One wonders why there are still atheists today

It is a wonder why today there are still atheists around. When one looks at the advancements in astronomy, physics and mathematics it is remarkable how they are still around. Most people of scientific and atheistic persuasion are now turning agnostic. I still see of course atheists with utter hatred for theists. These people come from a Positivist outlook. If that term is foreign to you, please do a wikipaedia search on the word. Briefly it is someone who needs empirical evidence in order to know something exists or is true.

Positivism is now passe. People in the social science and education

disciplines are now going post-Modern, and by that it means Modernism of the Positivist outlook has been bunked. The only ones hanging around atheism are generally people who have swallowed the faulty arguments of either Richard Dawkins or Stephen Hawking.

Most of the arguments I have seen from today's atheists are not intellectual arguments, they are more emotional arguments rather than intellectual. Normally they do not argue but they ridicule, mock and demean the theist. As and example the the late Anthony Flew (well known atheist of the last decade), a well known atheist turned theist gave a fair and penetrating critique of Dawkins' God Delusion book. What arguments did Dawkins and his gang give for Flew's arguments? Well Dawkins and his gang said that Flew had a mental disorder when Flew became a theist. Is that an argument? You will find that the discussion on this quickly goes down the gutter road of offensive psychoanalysis - read Flew's counter found here.

Then there are those lay people and scientists (but not physicists nor astronomers and mathematicians) who follow Stephen Hawkings' statements in Grand Design. In fact there are fellow physicists who criticized Hawkings' conclusions in Grand Design and these people are hardly theists themselves. Examples would be Roger Penrose and Australian physicist Paul Davies. Books like this sell but not to fellow physicists but to the lay person who would like to see justification for the none existence of God.

One somewhat funny incident I recall was the interview of Hawkings' co-author, Leonard Mlodinow at Larry King Live. One of those interviewed pointed to Mlodinow, Godel's Theorems. Briefly one of Godel's theorems is that in a formal system that includes arithmetic, you will have true statements that have no proofs in arithmetic. Since we use arithmetic in our world of affairs, that implies we have true statements that we have no proof in our world of affairs. Mlodinow countered - ohh, but Godel's theorems pertain to axiomatic systems, physics is not like that, it is empirical and not axiomatic.

We can grin. We all know physics uses arithmetic, in fact it uses geometry which uses arithmetic, in fact physics uses calculus (analysis) which uses geometry which presupposes arithmetic. Mlodinow clearly does not appreciate the findings of Godel or he is a bit naive if not ignorant of the implications made by Godel's theorems.

Godel like almost all mathematicians believe in the validity of intuitions or intuitive truths. Mathematicians do that all the time when they accept an axiom or rule of inference. The majority of mathematicians are platonists not fictionalists or nominalist. Certainly Godel never accepted the notion that maths is just syntax. The proof of God is very intuitive. It is simple.

Something can not come out of nothing.

If you ask me who is believing a myth, I would say NOT those that believe in God, because the statement above is obvious, common sense and intuitive. The one who really believes in a myth is someone who believes that something CAN come out of nothing. This is the one who believes in a myth.

A proof for the existence of God

I am just having some rest and recreation, my doctor says I must rest after they placed a stent in one of my heart arteries. What an irony, the one that is supposed to be giving me health (food) is the one that is killing me.

Here goes the proof....consider the following sentences:

1.) God exists

2.) None of the sentences in this pair is true.

Let us call sentence 1 and 2 as G and N respectively. Then we have the following conjunction of sentences as a pair, G & N.

Now G or N may be true or false, we do not know which is which.

Assume first that N is true. If so, then we have a contradiction because there is supposed to be no sentence in the pair that is true, and so the value of G is irrelevant. Whatever it is G & N is inconsistent.

Assume now that N is false. If so, then the negation of N means at least one of the pair is true. Since there are only two sentences, G and N and we know N is false, it must be G that is true.

Thus in order for statement G & N to make sense or for it to be consistent, G must be true.

Hence G is true or God exists.

This is my elaboration of Buridan's Proof of the existence of God.

In the end, only God could be an atheist

I heard something like this stated by Dr. Bob Morey. It is a funny statement but there is ring of truth in it.

Have you noticed how these neo-Darwinian atheists, when pressed to the wall, back track and plead ignorance as to whether they know or do not know if there is a God? Most of these atheists are functioning agnostics, they got a problem with their method of doing epistemology.

