this is an interesting question...
i think there is a reason and an explanation for everything, whether we know what it is or not. so yeah...
Some logic for both sides...
- Thread starter Lori_7
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this is an interesting question...
i think there is a reason and an explanation for everything, whether we know what it is or not. so yeah...
Ah!! Thatt I understand...
Lori,
If not going to hell is in people's best interest but they still decide to go to hell then they clearly have not been appropriately informed. A truly omnipotent god would be able to provide the appropriate education if he really had our best interests in mind. In which case no one would ever choose hell. Since you think they do and God could have prevented that then he cannot have their best interests in mind.
Let's give this a bit of a psychological analysis, with some background:
1. A person has done something they feel bad about.
2. The person desperately wants to feel good and worthy again.
3. The person turns to their own sense of ethics, or to other people, or to religions and philosophies to find a way to feel good and worthy again.
4. After some unsatisfactory search, they find Christianity, the Bible. There, they see a way to feel good and worthy again.
5. But in order to do so, they need to believe in God.
6. They try and they try to believe in God, and at first, it amounts to nothing, no sign from God. They think "Uh, so what ..."
7. They still feel pressured by the wrongdoing (1) that set them on this search. They want to feel good and worthy again.
8. They go back to seeking God. They read or are told that all it takes to believe in God or to know God is to simply want to do so, to be humble, pure and sincere.
9. They endure, they pray, they want to believe in God - but still, no sign or proof of God. The old wrongdoing burns them, and they want to feel good and worthy again. They want to think of themselves that they are a basically good person, they want to move on with their life. They want to think of themselves as humble, sincere and pure. They don't want to be liars.
10. They are facing the dilemma: They can either continue thinking themselves evil, insincere, worthless and remain stuck in life. Or they can declare they believe in God. - For if a person believes in God, this is proof that they have been humble, sincere and pure.
11. In time, the dilemma becomes more and more demanding, causing a lot of strain. The person is by now under great psychological stress, possibly also with intense physical symptoms. The person wants, more than ever, to feel good and worthy again. By now the only way to achieve this seems to be to believe in God - that is, to declare they believe in God, because they still have no sign or proof of God.
12. In a critical moment, the stress becomes too great, and the person resolves it by declaring they believe in God. They reinterpret their life experiences accordingly, so that they appear to be proof of God's existence.
They regain their sense of self-worth, and they begin to feel good and worthy again, they deem themselves humble, sincere and pure.
13. To maintain this state of well-being, they need to continue to pray, read the Bible and discuss their belief in God with other people, in order to stifle any doubt or suspicion they themselves might have.
- This, I think, is the most likely scenario for arriving at belief in God, aside from childhood conditioning and cultist manipulation.
People have the innate desire to feel good about themselves, and in order to do so, they are willing to lie, steal, kill, misinterpret, falsely accuse, manipulate, destroy anyone and anything, depending on what their particular circumstances are.
I think many theists underestimate this innate desire to feel good about oneself.
you're making that up. it's simply a matter of not being under the same time constraint. it doesn't affect free will. if i were to change my mind and want to make a different choice, then he would have known that too, before i do.
take a look around. why in the world do people do the wrong thing over and over and over again? because they don't know any better? sometimes, but i also think that some people don't want to know any better because they like to do the wrong thing. people ignore the truth on purpose so they can keep doing what they know (don't want to know) is wrong. i see it all the time. i also see people who know what they do is wrong, and do in intentionally, so...
there's going to come a point where we have to separate from those who are not willing to do the right thing all the time. otherwise we will stay in the hell we're in for forever, and never progress, and some people will choose to stay.
doing what? making note of what i've observed and my conclusions based on it? i thought this is a discussion forum.
i know through my trials that i feel more and more invincible as he teaches me through them, and so...yes, you just described a liar. this is not my experience at all, and i have no idea how people live this way, or why they would even try to. see, this sign or proof that you're referring to...god has given that to me. and all i did was ask for it sincerely. for someone to say that they believe without it is a liar.
Then the blame lies solely in one place: That god.
And, (if we were to argue that everyone has an innate understanding of right and wrong as theists so love to state), then he still could have simply created Bob and Jane and had two individuals who knew right and wrong and chose to do right. The result: Nobody burns for eternity.
So, just create Bob and Jane instead. But then, you did say earlier he wanted everything to be fudged, so therefore you're ultimately saying god doesn't want us to live eternally.
Doing what I quoted that you said you are not doing:
Lori_7 said:
You say you are not like that - you say that you do not assume that you have experienced all there is, or that you know all there is.
Yet you say also:
Lori_7 said:
Only someone who assumes to have experienced it or known it all would say something like that.
What I described above in the 13 steps is not lying; it is a description of what can happen to a person under durress when a mixture of psychological defense mechanisms, especially denial and compensation take over and lead the person to think and act in a particular way - while the person is completely unaware of those defense mechanisms and convinced she is being honest and sincere.
And until you understand such processes, I am afraid you will not understand how come some people do not believe in God, and much less will you be able to reach through to others about what it means to believe in God.
do we really need a god to forgive? or is it to determine why you feel guilty in the first place? to determine if you really did anything wrong? or if there is even such a thing as right or wrong, and if so, if it even matters which we choose?
i do. i blame god for everything. it's true...everything is his fault. but that doesn't get you out of making choices.
why does everyone seem to have such a problem with learning and accountability for that knowledge all of a sudden? i don't think there's an innate understanding of right and wrong necessarily. i think you can feel a conviction of the holy spirit. i don't think there's a way to truly understand the consequences of your actions except to experience them. i mean, you can be told about the effects of all kinds of things, but until you feel those effects, you just don't understand. in this world, people refuse to even LOOK at the consequences of their actions because they don't want to stop doing what they're doing. they don't want to know what they're doing is wrong so they don't look. a perfect example is the overwhelming number of people who refuse to watch the documentary called earthlings that i have on my myspace page. they just don't want to know what they're contributing to.
you have no faith. no, not in god, but in us. in me. speak for yourself snake. i'm going to live eternally. i've got the will, and i'll get the skill.
are you trying to tell me that what i'm talking about isn't obvious to you?
i'm sorry but this is like fundamental basic common knowledge about how the world works. are you trying to tell me that you can't see these things exist?
you don't know about light vs dark? cold vs hot? pain vs pleasure? you really haven't had experience concerning these things? are you in a cave?
i don't care what makes people "feel better". that's a sure sign of a lie right there because god isn't in the business of making people feel better. i don't care what a person's been through, or what kind of excuse they may have. if someone says they believe in god without knowing whether or not he even exists, that is a lie. how can you believe in something that you don't know?
you pretend. and if pretending makes you feel better, then good for you. it never did with me. living in denial doesn't solve anyone's problems you know.
Some people need the security of a god who will forgive theur " sins" if they repent. An atheist has no such comfort blanket.
Doing wrong is acting contrary to the mores of one's society. It has nothing to do with a god. As I posted earlier, mores change with time and place.
You will find many examples of what I am saying in the Bible. Read Judges, and you will find a description of gang rape and murder. There is no mention of the act being condemned by god, so it seems to follow that such behaviour was considered acceptable at that place and time. It is a good illustration of how women were regarded as inferior to men. Read it, and you will see !