Granted. I’m just saying that God’s “all-forgiving” nature doesn’t mean that he would “certainly forgive [your] skepticism or [your] choosing to worship him in another form or my outright disbelief.”
Your friendly clearly hasn’t converted 200 atheists on their deathbeds because he knows seems to know very little about how atheists actually think. I suspect that the truth is that he’s convinced 200 unobservant Christians to reaffirm their faith before dying. But a lapsed Christian is not equivalent to a real atheist.
I’m an atheist because I believe as a fundamental TRUTH that THE SUPERNATURAL DOESN’T EXIST. There is no such thing as ghosts or gods or magic, and those who believe in such things are deluding themselves.
START, how do you know your god is the right god? What if the Hindus are right? Are you prepared to stand before Lord Yama and justify your stiff-necked Christianity?
The connection I felt to ‘God’ was never found in a church or during prayers or any other religious activity. Whenever I walk out in nature or see a particularly beautiful natural site, I get filled with this incredible feeling of joy, peace and beauty. I equated it with feeling God before although now I just think of it as sort of being ‘one’ with everything. I can’t really describe it. If I felt it again and this time I was sure that it was God, then I would be religious/spiritual again.
I’ve also always been insanely lucky. When I was religious I assumed it was that God was looking out for me and providing for me. Now I believe that I make my own ‘luck’ through how I look at and react to certain situations.
Wouldn’t work. As has been said, either you believe or you don’t. If This God Person is omnicient, then He’d know I was faking my belief. It’d take a personal Visit at this point for me to change my position that God does not exist as presented by those who witness.
When I was younger and allowed myself to believe in a bad devil in his Hell, and to believe that even the Believers in Christ could slip up and burn for an eternity for an unrepented sin, it made sense to me to believe: One should worship Satan, Because if you are into God but get judged and sent to Hell, it’ll suck. But if you’re into The Devil, then there’s no way you’ll be in Heaven and when you get to Hell Satan will recognize you as being loyal to Him and maybe things’ll be better for you.
Damned manipulative paradigm that threatens an eternity of malaise for the nonbelievers if you ask me. You can keep it.
Um…same God, dude. Do ya know anything about Islam?
Absolutely 0. One, I’m a pretty firm Jew. ;j Second, I personally believe god doesn’t really care about such things anyway. Religion helps you get through life, the Universe takes care of death on its own.
That’s in your opinion (and the opinion of Christianity). What if I feel that Jesus was just a guy with a good scam, “Hey guys! I’m the son of God! By the way, I am God too!” Then repenting and accepting Jesus as my personal savior will condemn me to… hmmmm… what WOULD it condemn me to? Judaism doesn’t have hell… Where do bad Jews go?
I was raised Christian and am the classic agnostic. I have no clue whether there is a God and I don’t believe that there’s any way to prove it one way or the other. I accept that and pray once in a while (can hurt) and admit in my prayers that I don’t know. I could easily start going to church and lead a life as Christian as anyone, but I hate hypocrasy.
The chances of a deathbed conversion because some idiot is bothering me? 0% The chances that I’ll lie and say I see Mohammad coming to get me? 82.453%
Duh… consider that "(can hurt) to be (can’t hurt)…
Why do I never see things like that when I proofread and always see it just after I post it?
Please remember that this is a poll, not a debate.
Thank you.
Ok then, the answer is no.
My guess about these 200+ last-minute converts? They’re every bit as fictional as this God guy is.
I mean, think about it. You’re an atheist, who’s dying. Are you going to want to spend time around your friends and family? Or are you going to want to spend time around some guy threatening you with fire and brimstone? When F&B guy comes around, are you listening politely, or are you ringing the buzzer for the nurse and asking the nurse to call security?
Multiply that times 200. I think that calling someone hedonistic, irresponsible, and insecure in their worldly beliefs counts as bearing false witness against them, and I think that somebody has broken a certain commandment 200 times.
Daniel
<<Sigh>> Look, Dangerosa is the one who said, “If God is all-forgiving…” I’m just pointing out that the term “all-forgiving” doesn’t mean what she seems to imply. You may disagree with regard to the nature of God, but that’s an entirely different topic, and irrelevant to the subject at hand.
Besides, with the kind of logic embodies in your statement, you can justify pretty much anything. You can say, “Well, in my opinion, I need to sleep around with pre-teen girls in order to get into heaven. So there!” Opinions are a dime a dozen, and so merely having a different opinion counts for nothing. Heck, there are people (a great many, in fact), who self-contradictorily believe that there is no such thing as absolute truth. People can have all the opinions that they want, but merely doing so has no impact on reality.
This thing pisses me off to no end. (Not an attack at the OP, but at this sentiment).
This sentiment says that atheists are poor deluded souls, who don’t acknowledge God, because they don’t want to be accountable.
I think in most cases it is the other way around : people pretend to be Christians, so they are not accountable, because they will be forgiven in the end.
I don’t need a God to be accountable, I can account for myself.
If I do something wrong, I will have to answer to myself, not to some invisible God that doesn’t talk directly to me.
To answer the OP: Er… no. And I’m not even an atheist, just a committed agnostic. I can’t be sure that there is any sort of God, and until I am, I’m not going to profess any sort of belief. Simple as that.
About your friend’s theory: Honestly, START, I’m kind of surprised that you would give it much credence at all. You’ve been around the boards for long enough to have seen just how committed atheists and agnostics can be to their lack of faith. What makes you think that the folks here would be the exception, rather than the rule?
Echoing other posters to this thread: the chances are about the same as the odds that START would convert to the Church of the Sub-Genius if confronted with such a request on his death bed. I would also be suspicious that the would-be converter was taking advantage of my weakened ability to resist, which wouldn’t likely raise my opinion of him. Or his faith.
Too many believers seem to think that they’re the only ones who’ve given any thought to matters of death and the hereafter. This is as rude as the obnoxious, O’Hair-style atheists who declare that all religious people are weak-minded sheep.
Regarding the guy who claims to have converted 200 atheists on their deathbeds: I don’t buy it, for all the logistical reasons cited above. And for the additional reason that atheists changing their mind at the last minute are a long-time staple of urban myth: I argued thirty years ago with my high school social studies teacher about the story of Robert Ingersoll recanting.
Not really. If God is going to excise every inappropriate bit of my personality, including the bits that get bored, like beer, have a tendency to stay in bed on Sunday mornings, or whatever else won’t be available in Heaven, in what sense will I still be me? In what sense will it be heaven if the palates of the customers are whittled down to suit the restrictions of the menu?
By the same logic, watching paint dry could be heaven for someone if we surgically destroyed all of their brain functions except the ones that are content to observe drying pain. Problem is, you lose the ‘someone’ along the way.
I strongly disagree.
This might be your interpretation, or even the interpretation of the Holy Mother Church itself.
It doesn’t make it true.
You have been taught somebody’s interpretation of the Bible, that doesn’t necessarily make it true.