So if no one knows if there is a God or not, then the only person who can be an atheist is God (which of course he ain't an atheist).

Hitler's reaction to Dawkins not debating Craig

I got to give it to the guy who compiled this, this is really funny and excellently done.

I guess he is just one busy coward

He says he won't debate you if you are not a Bishop.

I guess he won't debate me then because I am no Bishop whatsoever.

Besides he says he is busy.

Could that be it, or he just turned yellow?

My crisis of faith (as an atheist)

This is a continuation of an old post How I lost (my atheistic ) religion. So kindly read that post to get a sense of what this post is all about.

In that old post, I shared how I transformed from being an atheist to a theist (but note not yet a Christian). Note that there, I did not abandon atheism because I saw some bad or evil atheists. At university where I became an atheist, I belonged to a philosophy club and in that club there were only two kinds of people, atheists and agnostic, there were no one in between. I aligned with the former because I thought the latter were wussies. Anyway all of them were congenial friends - we hanged out, played chess everyday after lunch, went to talks together etc etc.

Anyway, it was not because of anything that atheists did that made me abandon my atheism, it was because of the external observation of nature or creation and the philosophical truth that something can not come out of nothing, ex nihilo, nihil fit. One might say that this was an incident of general revelation described in Romans 1:19-20. As I said, when I agreed with the assertion "there must be a God", i.e. a Creator, my life became internally disturbed than when I was an atheist. This truth disturbed me and so I went the library and soaked my self with books about other religions and philosophies - they were Confucianism, Taoism, Budhism, and a bit of Hinduism. Note that Christianity was not in the list. I reasoned, no, I will not be satisfied, I owe myself the truth, I must get to the very bottom of this.

All of these religions, as in others, discuss some truth that is conducive and attractive. They all promote moralism etc. I was not satisfied with Confucianism because it did not make sense as to why I should comply with Confucius' idea of a gentleman for its own sake. It did not give authority - for example, he says, we should honor our ancestor. Ok but when you ask Confucius' why? His answer would be - well it is bad, you are not being a good gentleman, so I comeback and say - well so what, what is it to you, why should I follow your dictums, you are not God are you? So his moral pronouncements are not unassailable.

As to the other three, I had a problem with their mystical and vague pronouncements. For example Lao Tsu made mention of The Ultimate Reality but in practical terms, how does one touch that or get a hold of that or relate to that etc.? What did that mean? Such terms I found to be operationally absurd and unfeasible. As to Budhism, well it is a non-Creationist religion and so did not answer my premise of God as being Creator of these things I could see which are bigger than me and too awesome in its beauty and variety. Besides Zen Budhism is just as paradoxical and absurd in its teachings so same thing. Budha wants me to meditate to reach nothingness, a release from my selfishness, and be part of everything etc etc.

So I went back to the Roman Catholicism of my parents, the one that I was brought up in, after graduating from university. I went back to the practices - novenas, masses, confession, penance etc. After a while I would go to confession and the priest would give me my penance, like pray 100 Our Fathers, 50 Hail Mary's etc. I found myself playing a game of doing a deposit of these (i.e., do the penance in advance) so that when I did go to confession, I would deduct my deposit of prayers from the required so I just pray the balance. Why? Because right after doing my religious labour, I was intending to reward myself when I got out, that is paint the town red. I remember going out of church, saying hmmm, paying for my sins seems trivial, I do the penance and it is fixed, but how long do I do this, this is tiring and what if I die in this state? In actuality it was not fixed. One might say, clearly my faith was in those works prescribed by the church.

This went on for a couple of more years and my watching TV got me pegged to a revivalist preacher. He went to my city (in Manila) and one evening I, together with my wife went to the meeting. I did here the Gospel in that meeting some 30 years ago. I can relate more on the few things he said along with his methods which may easily be criticised must be corrected, but that night I did understand the portion on why Jesus died on the Cross, that he died on that Cross as payment for my sins, as a free gift, because I was a sinner never being able to pay for my sins in front of a Holy God. I heard the priest always saying Jesus died, Jesus died, but it was only on that day did I realize, it was for me and my sins. I, along with my wife, left that auditorium, assured that God would accept us not on account of our works but on account of the sacrifice and bitter suffering of His Son.

The journey as you know, those of you familiar with this blog, did not stop there.

