101+ Quotes on Faith, Reason, Unbelief, and Atheism

In response to a very impressive list of 101 Atheist Quotes, I wanted to create some lists of my own, and have culled my favorites from the following sources:

• christianquotes.org
• grace quotes
• the quotable Christian

1. If there were no God, there would be no atheists.  G.K. Chesterton (wrap your brain around that one!)
2. The atheist can't find God for the same reason that a thief can't find a police officer.  Author Unknown
3. Amiable agnostics will talk cheerfully about "man's search for God." To me, as I then was, they might as well have talked about the mouse's search for the cat.  C.S. Lewis
4. Reason is always a kind of brute force; those who appeal to the head rather than the heart, however pallid and polite, are necessarily men of violence. We speak of 'touching' a man's heart, but we can do nothing to his head but hit it.  G.K. Chesterton
5. Atheism is rather in the lip than in the heart of man.  Francis Bacon
6. A little philosophy inclineth a man's mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion.  Francis Bacon
7. If God does not exist, everything is permissible. Fyodor Dostoevsky
8. If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. C.S. Lewis
9. If I were asked today to formulate as concisely as possible that main cause of the ruinous revolution that swallowed up some 60 million of our people, I could not put it more accurately than to repeat: 'Men had forgotten God; that is why all this has happened. Alexander Solzhenitsyn
10. By night, an atheist half believes in God.  Edward Young
11. The worst moment for an atheist is when he feels grateful and has no one to thank.   Samuel Cavert
12. What do you conceive God to be like?  Some would say to believe at all in a personal God requires a giant leap of faith – but I am convinced that belief in God is a far more reasonable position than atheism.  Nature, the personal experience of literally billions of people, and something innate in the heart of man all testify to the existence of God.   George Sweeting
13. In all unbelief there are these two things; a good opinion of one's self, and a bad opinion of God.  Horatius Bonar
14. With most men, unbelief in one thing springs from blind belief in another.  Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742 - 1799)
15. God is not hostile to sinners, but only to unbelievers.   Martin Luther
16. Christ never failed to distinguish between doubt and unbelief.  Doubt is can’t believe.  Unbelief is won’t believe.  Doubt is honesty.  Unbelief is obstinacy.  Doubt is looking for light.  Unbelief is content with darkness.  Henry Drummond
17. Doubt is natural within faith.  It comes because of our human weakness and frailty…Unbelief is the decision to live your life as if there is no God.  It is a deliberate decision to reject Jesus Christ and all that he stands for.  But doubt is something quite different.  Doubt arises within the context the faith.  It is a wistful longing to be sure of the things in which we trust.  But it is not and need not be a problem.  Alister McGrath
18. Christianity founds hospitals and atheists are cured in them, never knowing that they owe their cure to Christ.  William Temple
19. Atheism is a theoretical formulation of the discouraged life. Harry Emerson Fosdick
20. There is nothing more profane than the image of an atheist with tears in his eyes conducting the glory and passion of Handel's Messiah. Franky Schaeffer
21. The world embarrasses me, and I cannot think that this watch exists and has no Watchmaker. Voltaire
22. Faith consists in believing when it is beyond the power of reason to believe.  Voltaire
23. The opposite of the religious fanatic is not the fanatical atheist but the gentle cynic who cares not whether there is a god or not.   Eric Hoffer (1902 - 1983)
24. Faith is an oasis in the heart which will never be reached by the caravan of thinking.  Kahlil Gibran
25. Faith is reason grown courageous.  Sherwood Eddy
26. A priori one should expect a chaotic world which cannot be grasped by the mind in any way...  [T]he kind of order created by Newton’s theory of gravitation...is wholly different.  Even if the axioms of the theory are proposed by man, the success of such a project presupposes a high degree of ordering of the objective world....  That is the “miracle” which is being constantly reinforced as our knowledge expands.   Albert Einstein
27. We don’t know… how a brain (or anything else that is physical) could manage to be a locus of conscious experience.  This last is, surely, among the ultimate metaphysical mysteries; don’t bet on anyone ever solving it. Jerry Fodor, In Critical Condition: Polemical Essays on Cognitive Science and the Philosophy of Mind
28. No explanation given wholly on physical terms can ever account for the emergence of conscious experience. David Chalmers, The Conscious Mind
29. Since science is fashionable today, it allows its fraternity to propose cloddish monstrosities as a solution to man's problems in many fields. Fashion rules and, anyway, who but the experts can even dare to speak up? Franky Schaeffer
