Let me meet with my constituents and I will get back to you.
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But they arenât all protected because of their beliefs. In fact, they are protected from irrational beliefs. Thatâs the distinction which matters.
No.
You canât. I believe that as long as you worship a God, and perform objectively good acts on earth, you will go to an enjoyable afterlife. God created the earth, and with it every religion. We all worship the same God, just in different forms. Thatâs my opinion. Not sure that it fits in with any single established religious doctrine.
Personally, I believe that God has and will always exist. Time is a human construct and I donât think God abides by the laws of time because he doesnât have to. Without God there would be nothing, and therefore nothing to create Him. God doesnât have or need a creator; He just is.
If said believer truly believes, then thereâs no trick. If the atheist verbally announces that heâs a believer, but doesnât actually believe, then heâs not going to Heaven. God wants everyone to believe, but if someone doesnât believe, thatâs too bad for them.
Yeah, thatâs one that itâs pretty tricky to find an answer to. Questions like that test faith pretty harshly. I donât really think that itâs possible to answer completely, other than me just saying that I still believe in Godâwhich I know annoys the absolute shit out of agnostics and/or atheists. Itâs similar to having a conversation with a child who just keeps saying âI donât know, I donât know, I donât know.â Iâll straight up admit that I donât know, and itâs not meant to be in a sort of bratty way like it would be if a child kept saying âI donât know.â I mean it in more of a âGod hasnât really made that information available to us, so I canât answer that question.â And a side note on thatâI believe God holds back information about things like that as a test of faith. Because really, if we had absolute concrete proof that God existed, there would be no such thing as faith. Life would be too static and too boring lol
Do you think the question you posed can possibly lead to true believing?
Yeah imagine how bored weâd all be if you immediately ended like 90% of the worldâs conflict.
Nah. Even if there was incontrovertible proof of God, people are still people.
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Well assuming concrete proof of God leads to âknowingâ which religion is correct, you immediately eliminate nearly all religious conflict. You then have confirmation (assumably) of the afterlife, which I would imagine slows down the murder rate, etc.
People will still be people, but letâs not act like unifying the planet into 1 religion wouldnât stop a lot of violence and other conflict
âŠI feel like this was underappreciated haha
So god wantâs everyone to believe something with no evidence. That seems like an odd thing, especially considering it is the thing that allows you into eternal bliss or not. This god sounds pretty cruel.
This is a cop out, it doesnât make sense so it âjust isâ
Ok, this god is definitely a cruel person, maybe a psychopath. If the reason he doesnât offer proof of his existence is so we can be âentertainedâ with doubt, wars, and false profits heâs a terrible person. If I want people to believe something I give them evidence and reasons why they should.
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Is killing people who believe in a different god, because âyourâ god says so, an objectively good act? Is stoning homosexuals objectively good? Burning witches and heretics at the stake objectively good? Is slavery, which is sanctioned by some religions, objectively good? The problem with your idea of objectively good is that, if there is a god, then good will have to be subjective since god is the judge.
You do see the incongruities you posted?
No, it doesnât annoy them provided you donât try and impose your beliefs on others.
You would be dead at that point so nothing else would matter.
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Or a woman. My wife wonât tell me what she is thinking but I still have to know.
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Well if God does exist, nothing is stopping her from giving us concrete proof. Literally revealing herself in some way.
MaybeâŠshe hasâŠ
You think crime and war and world hunger would stop just because we had concrete proof that God exists? Idk
I think proof of hell, the consequence for many serious crimes, would be an insane deterrent.
Subsequently, how different would people act if they really KNEW heaven was the goal and was real?
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Itâs called âfaithâ for a reason though
This is not a cop out. This is what I believe
God is not a person. And the reason you listed as to why He doesnât offer concrete proof of his existence is pretty far off, but I can tell youâre biased against religion for whatever reason(s) which is fine. He doesnât offer concrete evidence because religion is faith-based, not necessarily evidence-based. If I want someone to believe something, I also give them evidence and reasons, but neither of us is God. To think that he would operate like us is foolish. Heâs omniscient, omnipresent, and eternal. He doesnât play by the same set of rules because he doesnât have to
Lol. No. Thatâs why I said âobjectively.â Killing is objectively bad, you know that. Objectivity in the sense that Iâm talking about transcends all individual human opinions and biases. Stealing is bad, killing is bad, lying is bad, etc.