With regards to the religions or philosophies I have studied - they bring up pertinent issues but the way they answer the issues leave gaps in between. Below are my summaries and of course I am being simplistic and practical in outlining them here (I can not conduct a treatise on these):

Confucianism lacked authority for its moral precepts whereas Christianity answers that premising the moral precepts from the revelation of God, the ultimate authority and sovereign.

Taoism says we lost equilibrium with the world, with the cosmos and our being; the aim is to practice certain things to capture that equilibrium. Christianity on the other hand surmises that we have no stability because we lost our anchor or relationship with God but He provides Christ to give us peace sending the Holy Spirit in his name. Peace is a by-product of faith in Jesus' Gospel.

Buddhism is correct in identifying selfishness as the source of suffering and advocates meditation as way of saving ourselves from ourselves. Christianity identifies sin as the source of our troubles and the solution is to be forgiven through the suffering of Christ paying for our sins. Christianity teaches that we have a saviour who saves us rather than us doing a doit yourself salvation.

Hinduism, well it has many gods but again, philosophically who and what was the source of such divinity? Christianity on the other hand says there is only one true God, Jesus is his Son and he has won peace for all mankind through his bitter death and suffering. Thus only one God needs to be appeased, such peace, Christ has won freely for every human being and God grants this peace through faith in Christ's name.

Psalm 119:160.

Hawking is obsolete

Read a commentary here.

Hawking may be an insightful physicist but he is poor at philosophy. So where did M-theory come from? Where did gravity come from? It is the thing that prevents the physics of the big and the physics of the small from integrating.

Just this morning, I opened my Bible and read the words of Jesus. I put down my Bible with the thought of praising Christ, I could not desribe what I experienced inside me, perhaps the best word to describe it is Life (His words). So I thought of praising Him for what I received, in my internal prayer, I felt no words could describe the gratitude in heart that I wanted to express to him. His spiritual blessings and the praise due to Him are beyond human words.

I like what one guy said, how could Jesus be dead, I just spoke to him this morning.

How I lost my (atheistic) religion

My kidz [sic] have no interest in understanding or learning about the background of their parents. I mean, I hope they might have at least a passing interest in my activities, even as a fellow human being and wonder off around here.

My close friends could not believe I was once an atheist. It all happened when I was in university. Even today I still could not figure out how I winded up being accept to study at our national university, where I never paid any tuition fees. If there is one thing we really really thank the Americans for, it is that they gave us education. My university was established by them and almost all of the professors there have been trained in some American university somewhere in USA.

In my first year I was undecided if I would major in physics or mathematics or switch to engineering since my father and his brother are engineers. Since I was good in algebra, I picked on mathematics. However, in that system, you are given lots of elective subjects. So in a way, they want you to pick a major and a minor. I was becoming philosophical so I picked on philosophical subjects as my minor. It was because I was becoming sceptical about life. Life was becoming absurd and meaningless to me. This scepticism grew and I found myself being sceptical about God too, not to mention that I was reading the works of existentialist philosophers which added fuel to the fire. So I started denying God. At that time, I was in the school's philosophy club wherein there were only two kinds of people - agnostics and atheists. I was on the second group. I was like this up until in my last year.

One early morning I was waiting for my lecture so I sat outside a cafeteria where there were trees and seats. I sat under one of them. It was quiet, I remember looking on my left staring at the ground with these thoughts - "What is life? what is this for? So you are born, you grow, you go to college, get a career, get married, have children, grow old, you retire and then you die. What is up with that? What is the sense of that"?

I was also taking mathematical physics and for some reason, my prof one day decided to show us slides of the universe, the nebulas and the galaxies. They were very pretty pictures. That kinda impressed me of its beauty.

So again, one morning same scenario, seating under the trees. But this time as I waited for my class I started staring up at the trees in front of me, how they swayed with the breeze and since it was still morning, the moon was there in the background. Then these thoughts - "it can not be that these stuff just simply happened. It cannot be that they simply happened by accident of nature, it is just too suspicious to have this randomly happened. I could not believe there is no God who created these stuff".

From then I posited that there must be a God. But you know, when I said that - I became terrified, because if there is a personal God, I know for sure I do not know him and I am absolutely lost. Not knowing him is synonymous to me as being lost.

What happened to me? I guess what happened was that I became sceptical of the things I was sceptical about. I think at that point I became an honest atheist - honestly recognizing there must be God. Though I was terrified at my conclusion since I did not know who this God was, the solution for me was not to deny him so I can drown my fears of him, I felt the solution was to find him. He certainly was not the one lost, it was me instead.