30. Sin has gotten men into more trouble than science can get him out of. Vance Havner
31. The scientific facts, which were supposed to contradict the faith in the nineteenth century, are nearly all of them regarded as unscientific fictions in the twentieth century.  G.K. Chesterton
32. Christian theology can fit in science, art, morality, and the sub-Christian religious. The scientific point of view cannot fit any of these things, not even science itself.  C.S. Lewis
33. Writers like Aldous Huxley and George Orwell have imagined the sort of scientific utopia which is coming to pass, but already their nightmare fancies are hopelessly out of date. A vast, air-conditioned, neon-lighted, glass-and-chromium broiler-house begins to take shape, in which geneticists select the best stocks to fertilise, and watch over the developing embryo to ensure that all possibilities of error and distortion are eliminated. Malcolm Muggeridge
34. The human genome will not help us to understand the spiritual side of humankind, or to know who God is or what love is. The well-heeled couple who decide they want to use genetics to have a child that is a gifted musician may end up with a sullen adolescent who smokes marijuana and doesn’t talk to them.  Dr. Francis Collins
35. When you cannot answer a skeptic, be content to wait for more light; but never forsake a great principle. J.C. Ryle
36. Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies because they become fashions. G.K. Chesterton
37. Ignorance is the mark of the heathen, knowledge of the true church, and conceit of the heretics.  Clement of Alexandria
38. Sadly enough, there is a kind of an anti-intellectualism among many Christians: spirituality is falsely pitted against intellectual comprehension as though they stood in a dichotomy. Such anti-intellectualism cuts away at the very heart of the Christian message. Of course, there is a false intellectualism which does destroy the work of the Holy Spirit. But it does not arise when men wrestle honestly with honest questions and then see that the Bible has the answers. This does not oppose true spirituality.  Francis Schaeffer
39. If Christianity is untrue, then no honest man will want to believe it, however helpful it might be: if it is true, every honest man will want to believe it, even if it gives him no help at all. C.S. Lewis
40. The secular humanist, although he would never dream of committing the social faux pas of calling a black man a negro, feels perfectly free to castigate Christians and their leaders in any way he likes. Franky Schaeffer
41. Humanism is not wrong in its cry for sociological healing, but humanism is not producing it.  Francis Schaeffer
42. I believe that pluralistic secularism, in the long run, is a more deadly poison than straightforward persecution. Francis Schaeffer
43. If we take our doctrines into our hearts where they belong, they can cause upheavals of emotion and sleepless nights. This is far better than toying with academic ideas that never touch life.
    John Piper
44. A little love has made me willingly study, preach, write, and even suffer...  Richard Baxter
45. There is a philosophy which is a noble exercise of our reasonable faculties, and highly serviceable to religion, such a study of the works of God as leads us to the knowledge of God and confirms our faith in him. But there is a philosophy which is vain and deceitful, which is prejudicial to religion, and sets up the wisdom of man in competition with the wisdom of God, and while it pleases men's fancies ruins their faith; as nice and curious speculations about things above us, or of no use and concern to us; or a care of words and terms of art, which have only an empty and often a cheating appearance of knowledge.  Matthew Henry
46. Progress is a farce because man's head and hand have created wonders that stun the imagination, but his heart does not keep step and his morals undo all that his mind has wrought.  Vance Havner
47. The proud man hath no God; the envious man hath no neighbor; the angry man hath not himself. What good then, in being a man, if one has neither himself nor a neighbor nor God. Joseph Hall
48. The difference between Christian thinking and the non-Christian philosopher has always been at this point. The non-Christian philosopher has always said that man is normal now, but biblical Christianity says he is abnormal now.  Francis Schaeffer
49. An undevout astronomer is mad.  Edward Young
50. I am perfectly convinced that whatever the gospels are they are not legends. I have read a great deal of legend and I am quite clear they are not that sort of thing....Christ bent down and scribbled in the dust with His finger. Nothing comes of this. No one has based any doctrine on it. And the act of inventing little irrelevant details to make an imaginary scene more convincing is purely a modern art.  C.S. Lewis
51. If one starts with an impersonal beginning, the answer to morals eventually turns out to be the assertion that there are no morals. Francis Schaeffer
52. Faith doesn't wait until it understands; in that case it wouldn't be faith. Enrich Fromm
    
