So if there is NOTHING, as you say. And you are CERTAIN of that - then am I right in assuming you BELIEVE there will be NOTHING after you die, and there was NOTHING before you got here?
You are spot on. I do not believe in any god, in the existence of souls, etc. This is not going to change.
I do not care what you believe. I don’t know why anyone cares what I believe either.
Dreamer, you deliberately missed the point of my first post. I do not appreciate people, like Shagnasty, implying that anyone doesn’t believe is there ‘IS’ something must be an idiot.
I have seen Heaven with my own eyes.
Her name is Caroline.
If I was a crude man I could also say that I have been in Heaven, but I won’t. 
Heaven can’t be that boring. Lucifer used to be in Heaven, and you know the trouble he stirred up! Even if they kicked most of the bad boys out, there will probably be a few trouble makers left, plus a few pwer sturggles as Satan does his thing. I don’t think i’ll be bored for a minute if i make it there.
Ok, Larry, I’m a little pissed off at you. I’ve been thinking about this, and I am. Let me preface this comment by saying I am an atheist. I don’t believe in any deity or dieties, and don’t see myself ever doing so. That being said, the treatment of religion in your posts seems unfair to me. You set up straw men (that Jews and Christians believe that the story of Noah’s Ark is literal, that heaven hasharps and wings and the sitting around), then you point out that these ideas are foolish and that, therefore, religious people are foolish. It’s not a fair characterization, and frankly, I have a problem with it.
I believe Heaven will be simliar to Earth-only magnified. It will be warm and cozy, with good food, and good people, it will be peaceful, yet still exciting and interesting.
Okay LunaSea I get your point. I guess I do care what you believe and wondered why you believe it so strongly is all.
There are also Christians, such as us LDS, who don’t postulate anything at all like what the OP describes as Heaven.
To Monty, Heaven may very well be no more tests.
To me, it may well be chocolate forever…
vanilla,
That is a very good point. That just might be what it is.
Now, if it’s carob forever, then I’ll be happy!
In MY Heaven, I get to play baseball everyday. I’d play 2nd base, Lou Gehrig is playing first, Honus Wagner is at shortstop, the outfield is Mickey Mantle, Ted Williams, and Stan Musial. Johnny Bench is catching and at 3rd base is… um… some really good player - maybe Brooks Robinson or Mike Schmidt. (Ok, I know Musial, Williams, and Bench aren’t dead, but hopefully they’ll be there before me. I don’t wish any ill towards them, but I’m only 28 and I’d like to hang around here a bit longer.)
So anyway, we play baseball everyday and every game is Game 7 of the OtherWorld Series. In the bottom of the 9th of every game, I miraculously win the Series for the Bethlehem Messiahs by hitting a grand slam with the bases empty.
Should I choose not to play baseball one day, my favorite films are always showing at the movie theater. The steaks are always cooked to perfection. The TV reception is crystal clear. There is an all-Simpsons channel, an all-Monty Python channel, and an all-Mystery Science Theater 3000 channel among others. The buttons on my video game controller never jam and I never need to use a GameShark. No one is ever hogging the Pac-Man machine at the arcade.
At the end of the day, I go to my private room for blowjobs or sex with some of the sexiest women who ever lived and enjoy orgasms that last for 90 minutes.
I know this is the pit, Amazing, so I should probably answer in a manner to make you imagine veins popping in my neck, but I will instead be conciliatory because I like you and all the other posters (there being no reason I know of not to). I don’t think religious people are necessarily foolish, including all the ones I grew up with whose ideas and interpretations of the Bible and religion in general were spoon fed to me (in some cases more like pounded into me) when I was too young to resist. But I do think some ideas are foolish, and I relate those as I have heard them and then point out what I think is foolish about them. Isn’t that what the boards are for (especially the pit)? I don’t attack anyone personally, and if the ideas I do attack seem like straw men to you, they have greater significance for me.
Some of the resonses from other Dopers have given me some food for thought. Not that they’ve changed my mind, but they have made me realize that there are quite a few ideas out there that don’t jibe with what I always thought of as “mainstream” Christianity.
As an avowed atheist, you must have come up against biases and opinions that rubbed you the wrong way. Are you so level-headed that you always just suck it up and say to youself, “well, that’s just how it is.” Surely you realize that as an atheist, your chances of ever holding a public office are severely limited (if you ever wanted to). If you are ever called on to testify in court, if you make a point of “affirming” your testimony rather than swearing to it you must know your chances of being believed by a jury are less than if if you could say, “so help me God.”
I know I carry more anger with all the baggage than is healthy for me, and I’m working on it. In the meantime, the pit and the other boards seem like an ideal outlet where I can get it off my chest without blowing friendships (to say nothing of getting my tires slashed :D).
If I have insulted anybody, I apologize, although it will probably happen again. I mean well.
But what about vanilla, dear?
Yes, I know, that’s bad. Stop hitting me, wouldja!
Well, Larry, I certainly don’t want veins to pop in your neck. Your right, as an atheist, I do have to face a lot of people’s prejudices and misconceptions about what I believe. Because of this, I try to be careful to avoid misconceptions about other people’s beliefs.
You’re right, some ideas are foolish. It’s foolish, to take an example you gave before, to expect that a man could build a boat able to carry 2 of every different kind of animal. But most people already know that that’s foolish, and those people who believe it happened, do so by faith, not by logic, which means they can’t be convinced by logic.
I’m not saying you shouldn’t stand up and argue against foolish ideas, or bring up things that bother you. The Straight Dope is great for that. Just remember that those ideas you’re arguing against have some people of goodwill who believe in them.
We’re agreed. Geez Louise, how un-pitlike! 