Rudy

A christian who because of his (maybe) delusional belief in God accept whatever life offers in the hope of eternal and perfect happiness in heaven thereby enjoying every moment of his life on earth; or a realistic atheist who suffers a lot from what life offers, is miserable and is in the brink of committing suicide every moment of his life. A delusional christian or a realistic atheist.

Assuming that you are not suffering from any psychological disorder and you are a normally intelligent person? Praying is somewhat similar to this situation.

Religious people will answer this spiritually I think, while atheists will answer this in a worldly way.

That knowledge can be infused telepathically and that you can learn something without the tedious effort of studying, reading listening, etc.?

That unless God reveals Himself to a person, he will not be able to know him in his heart? not by his brains?

Therefore, we cannot really blame the atheist who did not have this gift.

I just want to compare the strength of the conviction of the two groups.

Can you give evidence, that the moon and the stars exists? what about the colors of the rainbow? is he not compelled to accept your words in faith?

In His divine wisdom, God decreed that man can only know Him by faith, faith in the priest and pastor of religions who teach its members the truth of divine revelation. But atheists would rather have God directly prove His existence maybe by personal appearance and not by His chosen representative or witness. Should God comply?

Let me give an analogy. Suppose you are a robotic engineer and you constructed a robot to do your household chores. Being the creator and the robot your mere creation, you are the master and the robot your slave. Suppose that after some more advanced technological development and programming the robot can communicate you what it wants. The robot wanted you to enhance its capabilities by giving it armaments or weapons so that it can protect itself if you later decide to shut it down. Would you obey and do it contrary to your better judgement? Will you reverse the master-slave relationship even once?

If a perfect God knows what is right, do you expect Him to do what is wrong for your sake?

This is just a rephrase of my previous question which I think was misunderstood and later removed. I define hell as eternal death, which is the opposite of heaven which is eternal life. This is actually a confirmation of my conviction that going to hell, or permanent, eternal death is a matter of choice and not a condemnation by a supreme being.

Christians believe that God is Love. And when anybody experience loving somebody who does not deserve to be loved, somebody who does not have the capacity to love him back, somebody from whom you cannot expect any thing good in return, then the presence of God is in him enabling him to love perfectly. Could this be a proof of God's existence?

or you believe that our total humanity is already present in our body?

There are at least 3 billion people all over the world who profess that God is present in their lives, they cannot all be fools. So why is the testimony of witnesses good enough for courts of law but not sufficient evidence for atheists?

Do you feel you have to switch off your brain for you to be able to accept the teachings of your religion? Is an act of faith irrational? No need for atheists to answer.

Are you willing to lay down your life for such belief, like what christian martyrs did? or will you save yourself, recant and fight another day? as if we are in the days of the inquisition.

Although He may not be able to save them because of His respect for their free will? What is your opinion?

Do you really think that belief in God is a sign of mental disorder, so that anybody who does believe should not be taken seriously or is not worthy of respect, because he has become less human because of his beliefs?

I believe that the teachings of Jesus is one of the best there is, it just so happens that very few christians can actually live it out. So don't you think you must not reject a religion because of the fault of its members, but judge the religion according to what it teaches?

When somebody is nice to you and do a lot of good things for you, you may believe that the person loves you, although you cannot be sure because you cannot see what is in the person's heart. It is possible that the person is doing all the good things to you because he expects something and therefore has a selfish motivation and not love. Faith is like this, you believe the person loves you although you cannot be 100 percent sure.