53. Many who plan to seek God at the eleventh hour die at 10:30.  Author Unknown
54. The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult and left untried.  G.K. Chesterton
55. I am sure that never was a people, who had more reason to acknowledge a Divine interposition in their affairs, than those of the United States; and I should be pained to believe that they have forgotten that agency, which was so often manifested during our Revolution, or that they failed to consider the omnipotence of that God who is alone able to protect them. George Washington
56. Christianity, with its doctrine of humility, of forgiveness, of love, is incompatible with the state, with its haughtiness, its violence, its punishment and its wars. Leo Tolstoy
57. God is not what you imagine or what you think you understand.  If you understand you have failed. Augustine
58. A man who is eating or lying with his wife or preparing to go to sleep in humility, thankfulness and temperance, is, by Christian standards, in an infinitely higher state than one who is listening to Bach or reading Plato in a state of pride. C.S. Lewis
59. If Christians would really live according to the teachings of Christ, as found in the Bible, all of India would be Christian today.  Ghandi
60. The trouble with some of us is that we have been inoculated with small doses of Christianity which keep us from catching the real thing.  Leslie Weatherhead
61. They, then, who are destined to die, need not be careful to inquire what death they are to die, but into what place death will usher them.  Augustine
62. Die:   To stop sinning suddenly. Ambrose Bierce
63. No man ever repented of being a Christian on his death bed.  Hannah More
64. The body of Benjamin Franklin, Printer, lies here, food for worms; but the work shall not be lost, for it will appear once more in a new and more elegant edition, revised and corrected by the Author.  Benjamin Franklin
65. The lost enjoy forever the horrible freedom they have demanded.  C.S. Lewis
66. Eternity to the godly is a day that has no sunset; eternity to the wicked is a night that has no sunrise. Thomas Watson
67. God destines us for an end beyond the grasp of reason. Thomas Aquinas
68. Everything science has taught me---and continues to teach me---strengthens my belief in the continuity of our spiritual existence after death. Nothing disappears without a trace.  Wernher Von Braun
69. Every path that leads to heaven is trodden by willing feet. No one is ever driven to paradise.  Howard Crosby
70. Faith never knows where it is being led, but it loves and knows the One who is leading.  Oswald Chambers.
71. Faith is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted in spite of your changing moods.  C.S. Lewis
72. I have found that there are three stages in every great work of God: first, it is impossible, then it is difficult, then it is done.  Hudson Taylor
73. Expect great things from God. Attempt great things for God. William Carey
74. Truth is so obscure in these times, and falsehood so established, that, unless we love the truth, we cannot know it. Blaise Pascal
75. Night and day I pondered until I saw the connection between the justice of God and the statement that 'the just shall live by his faith.'  Then I grasped that the justice of God is that righteousness by which through grace and sheer mercy God justifies us through faith.  Thereupon I felt myself to be reborn and to have gone through open doors into paradise.  Martin Luther
76. Faith cannot be inherited or gained by being baptized into a Church.  Faith is a matter between the individual and God.  Martin Luther
77. To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary.  To one without faith, no explanation is possible. Thomas Aquinas
78. Cleverness is cheap.  It is faith that He praises.  George Macdonald
79. A man may be theologically knowing and spiritually ignorant.  Steven Charnock
80. The impossibility of conceiving that this grand and wondrous universe with our conscious selves arose through chance seems to me the chief argument for the existence of God.  Charles Darwin
81. Science has itself become a kind of religion.   Carl Sagan
82. The fact that a belief has a good moral effect upon a man is no evidence whatsoever in favor of its truth. I'm not contending in a dogmatic way that there is not a God. What I'm contending is that we don't know that there is. I don't like the word "absolute." I don't think there is anything absolute whatever. The moral law, for example, is always changing. At one period in the development of the human race, almost everybody thought cannibalism was a duty.   Bertrand Russell
    
83. A man can eat his dinner without understanding exactly how food nourishes him.  A man can accept what Christ has done without knowing how it works:  indeed, he certainly would not know how it works until he has accepted it.  C.S. Lewis
84. The kind of changes that Darwinism suggests, Local small changes are not capable of coordinating large complex solutions....it doesn't work when you do this to  sophisticated computer programs, so why should it work in the case of biological machines?  Angus Menuge
    
