Very well-said. This is what I have been trying to convey. As I noted in a previous post, there are many Christians who believe that salvation only comes through belief in God, not merely through good works or loving behavior. But as the OPer and **Diogenes ** note, if we cannot control whether or not we believe in God, then it seems unjust to punish non-believers.
And you saying there is a plethora of evidence doesn’t make it so either. I happen to be a believer but I recognize that my belief is based on evidence and experiences that are meaningful to me in a way that noone else may understand or accept. My guess is that whatever evidence you think you have has been seen by the good folks on SDMB many times before and is evidence only to you and those who choose to see it as such. It is far from conclusive evidence. The fact is that the existance of God can neither be proved or disproved. Choose what you want to believe. It is your right, and the right of those who disagree with you.
Any adult who goes through some life experiences will find their moral compass fluctuating and changing. Even christians have days when they are less patient, more judgemental, more selfish than other days. Their moral compass doesn’t always point to Jesus.
That is merely a different wagon hitched to the very same pony. Some decent people who are not christians live by the same rule. I revere the teachings of Christ but he was not the first to advocate this kind of moral behavior. Buddha lived about 600 years before Christ and taught the same thing.
the comment was
Christians use their personal intuitions and feelings about Jesus and the bible{among other things} to decide their moral code It is the same thing.
I see you are a guest. Here on the SDMBs it’s considered bad form and petty to critisize spelling.
I agree. Thats one of the places I depart from christian beliefs. I celebrate and appreciate love and kindness from any source. The idea that love and kindness doesn’t count when it comes from those who don’t accept Jesus as savior is offensive to me.
I find the subject interesting and was wondering out loud. I don’t think we exercise subconscious voluntary control. Hell, I’m not even sure what that is.
I agree that God doesn’t condem us for what we believe or don’t believe unless you consider that the consequences of our choices spring from our beliefs, conscious and subconscious. Interesting.
In the bible there are numerous passages that indicate people are judged according to their works and rewarded according to their deeds. If you consider that our works and deeds are a true reflection of what we believe in rather than what we give lip service to, this seems just to me.
Christians tend to rationalize those passages away while passages like “I am the way” get the porverbial dead horse treatment.
Well, then you’re taking a pretty limited view of evolution, IMO. How life evolved from non-living matter would fall under evolution in my mind. But even if you don’t agree, there are still scientific theories as to how it occurred.
Howdy folks. Been lurking for awhile, thought I’d get around sticking my 2 cents in. This happens to be something I think about fairly frequently, so…
I think some folks place a little too much emotional load on the word “just”, in this context. If you posit an omniscient being, by definition that being knows more than we do, which would presumably include a universal perspective on morality that doesn’t take into account our mortal sensibilities of “fair” and “right”. Perhaps this is cliche, but you could compare this with a schoolchild who considers a teachers actions “unfair” when taken with the well-being of the entire class in mind… just a thought.
As regards faith in said omniscient being, by definition it’s an active choice. A sane individual has no choice but to believe in a thing when presented with irrefutable proof - seems to me the point of faith is choose to believe in a thing out of personal conviction rather than being beaten over the head with it.
Going to hell? Even my definition of a “just” God wouldn’t include a being inclined to damn you to eternal torment for lack of faith. Seems to me if an individual lives like said God wanted them too, that would be rewarded. Again assuming a Christian God is real, then it follows that much of our western sense of morality stems from the teachings of said God. So an upstanding human being that does the “right” thing and lives their life well should do ok, in my book, faith in God notwithstanding.
'Praps a person that does the right thing and has faith in God gets more brownie points in the afterlife, I don’t know.
Arguements that God has done “unjust” things are certainly valid, from our perspective. But I’m not sure that can be used as a valid logic point to deny his existence, since if he IS real then he has perspective that we lack (see above).
Thats my view, anyway, take it for what it’s worth. 
Yes, and they are generally termed “abiogenesis.” Evolution, in the scientific terminology, refers to the development of life, rather than its possible derivation from nonlife. (A viable theory to unite the two would be among the biggest scientific coups of the last hundred years.)
