Missed it by a tad over an hour so *promote

Promoting this video and sending it back into the queue for one more try; last queued Monday, February 23rd, 2015 2:14pm PST - promote requested by RFlagg.

The Derren Brown video he mentions here: http://youtu.be/LksVbHxLRvY (embedding disabled by request).

I missed much of the middle of the video while I was busy being annoyed that BGYOR isn't an anagram of anything.

Just watched that. It was fascinating, but I found the "conversion" of the atheist lady deeply disturbing. It's scary how someone can be manipulated like that.

That link is * blocked in Canada.

This one works. Someone verify that it's the same video? Seems right on my end.

That's the one...

I think the author of this video, and presumably the Christians who have spoken to him, have a fundamental misunderstanding about what the bible says about atheists or those who don't believe. I don't know why messenger seems to think this was my argument for theism; I don't recall saying anything like this to anyone on this site, although I could be wrong.

What I believe is that yes, atheists are not able to see or comprehend the things of God because they are spiritually discerned:

1 Corinthians 2:14 But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

But that isn't the end of the story:

Romans 1:18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.
Romans 1:19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them.
Romans 1:20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.

So, the colorblind person is given glimpses of Gods power and deity, through the creation, and other kinds of revelation such as in their conscience, to know that there is a God who created them and that they are accountable to Him. If it were simply that nonbelievers couldn't see God, they would have an excuse. Yet, that isn't what the bible says. In the end it's not that nonbelievers can't see God, it's that at some point in their lives they have seen God and rejected Him.

Most atheists I've spoken to have had supernatural experiences for which they cannot write off with materialistic explanations. Some will even change from atheism to theism in the course of a conversation because they suddenly realize that they had suppressed the truth of their own experience. God can and does give ample evidence of His existence and everyone at some point in their life will see it clearly and have a clear choice to make. It's when you choose to suppress the truth that you become self-deceived. It's not up to me to prove to someone God exists; it is up to me simply to be a faithful witness and pray they would respond to the revelation they already have.

Yahweh has NEVER given evidence of his existence. No more so than any other god anyhow. They all answer prayer equally and randomly well. They all claim to have made the universe/world, they all claim to be the true one... Near death experiences differ by culture expectations of that culture and don't all conform to the supposed Christian expectation... he has done nothing to make himself stand out from the rest of the gods that Christians dismiss. Heck, I've never seen a Frost Giant or evidence they ever existed, so clearly Odin has one up on Yahweh.

In the 4,000 years or so from Adam and Eve's time in the Garden to Jesus, Yahweh couldn't or wouldn't make himself known to the other races. He didn't reveal himself to those in Africa, Asia, the Americas or Europe, just to one tiny specific group of people in the Middle East. If couldn't then he's not the omnipotent, omnipresent god he claims, if he wouldn't that makes him a racist ass not worthy of following by picking one people to be his chosen people.

The only reason Europe became Christian was forced conversion when the Christian armies of Rome forced them to, which setup a tradition of most Europeans and later Americans being born into a faith. Were the exact same people born in Saudi Arabia they "would know that they know" that Islam is the true religion, or same in India but applying to Hinduism.

And saying that atheists have had supernatural experiences and can change to theism when talking about it, ignores the whole point of the video, especially the part when he talks about the linked Darren Brown video, which demonstrates that it is easy to make a spiritual experience happen that has no basis on any real god.

