Voxbury
ChibiHigh
Voxbury
starry night-163
...it would depend on the situation but all unbelievers hate God and they hate what's good so therefore they will hate you, if you're following Christ this world will hate you (Matthew 10:22, John 15:18-25).
I question whether or not you've ever actually met an atheist based on this rhetoric. Atheists by definition cannot hate God any more than they can hate a unicorn or a mermaid. They don't believe in God, and therefore have no opinion about him besides lacking a belief in him. They appreciate what is good, because that's the human thing to do. without doing so, civilization could never have progressed. The atheist typically has no problem with you personally. More often than not, it's a problem with religion, and believing things on faith. Many, if not most, atheists come from a religious background and were likely believers themselves at one point. Not agreeing with the Bible isn't the same thing as hating people who do agree with it. Insisting you know what they feel and think isn't a good way to begin a conversation with anyone and only breeds animosity.
As for the original question, you should never cut that person out. Think of it this way: you see your friend, or even a stranger, walking on train tracks. You see a train coming at them down the line a ways. The train keeps coming but your friend ignores it. There is a certain point at which you become obligated to tackle your friend to get them out of the way, and this is so much more important than that. Do you let them face the train, unaware of the consequences, or scream and tackle them? How much do you have to hate your friend to not tell them about the possibility of everlasting eternal life and warn them of endless torture.
An atheistic perspective might be, "if you believed that this were true, and you don't talk to me about it a lot, there are two reasonable conclusions: you either aren't my friend and don't care what happens to me, or you don't really believe it at all and it's just a show."
Just my two cents, of course.
ChibiHigh
Quoting you since this forum doesn't seem to be used much and want you to see it.
Sorry for the super late response
I somewhat agree with your first point
However, with your second point let me put it this way; if I tell my friend that walking on the train tracks but they decide to continue walking towards the tracks- that's on them. I'll call out to them and try and pull them back but once they step on the tracks I'm letting go. I'm not getting myself killed just because my friends didn't listen and made a bad decision, there has to be some responsibility from the other party as well. I love my friends, and I'll fight for my friends, but ultimately the decision is theirs, and I'm not going to put myself in danger for them.
"Somewhat agree" implies a disagreement somewhere in what I said. What would you say the problem is?
At what point in the metaphor is this person on the tracks? If you believe the Adam and Eve story and original sin are literal, then isn't everyone on the track at birth? And being that the case, at what point do you give up on someone and stop trying? This is their eternity, after all. Isn't it important to try until that person is dead to convince them?
And then there's always the place in the metaphor it goes awry. The train in this metaphor, which I'm assuming is an angry God, could stop, but won't. So the atheist would likely blame the conductor more than the wandering traveler. It's hard to make the "you send yourself to hell by choosing to go there" argument fly in such circles. They reply generally with something like, "I choose not to go to a hell, should it exist. There. I've made my choice. If I end up there, it's because your loving god decided to send me to eternal torture."
And then we must consider the denominations that don't believe in a literal hell and opt for post-mortem salvation or annihilation theories.
It was the part where you said I should never cut friends off. If I feel they are becoming a bad influence and/ or hindering my own walk with Jesus or they're becoming dangerous I will cut them off. Though, as Christians, it's our responsibility to witness, it is even more of a responsibility of the person to pursue Jesus. Whether someone witnesses to them in their lifetime or not, it is still their own responsibility. I can't drag someone to Jesus and I can't make people change. Now whether or not I decide to come back to them at a later time is a different story.
