What is “spiritual” love? And what does good and evil have to do with belief in God? Atheists are perfectly capable of not only knowing the difference between good and evil, but also - gasp! - choosing good over evil. Atheists are also perfectly capable of loving and forgiving others without an “understanding of God” entering into it. Some of them even have non-religious words for this: words like “compassion” and “empathy”.
But maybe I’m misunderstanding your point.
God said so is not sufficient reason. Basically you are describing a no win scenario. Either do as god says or suffer the consequences. Well I’m not saying I would want to burn in hell, but that hardly sounds like a deity who gives free will to his creations does it? It’s a basic catch 22, “you can do what you like, as long as what you want to do is exactly what I tell you to do”.
We only have gods word that he is omniscient and all powerfull, so unless given proof to the contrary I would have to disagree with that being.
Even if I was given proof of its infallibility, to exist in a universe where only those that bow and scrape to an egomaniac spirit would be unbearable, like complete slavery. Might is right taken to the ultimate extreme. That is no way to exist, oblivion might be better.
Fortunately I don’t believe this is the case, even if there is a god, I doubt it would turn out to be like the OT God. Of course if it does then I’m doomed.
Please clarify how standing up against an oppresive bully is selfish, to me that is a selfless act, not a selfish one.
As an addendum to the above and to actually answer the OP.
I would not choose hell
But I do not believe the OT god is just, and so would probably be sent to hell regardless of whether I wanted to go or not. Assuming such a god actually exists of course, which I doubt.
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I think that the God of the Old Testament is not intended to be just. His purpose is the protection of the descendants of Abram and the advancement of their interests against all comers.
The best answer to this question that I’ve ever seen is C. S. Lewis’s book The Great Divorce. It’s a story/parable in which a bunch of people from Hell take a bus trip to Heaven, and some of them choose to stay there but others choose rather to return to Hell.
No, I think you understand. But I am not sure whether you are for, or against, atheistism. Doesn’t matter what a person believes, as to whether he/she will enter “heaven.” Works like this: thoughts and beliefs complement each other. Beliefs cause certain thoughts, and thoughts will cause certain beliefs. It goes around and around. It is actions that count. Actions reveal what a person believes much better than thoughts or words. So it is the actions that count the most. Whoever does the right things will end up in the good place. Doesn’t matter what they call themselves, words are cheap.
Now spiritual love is:
How is it “hypocrisy” to obey the Creator of the Universe?
Leave it to self-styled “intellectuals” to sit in judgement of God Almighty.
Who are you to say “how moral a life” you lead? Where do you get your standards fo morality?
There is a profound body of evidence in, of, and about the Holy Bible. Try reading “The Case for Christ” and “More Evidence That Demands a Verdict” by Josh McDowell. Then there is the scientific and statistical evidence. Begin with “Rare Earth” by Brownlee, and then read something else, which I forget.
But it’s really, really good. Oh and don’t forget the Anthropic Principle. And please, nobody give me the nonsense of “Multiverses.” That’s about as anti-scientific as it gets.
Nobody “sets people up to go straight to hell.” In fact, it takes wholesale rejection of the Creator. He says, “Those who honor me I will honor.”
Contrast this with your own condescension in calling Him emotionally unstable.
Here is some of the silliness prattled by enlightened “scientists” who just happen to be atheists, like you.
“Sex was invented.” - Carl Sagan in “Cosmos”
“We will spread throughout the Milky Way.” - Carl Sagan
“We will become God.” - Victor Stenger in “Finding Darwin’s God”
-Sophistry and Illusion
Note I did not say that you will deserve an eternity of hellfire, just that you have chosen that you wish to not acknowledge God, so God is allowing your choice and you can live the rest of eternity w/o Him. For all I know that means living on a beach somewhere being fanned and fed pealed grapes.
** Stryfe ** I think one thing we learn is for every question we answer at least 2 more come up (in the grand scheme of things), which once again tends towards the there is a God side.
Actually evolution can’t prove ANY of the 3 examples I listed.
Religion is an invention of man and not what we are talking about here. We are talking about faith in a God - totally different subject.
** woodstockbirdybird ** it depends on who you ask in no way defeated, not even close. Also note that the people who are considered the greatest minds ever (Einstein for one) knew there was a God just from their understanding of the universe.
I think you have the basics down just fine.
May I share a little of my own journey? I was raised as a Christian in a non-fundamentalist home. My first two years of college were as a religious education major. I remain a Christian because of the teachings of Jesus, but I do not believe in a physical hell. I would still be a Christian if there were no promise of heaven. I have learned much from the Bible, although it can see, very confusing and contradictory at times, and I continue to learn from the presence of the “Holy Spirit” in my life. (No, I’m not even sure what that means.)