By way of example: I used to be a heavy evangelical Christian, I watched TBN and Fox News religiously (pun intended, see this old post of mine here on the sift from an old account that I couldn't recover http://videosift.com/usercomments/Charon... heck see my Revelations from the Word posts on my blog, http://www.brianathomas.com/archives/category/religion/revelations-from-the-word/ or more embarrassing my older political posts http://www.brianathomas.com/archives/category/politics/ which while progressive now, go to page 4 or so around June 2008 and back and you see a Libertarian and further back Republican with some crazy anti-vaccine paranoia , climate change denialism, science denaillism and other things I'm deeply ashamed of now)... I've had deep and meaningful spiritual experiences with god. After Republicans ruined Christianity for me (as the Republican party is clearly 100% against every teaching of Jesus... and yeah we can tick that off as being humans, but god does nothing to correct them, he may have spoke to my heart or whatever one wants to say to have more empathy, but over half the Christians in this nation still vote for a party 100% devoid of the teachings of the Jesus of the Bible while claiming to do it for Christian reasons) and I eventually lost faith (while Republicans are the reason I initially lost faith, they aren't the reason I stayed away, god is a dick is why I stayed away). After I lost faith in the Christian god, I gave paganism a try, and I've had just a meaningful spiritual experiences while worshiping at a Druid rite as I have at any Christian church. This is why people pick a religion, first by accident of birth (most people are Christian in the US because their parents were, and back to Europe where going back further they were forced to convert by invading Christian armies), second by choosing one that connects more personally with them... for many they see the hypocrisy of Christianity (and its general lack of empathy) but do connect with some form of paganism, and pagans generally have a patron god they serve above most others, and that god is the one they have a deep connection to, the same deep connection that Christians claim to have with Jesus/Yahweh... One doesn't drive a plane into a building killing 3,000 plus people without a deep and meaningful relationship with their god, and to dismiss t hat relationship as being deceived is naive and demonstrates a lack of empathy.

Now, I will allow the possibility that god does exist, but not in the form Christians propose, but perhaps closer to what the US Founding Fathers believed, but perhaps expanded a bit with more modern knowledge. A Deist like view. That this god somehow this god, created the energy and set into motion the laws of this physical universe that spun out from the big bang, but he's had nothing to do with anything since then. Perhaps all religions actually worship the same god but with their own culture's expectations and interpretations. However this would mean that all religions and lack there of are equally valid, which most faiths (aside from most modern paganism) doesn't allow for as their claim rests on being the true one.

I've rambled on far too long already so I'll leave it at that.

The part that includes your type of arguments starts at 5:40.

Specifically, you have told me that I can't see God because I haven't asked/prayed/looked etc. hard enough. You have told me that I have to accept God first, and then I'll see. You have told me that a dozen different things make no sense without God, like morality, self-awareness and so on and you also claim that the universe itself is de facto proof of God's existence. As for the fourth, I think you told me that I'm afraid to accept God, rather than angry. Or maybe you did say angry. Or both. I can't remember. Either way, you blamed my lack of acceptance of God on some basic emotion, so, similar enough.

Regardless, you have no evidence for any of these claims other than the words in the Bible, the validity of which is the subject of this argument to begin with.

Your believing in God doesn't make God real any more than my not believing in God makes him a fairy tale. I can't believe you're still bringing Bible quotations out as evidence.

To me, these two statements are mutually exclusive.

Either 1 Corinthians 2:14 is right and atheists cannot see God, or Romans 1:20 is right and atheists can see God, but refuse to do so.

Hey Messenger. We’ve gone around the mulberry bush a few times on these issues. Instead of debating this with you, I will just pray for you instead, that God will reveal Himself to you. Then you can tell me whether God answers prayer or not.

"To me, these two statements are mutually exclusive.
Either 1 Corinthians 2:14 is right and atheists cannot see God, or Romans 1:20 is right and atheists can see God, but refuse to do so."

They’re both right; nonbelievers cannot see or understand God at all, except for the revelation that God gives them individually. Note what it says just before in Romans 1:19:

Romans 1:19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, "because God has shown it to them."

God makes it plain to them, so that they can see and understand certain things about God which could lead them to make a positive decision to believe in Jesus Christ.

Hi RFlagg. God has given evidence of His existence through the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, by raising Him from the dead. You’re right, you could have a supernatural experience in any religion, because the devil is the god of every false religion and he can give signs too. He has never raised a man from the dead, however, neither did he ever pay for the worlds sins, yours and mine.

God revealed Himself to man from the very beginning. Everyone from the beginning knew who God was, but gradually the knowledge of God faded away as men chose to turn away and follow after their own ways. Therefore, God raised up a people for Himself who would prepare the way for His Messiah.