85. Darwinism seems to have become a politically protected sacred cow, and I've never seen a sacred cow I haven't wanted to roast - the fact that you are not supposed to criticize it is just too irresistible to me.   Angus Menuge
86. Monkeys are superior to men in this: When a monkey looks into a mirror, he sees a monkey. Malcolm de Chazal.
87. Living creatures are islands of viability separated form other islands by gigantic oceans of grotesque deformity.  Richard Dawkins (The Ancestor's Tale)
88. Faith is the daring of the soul to go farther than it can see. William Newton Clark 
89. It is by believing in roses that one brings them to bloom. French proverb
    
90. Doubt is a pain too lonely to know that faith is his twin brother. Kahlil Gibran 
91. Faith is an assent of the mind and a consent of the heart, consisting mainly of belief and trust. E.T. Hiscox
    
92. Faith is not something to grasp, it is a state to grow into. Mahatma Gandhi 
93. Faith is the only known cure for fear. Lena K. Sadler 
94. The only faith that wears well and holds its color in all weather is that which is woven of conviction. James Russell Lowell 
95. Faith is not a storm cellar to which men and women can flee for refuge from the storms of life. It is, instead, an inner force that gives them the strength to face those storms and their consequences with serenity of spirit. Sam J. Ervin, Jr. 
96. Faith is the force of life. Leo Tolstoy 
97. Faith is building on what you know is here, so you can reach what you know is there. Cullen Hightower 
98. Faith is not belief without proof, but trust without reservation. D Elton Trueblood
    
99. Every human being is born without faith. Faith comes only through the process of making decisions to change before we can be sure it's the right move.  Dr. Robert H. Schuller
    
100. Faith is like radar that sees through the fog - the reality of things at a distance that the human eye cannot see. Corrie Ten Boom
     
101. Faith consists in being vitally concerned with that ultimate reality to which I give the symbolical name of God. Whoever reflects earnestly on the meaning of life is on the verge of an act of faith.  Paul Tillich
102. Faith is a sounder guide than reason. Reason can only go so far, but faith has no limits.  Blaise Pascal
103. Before faith comes, reason is king.  After faith comes, reason is servant.  Danielg.
104. The fool has said in his heart, 'there is no God.'  King David, Psalm 14:1

Comments

[Worldpar]

1.

I will love the light for it shows me the way, yet I will endure the darkness because it shows me the stars.
———–

If I am walking with two other men, each of them will serve as my teacher.
I will pick out the good points of the one and imitate them, and the bad points of the other and correct them in myself.

(Confucius)

More...

[Adrian Hayter]

2.

Some nice quotes you have here. I'll have to feature you on my blog I guess ;)

-Adrian Hayter (http://atheistblogger.com)

[Luis]

3.

God is not hostile to sinners, but only to unbelievers. Martin Luther

I liked that one a lot!!!! says so much about the religious standards!!!! god is kool with pedophiles (catholic priests) with genocidals (Hitler) with crooks (baker, Hovind), etc.... but not ok with humans that have given so much to society: Freund, Sagan, Epicurus, D'Holback, Spinoza, and a huge list of atheist thinkers!!!!

I was not impressed by the quotes cited above...

I rather be a good person that does not believe in any of the 10,000 names humans have given to their own version of a made up god, than to believe in any and be a "sinner"...

[Big Al]

4.

these are the worst quotes ever. full of loose associations and conjecture.

[Cara-Lee]

5.

i actually like it... it makes more sense than atheist quotes =)

[Cara-Lee]

6.

I hope you don't think of Christianity or God as the people around you because they are not an image of God. Hitler could've said, "hey, im a christian" but he isn't really. Just because some christians say things or priests say things, it doesn't mean that God himself is like that. Some Christians don't fully understand and so they portray the image of God poorly. And that quote is slightly inaccurate. God loves everyone but He is sad when people discard him. Hitler and those other people you mention aren't christians so they also do not believe. God therefore is also hostile towards them!! You are contradicting yourself...

[Cara-Lee]

7.

Oh and what have atheists done for society?? What about all the things that Christians have done for society.

[Cineaste]

8.

"Oh and what have atheists done for society??"

Judge the merits of these people's contributions for yourself...

http://www.celebatheists.com/?title=Main_Page

You'll find all kinds of people on that list from Warren Buffet to Angelina Jolie. If you want to include deists you'll find that many of the major founding fathers of the United States, like Benjamin Franklin, make the list. If you want to include skeptics from all ages and times there are many Greek philosophers who qualify as well. If you want to include materialists, how about Albert Einstein?