So I went to the library and borrowed books about religious beliefs. I worked on reading Confucius, the Budha, and Taoism. I remember I borrowed so many books, I had stacks of them my two hands were not enough to hold them. None of these satisfied my inquiry. I can tell you why in another post. This is another story.

Here is a thought though: I would love to see Richard Dawkins debate Antony Flew.

Atheist Prophet Evangelist - Dawkins, the Fool

We interrupt our regular programming to report on the latest news in this part of the world.

Dawkins is here, telling all believers to repent for believing in God.

Read about it in The Age report here.

According to the Bible, God has a certain opinion about people like Dawkins. Read about it here.

Don't get mad at me, I am just reporting what Dawkins and God are saying.

Update: Read this writer's response. Some women do have...some guts.

Defining away the problem

I am around intelligent and smart people. I do not mean that sarcastically, but in truth, and in much respect and recognition of their great minds.

When I talk to them about creation, they can easily accept that the universe has always been there. It is just the way it is. Even if we follow Hawking's theory that the Big Bang started from a black hole, you need not explain why it happened except it simply did. You need not find an explanation for it.

Now the philosophically intuitive principle is that since there is a being, then there must be a necessary being. Since there is something then that something could not have sprouted from nothing without Somebody doing something i.e. creation posits a Creator.

To this the unbeliever rebutts using the above answer: you need not find an explanation for creation because it has always been that way. It is a fact not contingent on other facts, so they say.

But that is really begging the question and so I do not find it convincing why smart and educated people accept that the universe is just brute reality. Firstly they are trying to assume what needs to be proven. They may posit this as a possibility - that the universe is just one brute reality, but they need to do more, they need to prove that it is indeed a brute fact. So where is the proof of that except their conjecture?

Do not get me wrong, there are phenomenons where our frame of questioning might be irrelevant to the phenomenon being examined, there does exist such cases. But most of the time this is discovered after the fact. In other words, we realize the frame of questioning is irrelevant only after we have established and understood the phenomenon. I do not think this is the case with creation.

To say that the universe has always been there is to define away or deny the need for an explanation. This is not answering the question but rather the ushering of it away, a type of hand waving. It is ducking at the issue, a type of moving the goal post.

In reality the proof by necessary being is a very compelling anti-atheist polemic, it begs an explanation which they rebutt by simply denying the obvious - like putting hands in their ears, looking the other way and saying - "lalalalala, I am not listening".

Dawkins on a little bit of luck... luck? hahahaha!

Listen to Dawkins deny chance but allow for a little bit of luck on how a simple system becomes complex. I started laughing when he said this; I could not believe the icon of atheists and evolutionists failed to realize what he said. What is luck but a favorable chance outcome! He just committed sophistry, and this is what is built in into the theory of evolution, it has a built in sophistry in its argument, that is why the more I listen the more I become skeptical. Dawkins has a PhD and yet, his grasp for philosophy evidenced by making such a statement is high school level.

The (Neo)Darwinists cannot have it both ways. If they admit chance, then there is no merit for their theory to be called science; because science's job is to penetrate randomness and even eliminate its influence i.e. predict. On the otherhand if they deny chance, then the thing behaves in a certain law or principle, it becomes predictable. This is where it also crumbles because if there are laws of nature, who put them there or why are they there. To say that it is just there is no argument, it disqualifies itself in telling us the origin of life or man, so it has to stop making those statements. Any which way it turns, it just gets into a mess.

Randomness and Monkeys

Taking out the mystery surrounding what appears to be a random event, if you ask me, is what a scientific theory should be doing. A scientific theory that simply recognizes that there is a random element here or there does not qualify as a scientific theory. You have not added any new information if your theory simply recognizes it. Just imagine the task of building a bridge. You can observe that some bridges collapse at least some contribute to accidents. Imagine if building a bridge is a matter of guess work, a matter of "que sera, sera", a matter of randomness. If so there is no possibility of technological progress.

Want some example of how randomness is explained away by hand waving? Here is a quote from http://www.toarchive.org/faqs/faq-misconceptions.html.

Chance certainly plays a large part in evolution, but this argument completely ignores the fundamental role of natural selection, and selection is the very opposite of chance. Chance, in the form of mutations, provides genetic variation, which is the raw material that natural selection has to work with. From there, natural selection sorts out certain variations. Those variations which give greater reproductive success to their possessors (and chance ensures that such beneficial mutations will be inevitable) are retained, and less successful variations are weeded out...

