The Atheist will claim prayer is useless because God should prove Himself by giving the Atheist whatever he or she prays for.
Here's an example:
"If God is real, then I want proof by being given 6 winning lottery numbers."
This demontrates a fundamental misunderstanding on the part of the skeptic. Prayer is not the same as the Genie granting a wish to Aladdin, or Santa Claus giving children the toys they ask for.
Prayer is conversation. It doesn't necessarily involve asking for stuff. And when it comes to asking, there's no guarantee that the answer is "yes".
God is not interested in winning souls by giving away toys and money. God isn't "Wheel Of Fortune" or "The Price Is Right". This idea on the part of Atheists is insulting. God condescended to certain people because He had a purpose in doing so. If you want to see what God is truly looking for, just read the Book Of Job.
The Bible also mentions the times when the prayers of Jesus failed because of a lack of faith on the part of the beneficiaries (Matt. 13:56-58). If the recipient was skeptical the prayers for healing failed.
So let's say God lets the Atheist have the 6 winning numbers plus the Powerball. The Atheist may say "thank you Jesus" then proceed to blow that money on toys and a party hearty lifestyle until it's all gone, as most Lotto winners are prone to do. Remember the Parable of The Progical Son? Except the Atheist may say "God prove yourself again by giving me more" instead of begging for his Dad's forgiveness.
God's answer might be"Tough luck, Chuck, you had your chance. When you had the means, did you do anything to honor me past your little thank you? Did you bother to think I might have given you this money for a greater purpose? You think I'm a fool, yet you're broke once more and still headed for an afterlife of misery."
Atheists claim they'll only believe if they receive what they have no right to expect. Christians, receiving no earthly riches, are thankful for the grace given to them by a God who sacrificed His Child for the sake of those who had no right to expect anything.
Think about it, Skeptics.
1 comment:
Atheists are fun people. There are several groups on Facebook with these people posting stupid things, like how Nazareth didn't exist in the time of Jesus. I showed this person stuff from Metacrock and JP Holding's sites, and he said that I wasn't allowed to use stuff from Christian Apologetic sites.
Then, tonight, this airhead posted this:
HE DIED FOR YOUR SINS BECAUSE THE GOATS WHO HAD BEEN NO LONGER COULD.
Substitutional death for wrongdoing makes absolutely no actual sense in the way christians portray it. No matter how hard they’ll try and gaslight you into thinking someone else dying for someone else’s wrongdoing does.
But it DOES make sense when you grasp what christianity is desperately covering up and covertly replacing but taking great pains not to mention: Yom Kippur.
The national ANNUAL sin remission/forgiveness ceremony of the Jews that could ONLY be performed at the Jerusalem temple ever since King Josiah consolidated worship there in 623 BCE. And in that ceremony two goats were involved. One has the sins of all the people loaded ONTO it symbolically and sent out into the desert to die. The other, is the innocent sacrifice FOR those sins and is killed. This is why scholars note the trial of Jesus and Barabbas is a beat-for-beat mirror of the original Yom Kippur ritual in Mark, the oldest gospel which is a simpler allegory tale.
Barabbas is the sin laden goat stand-in and Jesus is the innocent sacrificial goat stand-in. See, the very Greek minded Jews that survived the 66-70 CE war that got the temple destroyed needed a PERMANENT sin forgivness avenue because no temple'=s' no Yom Kippur='s everyone remains sinful and damned. Permanently. And the temple never was rebuilt.
So, while mirroring the actual ritual in their new texts they fused their Judaic messiah motif with the Greek mystery cult/personal savior god motif. And the fingerprints are there to see: Prior to this Greek infusion the Judaic god was anything but personal. Who invented Jesus? The Greco-Jews still alive across the empire who saw Yom Kippur of 71 CE come and go…with no ritual.
I made a snide comment about how it warms my heart to see more Jesus Myth stuff, and he said it's demonstrable (lol).
Post a Comment