Well, all the people that did me wrong… like kids that use to pick on me in school, would hopefully learn a lesson in some form or another. I wouldn’t want them to spend time in a place like Hell, but I would like them to feel the pain they caused me. I would also like to be rewarded for the good things I’ve done.
I don’t blame people for who they are, (bad OR good). But knowing there’s no such thing as “karma”, I would like people learn/“pay” for their mistakes, (… and that includes myself), and learn/get rewarded for their good deeds.
The fact that whoever picked on me in school will never be able to understand what they did to me really pisses me off. I’m not mad at them personally, I just wish they could empathize.
I also wish my prayers would be heard and, um… considered too, (if I did pray).
I wish I could go to church and meet new people.
I wish there was meaning in life that doesn’t involve just populating the Earth, and god could answer all my questions.
Depends. If he’ll smite my enemies when I pray for it, then he just might get my vote. As things stand, I’m cool with the status quo of there being no god.
No. If there was a god, the human condition and the nature of the universe implies that it would be at best utterly indifferent to our happiness and welfare. The best we could hope for from this god would be nothing; and there’d always be the possibility that it would decide to do something disastrous to our part of the universe and we’d be utterly powerless to do anything about it. A human wanting a god is about as sensible as an ant wanting a human; what if it’s an exterminator?
As for a purpose; tools have a purpose, and I don’t want to be a tool.
No, definitely not. Even if you don’t take it as far as Christopher Hitchens’ “celestial North Korea” argument there are more than a few downside to the concept. I don’t wish that a lot of the big issues and decisions in my life were delegated to someone else.
Do you know that they didn’t?
You’ve never gotten any kind of reward for doing anything good? I think you mean you want big rewards and want to see other people punished in a major way. This gets to be a problem if other people feel you’ve really hurt them.
You could. There are more than a few atheists in Unitarian churches.
You’ve confused the drive to reproduce (which creates lives) with the meaning of life. They’re different things. Your life is your own, which means it has the meaning you give it. There’s not much point in wishing someone else could assign a meaning to your life- what if you didn’t like that meaning?
I have always been a little jealous of people who have faith, because when they tell someone to “go to hell”, they have the comfort of believing that hell exists and wicked people end up there.
…but for me, wickedness is a matter of perspective. Outside of the individual’s experience, the value judgement of “good” or “bad” does not exist, and things simply are. After I cease to exist, there will be no third-party evaluation of my actions. My first-person experience is of significance only to myself, and this places the weight of evaluation squarely on my shoulders.
What is the joke? Christians are good for fear of hell, but Atheists are good for nothin’.
Let’s say they are homeless now… I wouldn’t feel satisfied with that “punishment”. I would rather they be rich in this life, and learn in the after-life about how they effected me.
The kids that picked on me, I highly doubt regret it.
I want to fully understand what I’ve done wrong and overlooked too. It’s not about making people suffer.
Don’t want to hurt people, I just want them to learn… “touch a hot stove” style. And most of the good things I do, no one knows about. “If you do good, you get a lollipop”
I don’t know what those are yet, I need to look them up. Do they worship god? Where does the money in the collection plate go?
I really don’t feel there’s ‘meaning’ to my life. I can’t give my own life meaning at this point… Just be a good person I guess.
What if I didn’t like that meaning… good question. I don’t know.
