Aren’t Some Unbelievers Sincerely Seeking Truth?
Greg and Amy answer the question “Are there scriptural explanations for why some people don’t accept the existence of God other than that they’re suppressing the truth in unrighteousness’ or ‘fools saying in their hearts there is no God’?”
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God's existence is obvious, so if you don't believe the same thing I believe then you are lying to yourself and suppressing the truth, got it.
Apparently it's really hard for some people to imagine that someone is just genuinely not convinced of what you believe in. One reason could be because the arguments you present are simply flawed and therefore unconvincing?
I just got what your name means! I always assumed you were trying to imply that your assertions made sense and were reasonable… but I think you're suggesting that whenever reason appears you will stand up to it and shout "NUH-UH!"
This talk show could have equally be by someone mumbling to a wall “I believe it to be true because I just know it should be that way, right?” over and over…
Here is the million dollar question why talk to a same minded person telling him why you think someone is differently minded?” It can only be a bias confirmation without the risk that the bias is not confirmed? Nothing can be genuinely learned that way… it’s just more comforting
Your argument makes no sense. If atheists would not worship your god even if they believed he exists, then there is no need to pretend not to believe to avoid worshipping him. Atheists dislike your god, not because they want to "sin", but, on the contrary, because they find HIS morality wanting. And, if you're honest, so do you. That’s why more thoughtful believers try to make excuses for their god’s behaviour.
Christians just deny Allah, obviously. They're in denial about the truth of Allah, and this is clearly their cope.
See how easy it is?
😆😅🤣😂🤣😅😆 ROFLMAO Yeah but no, sorry but you're full of it. You can choose to go with what the scriptures say about non believers and why they don't believe, but you wouldn't be choosing truth.
I am not consciously nor subconsciously suppressing knowledge of god's existence, and I'm not being deceptively blinded to this supposed subconscious suppression by Satan. Also, my lack of belief in god's existence has absolutely nothing to do with a desire to sin, especially since I live a virtually sin free life.
Greg is subconsciously suppressing his knowledge of the existence of Umbutu because he desires to sin and doesn't want to be held accountable to Umbutu for it. Greg knows deep down inside that Umbutu exists and Greg is without excuse because Umbutu wrote it on Greg's heart and everything reveals the evidence of Umbutu's handiwork, and Greg will face Umbutu's judgement in the end whether or not he wants to, I just hope you opens his heart and accepts the gift Umbutju has given him before it's too late.
Gotta love the humble christian who asserts they know the mind of another person who they've never met or spoken to better than that person knows themselves. Hmmmm, now what was it that the bible said god felt about arrogance and haughty people? Well good thing Greg doesn't have to be worried about that.
You are wrong about our moral inclinations and where they come from and you are certainly wrong about atheists and our motives and reasoning concerning the existence of a god.
Moreover the reason you are wrong about these things is because you don't know who god is, what his desires are, or what its characteristics are even if a god does exist. The following dilemma demonstrates this:
The one true God, creator of all things, is a Trickster. This deity is responsible for every theistic belief, experience, "holy" text, and any doctrines thereof as games. Not only does the Trickster allow but encourages mankind to alter his games or create their own whole cloth. The cosmos is not tragic requiring judgment and blood, but comedic requiring laughter and a disposition of will that disallows their games to be taken so seriously.
How would you demonstrate the primacy of your theistic beliefs precluding the Trickster is such a way as to prevent me or others from responding, "That is what the Trickster has caused you to believe."?
What if you found out that Islam is true and the Quran is the final word of God? What if you found out that Gnosticism is true and the God you worship is the demiurge? Would you then stop loving and worshipping it? What if you found out the Greek Gods are the real ones, would you then follow and love Zeus like you love Yahweh? See, we can do it too.
9:08 No how about we don't just "say" you convinced me to believe in god, why don't you actually do that before you start dishonestly speculating about my motives as if you can read minds. 4:05 See how DISHONEST you are Greg? Thats not a question. "So what you're saying is….." is you setting up a strawman, not asking a genuine honest question. And thats assuming I accept that you're accurately portraying the conversation you had, which based on your track record, I don't. I'm merely granting it for the sake of argument.