How about Ayn Rand? She was an atheist too and is the intellectual conservatives point to when they defend their free market ideology. Have you read "Atlas Shrugged?"

[James]

9.

Right Cineaste,

And this is a direction I wish Christians would abandon in general. I can't tell you how many times I've sat in a small group or bible study and had well meaning and sincere Christians tell me that non-believers cannot truly love.

Horse-hooey.

I was one.

Same with altruism, goodness, peace, joy...

All of those things are built into each human being who is... created in the image of God. A believer *should* experience love more fully, consistently, and have that accompany the various fruits of the spirit as they grow in Christ's likeness. Any honest Christian knows that this change is not instantaneous across all areas of character. I've met some people who were profoundly changed in some aspects, enough to awe and amaze those who knew them well, but not a one was changed completely and in every aspect of their life.

Now we can get all heady and talk about rational grounds for such beliefs and acts from the atheist, but it doesn't make much sense to me to deny that God's spark is in them.

[danielg]

10.

>> CIN: How about Ayn Rand? She was an atheist too and is the intellectual conservatives point to when they defend their free market ideology. Have you read "Atlas Shrugged?"

When I was a young and impressionable liberal, I read Rand. The problem with her 'enlightened self-interest' is that it only works in a world where there are no weak persons or children. Not only is objectivism ethically poor, it's avowed atheism has to borrow 'ethics' from it's theistic opponents. It's an intellectual maze of dangerous BS.

>> CIN: what have atheists done for society?

While individual atheists may have made contributions, like the contributions of Muslims, they are the exception - that is, the IDEOLOGY they claim to belong to has done much more harm to the human race than the Christian faith they deny.

Atheists, in general, may be well-meaning, and those that aren't anti-humanists have contributed to our objectivity and intellectual honesty in many areas. However, they do good *despite* their world view, not primarily because of it. Like the 'good Muslim,' they ignore the murderous core and conclusions of their ideology because their humanity and baseline conscience (God given) hold them back.

The atheists who did not let such concerns hold them back from their ideology took it to it's logical (not abused) conclusions. Hence Atheist Atrocities.

And compared to the accomplishments of Christianity, atheism is dwarfed into obscurity - it's contributions mostly an anomaly disconnected to the ideology, but merely luckily associated with people who were great for other reasons, not their atheism. As I discussed in How Christianity changed the world, what accomplishments can atheism put up against Christianity's support for and undergirding of modern science, the creation of universities, hospitals, abolition, the valuing of human life (not done in the vaunted Greek and Roman systems, in which life was cheap), not to mention Christianity's head and shoulders in art, literature, and music.

It's not just a matter of having more people across history as Christian rather than atheist, but rather, the power of Christian ideas and ideals. Sure, it was abused by the Catholics and some others.

But I would much more readily ascribe those errors to humans, not the ideology itself. I don't think the same argument can be made successfully for atheism.

[Cara-Lee]

11.

Wow i really like your response =) i also meant that atheists say that they have done this and that for society and pretend like christians don't do anything. That is way i was pointing out that atheists aren't the only people that have done stuff!

[Cineaste]

12.

"That is way i was pointing out that atheists aren't the only people that have done stuff!"

Christians have done things for society as well. I just wanted to answer your question, "What have atheists done for society?" The answer is, a hell of a lot!

[danielg]

13.

>> CARA: Wow i really like your response =)

Actually, I was being a little mean comparing atheists to Muslims, using a little guilt by association, but not really.

I used that comparison, because

1. Atheists hate to be compared to religious people of any sort

2. Muslims have a bad reputation in the west, so drawing similarities is an indirect insult (Though if you're a liberal, comparing you to a Muslim is the same as comparing you to a Christian - it's only "radical Muslims" that are the problem.)

3. The comparison really works because both ideologies, if followed to their logical conclusions, end in mass murder - history and logic say so, and

4. I do believe that people in bad ideologies, including unhealthy Christianity, are held back from evil by their humanity and their conscience DESPITE, and not because of, their ideologies.

For this reason, I don't think that the significant, though meager accomplishments of atheists (compared to xianity) have less to do with their atheism and more to do with the excellence of the individuals involved.

