Good point. For me, the question is more like “Would you really choose the risk of an eternity in hell, however remote the possibility might be, rather than to follow God on the off chance that this particular God-concept might be the correct version?”
And for me, the answer is yes. I’ll take the “risk” (though I don’t see much of a risk here). Aside from the implausibility of the stories in the Bible, the points just raised by reprise and DanielWithrow are among the reasons. It doesn’t take much in-depth study of history to see that when people truly believe that something is the will of their God, they will do it. No matter how horrible it is, no matter how cruel, no matter how stupid. Torture people to death because they don’t share your belief? No prob, if that’s what God wants. Kill your son, like Abraham was ready to do? Crash a plane into a tall building? Sure, if that’s what God wants. Let your children die because someone told you medicine was evil? It happens. Give all your money away and castrate yourself? Why not.
These days, most versions of the mainstream religions don’t encourage people to do such things, but there are other atrocities. Abortion clinic bombings, persecution of gays, prejudice toward anyone who believes differently. I believe that many who don’t actively do violence to others probably would, if they had been raised to believe that it was God’s will. They have surrendered their sense of morality to someone else, and it isn’t God–it’s whoever claims to be God’s spokesperson in their particular religious tradition. Most are lucky enough to have religious leaders that aren’t so hateful. But why leave it up to someone else? Why not make our own moral decisions? Even the Bible admits that we have eaten of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. We know right from wrong, if we’ll just learn to use our brains and our hearts, and stop blindly following others. We don’t need the self-appointed representatives of an alleged God to tell us.
Follow God, the OP asks. Which God? Which version of this God? The one favored by the society you happened to be born into? What exactly does it mean to “follow God”? Is it really following one’s conscience? I do that. Is it really following what some religious leader tells me? No thanks.
Try turning the question around: Would you really choose a lifetime of following what someone else tells you is good, even if it is based on their subjective and often self-serving interpretation of the writings of Bronze Age nomads, rather than to learn to think for yourself and take responsibility for your own actions?
Satan can do bad stuff, but only what God allows, God doesn’t want him to do any!
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Do you realize that huge glaring error in your statement? Look, in the “Is the J-C God evil thread,” I asked you a direct question that you never bothered answering:
If you believe that God is all-powerful and all-knowing, how can you say that he has no control over Satan, one of his angels? Or, if he has control “Satan can do bad stuff, but only what God allows,” how can you say that “God doesn’t want him to do any”? If God doesn’t want Satan to do “bad stuff,” why does he allow it?
If God were proven to me, I would probably go on doing what I do now. I just offer help to anyone that needs help, and am a nice person to those people nice to me. If that gets me into heaven, great! If not, I will at least have had the satisfaction that I spent my life helping others.
I like to belive that I would have the moral integrity to refuse to worship a god as described in the Bible, even if such a creature was proven to exist.
Fortunately, I doubt I will be faced with that problem.
Interesting that you mention Mr. Chick, I use his tracts. When I first came to Christ it was because I didn’t want to go to hell. And I have given Him my heart. That’s the whole point of Jesus coming and dying for our sins. So we could have eternal life and not go to that place. I don’t find it bleak at all, I’m thankful He saved me. I was raised in church learning the Bible stories and have always believed in God but it was mental belief. I didn’t accept Him into my heart till later. I was married to a man whose grandmother was a christian and she got me thinking and God used her and other means to get me to realize I needed to make sure I was saved. Many can’t understand or accept the plan of salvation. That’s their choice. God is love but he’s also holy and we can’t go to heaven in our sin. Accepting that Jesus took the punishment for my sins and believing in Him, I have eternal life according to God’s word. Of course, I know everyone doesn’t accept the Bible as God’s word so there’s not much more to say.
You mean there is somebody who actually takes his tracts seriously? I know many people who consider his tracts to be of great comedic value, but you are thefirst person I have heard of to take them at face value.
“”"It’s Angels on Pins Time.
This premise behind this whole argument is actually pretty silly. Why argue about accepting Hell if the existance of God can’t be proven?