I have an idea. Maybe I might be a better judge of what I believe than some self righteous apologist that has never met me. I will give you the reason I do not believe. I have not seen sufficient evidence to warrant belief in God therefor I do not believe in God. I have another idea. If you want to convince me then how about showing some evidence rather than saying I am a liar and self deceiver. It stands to reason that if I said you suppress belief in leprechauns in unrighteousness, that you might respond that if I had evidence for leprechauns then you might believe. Show me evidence or shut the hell up. I will wait.
It's hard to believe people find any value is Greg's or this guest's sophistry. It's fine to believe in something, but to condescend people as shallow, etc. who genuinely believed and found themselves wanting is just lazy and unhelpful.
Categorizing people as rebellious is just low level apologetics.
Total trash. You do your listeners a disservice. Following your advice would only serve to divide families and friends, for no other reason than that you lack both self-awareness and empathy and have a platform to convince others that your way is correct. Please bear in mind that I'm only being descriptive here, not disparaging.
The problem of evil is shallow?
Also would I love the god of the Bible of he were real? Tell me which characteristics of his are real since many of them are contradictory or logically incoherent. Assuming the preponderance of his characteristics from the Bible, no. He is heinously immoral.
I know this because Odin is where morality comes from and God is immoral by that perfect measurement of objective morality.
1:28 Dispositional beliefs, even if they do exist, don't answer the question on their own. Greg must prove that this dispositional belief is one that believes in HIS God specifically. There's also another problem with this, if dispositional beliefs exist that can influence our conscious thoughts, do we actually have free will?
2:24 Of course this doesn't explain those who actually want to believe in God or are open to believing in him, but do not find the evidence convincing or sufficient. To be open to something or to sincerely want to believe in something requires first that one is not adverse to that something. Of course Koukl should have an explanation for this where actually all these people THINK they actually want to find evidence for God or are open to such but deep down inside they actually HATE God and actually don't want to find evidence for him. The mind reading continues.
Take note too that Koukl's soft approach in describing sincere unbelievers is not how the Romans 1:20 depicts any unbeliever. In that passage all unbelievers are straight up liars and insincere, no fluffing about at all.
2:50 It's disparaging, despite what Koukl says. Even if their reasons are shallow so? Is that indicative of them "suppressing their belief in God"?
3:22 Shallow beliefs are also a problem with Christians and Christianity. No wonder they love to trot out the No True Christian fallacy so much. Well no, that's just as a means to otherize those who they cannot defend as being part of the faith to preserve the "purity and sanctity" of the faith. In any case a shallow belief is still a belief, not an unbelief, unless Koukl wants to draw that line more clearly and simply say they DON'T believe, then this is not addressing the issue. If he wants to say it then just do so and stop beating around that bush.
4:01 So this is Koukl's entire schtick. God is indeed immoral by human standards, not because some "objective morality" says so, but because what he has done, if done by humans, would directly negatively affect the well being of human civilization or even the race as a whole. Push comes to shove moral standards change across time, what was done in the past would no longer be morally acceptable, so all those genocides that God commanded or did and the slavery he condoned are all not consider moral by todays standards. Even Koukl would have to agree on this or else support his God is all those things (which I think he does, so never mind).
Koukl is basically applying the Romans 1:20 poisoned well mindset on those who do not believe as he does, by assuming that they HAVE to believe as he does on certain aspects or else they are dishonest liars because that's what he assumes they ACTUALLY believe. It's not required for there to be objective morality or indeed for anyone to believe that morality is objective, to see God as immoral, but because Koukl cannot conceive of that or of a world where morality is NOT objective, he asserts that is how everyone ACTUALLY views morality and ends up straw manning everyone who doesn't as actually doing so.
4:14 That's a statement of fact.
