The pastor that married my wife and I asked me, “Don’t you want to believe we all go a great place when we die instead of rotting in the ground like a dog?”.
Wanting to believe you’ll win the lottery tomorrow doesn’t make it true and buying lotto tickets is a net loss so is actually harmful.
So, is the OP gonna reveal the tabulation of this survey, or what?
Heh, the response that popped into my mind to the pastor’s statement is “Actually no, I’m too busy wanting to believe I’m Napolean. Being Napolean would be awesome!”
I woulda said, “What, you mean dogs don’t go to heaven?”
[del]I’m willing to acknowledge[/del] I see your point.
mmm
You’re making an assumption about me based on very little information.
Which you just didn’t provide, in addition to not answering the question. Are you surprised or not at these answers?
I’m agnostic.
Yes on the first, no on the second.
I accept that some people really do believe in their god(s) and that their religious feelings give them comfort. I don’t have those same beliefs but I don’t begrudge them theirs nor am I jealous of them in any way and I don’t feel that anything is missing from my life.
Intellectually I’m curious as to why people believe (no desire to get into those reasons in your thread) but nothing has ever made me feel that I’m missing out - it always seems to come down to either “faith” or various reasons that just don’t make me a believer.
I’ve done things that I knew were bad and made me feel bad afterwards. Sometimes short-term gratification trumps acting right.
Maybe these homosexual anti-gay crusaders you’re talking about were struggling with trying to act against their sexuality, which as we know is very difficult. Maybe having sex with men made them feel horrible afterward, but they’re still hard-wired for it.
In Man’s Search for Meaning, psychiatrist Victor Frankl reflected on his days as an inmate in a Nazi death camp. Among other things he noted that the ruthless psychopathic types tended to survive better at first, but as time went on it was the more religious and/or philosophical types who survived better. Research has shown that religious people live longer, have better physical and mental health, and report a higher level of contentment and happiness.
I doubt that people would have evolved a capacity for religion if it had not served some survival function.
If you’re shopping for clothes, would this be God of The Gap?
Yes to the first.
To the second I’m not sure that envy is the right word for what I feel. I know it would be easier in some ways for me to deal with grief and loss if I believed in a beneficient and personal deity. But I also think that such belief is apt to cause people to believe in ways that are arrogant, foolish, and sometimes downright evil.
I did not provide the information, that’s correct. Are assumptions and generalizations then acceptable? Additionally, I was not even asked to provide the info before said assumption was made.
Anyway…
As for The Question - No, I can’t say that the answers surprised me.
BTW, I wasn’t totally comfortable with the word ‘envy’ myself, but I didn’t know how else to phrase it. That’s why I preceded it with ‘any measure of’, in an effort to soften its weight.
This has really been an interesting discussion.
Why do you say that?
It hasn’t been a discussion. Discussion requires participation from two sides.
Yes.
No (unless we deem ignorance as bliss in which case yes).
I count far more than two participants.
Because it brought up angles and analogies that I hadn’t previously considered (comparing a believer to a blind person (post #19), a child attaining adulthood ( #20) or a heroin addict (#53).
Also, the number of instances where a non-believer admitted to some envy (albeit with the occasional disclaimer) (posts #5, 6, 22, 23, 25, 26, 27, 28, 33, 34, 35, 38, & 72) is much higher than I might have predicted. So, as far as being surprised by the responses, I think I was too hasty in saying that I was not surprised; this did take me by surprise.
Finally, because this quote (from LonesomePolecat post #90) gave me much to contemplate:
What, you didn’t consider my envying their capacity for unbounded evil to count? 
(Seriously though. Unbounded, guilt-free evil. If not for the whole being-gunned-down-by-the-cops thing it would be perfect.)
Until now, we’ve all been speaking to what seemed like an unresponsive wall. A discussion requires response, feedback, reaction. You’ve been very coy and this post is the first sign that there might be the possibility of an actual conversation. So, for you it might have been interesting, but the rest of us have been waiting for you to show your cards.