However, I will say that, since atheism eschews just about any kind of authority besides the intellect, they have been kept from superstition. However, this narrow epistemology makes them prey to vain and incorrect philosophies like evolution, multiverses or an eternal universe, socialism, and the idea that a society can be moral without faith. Most of these ideas have been soundly disproved by history or good science, though I'm sure many atheists are holding out for evolution, since the idea of God is anathema to most of them.

[keith johnson]

14.

Hi Daniel:

There is nothing about socialism that is (a) atheistic or (b) vain. Atheism doesn't lead to socialism. Socialism has not be disproved by history. Soviet style socialism has been refuted by the facts, which means that a non-democratic so-called socialist state is not likely to fulfil many people's aspirations for life.

your friend
keith

[Louis]

15.

Socialism, capitalism, etc., are economic and political philosophies and have nothing, per se, to do with the spiritual journey. The problem comes when one is mistaken for another.

Regarding atheism, it is a relatively recent historical movement (although I'm sure there have always been functional atheists, even within religions), so it's achievements and debacles are of recent origin as well. What bothers me is the attempt by daniel and others to demonize it by asserting that it inevitably results in authoritarianism and mass murder (as if neither occurred in past cultures, Christian or otherwise). Officially Christian and other religious governments have been just as guilty as officially atheistic ones of oppression and genocide, so Christians have no reason to be smug. The problem is power, its pursuit and misuse, not the individual spiritual journey (however you want to define it). The story of Jesus illustrates this well: he renounced power and refused to either wield it (despite the urgings of his followers) or yield to it (in the guise of the Roman state or temple authorities or Herod). His Kingdom was not of this world, as he put it. What bothers me about the conservative christianist movement today (in fact, all fundamentalist religious movements) is that it is making the mistake of equating the spiritual life with the political one, doing damage to both. Socialism, capitalism, libertarianism, Roman Catholicism, Protestantism, etc - what difference is there? The spiritual life transcends all.

[James]

16.

Keith,

Are you aware of any socialism that isn't rooted in Marxism? And are you aware that Marx saw both socialism and communism as necessarily athiestic?

Louis,

Atheism has been evidenced from the earliest writings out of ancient Greece.

Officially, atheistic governments are much much much worse than religious ones. I'm glad you said "just as", since that gives us a comparative basis. Here's some numbers.

Stalin, Hitler, Mao: Greater than 200,000,000 dead in this century.
Inquisition, Witch Hunts, Crusades: Conservative (read: inflated) 200,000 dead over ~500 years.

200,000,000 dead > 200,000 dead 50 years < 500 years

There is a lot of things different about the things you listed at the end asking what the difference is. That's why each of them has a different name. Not trying to be coy. I'm really not sure what you're getting at.

As for the Kingdom of God not being of this world, that's only half right. The other half is that it is of this world. :) This web page looks pretty good on it:

http://www.lectionarystudies.com/theology.html

If you want just the key bit, I'd hit CTRL-F and search "Now and not yet".

Note, God is the King. There have been a few (and far between) fringe movements to enact some sort of human run heavenly government on earth. That is, IMO, in err. However, you fail to note that there is overlap, where earthly "kings" would impose things that are contradictory to the commands of the heavenly King. In those circumstances, it's overly simplistic to say that people should leave religion out of politics.

Jesus did not renounce His power. He yeiled to the agreed upon will of the Father to participate in and fulfill the unfolding plan of salvation for all human kind. He laid down his life, rather than having it taken. That may seem like semantics, but believe me, it's important. Also, he did yeild to government. He agreed that Herrod had the authority to take His life. He also recognized that Caesar had the authority to tax.

I hope you find those things helpful. I find it ever curious that you seek to educate Christians about Christianity. It is my sincere hope that after enough of being dead wrong, you'll actually do some primary source investigation... that is, find out what Christianity has to say about itself, rather than regurgitating what you have heard about Christianity from clearly non-Christian sources.

[Louis]

17.

Atheism has been evidenced from the earliest writings out of ancient Greece.

But not "atheism" as a coherent philosophy as we know it, not a philosophical, political movement. That's what I meant.

Stalin, Hitler, Mao: Greater than 200,000,000 dead in this century.
Inquisition, Witch Hunts, Crusades: Conservative (read: inflated) 200,000 dead over ~500 years.

200,000,000 dead > 200,000 dead 50 years < 500 years

What are you, into real estate?