4:18 And here he assumes implicitly that belief in evolution is what leads Doug to not believe in God and treats evolution as some sort of trivial thing that is either equal or less credible than God. In truth, the evidence of evolution is way stronger than the evidence for God, so if God's depiction clashes with evolution, then only one of them can be right, it's only rational to believe in the one with the stronger evidence. Not that it's likely that it's the ONLY reason why Doug doesn't believe in God, but belief in evolution alone is enough of a rational reason, not an emotional one as Koukl is trying to pass it off here.
5:30 Because all unbelievers are lying to themselves, scripture says so! Koukl has not given a strong reason to stick to scripture at all, all he's done is give some really weak examples of unbelievers who may or may not have "shallow beliefs" (he does not really demonstrate this, only assert that their beliefs are shallow because of his predetermined views about objective morality and the assumption that everyone HAS to think like him), generalized that to all unbelievers, and then claim, without any link whatsoever, that they are "predisposed to know God, but are denying it.
5:44 Psychoanalyst Greg Koukl knows what you're REALLY thinking better than you do, he says the Bible says so! Are you convinced yet unbelievers?
6:04 Atheists don't need to believe in relative morality, there are atheists who believe in objective morality and objective morality does NOT require belief in a God! Koukl may not be able to accept this, but his narrow fundamentalist Christian view prevents him from accepting a lot of things. The funniest thing of all of course, is that "objective morality" that is contingent on a God is definitionally subjective. Unless you try to make words have no meanings and define God as morality which then basically removes any meaningful definition of the word "morality".
6:25 This is basically poisoning the well through straw manning. Koukl thinks that unbelievers ACTUALLY believe certain things regardless of whether they do or not, and so he characterize them as actually believing those things being fact, and when those who buy his book actually engage with unbelievers, well guess how that is going to turn out? Koukl is basically using the same tactic as the most toxic and divisive verse in the Bible, the verse that poisons the well against those that don't believe in Christianity, and basically touting it as an argument "tactic".
Greg Koukl: "No, you DO believe in God, deep down inside! What do you mean you don't know? That may SEEM to be the case to you but trust me, I KNOW YOUR SUBCONSCIOUS MIND BETTER THAN YOU!"
I left Christianity specifically because I was sincerely seeking the truth. I didn't start living a "sinful" life, and I left with nothing but my intellectual honesty and the clothes on my back. I understood that leaving meant I'd lose LITERALLY every friend I ever had and my entire family, whom I love dearly. Now it just so happens that some of my family took it better than I expected, but before I told them, I completely expected to lose everything. And in a sense, I did. My relationships in my family are different now, and I lost every friend I ever had, along with my identity, youth, direction in life, worldview, ALL in search of the truth. So if anyone wants to accuse me of not sincerely seeking the truth, they are simply deluding themselves because it's more comfortable than questioning themselves.
My son is a pagan ( norse pagan reconstructionist to be exact) trying to witness to him is difficult because I can not find any information or apologetics for this belief. He has faith………………….. In Norse pagan gods. He knows the bible better than most of the people in my church. He isn't an unbeliever, he is a "different" believer. I have every book and article and study on apologetics, none of them address this issue.
Theists love projecting their insecurities and beliefs on everyone, and if you don’t agree with their presuppositions then you are an “other” we are not born religious, we are born secular, we are taught religion. If you say something to be true, when you do not know, you are a liar. If you believe in god and preach it as fact, you are a liar. Don’t project your cult and insecurity onto me.
A “fool” is someone who makes a claim such as god with no evidence. “One who is deficient in judgment sense, or understanding” because you can’t tell fact from fiction, you believe in magic turning water into wine.
“WHAT CAN BE ASSERTED WITHOUT EVIDENCE CAN BE DISMISSED WITHOUT EVIDENCE”
Religion is like a prison for the seeds of wisdom. If you do not know something to be true, and you say it is, you are a liar. Simple. I do not know if there is a god or not, but I don’t believe not because I’m prejudiced, but because I see no evidence, and to the contrary I see evidence against religious texts.
All atheists are fools. They deny and reject all evidence for God. They are in the Ephesians 2:1-3 position.
Cause people are more in passionate love with their sin and wrong-doing than they are with God.