My reply: If this is not random chance, then you should be able to predict where a mutation should go in a large scale ecause after all that is what Evolution is saying, a specie turning into another pecie and not just mutating microbiologically. For example, you should be able to predict that a fish should form some feathers. Have you ever looked at how things re done in a horse race? There is a lot more science in the horse race than this, for pundits are able to predict which horse should get in, most of the time.

It continues...

Some people still argue that it is wildly improbable for a given self-replicating molecule to form at a given point (although they usually don't state the "givens," but leave them implicit in their calculations). This is true, but there were oceans of molecules working on the problem, and no one knows how many possible self-replicating molecules could have served as the first one. A calculation of the odds of abiogenesis is worthless unless it recognizes the immense range of starting materials that the first replicator might have formed from, the probably innumerable different forms that the first replicator might have taken, and the fact that much of the construction of the replicating molecule would have been non-random to start with.

My reply: Notice how the explanation pertains only to micro level not macro level. To say that "probably innumerable different forms" does not add any information to a theory. This is like using a magic wand to explain the objection away. In a horse race, you can also say there are millions of possibilities. Yet pundits are able to cut through that cloud, they can give a reasonable prediction.

What I see amongst evolutionists (not of course in the stated web site) as I go around the internet, is this intellectual imperialism ever so present and as bigotted as the rest of us. Most of the time, their argument is based on bullying using ad hominem attacks - i.e. you must be a moron if you are even mildly skeptical of it. One of which dismissed the opinions of physicists, chemists, engineers and mathematicians as if knowledge is confined to a sector of society and no scholar or scientist is qualified to comment if he/she does not come from that field, i.e biology. Can you see the intellectual arrogance of these pseudo-intellectual colonizers?

OK I will agree, some people do come from monkeys. Yes, because judging by the way these evolutionists argue and how they attack the sanity and credibility of people who disagree, surely they have evolved from orang-utangs.

A mathematician speaks about Darwinism

Here is what Dr. David Berlinski, a mathematician, who is not even a Christian, says about Darwinism.

Knowing what the scientific method entails, it is really hard to believe evolutionary theory is a science. It is science only by dictum but not in practice. Here Berlinski argues against from an engineering standpoint.

Evolution plays so much on this thing called "randomness", meaning - accidental. Perhaps this is the best time now for me to assert that randomness in science does not really exists but it is a mathematical construct, a bit bucket to direct our none-knowlege of information we do not yet possess. Philosophically and mathematically there is no such thing as randomness.

Let me explain, take the process of tossing a coin in the air, probability says that it will land 50% heads or 50% tails. Now that is true if we do not have more information than the possibilities of outcome. However, if I know that the landing of heads or tails is influenced by other factors, like wind direction, weight of the coin, material composition, if I know the starting angle my thumb lifts it and the height it goes and the material it lands (it could bounce), I will be able to predict what comes up and not rely on 50-50 chance. The reason why we go by probabilities is only because we do not know these factors, but if we do, we will not calculate what face will land based on it, we will use these information to build a formula and that is what we will use.

Evolution says that information is random but randomness when you go down to the core is none-existent.

As a person trained in mathematics, I have to have more faith to believe that evolution theory is science.

Atheists should have a Statement of Faith.

A couple of evenings ago, I went to an Atheist Society sponsored talk. I went to listen how someone unconverted from being a Catholic to an "Atheist".

Notice I deliberately placed the quotes in "atheist".

At the start of the talk, the chairman, said that their followers disagree as to what an atheist or an agnostic is. They could not define this thing. Funny, for people who claim to be rational, putting a definition to a tag/name/label is fundamental to rational thought. Pure and simple what gives you the right to a label when in fact you do not know what that thing represents? Comprende?

As I sat to hear the leader's preface for the talk, my own sarcasmagoric self said - hmmm, "adopt-a-word" movement. I can't help it but the thought kept running in my mind. The funny thing is that they can not agree amongst themselves the proper meaning of the word "atheist". You would think people who claim to be rational should have a method of resolving conflicts in ideas, no? Nope.

Anyway the talk was given by a news columnist. I asked questions and I believe I was polite in my behavior, I was never at a point asked to leave or booed down. Over all, she left Catholicism, the idea of God, Jesus and so forth because...she saw the life of her parents and observed how they behaved inconsistently with what they professed. I asked her about this and she said this was a good factor in her de-conversion experience.

