<q>in response to the nathan incident (which i did witness) are the following comments:

1) what’s faith without a bit of challenging? reflect and answer the question (whether in your heart or to others, regardless of time), but never avoid it.

2) good ol’ “judge not lest ye be judged”

On the other hand I do acknowledge the personality clash. and the fact he was probably just trying to annoy you. stil - tis useful to be “slow to anger”.</q>

mmm...okay so I guess I'll start with the first question: What is faith without challenging?

Faith is believing in something you cannot really see, I guess the question can refer to "challenging the whole concept of faith" or it can be "challenging what it is you have faith in" I don't really know which one, it could be eiher so I'll talk about both cases.

1. A lot of people do not want to hve faith in anything. One thing we humans value is sight. It has allowed us to witness the many miracles of life, the wonders that come with life. All the good (and bad) things that are in life. Our eyes do not deceive. What we can see we can touch, smell and interact with. What we can't see, well, we wouldn't think exists. This is true for things such as court cases. We cannot prove anyone is guilty unless we have the physical evidence to show it. These are things we can see, something we have to testify is the absolute truth because it happend. Without evidence, we cannot prove someone is guilty, nor prove someone else's innocence.

Okay so obviosuly we rely a lot on our sight. "Take away our vision, and the superiority is gone." - Day of the Triffids. Yes this quote is very true and obviously we can account for it when we don't find enough evidence to prove God exists. Hmm...I think I see now that the question was meant to be directed at Nathan's comment about homosexuals and the love of God and His morals. It is taught in the Bible that love should be between a man and a woman. Havn't had the time to bring out a bibl but I can remember somewhere in Genesis it says: "And a man will leave his father and mother and he will join together with his wife and the two will become one flesh."

For gay people this is a matter of choosing whether or not you want to have relations wih other men. This is all choice. It doesn't matter if we have urges and lusts. Don't we all have those in our lives. We are always tempted to do things that are wrong, things tht we try to justify. And though we know they are wrong, we still do them. Alright so the question doesn't really have anything to do with homosexuality. So I'll talk about challneging faith in general. I'll go back to that point about sight. We find reason to doubt things because we can't see them. We say to ourselves: "yeah right, I won't believe that until you show me." Sometimes this is because things sound a bit farfetched to us that we can't accept it as truth. It happens everywhere, for both good and bad things. Think about it. If we get bad news about something, like really bad, we don't want to believe that it's true. Sometimes if something miracle-like happend, we can't believe that either. We want to see it with our own eyes.

But then what happens when we can't see these things? Do they exist? Or do they not? Remember that there isn't enough proof to show that God doesn't exist. Scientists and archaeologists have done tons of research to try and show evidence from the Bible. There hve been lots of things that support it. But why is it that people still don't want to accept those things as truth? There is evidence isn't there? But perhaps there isn't ENOUGH of it. If this is the case then there is no amount of evidence that can show God exists. Why, even if He appeared in front of you, you'd say something like: "Oh I must've been seeing illusions or something." Anything to say we don't believe.

And then there are those who believe out of faith. We believe in God not from seeing him physically but through other sources like the Bible. That in itself is enough evidence for us. So of course there are opposing views to faith. Those who believe in minor facts that are sufficiently backed-up in our society, and those who obviously don't believe them for that reason. Yet faith has nothing to do wih challenges. It is not because of challenging that there is faith. People challenge because there is faith. Faith has started the whole challenging process. Nothing would be wrong if no-one had faith in anything. So in response to the question: "What is faith without challenging?" Faith is EVERYTHING without challenging. Challening is dependant on faith, not the other way round.

2. Judge not lest ye be judged. Well I don't hve anything to say against that. Yet that judging is one of the roles that Christians do. Of course we must make sure that we keep this on a minimal level. Ultimately the judgement comes from God, he determines everything that will be in the end. We can judge, but not to that extent. We can say that somebody is going to have a really good day next week, only to find that they have a really upsetting experience instead. We can say that some people are bad but it may turn out that the next second they are doing something nice. Our judgements are not final, so it isn't wrong of us to judge provided we do not give the last word. It is not within God's will for us to help determine His plan, after all, we don't know His plan.

