I've talked to my share of atheists, more like tongue-fu than talking. I can't really call them debates because a debate doesn't get personal. They tell me I believe what I do because I was taught it all my life and I'm not open minded. I submit to you that you must be open minded to explore the idea that there is a creator, a life force that is more advanced than you are. To only believe in what you can experience with your five senses is a bit close minded if you ask me. The belief in God is in the same realm as the belief in love and any other principle that has ever been thought of to be defended or defeated.
Studying the Bible teaches you to think differently than those around you because it's a really deep book. A lot of it is history and philosophy. There is some prophecy in there that so far has yet to be proven wrong and that's a major difference between the Bible and other religious books that's not lost on me.
The scripture itself tells you how to study it despite the fact that often people will argue that you are cherry picking the word:
Isaiah 28:
9 Whom shall he teach knowledge? and whom shall he make to understand doctrine? them that are weaned from the milk, and drawn from the breasts.
10 For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little:
11 For with stammering lips and another tongue will he speak to this people.
12 To whom he said, This is the rest wherewith ye may cause the weary to rest; and this is the refreshing: yet they would not hear.
13 But the word of the Lord was unto them precept upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little; that they might go, and fall backward, and be broken, and snared, and taken.
14 Wherefore hear the word of the Lord, ye scornful men, that rule this people which is in Jerusalem.
15 Because ye have said, We have made a covenant with death, and with hell are we at agreement; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, it shall not come unto us: for we have made lies our refuge, and under falsehood have we hid ourselves:
16 Therefore thus saith the Lord God, Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner stone, a sure foundation: he that believeth shall not make haste.
17 Judgment also will I lay to the line, and righteousness to the plummet: and the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters shall overflow the hiding place.
18 And your covenant with death shall be disannulled, and your agreement with hell shall not stand; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, then ye shall be trodden down by it.
19 From the time that it goeth forth it shall take you: for morning by morning shall it pass over, by day and by night: and it shall be a vexation only to understand the report.
20 For the bed is shorter than that a man can stretch himself on it: and the covering narrower than that he can wrap himself in it.
21 For the Lord shall rise up as in mount Perazim, he shall be wroth as in the valley of Gibeon, that he may do his work, his strange work; and bring to pass his act, his strange act.
22 Now therefore be ye not mockers, lest your bands be made strong: for I have heard from the Lord God of hosts a consumption, even determined upon the whole earth.
23 Give ye ear, and hear my voice; hearken, and hear my speech.
24 Doth the plowman plow all day to sow? doth he open and break the clods of his ground?
25 When he hath made plain the face thereof, doth he not cast abroad the fitches, and scatter the cummin, and cast in the principal wheat and the appointed barley and the rie in their place?
26 For his God doth instruct him to discretion, and doth teach him.
27 For the fitches are not threshed with a threshing instrument, neither is a cart wheel turned about upon the cummin; but the fitches are beaten out with a staff, and the cummin with a rod.
28 Bread corn is bruised; because he will not ever be threshing it, nor break it with the wheel of his cart, nor bruise it with his horsemen.
29 This also cometh forth from the Lord of hosts, which is wonderful in counsel, and excellent in working.
I'm not going to do any commentary on this other than to say this is why I "cherry pick" the scripture, because of all the different places that you find things related to one another and they build a picture that if you earnestly study the scripture to see and ask the Holy Spirit for his help in the matter, the Lord won't fail to give you your answer. This is how Paul finally saw Christ in the old testament after his spiritual eyes were opened along with his physical eyes.
Line upon line, precept upon precept..........and then the declaration that the Lord is not going to remain aloof to the things happening on the earth forever.
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