Fidei Defensor Posted July 13, 2009 Share Posted July 13, 2009 (edited) [quote name='Oliver' post='1918961' date='Jul 13 2009, 03:22 PM']so in other words lazy[/quote] If you haven't noticed, there is a lot more going on in every day life that seems a lot more important to some than a distant god figure that can't be explicitly proven. Edited July 13, 2009 by fidei defensor Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Varg Posted July 13, 2009 Share Posted July 13, 2009 [quote name='Kitty' post='1918951' date='Jul 13 2009, 05:09 PM']I love George Carlin.[/quote]At least someone recognised it Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oliver Posted July 13, 2009 Share Posted July 13, 2009 [quote name='fidei defensor' post='1918975' date='Jul 14 2009, 12:06 AM']If you haven't noticed, there is a lot more going on in every day life that seems a lot more important to some than a distant god figure that can't be explicitly proven.[/quote] I would regard what happens to us in the afterlife extremely important because what we do on earth can affect it. You may not believe in God but at least you have considered it and done your research unlike others who are too lazy. The least someone can do is their research and find out what they want to believe or not. Unless intellectually they are unable to do that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jesus_lol Posted July 13, 2009 Share Posted July 13, 2009 there are things in life that may be important but i frankly dont care much about. like im not a fan of abortion, but it isnt even close to being on my radar. likewise, 30000 kids in africa die every day from starvation and AIDS, but i dont ever recall seeing a topic on that posted here. important? most would say yes. but a lot of people just have "better" things to do or think about. doesnt make them lazy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eagle_eye222001 Posted July 13, 2009 Share Posted July 13, 2009 [quote name='bonkers' post='1918601' date='Jul 13 2009, 05:04 AM']The part where god loves us so much he created hell to condemn ourselves in torture and misery for all eternity, just because he loves us soooo much. Gee, thanks father.[/quote] That's a mis-statement and a gross ignorant attitude of free will. If you started another thread....sure you would get some clarification on it. The question I have is the most loving action always the one that results in no damage to the one you love? The parent-child relationship is a great example of this. Sometimes parents need to let their kid fall so they learn. What's the point of life if there is no repercussions for it? [quote name='fidei defensor' post='1918667' date='Jul 13 2009, 10:50 AM']I don't keep a list. Like I said, I'm not anti-christian.[/quote] Well......if you ever think of an example....I would be interested in hearing it. [quote name='fidei defensor' post='1918975' date='Jul 13 2009, 06:06 PM']If you haven't noticed, there is a lot more going on in every day life that seems a lot more important to some than a distant god figure that can't be explicitly proven.[/quote] Possible afterlife is the problem. If the case for God is correct.....the ones who rejected God will have a heck of a case to defend. Just saying that would make it worth figuring out if God exists or not. [quote name='Jesus_lol' post='1919006' date='Jul 13 2009, 06:55 PM']there are things in life that may be important but i frankly dont care much about. like im not a fan of abortion, but it isnt even close to being on my radar. likewise, 30000 kids in africa die every day from starvation and AIDS, but i dont ever recall seeing a topic on that posted here. important? most would say yes. but a lot of people just have "better" things to do or think about. doesnt make them lazy.[/quote] Don't care about your afterlife? Might be smart to figure out if God cares about abortion.......I mean.....your opinion ultimately doesn't matter.......but God's does. The question is...will God be comfortable with your "stand apart" attitude towards abortion? ---------------- Now playing: [url="http://www.foxytunes.com/artist/lady+gaga/track/poker+face"]Lady GaGa - Poker Face[/url] via [url="http://www.foxytunes.com/signatunes/"]FoxyTunes[/url] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oliver Posted July 13, 2009 Share Posted July 13, 2009 [quote name='Jesus_lol' post='1919006' date='Jul 14 2009, 12:55 AM']there are things in life that may be important but i frankly dont care much about. like im not a fan of abortion, but it isnt even close to being on my radar. likewise, 30000 kids in africa die every day from starvation and AIDS, but i dont ever recall seeing a topic on that posted here. important? most would say yes. but a lot of people just have "better" things to do or think about. doesnt make them lazy.[/quote] That wasn't my point. We have to think about the afterlife alot in our lives, when on the tv (for example alot of news about uk soldiers dieing in afghanisation) or when a family member passes away. To not have any sort of view on it or even considered what happens to the us after this world is lazy. I understand if people don't want to think about because it can be a frightening subject but to not even consider it? IMO it's lazy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jesus_lol Posted July 13, 2009 Share Posted July 13, 2009 (edited) i think of the afterlife. or at least i have a lot in the past and on occasion. that doesnt mean i have figured out which particular cookie cutter of christianity i fit in best with. there is a whole lot more to it that just the afterlife and your thoughts on it. i believe in God and i do my best to be a good person. most of the time i just leave it at that and get on with other things. its not frightening to me at all to consider the afterlife or lack thereof. its just not something i do very often. Edited July 13, 2009 by Jesus_lol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eagle_eye222001 Posted July 13, 2009 Share Posted July 13, 2009 [quote name='Jesus_lol' post='1919043' date='Jul 13 2009, 07:28 PM']i think of the afterlife. or at least i have a lot in the past and on occasion. that doesnt mean i have figured out which particular cookie cutter of christianity i fit in best with.