I definitely see what youâre saying. I suppose that since God is judging, it isnât objective. But I believe that Godâs judgement is as close to being purely objective as is possible. The reason I originally said âobjectiveâ and not âsubjectiveâ is because subjective leaves too much room for error due to bias. Those things you listed off before (slavery and killing) have absolutely been perceived subjectively to have been âgoodâ by some groups of people at some point(s) in time, but we know that those arenât good things. Thatâs why a majority of the world no longer stones women for getting pregnant out of wedlock, for example.
Embarrassingly enough, I do not.
I donât. I donât know enough about Christianity to be trying to convert people. But sometimes when I have conversations about religion, I feel like non-believers tend to only ask questions that lead to me saying âThis is what I believe. Why? Because I have faith, not proof.â
Itâs an endless cycle, seems like. I believe what I believe, and reading something that makes a strong case against the existence of my God is definitely interesting and worth my time, but in the few years that Iâve been reading such things, Iâve yet to come across any concrete proof that He doesnât exist.
I see both sides though. For most of my life so far, I didnât actually believe in God. I went to church because my parents made me. I was baptized as a baby and confirmed into the Catholic church (which I donât identify with anymore) when I was 13 years old. I didnât buy any of it. It seemed like such a load of bullshit when âThe word of Godâ was being thrown at me for 4 hours a week. I really gave zero shits. And that only changed about 2 years ago. Iâm not some crazy bible banger, I canât pull bible verses out of my ass at will, but I do have faith. One experience made me realize how real God is and Iâm lucky to have had that.
Point is, I get what everyone is saying. The parts about God being cruel, I get it. Thereâs a lot of fucked up shit in the world and some of it is damn near impossible to explain. The bottom line, for ME, is that faith is faith. In every other area of my life, Iâm about the stats and the evidence. I need to see numbers and proofs of things. But math and science is not faith, itâs concrete. True religion is faith.
Even if God doesnât end up being real, it wonât matter. Iâll be dead. I sure hope He is, but if not, I just got punkâd by a bunch of middle aged Middle Eastern and European men. Damn.
I think youâre right about the first part. And that would be absolutely fantastic. But I donât think people like Charles Manson or Ted Bundy would give a shit. There always have been and always will be people like that who quite literally have no regard for human life, including their own, or the consequences that come with living such a life.
Iâd really like to think that people would all act as close to perfect as is possible. Itâd be nice if more people had faith to drive them away from committing horrific acts and towards good acts that bring them closer to other humans and therefore God. Thatâd be an amazing world to live in
If god is real, and this is all his plan, then god sucks because his plan sucks. Therefore, idgaf.
Thatâs my logic.
I believe you are talking about people with psychopathic or sociopathic tendencies. Both psychopaths and sociopaths have brain abnormalities that make them PHYSICALLY unable to feel compassion or remorse for others. Not all psychpaths or sociopaths are serial killers, and psychopathy is generally worse than sociopathy. People who are psychopaths tend to excel in business (CEOâs etc. As they have no quealms of screwing people over to get to the top) Psychopaths are also generally very charasmatic, can keep a crowd, charming, know how to play with peoples emotions. Both sociopaths and psychopaths have a lack of remorse and empathy, however they can teach themselves to pretend to feel these emotions, and some can pull it off very well. Typically those who have no regard for human life (serial killers) are psychopaths, one can actually identify a psychopath or sociopath as they have various abnormalities in brain structure that can be picked up on imaging. Typically psychopaths are terrible people as they just donât care what they do to others.
As to people acting as close to perfect as possible, the sad truth is, most people care primarily about themselves, if push comes to shove, most people will only fend for themselves⊠itâs human nature, and the nature of our species would be just as vile and fucked up as that of wild animals if the constraints of society were taken away.
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I agree with all of that, and the part about psychopaths vs sociopaths is interesting.
I think in terms of religion, especially relating to this:
I believe that if our species can build societies and civilizations, and even literally leave this planet, that we are capable of something such as overcoming the id (or whatever you choose to call it). Obviously itâs very hard. I find myself acting out of spite consistently which is wrong, but it satisfies the id in some way. Itâs tough to try to remove ourselves from something buried so deep into our subconscious, but the bright side is that we recognize that we have these problems. We arenât perfect and nobody ever will be, but we can make conscious efforts to be better people which is a beautiful thing
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