Don't you think that so-called Christian governments bear a greater load of responsibility than so-called atheistic governments? And don't you think the difference in total population means something? What are the ratios here? These numbers are meaningless. A Christian government (not that there's any such thing) should not have any imprisoned, tortured, persecuted, murdered under guise of law anywhere, any time! It's shameful, anyway you look at it.

As to your last paragraph: typically condescending and patronizing bullcrap from a typical fundie. You know all and will, with appropriate put-downs, condescend to inform me of Truth. Well, goodie for you. No wonder so many people have been turned off from religion: the religious are so obnoxious that it gives their god a bad name.

[danielg]

18.

>> LOUIS: What bothers me is the attempt by daniel and others to demonize it by asserting that it inevitably results in authoritarianism and mass murder (as if neither occurred in past cultures, Christian or otherwise).

I think that it logically follows, and its history, though recent, supports that. It is not demonization if the outcomes are actually demonic.

>> LOUIS: Socialism, capitalism, etc., are economic and political philosophies and have nothing, per se, to do with the spiritual journey.

This is where liberal philosphers like to compartmentalize, as if ideas are not connected or have consequences and impacts outside of their immediate application. Christians, however, believe in a world where reality, and therefore all intellectual truth, is integrated and consistent.

While I admit, I sloppily conflate socialism and communism, in practice, they both tend to be atheistic, and in fact, atheism was a major tenet of communism. Which came first, the atheist or the communist? Since they are mutually reinforcing, it does not matter. They are bedfellows for ideological compatibility reasons, not by some accident of history.

Atheism is not just some inert ideology held by nice people who want to be intellectual without religion. Atheism, when scaled up to public policy, is intolerant, and by it's own logic, free from objective ethics, so it plays into the hands of fallen humans who justify their persecution of religionists, their support for infanticide, and all the other horrors we've seen in recent decades of Communism.

I have made the argument that it can go nowhere else UNLESS, like most atheists do, you live inconsistently with your atheism - that is, you profess subjective morality and ethics, but you LIVE using the objective morality of what is essentially Christendom. This is the stance of most Christian philosophers who evalute the gap between atheist belief and practice.

And capitalism *IS* consistent with, even supported by the scriptures. I'll leave that to another day, but needless to say, there are tomes on Biblical Economics, and such principles as land ownership and many other features of capitalism have biblical roots and principles behind them. For example, see
The Bible mandates free market capitalism. It is anti-socialist.
Biblical Economics: A Commonsense Guide to Our Daily Bread

[danielg]

19.

>> LOUIS: A Christian government (not that there's any such thing) should not have any imprisoned, tortured, persecuted, murdered under guise of law anywhere, any time!

First of all, I agree, there is no such thing as a Christian government. Christianity teaches a separation of powers (but not the strict and total separation that secularists prefer). Additionally, we all agree that God's kingdom (Christianly speaking) and faith are NOT spread via the government, nor by force. This is one of the major differences between xianity and Islam.

However, the scriptures are FULL of instructions about justice, law, punishment, and the role of civil government in relation to the other 'governments' (self, family, economic, and church). It is full of specific admonitions to protect the weak, to punish evil, and to reward good.

While I agree that Christian principles of governing exclude torture and murder, they do NOT exclude, but specifically INCLUDE just punishments, which can include imprisonment, penal servitude, corporal punishments, and the death penalty. These are not cruel, but necessary for justice. It is cruel to NOT punish evil, cruel to the victims. One of the biblical roles of government is to meet out punishment in order to avoid the evils and injustices of vigilante justice.

[danielg]

20.

Regarding Chrsitianity and economics, also see
Religion, innovation and economic progress - Part I
Religion, innovation and economic progress - Part II

[Louis]

21.

I'll limit myself to saying that daniel, as usual, distorts what I said in the service of his ideology. Also, as usual, he equates liberals with all that is evil and Christians with all that is good.

[danielg]

22.

>> DAN: This is where liberal philosphers like to compartmentalize

Louis doesn't like my use of the word liberal here. But if I'd said 'non christian' that would have been too broad. I'm not sure how to characterize those who typically have non-integrated world views, but this is very typical of liberal Christians, atheists, and liberal thinkers in general.

This pattern exists because there is a gap between reality and their errant ('vain' as Paul the Apostle might call them, meaning useless, not narcissistic) philosophies.