Darren brown doesn’t know that you have an enemy of your soul who is trying to destroy you. You seem to be saying that supernatural experiences are a phenomena of human consciousness rather than from an external power. But there is an intelligence behind those experiences; they aren't merely delusions in and of themselves. There is also a manipulative hand seeking to influence how you see those experiences.

You mentioned that you were a former Christian, and this is what you listed: you watched TBN, foxnews and voted republican. I hope you know that none of those things makes you a Christian. Jesus talks about true and false Christians; what makes you believe you ever really were a Christian? Going to church? Praying? Reading the bible? None of those things makes you a Christian either. If you never really were a Christian, you should know from the bible that you are unable to tell the difference between Christianity and any other religion without Gods help. He has to open your eyes because right now you are dead in trespasses and sins. Jesus Christ didn't come to make bad people good, He came to make dead people alive.

It seems your position here is that the devil is infinitely more powerful than god, and far better at dealing with people, because he has managed to muddy the waters so much that his message(s) is infinitely more accepted than the 'true' but nearly unheard message of god, and god knows this and accepts it? That seems like a crazy sadistic god, that knows most people will be tricked by Satan (one of god's creations) into eternal hell (another one of his creations) through no fault of their own beyond the imperfect reasoning skills they were given by god, and he allows, even encourages it without ever setting the record straight? That sounds incredibly evil.

Many men of all religions have been raised from the dead...it happens in hospitals every single day.

We've been over the 'paid for our sins' fallacy, if he 'took our punishment of eternity in hell', who was that being 'raised from the dead', not Jesus. If he didn't spend eternity in hell, he didn't take the punishment prescribed for sinning, so certainly didn't even take the punishment for a single sinner.

What? Your soul is your enemy trying to destroy you?! What the hell? When did that happen...did you just become a Scientologist?

Clearly Satan has a better marketing team. They've got the soundtrack nailed for a start...

You're assuming that people enter into hell through no fault of their own, that it is only due to their imperfect reasoning skills. It says in Romans 1:18-21 that men won't have any excuse on the day of judgment, which means that God gives everyone sufficient grace for salvation. He enables them to make a clear choice, and He honors both the yes and the no. You can't have the possibility of choosing for something unless you also have the opportunity to choose against something.

People mostly cooperate with the devil, they aren't really being fooled by him as such; they are actually willfully deceiving themselves. He is just giving them what they really want and they go right along with it. You couldn't actually blame the devil for a single sin that man has ever committed. Gods judgment on mankind is just, but He has made a way that anyone could avoid hell if they simply were willing to repent of their sins and receive the Savior. People go to hell for what they do know and reject, not for what they don't know.

Matthew 7:13 "Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many.
Matthew 7:14 For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.

Jesus said that the majority would willingly choose hell; that is the sad reality of the human race. It would be like a murderer standing before a judge, and the judge tells the murderer that he is willing to release him if he won't commit murder again. The murderer says, I reject your pardon and I will continue to murder if you release me. I am not sorry for anything I have done. This is the man the world would like God to set free, those who willingly reject His pardon and are unrepentant in their sin. If God released them He would be a corrupt judge. Since He is a just judge, all sin will be punished and accounted for; either by the blood of Jesus Christ or by those who want to stand in front of God without Him.

"Many men of all religions have been raised from the dead...it happens in hospitals every single day."

After three days?

"We've been over the 'paid for our sins' fallacy, if he 'took our punishment of eternity in hell', who was that being 'raised from the dead', not Jesus. If he didn't spend eternity in hell, he didn't take the punishment prescribed for sinning, so certainly didn't even take the punishment for a single sinner."

I think this is a good explanation of why it is not a fallacy:

http://www.gotquestions.org/Jesus-paid-penalty.html

"What? Your soul is your enemy trying to destroy you?! What the hell? When did that happen...did you just become a Scientologist?"

The enemy of our souls is the devil.

