You Don't Scare Me

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Another tired argument from a Christian. This one begins with a ripped off “uplifting story”, a modern day lousy parable that he thinks will in some way be impressive.

This story exists in dozens of versions across the web in collections of “stories to touch the heart”. Christians are stupid enough to treat these transparent fictions as some kind of validation of the way the world really is and they shamelessly copy and paste them and pass them off as their own.

This story is several years old but it didn't stop this arsehole of a Pastor from making out it was his own.

Subject: The Existence of God

A man went to a barber shop to have his hair cut and his beard trimmed. As the barber began to work, they began to have a good conversation. They talked about so many things and various subjects. When they eventually touched on the subject of God, the barber said: “I don't believe that God exists.”

“Why do you say that?” asked the customer.

“Well, you just have to go out in the street to realize that God doesn't exist. Tell me, if God exists, would there be so many sick people? Would there be abandoned children? If God existed, there would be neither suffering nor pain. I can't imagine a loving God who would allow all of these things.”

The customer thought for a moment, but didn't respond because he didn't want to start an argument. The barber finished his job and the customer left the shop.

Just after he left the barbershop, he saw a man in the street with long, stringy, dirty hair and an untrimmed beard. He looked dirty and unkempt. The customer turned back and entered the barber shop again and he said to the barber: “You know what? Barbers do not exist.”

“How can you say that?” asked the surprised barber. “I am here, and I am a barber. And I just worked on you!”

“No!” the customer exclaimed. “Barbers don't exist because if they did, there would be no people with dirty long hair and untrimmed beards, like that man outside.”

“Ah, but barbers DO exist! What happens, is people do not come to me.”

“Exactly!”- affirmed the customer.“That's the point! God, too, DOES exist! What happens, is, people don't go to Him and do not look for Him. That's why there's so much pain and suffering in the world.”

Gerald Garrison

Oh boy a made up story. That'll convince me ahead of the evidence of 41 years of real life.

If God wants me to believe in him he can send me emails. OK?

Martin Willett

http://mwillett.org/

Think through your imaginary story and see if it it actually proves there is a god. Would the story end any differently if the barber was living in a universe which wasn't created or inhabited by a god? No, of course not. The believer would walk away just as sincerely convinced of his god's existence regardless of the truth. He would be convinced that if everybody believed in his god then somehow everything would be better.

A universe without a god looks like this universe. A universe with a god could look very different. A universe with a god could be fundamentally fair and just. A universe with a god could be full of miracles and the laws of physics changing as often as the weather. In a universe with a god the bloke with the unkempt beard could reveal himself to be the son of that god and make the street dissolve into an Astaire and Rogers song and dance number.

Martin Willett

http://mwillett.org/

Its amazing how athests can live in a universe governed by laws and deny there is a law giver. to live among things of intricate design and deny there is a designer. (think about recent case of the professor in England that looked at DNA and finally saw that it was so intricate that he was forced to admit the possibility of a Designer)

You said that if God exists he should send you an email--really--If you haven't believed yet why accept an email. If you are serious--just earnestly ask God to reveal himself to you.

Its been said that experience is better than an argument. Changed lives are evidence of a touch of God. Surely there are times you wonder--that you could be wrong — What if you died in your sleep and woke up in Hell ???????????

Before that can happen — I suggest you read the Book: "Beyond Death's Door" by Dr. M. Rawlings who was a heart doctor and athest that had the experience of trying to save the life of a patient- Screaming that he was burning.

http://www.dccsa.com/greatjoy/hellis.htm

Gerald Garrison

How many times do you wonder about the possibility of dying and ending up in the Hell of another religion? What if the real gods hate that upstart Yahweh and see to it that anybody who proclaims him regrets it for all eternity? Have you considered those possibilities? Is your immortal soul safe?

Have you asked Thor and Venus and Ganesh to come into your heart (or whatever other piece of offal you consider the seat of gods)? No? You small and closed minded conceited arrogant person! Your arrogance and hubris will surely be punished by the gods!

I don't start my reasoning from the basis that either Christianity is correct or there's no god at all. There is an infinite number of unlikely possibilities. If gods, hells, afterlives and eternal punishments are real dangers then everybody risks them, there is no safe bet.

How many books have you and your congregation read by people who still are atheists? Any? I know very few exatheists, in my own personal life I haven't met one person who I knew had a clear and coherent atheist viewpoint he was prepared to argue in public and then became a Christian. Not a single one. And yet the bookshelves of Christian bookshops are full of people who claimed to be atheists before they published anything, and now declare themselves to be Christians just when they are trying to sell books to the huge and highly lucretive US Christian book buying market.

The professor in England you mention has never studied DNA in his (extremely long) life, and he has not for one moment considered the possibility of becoming a Christian. He has decided that there could well be some sort of a designer god, but not a god who interferes with or cares about the lives of men. “Famous atheist” I hadn't heard about in over five years of atheist debates decides he's now probably a kind of deist, that's hardly a convincing victory for Christianity.

As for the idea of “near death experiences” all I can say is death is the irreversible ending of brain functions. Anybody who is alive to communicate with anybody has never died. Study some dead things, watch them remain dead indefinitely, I'm surprised this bit of science has passed you by. NDEs are just the dreams of ill people. Are you more capable of driving a car when you are asleep? Why should we assume somebody who is very nearly dead is therefore able to get a better bead on reality than somebody who is fully awake and aware? And why assume that your god screws up so much as to let people come back to life after he's already sent them to Heaven or Hell? Shouldn't they have to wait in the grave until the day of judgement? How mixed up is your god, hasn't he read the book he wrote?

Go and scare some children. I'm immune.

Martin Willett

http://mwillett.org/

 

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