[/quote] That's not the point. The point is not to find what religion fits you, but to find the religion with the complete truth. I don't think God let's us decide what the right religion is. I would think that the right religion is the one that holds the full truth. Truth doesn't change whether you decide it to or not. Same with atheist. God's existence doesn't depend on one to believe in him. He exists whether we believe or not. Because we believe in him doesn't make him exist either. [quote]there is a whole lot more to it that just the afterlife and your thoughts on it. i believe in God and i do my best to be a good person. most of the time i just leave it at that and get on with other things. its not frightening to me at all to consider the afterlife or lack thereof. its just not something i do very often.[/quote] What defines a good person? What do you base it on? What you think or what God thinks? ---------------- Now playing: [url="http://www.foxytunes.com/artist/foo+fighters/track/the+pretender"]Foo Fighters - The Pretender[/url] via [url="http://www.foxytunes.com/signatunes/"]FoxyTunes[/url] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CatherineM Posted July 13, 2009 Share Posted July 13, 2009 I have the personal opinion that Hell will simply be the absence of God and nothingness, and only those who actively turn away from God will end up there. So in a way, both Christians and Atheists will get what they expect. We will spend eternity (eventually) with God, and Atheists will get the nothingness they are expecting. Too bad we won't be able to tell each other, "I told you so." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maggyie Posted July 14, 2009 Share Posted July 14, 2009 [quote name='fidei defensor' post='1918975' date='Jul 13 2009, 07:06 PM']If you haven't noticed, there is a lot more going on in every day life that seems a lot more important to some than a distant god figure that can't be explicitly proven.[/quote] I think the reason one could say the non-theist is lazy is because she doesn't care to find out what she should believe in. The search for the truth about the meaning of lie - whatever it is - even if there IS no meaning and that is what we find out - is an important part of being fully human. Most people fail to search for the meaning of life unconsciously, they get distracted with every day life, they are not practicing consciousness or being "present" for their lives and so they don't even realize there is a bigger picture they could be missing out on... until they get older. Those are the people who in their last years write lamenting poetic advice to the young, "if I had my life to live over again" I would make more mistakes, forgive people more easily, take the risk to love, etc. However in reaching the conscious decision to be a non-theist (as it was defined above, I don't know if a non-theist would define themselves as "not wanting to find out what she should believe in") this person is freely choosing to live a kind of half-life. As I said, even if the truth is that there is no meaning to life, that is a truth worth finding out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hassan Posted July 14, 2009 Share Posted July 14, 2009 [quote name='Lilllabettt' post='1918612' date='Jul 13 2009, 08:21 AM']What I mean by "entirely" wrong is full stop wrong, about the most essential question. I don't mean metaphysics or theology, since the average person has never done much pondering of those questions anyway.[/quote] They aren't entirely wrong. I don't doubt that many people genuinely do have mystical experiences of some sort or another at some point in their life. I would simply say that they were wrong about the source of this experience. You are sitting here contradicting my (male) opinion, you have recieved a (partcularly on the global scale) elite education at a well respected University, in a subject relating to world politics. By virtue of these activities you are implicitly rejecting what most people who have lived across the span of history have viewed as the proper place of a woman. For untold numbers of years most women had a view of their place in the world, a view of their very personal identity, which was radically different than yours. Are you arrogant or seeking to be different because you reject this identity, believing it incorrect? Believing that they were fundamentally wrong in what they viewed as the limits of acceptable roles and lifestyles they could assimilate too? [quote]I mean the question of the source of existence ... is there a god or not? This is the primeval question. From the first spark of rational thought, people have asked it. They have almost always answered it: yes.