That is as factual as any of it. If people enter hell because they don't worship the correct god in the correct way, but have no way to tell which way/god is correct, or if any is, that is no fault of their own. If your proclaimed system was fair, god needs to come to each person and make them KNOW his truth, then offer them the choice to reject it. That's not what happens, no matter how many rainbows and sunsets you see.

I won't go to hell then, and neither will any real atheist. I've never seen/heard/read anything convincing about any religion...ever. I don't 'know there's a god' or right way to worship, it seems far more likely there isn't. I say this with all honesty and not because it's somehow convenient or I'm 'angry at god'. I did not 'reject' him, I don't think he exists to reject.

Mathew 7:14 seems to repeat what I said, it's incredibly hard to find the way into heaven and most people won't find the way...according to your brand of religion. It's not that they reject the way, they can't find it, even though many looked with vigor.

No, it's like some guy telling you in the courtroom hallway that the judge will say that, but no one has ever seen it happen, or even seen the judge or what happens after your case is heard, there are no ex cons at all anywhere. This is the same guy that's telling you what the law is, but make no mistake, he's not a lawyer and he's telling you things that make no sense at all (like the judge will let you off for murder if you just SAY you won't do it again).
I don't think even the most hard core murderers and rapist have NO remorse, only the true psychopaths and they're rare.

When I die and god and Jesus are there asking me questions and telling me what the rules really were, I'll believe in them and say so clearly, and admit I was wrong. Not a nano second before they prove themselves though.

Ahhh, but did we have a flat EKG and brain scan on Jesus to prove he even died? ;-)
Also, yes, 3 days later! If you eat poorly prepared blowfish you can go into a total paralysis that looks like death, and come out of it 3 days later +-! It's how Voodoo practitioners probably made 'zombies'. That doesn't happen every day, but often enough that you can't bury people in Japan right away if they eat sushi.

Still sounds like a logical fallacy to me, with some people shoving their heads in the sand to avoid seeing it. I say you can't have it both ways, the punishment is eternity in hell and Jesus should have stayed no matter how special he and his pops are, and since he left (after less than 3 days? pussy!), he didn't even take the punishment he expects humans to, forget taking that amount of punishment for each person. Saying he's 'special' so he didn't have to is ridiculous and shows the mind bending mental acrobatics you must do to make sense of this. It reminds me of the 'I'm too rich to have to go to prison' defense.

Oh, I see, I misunderstood what you were saying about the soul.

People enter hell because of their sin and willful rejection of God. You are saying that people have no way of knowing, but the scripture says something different. You say you have never seen or heard anything, but what I find when talking to atheists is that they've had plenty of experiences, supernatural or otherwise, to point them towards God but they chose not to go that way. In any case, I'll be praying for God to speak to you in a way you can understand.

I think you're hung up on some of the wording of Matthew 7:14 where Jesus said there are few who find the narrow way, and not the meaning of it. It is not saying that people through no fault of their own end up on the broad way, the scripture says they enter into it. That implies a choice, and to find is to obtain something, which means they know what they are going after in the first place.

Being paralysed is not the same as death.

Jesus took the entire punishment for sin; He bore the fullness of Gods wrath against sin. The scripture says He was actually made sin for us. Whatever He experienced was far worse than what people experience in hell. No human being could bear that, eternally or otherwise. He could bear it becase He is special, that's the point. He didn't just bear the punishment for sin, He defeated death and disarmed the power of death and hell over human beings, all who put their faith and trust in Him as Lord and Savior.. He came not only to die for our sins, but also for many other reasons, one such reason was to destroy the works of the Devil.

Jesus saw everything pertaining to life and death, to judgment and the afterlife. He is an eyewitness, you simply don't believe Him. Everyone will know Jesus is Lord when they stand before Him; the scripture says that even the demons believe (and tremble). Knowing who He is and knowing Him personally are two different things entirely. If you enter into eternity without knowing Him, then it is too late. If God expects you to know His Son, it stands to reason He will provide a means for you to do so. It is up to you to respond to that.