This gap occurs most notably at the break between the conservative views of morality and God (which I would argue are more consistent and easily integrated with other areas of knowledge) and the liberal desire to distance themselves from such absolutes.

So for example, atheism leads pretty logically to a lack of foundation for objective morals, but atheists live as if morals were objective because that is how a sane person really lives - in reality.

Subjective moralists (typically liberal) have to bridge this same gap.

So in this case, I am not using the liberals as a punching bag or as a pejorative label, but as a label that fits, and for a specific reason - this lack of integration between ideology and praxis IS typical of liberalism because it resists absolutes, esp. with respect to God and morality.

And with respect to this discussion of God and economics, while secularists would like to maintain a complete wall of separation between them because their view of religion is more subjective than objective and historic, the Bible teaches an integrated approach to all reality and truth, not a divided one.

LIBERAL theologians feel less need to have such integration, as their liberalism forbades them from maintaining a biblical view while at the same time divorcing faith from economics or government.

Now, not all liberals are this way. But this profile is accurate in general, and I feel it accurate to use it unless you can characterize the group of people I am talking about more accurately.

[danielg]

23.

>> LOUIS: daniel, as usual, distorts what I said in the service of his ideology.

I was clarifying, since your remark was short and unclear. I have no idea whether or not you agree with my more detailed explanation, but on the face of it, your comment seemed incorrect, and so I added detail and what I though was an accurate, biblical view.

[Louis]

24.

All this from the guy who gives the likes of Gingrich (who daniel admits is a moral leper) a pass because he agrees with his politics. daniel constantly indulges in a double standard in order to denigrate and demonize those he disagrees with and uphold and praise those he approves of. Sorry, but your critique of me and/or "liberals" just doesn't have any effect on me. In fact, it's a lot of sound and fury, signifying nothing. You've already proven you have no real moral or intellectual integrity. Why should I react to you as if you did? It's like a witness caught in a lie in the witness box: it just impeaches your entire testimony.

[James]

25.

Louis said:

"And don't you think the difference in total population means something? What are the ratios here? These numbers are meaningless."

I'm glad you brought that up! The worldwide population in 1450 was approximately 500M. In 1950 it was 2.5B. That's a 5 fold increase. So we can bump up those numbers to:

200,000,000 actual > 100,000,000 adjusted

Of course there's still the time comparison:

50 years < 500 years

Shall we adjust for that?

Also, you note that I only put up 3 atheistic murderous regimes. Mao Zedong may have killed 70M. Pol Pot killed 1.5M-2M in four short years. Let's not forget Lenin, Krushchev, Brezhnev, Enver Hozha, Nicolae Ceausescu, Fidel Castro, and Kim Jong-Il (did I miss any?).

"A Christian government (not that there's any such thing) should not have any imprisoned, tortured, persecuted, murdered under guise of law anywhere, any time! It's shameful, anyway you look at it."

Right. We agree on that. However, my comparison was in direct response to you saying this:

"Officially Christian and other religious governments have been just as guilty as officially atheistic ones of oppression and genocide"

Would you roll that back and say that it's clearly not the case?

"As to your last paragraph: typically condescending and patronizing bullcrap from a typical fundie. You know all and will, with appropriate put-downs, condescend to inform me of Truth. Well, goodie for you. No wonder so many people have been turned off from religion: the religious are so obnoxious that it gives their god a bad name."

I'll continue to address the facts and ideas. Would you care to address mine? Did you in fact fail to make factual error claims about what Jesus said and did, or did I in fact correct your errors with good basis? Or alternately, have you been gathering your information about Christianity from primary sources, or from hostile secondary ones? Or do you feel that you know more about Christianity than Christians and therefore don't need to?

I'm sorry that you think I'm giving God a bad name. The God I know, is a God of truth. Do you feel there is a more God honoring way to address untruth than I have been doing?

Oh, and since you're reading this thread, I wonder if you'll follow through with what you said you would in the Gingrich thread. I did my part, as you asked.

Cheers,

[D]

26.

Faith doth not add in the least to the nature, value, or efficacy of Christ's satisfaction, it only interesteth men in the value and efficacy of it; both which were in it in as ample and full matter before men believe, as they are after. So the applying of a plaster to a sore doth not add any healing virtue to it, nor make it any whit more healing in the nature of it than it was before; only it interesteth him that hath the sore to which it is applied, in that healing virtue which it had before it was applied.

Christian Theology (1836), Goodwin & Dunn