The logical implications of rejecting God
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<*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*>bigal said:
M*W: bigal, I wrote a response to your first message in the Eastern Philosophy, but my computer crashed and as soon as I'm through screaming, I'll write you another answer. Damn, it was good, to! For now, I'll answer this:
Humanity is everything.
Learning to forgive one another is the most altruistic thing you can do.
Learning may never happen--Loving all humanity is the key. That's what God would do.
*************JustARide said:
M*W: JustARide, don't worry about us. We're on the right thread for now. First, you must totally disavow Christianity and you will be within the "knowing." I cannot urge you enough, disavow Christianity so you will be with the true believers.
With all due respect MW, no one - including myself - knows what you're talking about.
I don't want to be cruel. I mean, it's one thing to have a message or a theme running through one's posts, but we're discussing a specific topic on this thread and simply posting random, contextually vacant stanzas with sentences like "Humanity is everything" doesn't really compute. Sciforums is not the Tao Te Ching; it's a medium for debate. So, for example, if a thread is called "Derrida and the Problem of Difference," I won't suddenly chime in with a vague post about how to please the Earth Goddess, ya know?
Maybe it would help if I knew where you're coming from. In truth, I've been curious ever since I started posting here. What exactly would you call yourself? A pantheist? A universist? A Wiccan? I can't seem to pin you down.
Josh
I don't want to be cruel. I mean, it's one thing to have a message or a theme running through one's posts, but we're discussing a specific topic on this thread and simply posting random, contextually vacant stanzas with sentences like "Humanity is everything" doesn't really compute. Sciforums is not the Tao Te Ching; it's a medium for debate. So, for example, if a thread is called "Derrida and the Problem of Difference," I won't suddenly chime in with a vague post about how to please the Earth Goddess, ya know?
Maybe it would help if I knew where you're coming from. In truth, I've been curious ever since I started posting here. What exactly would you call yourself? A pantheist? A universist? A Wiccan? I can't seem to pin you down.
Josh
JustARide said:With all due respect MW, no one - including myself - knows what you're talking about.
I don't want to be cruel. I mean, it's one thing to have a message or a theme running through one's posts, but we're discussing a specific topic on this thread and simply posting random, contextually vacant stanzas with sentences like "Humanity is everything" doesn't really compute. Sciforums is not the Tao Te Ching; it's a medium for debate. So, for example, if a thread is called "Derrida and the Problem of Difference," I won't suddenly chime in with a vague post about how to please the Earth Goddess, ya know?
Maybe it would help if I knew where you're coming from. In truth, I've been curious ever since I started posting here. What exactly would you call yourself? A pantheist? A universist? A Wiccan? I can't seem to pin you down.
Josh
The people have spoken.
*************JustARide said:With all due respect MW, no one - including myself - knows what you're talking about.
I don't want to be cruel. I mean, it's one thing to have a message or a theme running through one's posts, but we're discussing a specific topic on this thread and simply posting random, contextually vacant stanzas with sentences like "Humanity is everything" doesn't really compute. Sciforums is not the Tao Te Ching; it's a medium for debate. So, for example, if a thread is called "Derrida and the Problem of Difference," I won't suddenly chime in with a vague post about how to please the Earth Goddess, ya know?
Maybe it would help if I knew where you're coming from. In truth, I've been curious ever since I started posting here. What exactly would you call yourself? A pantheist? A universist? A Wiccan? I can't seem to pin you down.
Josh
M*W: I would call myself a "humanist."
correct path to be a mindless slave to the church,no thnx!§outh§tar said:believing in jebus will NOT let you live forever.
Try confessing your sins and admitting that Jesus is God and you will surely be on the correct path.
btw
I have no sins
I was created by a perfect allmighty God in His image=perfect.
come to think of it if God created us all,how could we be sinners,and why would this fella Jesus be any different/special from anyone else?