The scripture is wrong. Most all atheists die having NEVER had any proof or even evidence of any god's existence. Anecdotal evidence is not evidence. For me to believe something as insane as religion, I need incontrovertible proof, it's how I was "made". I've yet to see evidence, much less proof, of anything supernatural, ever.
If few "find the narrow way" then it's hidden to most. You want to say "finding" a thing is attaining it. They are different words, that's why they are spelled and pronounced differently. If you can't 'find' the path, it's hidden, if you can't stay on the path because you don't possess the skill to do so (and you believe you were created by god) that's on god for designing you so poorly.
Being paralyzed the way I described is indistinguishable from death, even with modern machinery.
If Jesus was doing a selfless thing, sin would be gone for everyone, not just those that worship him. Saying "I eradicated this evil ethereal thing I brought to you, but only if you bow to me and give me 10% of your money" is so self serving and evil I can't properly describe it. I still disagree with the 'Jesus is special so he suffered more in <3 days that all humanity does in eternity'. That denies logic and math. Any portion of eternity is eternity, and any measure of 'infinitely worse than the worst punishment imaginable' is also infinitely bad, so he didn't accept even a portion of the punishment, and one can't suffer more than the worst suffering possible. And now Jesus IS sin?!? And you worship him?!? Don't you see a problem there?
I actually don't think Jesus ever made any of the claims you make about him, only some of his followers stories re-told for hundreds of years before being re-written say those things.
If he never presents himself to me, who's fault is that? If I was created the way I am by him, he knows exactly what it will take to make me 'believe', and he's simply and clearly not doing it. God must WANT me to not believe in him, it's the only thing that makes sense if he exists, but it's much more likely that he just isn't.

If God doesn't give you any revelation of His existence then the scripture is broken and you would have an excuse when you stand before Him. I would be the first to say that this is unfair. However, we're all human beings and I know that people willfully reject God. Not only from my own personal experience, but the bible itself is littered with accounts of people who know better and fall into rebellion against God.

God has made the truth of these things so clear to me, and I believe He is faithful to do the same for you. If God sent Jesus to die on the cross for you and me, He is faithful to let us how we should respond to that.

I think it's clear that an infinite being suffering an infinite punishment is infinitely worse than a finite being suffering an infinite punishment. The finite being has a finite experience, eternally or not. Adding up everyone who ever lived, it is still only a finite experience of suffering, whereas the infinite being has an infinite experience of suffering. Qualitatively, an eternity of suffering of a number of finite beings does not equal even a moment of suffering of an infinite being. Whether you think that is debatable or or not, God the Father considered the sacrifice greater than the punishment, and that is what counts.

Jesus was doing what His Father wanted Him to do, which was to reconcile the human race to Himself, who are alienated from God and spiritually dead because of sin. As far as whether the sayings of Jesus are authentic, we have the manuscripts to prove that they were not made up over a period of centuries or even decades. We have around twenty five thousand manuscripts of the NT alone, which is about 24 thousand more manuscripts than any other ancient text. We have manuscript evidence even going back to the first century, and using all of the manuscripts there is a science called textual criticism that can reconstruct what was in the original manuscripts from that pool of evidence. The idea that the bible is patched together from centuries of retranslations and additions is demonstratably false.

Even if we didn't have any manuscripts, from the writings of the early church fathers alone we could reconstruct the entire bible except for 7 verses in the first 250 years. Even before that, we have the prophetic writings from the Old Testament which show that Jesus did exactly what He was prophesied to do. He did not speak anything different than what had been written thousands of years in advance. If you understand the bible as you a whole, you will see it is one story and it is all saying the same thing. The fact of its internal consistency, considering it was authored by 40 people over a period of 3000 years is another proof of its authenticity.

There are many reasons to believe Jesus is the Christ, but the biggest one is Gods personal revelation, which He is faithful to give to you. If you want to know whether Jesus is the Messiah, simply pray and ask. If He isn't, you've wasted a couple of minutes. If He is, you are avoiding an eternal consequence. God bless!