religion and faith (also long)

[madnak]

[ QUOTE ]
No, I don't believe in reincarnation, but I think you have plenty of opportunities to reconsider your decisions in the one life you do have.

[/ QUOTE ]

"Plenty" isn't "as many as you like." Life is pretty fleeting, especially for those who die young.

[ QUOTE ]
Yes, I think hell is a conscious choice. Plenty of people would take Faust's deal. Even without the bonuses on offer, people prefer being boss now, and not worry about later.

[/ QUOTE ]

And you think this describes every unbeliever?

[AceofSpades]

[ QUOTE ]
No, I don't believe in reincarnation, but I think you have plenty of opportunities to reconsider your decisions in the one life you do have.

Yes, I think hell is a conscious choice. Plenty of people would take Faust's deal. Even without the bonuses on offer, people prefer being boss now, and not worry about later.

[/ QUOTE ]

I take it that you were born into a christian family and became saved at an early age?

If the choice was really clear, that is an ACTUAL choice, instead of many confusing signs pointing different directions then there would be only one religion.

To assume that so many people make a choice that ultimately results in eternal agony forever, while actually knowing the outcome of their decision is simply to assume that that the vast majority of the world are totally insane.

And is corporal punishment really justice for decisions made while insane?

Think about it this way, if people really knew that they were choosing hell by not following christianity then at the very least, even considering people's desire for what is considered sin, everybody would become saved in their old age, or when they knew they had a life threatening disease. But this simply doesn't happen.

[madnak]

[ QUOTE ]
Well, I recommend you reread! All the prophets and apostles spent their lives trying to get the message across, under God's direction. Countless times God sends the message: "all you need to do is trust me". Then he sends Jesus, and plenty of miracles later, folk still won't accept the message. I can understand why the death of Jesus is unpursuasive (Paul agrees with you!) - it is the resurrection of Jesus that is pursuasive. It is the ultimate demonstration that all you need to do is trust God.

[/ QUOTE ]

My trust is earned, not given freely. If Satan said "just trust me," would you do it?

[ QUOTE ]
I think the question is: what evidence would you accept?

[/ QUOTE ]

A miracle would be a start. I would put a great deal of effort into finding God if I experienced a personal vision or miracle. To be fair, I'd say meet me halfway, but at least throw me a bone. And no, human beings preaching on the subject don't qualify in my opinion. Particularly not if they can't distinguish themselves in some qualitative way from those of other religions.

[ QUOTE ]
We are not omniscient, so we can expect some of the things God does to look strange (he sees outcomes we don't). Consequently, we need to be able to trust him. That is the bottom line. Miracles are helpful for some, but many would put their hand in Jesus side and still not trust him. God clearly understands the difficulties of those who have limited evidence of his faithfulness (John 20:29), but at the same time, today we have unprecendented levels of access to the testimony of those who have personally experienced God. So it is hard to make excueses.

[/ QUOTE ]

We have unprecedented levels of access to the testimony of those who have personally experienced the Gods of other faiths as well. But a Buddhist, who lives his life according to compassion and faith, goes to hell because he doesn't accept Jesus as his Lord and Saviour?

Again, it wouldn't make sense for me to trust a God who contradicts Himself. Even if He didn't, asking me to trust Him arbitrarily is asking quite a lot. But given the horrible things He's done, and the contradictory claims He's made, and the fact that He hasn't given me the personal experiences, I think trusting Him would be a perfect example of blindness, not faith.

[ QUOTE ]
I think have no shortage of self-respect. The question is, how much respect for others do you have? And how much for God? If you come first every time, I think it's clear where the problem lies.

[/ QUOTE ]

Plenty for others. None for God. Like my trust, my respect is earned and not given freely. I have some respect for every human being, because my experience has given me "faith" in the human spirit and in the potential for courage and nobility in every person on this planet. I also know the struggles through which humans persevere, and it's almost impossible not to respect them knowing that. God has given me no such indicators, in fact he seems cruel and petty. In my experience, most human cruelty stems from weakness and insecurity and ignorance and fear - which mitigates it and makes it understandable. God is immune to such things, and so must be judged much more harshly.

[ QUOTE ]
At the risk of sounding trite, I could say there is no good outcome from smoking, either, except that you serve as a warning to others.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm not sure if that's true, but if it is, smoking is a mistake. God doesn't make mistakes, does He?