Try confessing your sins and admitting that Jesus is God? Sorry, but that's one of the things that bugs me in regards to Christians; Jesus as God. Talk about a wolf in sheep's clothing! That's something Satan has been trying to do since the dawn of time -- to be considered God. Jesus being God is no different. Just a wolf in sheep's clothing. Shame on you.
The greatest evil is something that is 99.99% truth and 0.01% lie. Say, uh, switching two good and evil names in a holy text.
It's just using fear to make people follow "their" religion as the one true religion. Darned near everything religion of the past have FORCED other people to follow it through war, violence, death, and fear. The fear in "the books" are just the lesser of two evils, albeit still evil itself, and so if it's the lesser of them, it someone makes it okay (???). If those religious people would realize that, they would realize how much of a sham their religion is. Let's see how seriously they would take their religion if forced to follow it through ungodly harmful ways.
Now here's the ironic thing that you should think about. Repeat exactly what you did up above yet instead of grabbing the Bible to read, grab another religious book and God will reveal himself to you as well. Now if various religious texts can do that, then which is correct? Talk about gambling your soul when each religion says "their" religion is the correct one and those that don't follow it are going to Hell, lol.
This is why if one truly wants to be a religious person, don't follow any ONE religion but at least follow them all since they basically share all the same beliefs. It'll even help make you more aware of things and if you still wish to follow just one religion, you'll at least be able to make a better decision as to which one is correct (if you still want to think that only one is true) which ups your chances of not having to go to Hell.
After all, Christianity tells us we cannot enter the realm of God unless we are without sin (any sin, no matter how small) because that is incompatible with God's perfect naturequote]
This physical plane is a repeating loop of eternal Hell. Just living is sinning. With evil balancing out good, that makes every person who's good a freeloader. Why? For the mere fact of us having to eat to survive.
Gathering food period is murder. Whether it's meat, a plant, or whatever; those are living thing. So how does evil balance out good and make those good people freeloaders? Evil creates food through farming, butchery, and the like so that good people do not have to do that task which will taint them. Evil is sacrificing themselves so that good people can continue to live to do good deeds and that's what makes good people freeloaders.
I'm just mentioning this because of the "any sin, no matter how small part". So ain't this fun? We're living in an eternity of Hell. We live a good number of years, die, get reincarnated to live through this all over again and continue to repeat this endless loop. Hey, I didn't make this up. This is the only conclusion if what Christianity preaches is true. Exceptions can't be made.
- N
Most Excellent Josh Dude,
The “problem of Hell” has been debated for centuries by better men than I and is related to the “problem of Evil”. I seriously doubt that I can tell you anything that you do not already know about this subject, but for whatever it’s worth here are my own two cents.
God is both good and sovereign. God made a good and sovereign decision to give man freedom of choice. This freedom allows for the possibility of the existence of real love, which God desires. Without this freedom we would all merely be robotic bio-chemical machines, incapable of love. With this freedom, however, also comes the possibility of evil and the full responsibility for our choices and actions. We are free in this life to love God or reject God. We are free to choose good and we are free to choose evil. Because we are truly free we can be justly held responsible for our own actions by God. This is not tyranny; this is freedom, responsibility, and accountability.
God gives us chance after chance after chance after chance… to respond to His love in this life. Every person individually makes this decision and is individually responsible for it. There is no one else is to blame. Every single person who is in Hell chooses to be there. And every single person who is in Heaven chooses to be there.
In this life, good and evil are at war with each other. Good stops evil from fully accomplishing its desires and evil stops good from fully accomplishing its desires. Good and evil can both be clearly seen and either path may be freely chosen. God makes His love for us very clear but does not force anyone to love Him in return. For that would also be considered tyranny.
Now if all evil were to be removed from the earth, in the blink of an eye, many would regard that as a kind of heaven. For good could finally fulfill all of its desires completely unrestrained by evil. Only goodness and love would remain. All wars would instantly cease. But if, instead, all good were removed from the earth, in the blink of an eye, most would regard that as a kind of hell. Only evil and hate would remain. Wars would not cease, but increase.