So God is hiding his real purpose from us as some sort of test?
My bad, then. I was recently reading a book on evolution (which included sections on evolutionary psychology and all kinds of somewhat tangentially related topics) that had a section on abiogenesis, so I assumed it fell under the umbrella of “evolution”, though you’re right, it didn’t try to link the two.
Maybe. But if you are trying to figure out whether it is rational to believe in God, all we have is *our * rationality and *our * perspective. So if from our rational perspective, we cannot in any way figure out how the state of the world is compatible with the existence of a just God, then it is not rational for us to believe. It doesn’t matter that it might make sense from some other perspective which is unavailable to us–a perspective that may or may not exist. If we want to know what it is rational to believe, we are asking what human rationality tells us to believe; that’s the only rationality we have.
So, based on human rationality, either you shouldn’t believe in God, or you shouldn’t believe that God sends unbelievers to Hell, or you shouldn’t believe that God is just.
I’ll take door number 2 Monty.
I think what Jesus advoacated that we can percieve the divine perspective.
The truth will set you free. It seems to me that the truth has to be logical and rational.
That seems like what a reasonable Christian ought to believe. Does this mean we finally answered the OP? It would be nice to have a GD thread where we say, “Okay, problem solved, question answered. Next?”
It is the illogic of certain christian beliefs and the self righteous bigotry that made me decide I didn’t want to be called a christian anymore.
As to the OP. Christian beliefs do vary but the concept that God sends souls to eternal punishment doesn’t make sense.
The concept that we have to suffer the consequences of our own choices seems just to me. So it could be that heaven is available to us but we have to do the work that leaves anything less behind. If we choose not to do that work, or simply delcare, I don’t believe , I’m waiting for absolute proof, then thats our choice and we get the consequences that go with it.
I don’t know that I’d agree with that. I’m trying not to let the fact that I’m christian get in the way of this, but I’d say God has made his real intent known through scripture and revelation, and then has presented us with things in said scripture that would appear to bely that intent… “as some sort of test”.
Agreed, agreed, and agreed. I like door #2 as well.
But you won’t find me arguing that rational thinking has anything to do with faith. To a certain extent, the two concepts may be exclusive… apply rational thought, and it seems easier to argue against an omnipotent being than for (exhibit a:, this thread ).
But thats me, YMMV.
I read the Great debates on if there is a God or not: I have come to the conclusion that: if we(since we have to use human reasoning) belive that God is a good father,He is supposed to know all things past and present If a human father acted the way this God does we would take away his children and put him in jail.
Since he he is said to have created people,he knew ahead of time that some would turn out like Hitler,other despots, and criminals, yet he decided to create them even though they would harm so many others and themselves. He knew when he created Satan that he would rebel and deceive people. If a human father knew this ahead of time I do not think he would let the child be conceived in the first place.
If a manufacturer builds a bad product we do not blame the product. And if the maker knows ahead of time it will create,or cause problems it is even worse. I see no logic in Creating a being as Satan, then punishing ignorant people because Satan mis-led them. Just has never added up to me.
Monavis
Perhaps it’s just a test. Satan tempts and we choose. Hitler chose and those that supported or opposed him chose.
Why would God need to conduct a test?
I already know that the claim is that we mortals can’t possibly understand God’s purposes because He works on the Big Picture so don’t bother with that one.
(In response to monavis’s post #75): No one single metaphor for God (e.g. father, manufacturer) is going to fit perfectly. What about God as Author? We wouldn’t call a novelist a bad author just because he put bad guys in his book; in fact we might call him boring if he didn’t.
Did six million Jews “choose”?
If I turn loose a badly trained pitbull in a schoolyard filled with children, who do you think is going to get arrested-me, or the pitbull? Using your logic, I should get off free because the pitbull choose to attack the children.
Thudlow Boink, people authors put bad people in books because there are bad people. I think it’s pretty safe to say that if whichever being put things in motion hadn’t allowed for there to be bad people, then there wouldn’t be bad people in books.
Am I wrong?