows about any writings of Jesus during his lifetime and crucifixion. Peace
My initial reaction is she's faking it, because all the other "I was an ATHEIST and I turned to Xtianity" BS is just, well, BS. But I think she might be sincere. Wrong,but sincere.