Evil desires to be free from submitting to God's will; and only seeks its own way. Evil desires separation from the presence of God. Hell is the ultimate answer to that desire and enables evil to exist unhindered throughout eternity. Separation from God ultimately means separation from all perfection, righteousness, goodness, love, mercy, joy, beauty, wisdom, power, and restraint. Evil will at last be totally free to unleash whatever it desires on those who love it. Perhaps that is why Hell will be a place of great torment.
The Christian desires to submit himself in agreement and love to the will of God. Heaven is the ultimate answer to that desire and enables that love for God to continue throughout all eternity. In the presence of God are perfection, righteousness, goodness, love, mercy, beauty, wisdom, and light. Perhaps that is why Heaven will be a place of great joy.
Kind Regards,
Ken
The “problem of Hell” has been debated for centuries by better men than I and is related to the “problem of Evil”. I seriously doubt that I can tell you anything that you do not already know about this subject, but for whatever it’s worth here are my own two cents.
God is both good and sovereign. God made a good and sovereign decision to give man freedom of choice. This freedom allows for the possibility of the existence of real love, which God desires. Without this freedom we would all merely be robotic bio-chemical machines, incapable of love. With this freedom, however, also comes the possibility of evil and the full responsibility for our choices and actions. We are free in this life to love God or reject God. We are free to choose good and we are free to choose evil. Because we are truly free we can be justly held responsible for our own actions by God. This is not tyranny; this is freedom, responsibility, and accountability.
God gives us chance after chance after chance after chance… to respond to His love in this life. Every person individually makes this decision and is individually responsible for it. There is no one else is to blame. Every single person who is in Hell chooses to be there. And every single person who is in Heaven chooses to be there.
In this life, good and evil are at war with each other. Good stops evil from fully accomplishing its desires and evil stops good from fully accomplishing its desires. Good and evil can both be clearly seen and either path may be freely chosen. God makes His love for us very clear but does not force anyone to love Him in return. For that would also be considered tyranny.
Now if all evil were to be removed from the earth, in the blink of an eye, many would regard that as a kind of heaven. For good could finally fulfill all of its desires completely unrestrained by evil. Only goodness and love would remain. All wars would instantly cease. But if, instead, all good were removed from the earth, in the blink of an eye, most would regard that as a kind of hell. Only evil and hate would remain. Wars would not cease, but increase.
Evil desires to be free from submitting to God's will; and only seeks its own way. Evil desires separation from the presence of God. Hell is the ultimate answer to that desire and enables evil to exist unhindered throughout eternity. Separation from God ultimately means separation from all perfection, righteousness, goodness, love, mercy, joy, beauty, wisdom, power, and restraint. Evil will at last be totally free to unleash whatever it desires on those who love it. Perhaps that is why Hell will be a place of great torment.
The Christian desires to submit himself in agreement and love to the will of God. Heaven is the ultimate answer to that desire and enables that love for God to continue throughout all eternity. In the presence of God are perfection, righteousness, goodness, love, mercy, beauty, wisdom, and light. Perhaps that is why Heaven will be a place of great joy.
Kind Regards,
Ken
1Dude said:
I might take issue with "God gives us chance after chance..." Are you suggesting that the Christian God gives us a multiplicty of evidence for his existence? It's one thing to say God gives us repeated chances to love each other, to act on the best in ourselves, to assume responsibility for our actions (keep in mind none of these are said to "save" us in the end); it is another thing entirely to suggest that God gives us abundant evidence that Christianity is indeed the one true religion. Personally, I see just as much evidence for Buddhism, Hinduism, or Islam... which isn't all that much, honestly.
I never questioned God's right to judge sinners -- my question has always been <i>why</i>, if not because of God's own personal choice, must sinners be separated forever?