Am I wrong? Well if you all remember there is a section in the Bible about the elders in a village? and theywere having problems, a lot of conflict. But the disciples there weren't too keen for solving all these minor problems. And so they told the villagers to select "elders" to act as "judges". They solved many problems and ended lots of little problems that were rather insignificant. But of course these are small issues. God gave us intelligence, His Holy Spirit and wisdom for this prupose: that we make decisions for ourselves. Adam and Eve have eaten from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. And so we have an insight, just an insight, into what is right and wrong. Therefore we are given the privalege to judge, to decide what is good and bad. Once again they are only to an extent. And this extent is only the short term outcomes and issues, the really minor issues. What I said about Nathan was only short term, it was in accordance with his actions that day and in the past. In truth the future may hold great changes for him, in fact it probably will because there is a lot of changing taking place in life.

"Judge not lest ye be judged" has an extent as well but it doesn't totally shut off our ability to judge. Without it, we can't decide on things to do, to judge what is right and wrong in our lives. If anyone hsa anything o say in reponse this please speak out. This was rather long so I might've let a few slips go through. So correct me if I say anything wrong. If you have anymore questions don't be afraid to ask.

Thanks to Enoch K for posting this up...sorry for stealing but it's good stuff :P

Following are some of the approaches I use when dealing with atheists in conversations that deal with alleged lack of evidence for God's existence. Now, no argument is fool-proof and no single argument answers all the objections. Nevertheless, it is important to have thought out some of the implications of the statements and bring them up during conversations. Of course, conversations rarely follow a logical format. They usually take tangents and detours. That is normal and good. But we need to be prepared as much as possible.

1. I don't see any convincing evidence for the existence of God,
2. 1. That does not mean there is no God.
   2. 1. Since you cannot know all evidence, it is possible that evidence exists that proves God's existence, or at least supports his existence.
      2. 1. Therefore, it is possible that God exists.
         2. 1. If it is possible, then faith has its place.
            2. If it is possible that God exists, then you should be an agnostic (an agnostic holds that God may exist but no proof can be had for His existence.)
   3. It is possible that there is no evidence at all for God.
   4. 1. But this cannot be stated absolutely, since all evidence would need to be known to show there is no evidence.
      2. 1. Therefore, since all evidence cannot be known by any one person, it is possible that evidence exists that supports theism.
   5. Then what kind of evidence would be acceptable?
   6. 1. If you have not decided what evidence would be sufficient and reasonable, then you cannot state that there is no evidence for God.
      2. If you have decided what evidence is sufficient, what is it?
      3. 1. Does Christianity fit within that criteria?
         2. 1. If not, why not?
   7. Is it possible that your criteria for evidence is not reasonable?
   8. 1. Does your criteria put a requirement upon God (if He exists) that is not realistic? For example
      2. 1. Do you want Him to appear before you in blazing glory?
         2. 1. Even if that did happen, would you believe he existed or would you consider it a hallucination of some sort or a trick played on you?
            2. How would you know?
      3. Does your criteria put a requirement on logic that is not realistic?
      4. 1. Do you want him to make square circles, or some other self-contradictory phenomena or make a rock so big He cannot pick it up?
         2. If God exists, the laws of logic would be a product of his nature since he is absolute, transcendent, and truth (logical absolutes are conceptual, absolute, and transcendent which reflect a logical, absolute, and transcendent mind). He did not create the laws of logic. We simply recognize them because God exists. Therefore, God cannot violate those laws because he would violate his own nature -- which he cannot do.
   9. Are you objectively examining evidence that is presented?
   10. 1. Granted, objectivity is difficult for all people, but are you being as objective as you can?
       2. But, do you have a presupposition that God does not exist or that the miraculous cannot occur?
       3. 1. If so, then you cannot objectively examine the evidence.
          2. 1. Therefore, the presuppositions you hold regarding the miraculous may prevent you from recognizing evidence for God's existence.
             2. 1. If so, then God becomes unknowable to you and you have forced yourself into an atheistic/agnostic position.
          3. Do you define the miraculous out of existence?
          4. 1. If so, on what basis do you do this?
       4. If you assume that science can explain all phenomena then there can be no miraculous evidence ever submitted as proof.
       5. 1. If you made that assumption, it is, after all, only an assumption

http://www.carm.org/atheism/noevidence.htm