This Spiritual aspect of my life has led me to read from other teachers. I believe that all paths lead to God and I have come to think of “him” as sort of “the Great Cosmic Glue.” 
Of course, most of this makes less and less sense as I write it down. It is to be experienced, not written about.
I believe that God is a God of love and mercy and that life everlasting is going to be quite different than what most of us have imagined and much, much better. No soul will be left out, but will be in its purest, perfect version.
When you are your purest self, and we are too, we are One.
Love that which you feel is God, even if unnamed, and love your fellow man. Inquire within. Everything else will fall into place.
Pax
You… you’re serious? I mean, I’m a Christian myself, but I’d recommend a spiritual seeker read The Book of the SubGenius before I’d tell 'em to read this garbage.
This, however, is actually a good book.
It is not so much that an individual chooses hell but that he chooses, like Eve, to NOT believe God and that he says what he means and means what he says.
Okay, here’s my views thus far:
We’ve strayed away from the “free will” question a bit, but oh well.
Stryfe, I disagree completely, I’m sorry, with your reasoning. No, the OT God doesn’t seem (in the manner that I would view another PERSON) to be a very nice guy, but when you hypothesize, saying, “If by some chance it turns out that I am wrong…” (which I believes insinuates, “suppose God the OT God is, well, God”) then there is NO reasonable grounds to argue/act against Him because you WOULD be wrong. If he created everything, he is right, and you standing up to him isn’t dignified, but childish. Like VarlosZ said, “It means standing up for what you know to be wrong, because at least it’s yours – in other words, it has become the ultimate act of selfishness, rather than the opposite.”
Like I said, though, if the Torah/OT/Koran God were a normal (that’s to say, human) dude or a dudette, I would so oppose him/her on principle, but the rules are kind of changed when your dogmatic opponent is God.
Building on that, I DO find it harder and harder to believe that the OT God is little more than man’s inability to explain natural phenomena. Furthermore, I read somewhere that there was a gnostic group (called Ophites, I believe) in days of yore that taught that the God of the OT was actually Satan and that the Serpent was the God of the NT. It’s an interesting thought, but that’s a whole nother thread (which I might start right after I write this).
Lekatt, it’s exactly the type of outlook you present that has caused me to evaluate religion so much. I’ve grown up in the South in the US (otherwise known as the Bible Belt). I’ve been surrounded by people claiming and expressing devotion to Christ, but sometimes I don’t understand how they can be so devoted to a religion of compassion and yet sometimes be so hateful. I don’t mean all Christians BY ANY MEANS. I hate to generalize, but for the sake of time, just bear with me, please.
All I’m saying is that it’s so easy to hear devout Christians preaching what seems to me to be hate and intolerance. I’m sure anyone reading this can think of a million examples (to be clear, I can think of many more examples of Christians showing love to their fellow man).
To cut it short, Lekatt, all I want to do is help people. All I want to do is unite people. I myself have found that life becomes easier, not harder, the more selfless you become, and I think that’s what religion acknowledges. HOWEVER, I think that’s what many religious people miss. They repeat the words from the Bible, but they forget the actions.
This is a sappy tangent and I don’t know how to end it.
Presenting quotes from two people that said things that you see as absurd doesn’t prove you’re point. Carl Sagan and Victor Stenger don’t speak for me, and, furthermore, I’m not an athiest. I just don’t have a name for my religion.
I still love you ALL.
Have a good day/night.
This is nothing but an appeal to imagined authority. If one does not accept the proposition that any of this stuff comes from a “creator” (and there is no reason one is obligated to) then all we’re doing is judging the moral systems of human beings and finding the expected human flaws.
You’re presuming your own conclusion. We have been no reason to believe that popular Christians notions of salvation and damnation have any derivation from “God Almighty.” We are judging human beliefs, beliefs that are entirely unsupported by empirical evidence, and finding them morally wanting and shot through with logical flaws.
Aside from that, what’s wrong with passing moral judgement on God? How can you even avoid it if you believe in such a thing. When you make a personal decision that God is “good,” it is just as much a personal moral judgement as to decide that God is evil. The decision ultimately comes down to your own personal judgement either way. There’s no escaping it. At bottom, we are all what **Liberal[/b’ likes to call “free moral agents.”
Who are YOU to say YOUR moral system is the right one?
Personally, I completely make them up as I go along. For me “right and wrong” is whatever I decide it is on any given day. Much of my morality is driven by personal conscience. It makes me feel bad to hurt people, so therefore I try to avoid hurting people. Basically, my morality is all just based in my own personal intuitions and feelings about things. This may sound flippant, but it’s actually the exact same thing that everyone else does. Deciding to follow a religious morality is still an autonomous decision that you know what’s right and wrong all by yourself.