To me, this situation appears as follows: God created us, created the world, perhaps left behind one book of stories, and sent his "son" to save us two thousand years ago. But, as far as 2004 is concerned, God has chosen to make his presence subtle enough that people are all over the world are either misinterpreting him (accounting for the diversity of worldwide religion) or outright making things up. As I said above, there is not overwhelming evidence that Christianity's God makes any more sense than the God of Islam or Zoroastrianism.
Now, one can choose to do all the things I listed before (love others, act responsibly)based on ample evidence that these acts produce goodness and harmony in the world, but Christianity says that this is not enough -- in fact, all that seems to be done in vain if we did not also <i>profess faith in the Christian God</i>, no? And so, when someone dies, he is confronted outright <u>for the first time</u> with the ultimate truth: the Christian God was real and all others were false. Then he is condemned or rewarded based upon his decision <i>in a previous life</i> to believe or disbelieve (a choice he made with little supporting evidence). And this judgment applies <i>forever</i>. Now, to my ears, this sounds about as reasonable as asking a child who just popped out of his mother's womb where he stands politically. He has not yet been supplied with enough information to make this decision and niether, in my mind, have we...
Your post largely addressed the problem of evil and the argument for free will (i.e. both good and evil will exist as byproducts of this freedom) -- I have no problem with that explanation, but that does not address my previous question. My concern is the fate of individuals in the afterlife and the reasons or justification given for an <i>eternal</i> Hell.
Now, at this moment, we have the capacity to change, do we not? Even evil people can reform, transform themselves; this is a fundamental tenet of Christianity. Forgiveness. I suppose I'm curious why, once ushered into the afterlife, humans are suddenly rendered unchangeable (?) If forgiveness is an active principle while we are alive, why not when we are dead? Are souls forever locked into a holding pattern of what they believed the instant before death? And how accurate of a picture of the total soul is that? By that I mean, since we do not know <i>for sure</i> what to believe going into death, why should that be the moment upon which we are judged forever?
After all, goodhearted, well-meaning people who fill their lives with love and forgiveness can and often do disagree -- not on love, but on religion and God. I suppose this comes back to that age old firestarter: Is Gandhi in Hell?
A respectful gadfly,
Josh
Medicine Woman said:
How do you figure? It's excessively selfish. You do know there are consequences to every action right? the consequences to your proposed actions are the destruction of earth, and a major increase in the level of suffering experienced by all non-human things. Real altruistic, I'd say its visciously ruthlessly selfish. Disgusting.
If thats true I want to sodomise god with a samurai sword.
The equivalent in a social situation to Loving humanity would be loving yourself, hugging yourself and angrily raping, murdering and thieving off of everyone else.
Ultimately you should love the universe, you should want whats best for all the bodies in the universe, individual humans are just like disposable cells of something much more important. If it is harmfull to that important thing for its cells to get out of control and start devouring it (obviously it would be, obviously it is) then you should hope for control of those harmfull cells.
What you're doing is barricking and cheering for cancer.
To give you some idea of what you look like to me, picture someone frothing at the mouth and cackling with ecstatic excitement as meat ants devour a screaming baby. How would such a person appear to you? How would you feel? Thats how you appear to me, and thats how you make me feel, you and the rest of your kind.
Now imagine that person having a holier than thou riteous attitude, like feeding alive babies to meat ants is what god would do and acting as though they are innocent and full of good thoughts, and wishing everyone could be as perfect as them.
Would that irritate you further?
Yeah well now you can abstractly almost get a vague picture of the kind of monster you are from my perspective.
JustARide said:
I think I understand where you are coming from. I grew up surrounded by the Christian world. In my own personal experience, I did have chance after chance to directly respond to God's love and in particular, the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. I went a little too far when I indicated that this exact experience is true for everyone else in the world. I was wrong. I expect that I will never have perfect understanding of many things. THANK YOU!