I felt sorry for her and sad for her(of course she is happy without my pity). How many times have I read and heard something like this? Lots of times. In the end I simply had to dismiss her conclusion and not take it seriously. I know it is a horrible thing to say, but one's faith is not invalidated as a piece of crock simply because the professor failed to live according to its ideals. It has no direct connection to the truth or falsehood of the faith.

But Christianity is not about morals, that might be what she was taught in her Catholic home, but Christianity is not about being moral. If Christianity were about morals there would be no need to become a Christian, every religion out there be atheist or satanist, is selling a brand of morality already.

Funny in the middle of the talk she said they should be called "rationalists". The thing though is that the fallacy of a rationalist's reasoning is hidden to the rationalist itself.

A cultural Christian eyh.

Apparently the atheist Dawkins is a Christian after all, a cultural Christian.

Read here.

Now what the blazing saddles does that mean? Is it like Bishop Spong being a Christian too?

I suspect the post-modern notion that the art viewer is free to interpret and redefine what the author intends his art to mean is what is happening here. The viewer participates in like a play where in the thing itself is given some mystical meaning so profound you have to be crazy first to get what the post-modern is talking about. Besides, getting it is not important, if you do not like it just re-define it to your own liking.

This surely defies the sacred notion of "definition" so loved by mathematicians. Their art is no longer possible and dissolves if post modernism gets into their craft.

Evil, Sovereignty and... Tears

I might have blogged about this, but truth is worth saying twice.

They say that the Problem of Evil is a problem for a Christian and not for Atheists. Although Atheists do (some) become atheists by not being able to reconcile how a Sovereign God could allow Evil to go on, unstopped, it is eventually the Christian who is left with the ball standing. In the end the Atheist has no Evil to talk about because its meaning is dependent on the existence of God. So the Atheist resolves the problem by eliminating categories. Simply put, there is a hidden premise operating in the Atheist's reasoning, namely, if we allow G = God exists and E = Evil exists the premise is : G -> NOT E. By contra-positioning this, we have E -> NOT G. Obviously Evil exists, hence asserting E, therefore, NOT G, i.e. God does not exist. I do not mean to be insulting but technically, the Atheist's world view would have to be this: We have Evil without God. Evil is the only reality then, at least if the Atheist be honest, (s)he should say that. Evil is the only reality. It is not a very prospective future is it?

There is also I think another hidden premise that Atheists are operating on, that is: the Sovereignty of God is the final message of Christianity. Now, is that presupposition accurate? Is that the story of Christianity? If Sovereignty is all there is about Christianity and Evil exists, I do not find it surprising that some wind up being Atheists. It is perfectly logical to be one.

This is my observation, when the Sovereignty of God is all there is and it is detached from the Story of the Cross of Christ, there are only two things that can happen, you either slump into despair or become an unbeliever. The Sovereignty of God however, is not the final message of Christianity - it is Jesus and His Cross. And if you are a Christian, and all your hearers hear from you is God is Sovereign like Allah is Great! well...IMHO, you are helping skeptics become Atheists.

For Atheists and Christians to preoccupy themselves with God's Sovereignty on one hand and Evil on the other is to dwell in a philosophical distraction. For a question has to be answered - yes, God is Sovereign and yes, there is Evil and the two are conflicting, but why the Cross? What was Jesus doing there?


I am just like you, when I am well I can sit here and pontificate and give advice, but honestly, I am as anxious as anyone else. I have no guarantee that God will intervene, in a manner that I want, over tragedies (i.e. Evil) that may come to my life. The truth is that when Evil hits us, we are left with nothing but lonely tears. David has this to say about tears...

8You have kept count of my tossings;^[a]
(C) put my tears in your bottle.
^(D) Are they not in your book?
Psalm 56:8

Has God put my(your) tears (i.e Tragedies, Evil) in His bottle? I believe He has, He has taken all our tears and put it on the person/ body of our Saviour Jesus Christ (His "bottle") when he nailed Him on that Cross 2000 years ago. He took your sins (and yes your tears too) and nailed it on Jesus. Though physically Jesus does not take take out our experience of being in tears, and we will be touched by them, no doubts about it, yet God has taken them for what reality they represent (Evil) and hanged them on Jesus.