If a being came up to me claiming to be God, then I would more likely distrust my senses than believe the being. There are so many ways that senses could be masked, and simply because someone or something displays the same qualities as God does not mean that he/she/it is really God. Maybe it is a supernatural being, but just an imposter. Or maye this God is a bald-faced liar?
I dunno. That’s why I avoid these sorts of binary choices. Give me Choice D.""""
Welcome Seint Fnordius!
It is potentially easier for some to discard the idea of God through moral arguments rather than existential arguments. If one is trying to make a point; God can be discarded either way - then it simply becomes a matter of which is most efficient.
This is basically a form of (If they don’t understand non-emotive logic):
Well… if God DOES exist; then by this, it’s obvious that it doesn’t matter… so go on, live your life, maybe create a little of the God on this earth that you’ve been bottling inside by having believed in Him or his absolute righteousness for so long…
Yes, there are people who take them seriously otherwise they wouldn’t be buying them. They may be comical to you and many others but they have God’s true plan of salvation in them for whoever decides to accept. I find them a great witnessing tool as I’m not the kind of person who would find it easy to walk up to people on the street and ask if theyr’e saved. Anyway, of course I know you’re not going to agree with what I say.
Have you considered that Chick tracts - which rely on falsehood, exaggeration, and hatred - are possibly not the best tool to use in converting people to your faith?
I have only encountered one Chick tract “in the wild,” and found it to be extremely offensive and abusive.
Read the tracts, and think about what they are saying. Consider the message they carry: “Be a mean, hateful, nasty non-believer but accept Jesus in the last second of your life and you can go to Heaven and God will love you. Believe in God all your life, be a good person, do your best to live up to the standards set forth in the Bible, but if you don’t accept Jesus as your saviour, then God will send you to hell for eternity - even though he loves you.”
Read the Bible. If you read it critically, you will note that it is incredibly self contradictory. Since Mr. Chick sets such great store in the book of Genesis, read it thoroughly. Can you tell me that that pile of contradictory drivel is what you want to base your belief on? If you have difficulty picking it apart, check here Skeptics Annotated Bible for a commented copy of the Bible that clearly notes the inconsistencies.
To return to the subject of this thread, if there should actually turn out to be a God, then by all the rules of the Bible (and Mr. Chick) I will be bound for Hell, and I will be seriously pissed. I will have been rejected by a cruel, sadistic, and psychotic “Supreme Being” and sent to spend eternity in the clutches of someone worse (at least according to the Bible.) In light of this, you will have to excuse my lack of enthusiastic belief in the christian God.
Have you considered that Chick tracts - which rely on falsehood, exaggeration, and hatred - are possibly not the best tool to use in converting people to your faith?
I have only encountered one Chick tract “in the wild,” and found it to be extremely offensive and abusive.
Read the tracts, and think about what they are saying. Consider the message they carry: “Be a mean, hateful, nasty non-believer but accept Jesus in the last second of your life and you can go to Heaven and God will love you. Believe in God all your life, be a good person, do your best to live up to the standards set forth in the Bible, but if you don’t accept Jesus as your saviour, then God will send you to hell for eternity - even though he loves you.”
Read the Bible. If you read it critically, you will note that it is incredibly self contradictory. Since Mr. Chick sets such great store in the book of Genesis, read it thoroughly. Can you tell me that that pile of contradictory drivel is what you want to base your belief on? If you have difficulty picking it apart, check here Skeptics Annotated Bible for a commented copy of the Bible that clearly notes the inconsistencies.
To return to the subject of this thread, if there should actually turn out to be a God, then by all the rules of the Bible (and Mr. Chick) I will be bound for Hell, and I will be seriously pissed. I will have been rejected by a cruel, sadistic, and psychotic “Supreme Being” with an inferiority complex and sent to spend eternity in the clutches of someone worse (at least according to the Bible.) In light of this, you will have to excuse my lack of enthusiastic belief in the christian God.