JustARide said:
Here is my imperfect response.
God is good and sovereign. He would not allow any evil to exist in His creation, unless His sovereignty and goodness were able to bring good even out of evil. He also would not allow evil to exist eternally in Hell, unless His sovereignty and goodness were able to bring eternal good even out of eternal evil. We can see that things are not what they should be now, in this life. Evil is currently allowed to destroy the good; evil wars against the good. Good men like you long to see final victory over evil, do you not? I often cry out to God to make it stop. Well, someday He will do exactly that very thing and it will be good. When he separates good from evil in Heaven and Hell the war will finally end for all eternity. Without an eternal Hell (separation) there would be no final victory over evil and the war between good and evil would rage on forever. Evil would never cease its destruction of the good and it would be impossible for Heaven to exist.
JustARide said:
This is certainly relevent here but this is also a really big subject. I do not agree completely with you on this point but I do not have the time to address it in this post. I will have to save this one for a future post. Sorry!
JustARide said:
I do not know the answers to all of your good questions. I do think that God gives each person enough information in creation, and in their own conscience to respond to Him; even if only at a very basic level of understanding. If they respond to Him even at that most basic level He will reveal a little bit more truth about Himself to them. If they respond to that He will reveal more, etc, etc. God only, can know the heart of a person in this matter. And only He can balance mercy and justice to bring the correction of all things to an equitable conclusion. You and I and Mr. Gandhi are all in the hands of a good, merciful, perfect and righteous judge. That is a very good place to be and that is where I will leave it. I simply trust Him in this.
Out of Time! Good friends challenge each other to improve like iron sharpens iron.
Ken
PrinceOfDarkness
Registered Member
Assuming there is a God, assuming He did create the universe, then the first problem is what are His characteristics? Is He humorous, fun-loving, carefree or a strict disciplinarian?
Many people, religions even, define God as the immortal perfect supernatural all-knowing all-powerful being. I'd just like to ask you people why did this so called perfect, all-knowing, being create life? Was He getting bored, and needed some fun? or He required somekind of help, which is contradictory to His definition!
And just to make this clear. Atheists won't have denied the existence of God, if the theists ever produced any proof (materialistic/physical) of God. However, the fact is they haven't. So, its not the fault of atheists that they don't believe in some imaginary creature, but its the 'assumption' (perhaps faulty) of the theist that God exists!
Many people, religions even, define God as the immortal perfect supernatural all-knowing all-powerful being. I'd just like to ask you people why did this so called perfect, all-knowing, being create life? Was He getting bored, and needed some fun? or He required somekind of help, which is contradictory to His definition!
And just to make this clear. Atheists won't have denied the existence of God, if the theists ever produced any proof (materialistic/physical) of God. However, the fact is they haven't. So, its not the fault of atheists that they don't believe in some imaginary creature, but its the 'assumption' (perhaps faulty) of the theist that God exists!
1Dude said:
Oh, now that's no way to start a post!
Even if we must somehow assume the battle between good and evil must come to an end (something I think we need not presume, unless we are only in this game to satisfy some inner urge we have as humans to see the universe wrapped up in a neat Hollywood-style bow), the question of eternal damnation of souls remains problematic.
You say God must separate evil from good forever in order to achieve finality in this little universal storybook, as it were. Fair enough, but I would say if one wants to finish evil off <i>for good</i>, one would not merely separate the two sides, but destroy evil entirely; this would require that even Hell -- and Satan along with it -- should vanish, not simply continue to exist apart from good. After all, what would be the point? If the dynamic tension between good and evil (the product of free will) no longer applies, why allow the evil and suffering to go on?