[ QUOTE ]
What I can say is that I understand that there are such things as competing goods, and that being omnipotent does not obviously take that away. You may want everyone to be both free and safe, for example, but I don't know how you'd do it (assuming they are real people and you leave them choices).

[/ QUOTE ]

Cruel and unusual punishment wouldn't be a good place to start IMO.

[ QUOTE ]
Well, there are some christians who feel that they aren't and that he decided long ago who would choose wisely and who foolishly. Personally I think that is a misreading - God has certainly known forever who would choose foolishly, but the bible is clear that God gives us a choice for which we are responsible. You can claim that there are many (all?) whose choice is constrained by their experience, but the point is that God knows your experience, and your response to it. And he does the judging, not us.

[/ QUOTE ]

So He created me, knowing that I would go to hell? And yet He has no accountability in the matter? Couldn't He have created me differently, or not at all?

[ QUOTE ]
In my humble opinion, the axe murderer has as much of God's sympathy as I do, probably more (read the parable of the lost sheep again!).

[/ QUOTE ]

He may have more of God's sympathy, but you're the one going to heaven. What happened to justice?

[ QUOTE ]
These are fine points, and well made, but they are made from a position of (unavoidable) ignorance. We simply do not know what the constraints of eternity are. It may be that hellfire is just a poetic way of describing an eternity of selfishness and isolation, or it may be that hell is just a boogie man to motivate the weak and that God would never actually do it, or it may be that it is eternal agony, made inevitable by direct exposure to God (think of the Total Perspective Vortex in the Hitchhikers Guide), or any number of other alternatives. It would be nice if God had explained why there is undesired punishment for the wicked, but I think his main audience at the time were shocked that the punishment should be undesired, and were repulsed by the notion that God actually wants to save everybody! Plenty of people today have trouble with a God who lets in a repentant <insert victimised minority here>.

[/ QUOTE ]

So the Word of God is just propaganda? Words meant, not to express truth, but only to manipulate us? Ironically, that's eminently preferable to me and may even be justifiable, however it throws everything in the Bible into question. What did God say because it's the immutable Truth, and what did He say simply to influence human action? Under such circumstances, it seems my poor atheist heart is a better moral compass than God.

[ QUOTE ]
Yes, actually, on several occasions! As I said, I am no OT scholar, but I think you could argue that God was far harder on the Israelites than anyone else around.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think the Sodomites had it worse. Regardless, I don't see how this is meant to improve my image of God.

[ QUOTE ]
Wouldn't you wish baby Hitler had been smitten? He sees the outcomes. We don't.

[/ QUOTE ]

No, I wouldn't. I thought Hitler was free to make his choices?

[ QUOTE ]
I'm sure I'm wrong about the justification - I was just trying to point out that you and I cannot tell what is justified and what is not, because we, unlike him, are not omni3.

[/ QUOTE ]

But you want me to believe that He's omni3. How is it unreasonable to demand an answering for such crimes before I accept someone as "omnibenevolent?" In fact, how can I reasonably believe God is omnibenevolent in any case given His actions? The reasonable conclusion here seems to be that God is not omni3.

[ QUOTE ]
Because he loves us. The bloke giving you a compulsory vaccination looks like a tyrant, but isn't. The dentist with a drill looks like a tyrant too. Every time we don't understand why we have to suffer, we are ready to blame someone, usually the perpetrator. There is such a thing as tough love, and it is much better than the squishy girly kind you see on TV.

[/ QUOTE ]

Actually, I always liked going to the dentist. Call me crazy. But I don't recall the dentist torturing to death the kids who didn't. Hell, if memory serves, my dentist's response to fear and anger toward him was candy. He was a nice guy, he gave candy to kids after they went to see him. Even if they hated him. And never eternal torment. Maybe he was an evil dude; candy rots the teeth, after all. Better hell than that.

[MidGe]

[ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]

Yes, I think hell is a conscious choice. Plenty of people would take Faust's deal. Even without the bonuses on offer, people prefer being boss now, and not worry about later.


[/ QUOTE ]

I assume you wouldn't take the pact, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't and I suspect Midge wouldn't. Many would.


[/ QUOTE ]

Your suspicions are entirely correct. In fact I go beyond that by saying that accepting god as love when it is obviously a travesty of it, evidenced by its cruelty, may very well be "the" Faustian pact. It may make you feel better whilst you are alive because you have faith, but you will regret an eternity under the thumb of a tyrant.

