Maybe There Are No Real Christians
As an atheist, I have heard from many believers that there are no real atheists, that we really believe in God deep down… they give a lot of stupid justifications for holding this view, and perhaps someday I’ll go through some of those and point out why they are stupidly wrong, but for now, I would rather turn the tables on them and state outright that they don’t really believe their own religion.
It’s actually quite easy to demonstrate that they do not have the faith they claim. As evidence, I would first like to point out the verse where Jesus says something along the lines of “If you have the faith of a grain of mustard seed, you would tell the mountain to walk into the sea, and it would obey.”
Sounds fairly straight forward right? If you’ve got enough faith, you should be able to violate the laws of physics just by saying so. And we’re also told that God has a divine plan. If he’s really God, and he’s all powerful and all knowing, then his “divine plan” must in fact, be inviolate. Nothing could possibly change his plan. There is nothing any human can do that would change anything in the “plan”.
So, if you want to prove to me that you have true faith in your God and his plan, I have a challenge for you.
Go out into your backyard. Pour five gallons of gasoline over your head. Light a cigarette.
If you really believe in God’s Plan, if you really have the faith you claim, then nothing should happen unless it is God’s Will, right? If it is God’s Will that you won’t be burned to death, then the gasoline should fail to ignite.
On the other hand, if it IS God’s Will for you to burn to death, then you won’t even have to do this experiment, and you’ll burn sitting in your easy chair because God wills it, right? So what do you have to lose?
I’m betting there’s not a single one of you “true believers” who would ever take me up on this, which is the only reason I’d suggest it in the first place, because I don’t want to see you writhing in pain as you turn into a human torch. I have more morals than wishing that on anyone.
But frankly, if you would not be willing to do this experiment, then you do NOT believe. Not really. Not enough to risk your own life.
If your own claims are true, I’m risking my immortal soul and my entire afterlife for all eternity by choosing not to believe… what are YOU willing to risk?