[/quote] God? How about gods? Or animism? Religion has been a major component of humanity for a very long time and I suspect it will be for many ages to come. But most of those people have not believed in a God, and certainly not the Abrahamic deity. How long has that variant of monotheirm been around? The only way you get the popular support throughout human history you want is if you lump any number of profoundly different worldviews into one that is simply generically religious. Moreover you tie the question of the source of existence to the question of God(s) when this matter is not always linked. Did the believers in the Homeric gods have a similar world view as yours? And if so why? Simply because they believed in some sort of supernatural beings? The belief of a all sustaining, simple, transcendent being who knows all and through whom all things are possible, who created the Universe ex nihilo for a specific purpose and is personally involved in the affairs of these being he has created and who plans to judge these being for a perminate fate in the afterlife is radically different from the general animistic world view of earlier ages. Since you can't mean that the majority of human beings have said "yes" to the question of is there a God (singular), what great question is it that humanity has said "yes" too? Monotheism arrived later on the religious scene. Are they just saying "yes" to any sort of world view that could be termed 'religious'? If so that's hardly impressive. [quote]As a theist, I can say that the Muslims and the Hindus and the devotees of the native African religions all have their metaphysical and theological systems based on something true. Atheists have to say that all these people have built on a lie.[/quote] An error of judgment is not a lie. Cosmology is a major aspect of an individuals existence. Look at the reaction to the Copernican revolution from the non scientific areas of academia and popular culture. John Milton, Dante et cetera all based their great cosmic dramas on a geocentric world view. This worldview was a major part of how people saw themselves and their place in the Universe. The Earth was stationary with perfect crystalline Orbs rotating around it. God was above in heaven and the Devil was deep underground. Take that or any of the other major cosmologies. These Cosmologies are major parts of how people define themselves, their culture, their religion. Even when the cosmology is not strictly part of the religion, like Christianity, for ordinary people and their folk understanding of the faith the Cosmology determines the stage upon which the religious drama of their lives takes place. Yet the vast majority of people all over the world have been profoundly incorrect in their understanding of the Universe and their place in it. It wasn't a lie, or stupidity,or any other pejorative term you may wish to describe it. For a very long time people had very good reason's for believing that their cosmologies were correct. However we now know they were wrong. Perhaps there is a God but his throne is certainly not above us in the heavens (as in sky). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hassan Posted July 14, 2009 Share Posted July 14, 2009 [quote name='CatherineM' post='1919077' date='Jul 13 2009, 07:54 PM']I have the personal opinion that Hell will simply be the absence of God and nothingness, and only those who actively turn away from God will end up there. So in a way, both Christians and Atheists will get what they expect. We will spend eternity (eventually) with God, and Atheists will get the nothingness they are expecting. Too bad we won't be able to tell each other, "I told you so."[/quote] I thought in Christian thought the absence of God implied a great deal more than nothingness. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CatherineM Posted July 14, 2009 Share Posted July 14, 2009 [quote name='Hassan' post='1919135' date='Jul 13 2009, 08:08 PM']I thought in Christian thought the absence of God implied a great deal more than nothingness.[/quote] There are a lot of things that I don't have adequate words to describe. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EAnn246 Posted July 14, 2009 Share Posted July 14, 2009 [quote name='Lounge Daddy' post='1918878' date='Jul 13 2009, 03:07 PM']That's interesting. I wonder if that's being an agnostic rather than an atheist. Because having an "I don't believe in much of anything" type attitude seems a lot like an agnostic shrugging of the philosophical shoulders in a "who knows?" kinda way. What do you think?[/quote] I thought agnosticism was the questioning of there might be a god, but I'm not sure. One of my favorite professors is agnostic. He described it as questioning. I never thought of it as being agnostic rather than an atheist. For me, a few years ago, I was pretty close to being agnostic and questioning whether or not God existed. Unlike my friend, I didn't believe that God didn't exist. I just questioned his existence for a long while until I came to the conclusion that it was much easier to believe in God than to not believe in God. From there, my faith grew. My friend really believes that there is no higher power of any sort. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fidei Defensor Posted July 14, 2009 Share Posted July 14, 2009 [quote name='eagle_eye222001' post='1919017' date='Jul 13 2009, 05:15 PM']Possible afterlife is the problem. If the case for God is correct.....the ones who rejected God will have a heck of a case to defend. Just saying that would make it worth figuring out if God exists or not.[/quote] Most people don't think that far ahead, especially if they are worried about the here and now of today. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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