[pilliwinks]

[ QUOTE ]
That's all irrelevent when it comes to believing in god. Only if you belive in god would you believe any of it is true.

All you've got is men repeatedly invoking some god concept to propogate their religon, and we already believed in religion.

chez

[/ QUOTE ]

I see. But you can't have it both ways: either the bible is a vacuous account of religion propagation, in which case God, if he exists, bears no necessary relation to it, and cannot be accused of being a tyrant.

Or the bible is people's best efforts to pass on God's message, in which case you have to accept that God really is about saving people not condemning them.

I readily admit that the biblical account of God's actions is not likely to convert many. What makes a difference is seeing it lived out for real.

[pilliwinks]

[ QUOTE ]
A benevolent god will not punish us for eternity for acting during a short life according to our god given nature, even if we are mistaken.

chez

[/ QUOTE ]

I think I mentioned that there are people who think that God, having made everything, is perfectly entitled to bin whichever of his toys displease him after he has made them. Personally I find that unsatisfactory, and inconsistent with what we know of God's nature. Instead I think he really does give us choices. Real choices with real consequences. Yes they are constrained by the nature and nurture we receive, nonetheless for many of us, that nature and nurture really does allow us to make up our mind about whether we want to know about a potentially demanding (if well intentioned) overlord, or whether we are only interested in looking out for No1. I don't believe that God punishes those who make mistakes (all of us) or are ignorant (again, all of us), but I do believe that there are bad results for those who make bad choices.

[chezlaw]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
That's all irrelevent when it comes to believing in god. Only if you belive in god would you believe any of it is true.

All you've got is men repeatedly invoking some god concept to propogate their religon, and we already believed in religion.

chez

[/ QUOTE ]

I see. But you can't have it both ways: either the bible is a vacuous account of religion propagation, in which case God, if he exists, bears no necessary relation to it, and cannot be accused of being a tyrant.

Or the bible is people's best efforts to pass on God's message, in which case you have to accept that God really is about saving people not condemning them.


[/ QUOTE ]
I don't think that's right. If I find the bible to be nothing to do with god (which is the case) its still the case if its true and describes a god that would condemn me to eternal damnantion for making an honest mistake, then that god isn't benevolent.

chez

[pilliwinks]

[ QUOTE ]
I take it that you were born into a christian family and became saved at an early age?

[/ QUOTE ]

No, actually. Agnostic, intellectual dad, believer mum, dropped out of church early, didn't return until mid twenties.

[ QUOTE ]
If the choice was really clear, that is an ACTUAL choice, instead of many confusing signs pointing different directions then there would be only one religion .... Think about it this way, if people really knew that they were choosing hell by not following christianity then at the very least, even considering people's desire for what is considered sin, everybody would become saved in their old age, or when they knew they had a life threatening disease. But this simply doesn't happen.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think you would be surprised at the number of deathbed conversions, and they say there are no atheists in foxholes! On the other hand many people persist in unwise activities in the full knowledge of the results (nurses smoking?). In these cases most people would say "I'll do what I can to persuade them to stop, but in the end, it's their choice".

[MidGe]

[ QUOTE ]
I think you would be surprised at the number of deathbed conversions, and they say there are no atheists in foxholes!

[/ QUOTE ]

You have got some studies on that, or is it part of the churches folklore? On another note, I guess there are more cowards than courageous people.

[pilliwinks]

[ QUOTE ]
I don't think that's right. If I find the bible to be nothing to do with god (which is the case) its still the case if its true and describes a god that would condemn me to eternal damnantion for making an honest mistake, then that god isn't benevolent.

chez

[/ QUOTE ]

Um, I don't think you can have a bible which is both true and nothing to do with god, but let that pass. If the bible described a god who willingly victimised the foolish or ignorant for no reason other than their foolishness or ignorace, then I would not be a believer. In contrast, the bible actually goes to great lengths to point out that the greatest heroes made embarrassing mistakes: Peter, Moses, David, Abraham, and the list goes on. They were not condemned to eternal damnation. Everyone makes mistakes. I believe that only those who deliberately and wilfully reject god suffer the consequences, and even in those cases I believe that God takes all the circumstances into account.

If I were god, I am not sure how I would justly deal with the recalcitrantly evil, assuming that there is no such thing as extinction, and all are eternal.