McDowell is a hack, amateur apologist whose books are demolished for sport by internet skeptics and atheists. There are far more serious and sophiticated apologists than McDowell out there, I assure you, but if you think this guy really has the goods then I would invite you to present some examples of what you believe to be his very strongest “evidence” or arguments and I will be happy to rip it to shreds. McDowell depends on his audience not being particularly educated and easily swayed by tendentious arguments and bogus assumptions. For anyone who knows what their doing, he’s extremely easy to refute.
No there isn’t.
Ward and Brownlee’s “Rare Earth” hypothesis is not a scientific argument for God, but just an attempt to argue that intelligent life is rare in the universe. Whoop-de-doo. They try to make some suggestions about ID but they hardly come close to proving it.
I’ll bet a dollar the book whose title you “forget” is Behe’s Darwin’s Black Box. Am I right?
Are you talking about the book or just the fallacy in general?
How so? Please explain why the multiverse hypothesis is “anti-scientific.”
How do you know what he says?
No matter. It’s still God’s decision to fry people for nothing. Essentially, what you seem to believe is that God wants everybody to correctly guess, without evidence, precisely which supernatural belief system is the “true” one from an infinite number of possibilities. How good of a person you are is irrelevant. Guess the magic number and you go to heaven. Guess wrong and you get tortured for all eternity.
It is impossible that such a God could be called good.
Wasn’t it? Human sexuality has no cultural or imaginative construct to it at all?
Why is this silly?
I don’t know the context of this but I’m sure it was intended figuratively.
On the subject of Sagan, you should really do yourself a favor and pick up a copy of The Demon-Haunted World. It’s possibly the best book on critical thinking ever written.
Sagan was not a hard atheist, FYI. He was an agnostic who always said we didn’t have enough data to know whether gods existed or not.
Rather, to NOT believe what other humans tells us God is saying and what He means by it.
There are two camps for the word “believe”
The problem presented by the OP resolves itself nicely if we remove literalism from the equation.
I can truly say, “I believe in God,” if I hold the behaviour this implies to be of value.
For example: Yeah, I think it’s swell to love my neighbour as myself. I believe this is a fine way to conduct myself. If I reject this belief (my free-will choice) I will suffer the consequence of strife-ridden relations with my neighbour - a hell of my own choosing.
Said another way: Pick your ancient text, treat it as allegorical, and see if the framework of thought it provides is something you can believe in.
That’s the conclusion I’ve settled on for the moment.
Back to the free will element. What about what John Calvin (I think) said (in an essay of which I can’t remember the title), which was essentially:
When John baptized Jesus, a dove flew over. John saw the dove as the holy spirit, but there could have just as easily been another person there who saw the dove as just a dove. No one made a choice as to how they percieved the dove.
So where does that leave free will? Why will someone have faith in a text and another won’t?
Y’all get what I’ve saying?
There was a time when I severely doubted God’s existence. Looking back, I realize that this was largely a voluntary process. I knew that disbelieving God would free me up from certain obligations. As a result, I focused on the evidence which suggested God’s non-existence, and avoided the evidence which suggested his existence. Similarly, I dwelled on questions which (on a superficial level) seemed to imply God’s absence, and refused to pursue them further to determine if they truly implied such a thing.
I’ll agree that one can’t muster belief in any belief whatsoever (e.g. your Superman example). However, this does not imply that beliefs in general have no voluntary component to them.
Let’s see here. So either I really did choose to disbelieve in God, but I just don’t know it/won’t acknowledge it; or if I reflected on the evidence in a more objective manner, then I would believe in God. First, I really, truly did not choose to disbelieve. You are just going to have to believe me on this one. I simply found myself unable to believe in God. Second, I have focused on the arguments exhaustively. I teach a university-level course on philosophy of religion, for chrissake! I have painstakingly gone through the argument from design, the argument from evil, etc., etc., etc. I even go out of my way to find pro-religious arguments–for example, I have my students read about Martin Rees’s book Six Numbers, which argues that there are six physical constants in the universe and that if any of them had been even the slightest bit different, life of any sort would have been impossible. (Of course, Rees is not a theist, but his work offers a novel and powerful (for the students) way of presenting the argument from design). None of this has done any good. I simply can’t believe. I suppose I could ignore the evidence against God and focus only on the evidence for God. But as I noted in a previous post, (1) that would be intellectually irresponsible, and (2) I would already have to believe in God for this to strike me as a good strategy to pursue. Ergo, in my case (and I assume I am far from unique), my disbelief in God is in no way voluntary.