8He will ^(B)swallow up death for all time,
And the Lord GOD will ^(C)wipe tears away from all faces,
And He will remove the ^(D)reproach of His people from all the earth;
For the LORD has spoken.

Isaiah 25:8

Psalm 56:8 is followed by verse 9 (obviously)

9Then my enemies will ^(S)turn back ^(T)in the day when I call;
This I know, ^[c]that ^(U)God is for me.

Psalm 56:9

Do not forget the for you there in that verse. Look at Christ on the Cross because of your sins.... and be convinced, God's Sovereignty is for you.

UPDATE: Just after posting I came across this which may help in talking about "Tears".

What God thinks of atheists

Wow, I wondered off some atheist blogs and boy, are they insulting and impolite. They really do foam in the mouth with animosity towards theists in general and Christians in particular. The latter is the usual punching bag and target of verbal insults and boy, do they make an art out of it.

I was an atheist during my university years, in fact that is why my minor was Philosophy.

If the Bible is the Word of God then it is God speaking there, so to know what God thinks of atheists, see Psalm 14:1.

God calls them "fools". Now that is a nice term, the Bible is being nice, but I think the translation of that word is found here.

Now, pleases do not get mad at me, I did not write the Bible.

Hmmm, yawn, whatever

I went to a Atheist vs. Christian debate last week, Matt was kind enough to let me know so I went to my uni where the debate happened to be. I was actually expecting the Dr. (the atheist) to do a lot of damage since the Mr. (the christian) has not even finished his uni degree yet. I mean, the credentials of the atheist is just so over whelming.

Firstly, the christian went in first on the floor, but actually he should have gone in after the atheist because the atheist is in the affirmative, his thesis is that religion is a delusion and the christian is on the negative. At any rate the christian boy did a good job specially in the middle of the "debate" as he focused on Christ and his Cross.

Unfortunately the atheist did not even do a dent. The atheist made assertions even to the point of asserting that Jesus did not exist! Now you may try and prove he did not rise from the dead but there was a Jesus who pagan historians said that was crucified and whom Christians addressed as their Lord. To assert that is to be taken out of the realm of being serious. So plenty of assertions but nothing to back up that substantially can be taken with much seriousness. Then comes the kicker, the atheist stated that atheists are moral people and that you do not have to have a God to have morality. Hence, he believes in being moral but he does not believe (or he doubts) if there was a God. Now his definition of his type of atheism is already subject to equivocation, but the justification for morality is...passe'.



Here is what I mean by passe'. I remember when I was a young college sophomore, in my Philosophy class, we studied Immanuel Kant and his work - Critique of Pure Reason. I do not remember the full details of the book but in summary, Kant showed that there was no positivist evidence one can use to convince that God exists. There is no empirical test one can use. Whether we agree with Kant on that or not is another issue. But the atheist in the debate was sounding off Kant, but with a sad incoherence. Unlike him, Kant showed that for practical reasons we should believe in the existence of God because morality and social order has no basis at all. In fact social order has no foundation or basis to be. One's idea of justice also becomes irrational and absurd. Rather than order, it will produce anarchy (yet the atheist's solution to world peace is to chuck out religion).


So the position of the atheist, I conclude is passe'. Did you observe today that there are not too many becoming atheists? What are people becoming? They are becoming spiritual! The issue today is no longer does God exist? The issue that people are working on now is - which God should they believe in? They are shopping for a God or some form of spirituality they can latch on to.

The Gospel does not give spirituality, it tells and gives the love of God for poor souls wandering in the dark, in demonstration. It does not simply say God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. Yuck.

Rather God says I love you and here is how - see my Son hanging on the Cross for you, an enemy worthy of my wrath.

Psalm 14:1

Debating Atheists

I like to debate them having once an anti-believer myself. But now a days, it is impossible to conduct a meaningful conversation with them. For example, which Athesist's version is the official version of beliefs by Atheists?

I mean, do these people have a Statement of Faith? If they do, then we can start somewhere, that way I am not misrepresenting or need to deal with an individual Atheist. It would be nice if someone can point me to say The Joint Declaration of Atheists or something like that. I mean, what Confession of Faith does an Atheist have? I heard Atheists subscribe to some belief in morality but which statement of morality do we get to read and examine? As an aside, what parameter of truth can one use to conduct a meaningful conversation with them? It is like pinning a jello on a wall.

The exercise is just too much trouble and besides, I can not take them seriously anyway, so, they must not exist.