The problem still comes back to judgment. Good may overcome evil one day, and that indeed may require a certain final judgment, but as our lives on Earth right now testify, that moment of finality can be postponed and, in fact, has been at least for the past 2000 years. God, for whatever reason, has not stopped this world from spinning just yet. So what, one might ask, happened to a man judged worthy of Hell in 1879? Is he merely in limbo, awaiting that final judgment that will send him to burn forever, or is he already there? And if he is already there, why was his sentence made eternal so early? While the good/evil battle rages, could he not have a chance to change?
The issue here, as I see it, is Forgiveness Vs. Final Judgment. If I might be so bold, I would suggest that the two <u>cannot</u> exist together -- for if forgiveness is still in play, why should judgment be final? And by the same token, if judgment is final, isn't there no longer any chance of forgiveness? Why not condemn sinners, but allow them time in which to repent or to change, and <i>then</i> close the door forever? Furthermore, why not finally blink Hell and its occupants out of existence instead of allowing them to continually suffer for eternity?
This, of course, is the argument from faith. Let me say... even though I am a professed agnostic, I am not beyond entertaining thoughts of the divine, and -- in peculiar, mostly unexpected ways -- glimpsing scenes of life that make me wonder about the possibilities of what lies beyond our limited senses. While I do not resonate with the jury-judge-executioner God of the Bible, I do not entirely discount the sentiments you just expressed, and here's why...
Though I have a great deal of faith in science when it comes to the commonplace, I do not believe it has infinite capacity (mostly because <i>we</i>, the practitioners of science, do not have infinite capacity ourselves). So, I appreciate Einstein's famous quote, "Imagination is more important than knowledge." What fascinates me about life is its mystery and oftentimes unexplainable beauty. Even some things which do not lie beyond the reach of science (Beethoven composing his ninth symphony while largely deaf, for instance) stir me up inside. Amazing people stir me up. Creativity stirs me up. And occasionally, I wonder if there is not something that drives us and is, indeed, meant to be responded to.
I once heard a preacher on Bill Moyer's PBS show "Now" say something that <i>did</i> resonate with me. I'll have to paraphrase, but it went something like this: "Maybe the most important thing is not whether or not someone believes in God -- maybe it's that God believed in him." Now, even to someone like me who does not profess belief in one God or another, that line struck me as having some truth. There are people all over the world -- Christians, Muslims, Hindus, agnostics, what have you -- that have responded to the best inside themselves, whether in politics, religion, art, or simple daily life. I'd like to think <i>those</i> people are on the right track. I can't say whether or not it is God they are responding to, but if there is a God, I would certainly hope so.
That's why I mentioned in my last post the idea of God giving us enough time to act on the best in ourselves, to love each other, to take responsibility for our actions. Those <i>are</i> worthy goals. I'm just curious why a God who supposedly inspires them would use "belief" or religious persuasion as the litmus test for passage to Heaven. Take away that Christian bias and what would you have? A God who loved people for who they were, not what book they chose to have faith in.
Whenever I bring up Gandhi, Christians usually react in one of two ways: either quickly agree that he was condemned for being a Non-Christian (the fundamentalist position) or that they trust God judged him accordingly. Now, if I were to take the Bible at face value, I'd have to say the fundamentalist position makes more sense, simply because it is unflinching and clear, not unlike the Bible's very condemnation of those who do not believe. There are precious few Bible passages that can be interpreted as wishy-washy toward nonbelievers. However, it's clear to me that those who say they trust in God have on some level a doubt, if just a minor one, that God would be as cruel as the scripture depicts. Then suddenly they rest their authority not upon a Bible verse, but on faith. I guess I wonder why they feel drawn to have faith in something that, if they were perhaps more honest with themselves, they despise.
It comes down to an interesting paradox:
Christians often say they believe because the Bible touched their hearts in one way or another -- inspired them. Then they adopt the faith. From then on, when confronted with something in the scripture that repels them, that fails to speak to their hearts, they now say they must embrace it anyway -- because the very faith they adopted out of inspiration says they must deny that inspiration.
Man, when I get on a jag, it never stops.
Your friendly debator,
Josh
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