Questions concerning God and Atheism

jfarag92

What do we as Christians haves to say about some taboo topics that atheists and non-Christians bring up
-what do we say regarding the Holocaust, the "holy" inquisition, the witch trials, discrimination against peoples "in the name of God" ie AmerIndians

-what do we say about evolution and darwinism
        is it possible that we evolved- Adam and Eve being the first of our species considering evolution does say we came from       the earth

-what do we say about the vengeful God in the old testament and all the rules that were set

-also how do we explain Noah's ark

mabsoota

hi, u know the answer to all this would take several hours  ;)
so i'm just going to share a few thoughts and leave the rest for others to answer.
about the inquisition and witch trials; many historians try to make these sound like Christians persecuting non-Christians. this is not the case. at many times in the past (and sometimes in the present as well) religion was linked to the state, as the governers found it convenient to adopt Christianity as the state religion as it got the Christians to obey them. the 'obey me or you will go to hell' approach has also been used by rulers abusing other religions, as you can see in bhutan or certain western asian or north african countries.
so, in the countries that adopted catholic Christianity as their religion, control was exerted on the people using the pope. some of the catholic popes were complicit with this approach, others resisted and tried to show their separateness from the state.
when the inquisition happened, it was about the state showing that they were in control, using people in high church positions (often actually non-believers) to punish those who showed disagreement, some of whom were true believers asking for the right to worship freely and some of whom were common criminals (robbers, murderes etc) looking for asylum by hiding among the church people.
so not everything is as it seems, and a detailed look at history using as many different sources as you can find will help you to see the bias that is in all historical writing.

btw, many atheists aren't truly interested in history, they just want to annoy you so they won't listen to your explaination. this doesn't mean your explaination is rubbish, it just means they are not listening.
don't worry. win them by your life instead, don't spend too many nights in ceaseless arguments.

may God guide us all as we spread His word and His light.

NESS55

I always think it is funey how pple talk about bad things happening so then they blame it on God

my question to them is "Where did u get ur idea of good and bad?" or they say things like there are no absolutes (but isnt that statement an absolute statement?...)

a good book i read on athiesm is The End of Reason by Ravi Zacharias i think he does a vary good job of defending the christian faith (apologetics)

to be honest i find that many people who say there is no God often contradict themselves and its easy to unravel there philosophical rants

NESS<><

minatasgeel

i started listening to Dr. Peter Kreeft, is a professor of philosophy at Boston College and at the King's College (Empire State Building), in New York City. He is great in these things.

His audio lectures are here: http://peterkreeft.com/audio.htm

please listen to these one:
"Arguments for God's Existence"
"God's Existence"

Godislove_

DO NOT BELIEVE ANYBODY WHO SAYS GOD IS DEaD OR HE IS NOT REAL
CHRISTIANITY IS THE WAY FOR HEAVEN

NESS55

[quote author=Godislove_ link=topic=8396.msg106873#msg106873 date=1255646280]
DO NOT BELIEVE ANYBODY WHO SAYS GOD IS DEaD OR HE IS NOT REAL
CHRISTIANITY IS THE WAY FOR HEAVEN



yes i would agree with u on that statement but

when you are dealing with the issue of apologetics how do u know that Christianity is the right and only way'? (remember i agree with u on this im just asking the questioin) b/c when ur dealing with defending the christian faith things like "mom and dad told me it was right" or "thats what my bishop says" just dont hold a lot of weight for a person who belives that the mind and science are gods glorification of the self is a vary promenant theam in american pop culter)

are there any good Orthodox apologetics authors/books or sermons

NESS<><

andrew21091

[quote author=jfarag92 link=topic=8396.msg106775#msg106775 date=1255125067]
What do we as Christians haves to say about some taboo topics that atheists and non-Christians bring up
-what do we say regarding the Holocaust, the "holy" inquisition, the witch trials, discrimination against peoples "in the name of God" ie AmerIndians

Well, for one thing, we are Orthodox Christians and our Church didn't have anything to do with those events which were done by Catholics and Protestants who are not part of the Church. When Russian missionaries arrived in Alaska, they didn't force Orthodoxy on the natives but rather the natives accepted it quite easily and the Russians translated everything into native languages and ordained natives as priests but when the Americans bought Alaska, the Protestant missionaries arrived to Alaska and tried to force the natives to accept Protestantism and reject Orthodoxy and if they didn't accept it, they were going to starve to death so they forced their culture on the native but the Russians didn't. If they want to argue though that religion is violent, I would fire back by asking them why they think atheism would bring peace and I would also point out the genocide of millions of Christians in Russia or Albania which who were all slaughtered by militant atheists in the communist days. Atheists have just as much blood on their hands as the Spanish do; actually probably more. I'm not saying that bad things haven't been done by the Orthodox but I would say, in the end, we are all sinners and that nobody can be perfect.

mabsoota

hi ness55, i suggest u start by using an internet search engine to look for books and articles by HH pope shenouda the coptic patriarch, he has written loads. he has been patriarch for about 40 years so did lots of writing, and it's really good and simply explained. most of his stuff is translated into english. even a czech orthodox priest i met in prague has read his writings translated into czech!
if that doesn't help let us know and we will look for more articles for you
:)

Ioannes

Evolution says that death brought man into the world, Christianity says that man brought death into the world.

About people supposedly doing things in the name of God. Islam is the exception since mohammed commands muslims to kill. Hitler was not Christian, he created a pseudo-pagan religion based around the germanic peoples. Hitler believed the Jews were behind a world economic system as well as in Germany and sought to bring them down. If you want to discuss terrible things, DISBELIEF has done terrible things. Communism, which is an atheistic ideology, is responsible for 150 million deaths in under 100 years. No religion, even Islam, can match that figure.

The Children of Israel. The beginning of Gods church on earth. They were like children, simple and ignorant, without discipline. God is no different now than he was then. The reason for warring with another tribe is usually simple to explain. That era in history was pretty scary. If you invade a country and take it over, that means that your god is stronger and better, those people of the opposing country recognize the others god as superior. They were the foundation and needed severe discipline, I mean seriously they fashioned a golden calf to worship while moses was talking with God not that far away WHERE THEY COULD SEE! Now the church is much more grown up in the sense that we know and can choose freely and understand the consequences.