What is Your Religion?

[Klaymen]

Originally Posted by V1per41

However, would you consider it morally correct to torture your children/friends for eternity because they didn't love you back? Or do you think it would be ok to torture someone for all eternity because they didn't love you when they didn't even know you existed?

This is lame because the element of being God is missing from your argument. He is not just some guy bound by human morals.

[Mel-o-rama]

Another thing I wanted to bring up about the starving children. This is more along the intuitive arguments (with a hint of a Pascal's Wager variant)...

I must admit that I want to believe God exists, because if he does, the starving children get something. They may have to wait until the next life to get "compensation." Or God may find some way to comfort them today while they're experiencing the hunger. Either way, if God exists, then I know that he's got them covered.

If God doesn't exist, then the starving children are just out of luck. They get nothing. There is no better life for them after death. It's all survival of the fittest, and they got the raw end of the stick. There are no souls, and some people really are better than others. Life is unfair, etc., etc.

I admit that I don't want to believe that. I would rather hope that there is a God. And that's where the faith comes from (hope in things that can't be seen/known). As much as it feels "off" to some atheists that a loving God would allow suffering, it feels just as "off" to me that a world of suffering doesn't have a God that we can turn to.

I just offer this up, realizing it doesn't prove anything (except perhaps to point out that the existence of suffering doesn't logically imply the non-existence of God), but it still seems to be a good talking point on the intuitive side.

[Baby, ByeBye]

Originally Posted by Falco

This is lame because the element of being God is missing from your argument. He is not just some guy bound by human morals.

then saying God is loving is a pretty vacuous statement. For all we know, his definition of loving could be eternal torture, but us humans are too dumb to understand his morality

[V1per41]

Originally Posted by actuary_pilot

I don't agree that he does. I don't believe in the hell fire doctorine and I do not believe the Bible teaches this. And to answer your question no i don't beleive that is moral.

For the same reason that if I had a dog that bit people it would not be moral for me to hang him by his toenails under a tree and build a fire under him and keep him alive just to torture him.

Revelation 20:10-15:

And the devil, who deceived them, was thrown into the lake of burning sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet had been thrown. They will be tormented day and night for ever and ever. Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. Earth and sky fled from his presence, and there was no place for them. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books. The sea gaveup the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each person was judged according to what he had done. Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death. If anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.

I'm sure you'll read it with some other meaning, but there are several passages making it clear that hell is a real place.

I also don't buy they "God lives by different moral standards, who are we to judge him?"
Torturing innocent people is never ok. If you think that in some alternate universe, or wherever you think your god resides, that it's somehow ok, then you are seriously misguided, and have a twisted view of morality.

[Anthemyst]

Originally Posted by Baby, ByeBye

then saying God is loving is a pretty vacuous statement. For all we know, his definition of loving could be eternal torture, but us humans are too dumb to understand his morality

It also makes "morality" a pretty vacuous concept.

[actuary_pilot]

Originally Posted by V1per41

Revelation 20:10-15:


I'm sure you'll read it with some other meaning, but there are several passages making it clear that hell is a real place.

I also don't buy they "God lives by different moral standards, who are we to judge him?"
Torturing innocent people is never ok. If you think that in some alternate universe, or wherever you think your god resides, that it's somehow ok, then you are seriously misguided, and have a twisted view of morality.

But Hell (or Hades) is not the lake of fire...

Vs. 14 from the King James Version...

"And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death."

The lake of fire is identified as the "second death". Death is the opposite of life.

At Ecclesiastes 9:5, 10...

"For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten.

Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest."

The condition of the dead is that they have no knowledge nor device - no feelings. They are dead - and if they are thrown into the "lake of fire" they cant feel it since the are not conscious.

[Anthemyst]

Originally Posted by Mel-o-rama

Another thing I wanted to bring up about the starving children. This is more along the intuitive arguments (with a hint of a Pascal's Wager variant)...

I must admit that I want to believe God exists, because if he does, the starving children get something. They may have to wait until the next life to get "compensation." Or God may find some way to comfort them today while they're experiencing the hunger. Either way, if God exists, then I know that he's got them covered.

If God doesn't exist, then the starving children are just out of luck. They get nothing. There is no better life for them after death. It's all survival of the fittest, and they got the raw end of the stick. There are no souls, and some people really are better than others. Life is unfair, etc., etc.

I admit that I don't want to believe that. I would rather hope that there is a God. And that's where the faith comes from (hope in things that can't be seen/known). As much as it feels "off" to some atheists that a loving God would allow suffering, it feels just as "off" to me that a world of suffering doesn't have a God that we can turn to.

I just offer this up, realizing it doesn't prove anything (except perhaps to point out that the existence of suffering doesn't logically imply the non-existence of God), but it still seems to be a good talking point on the intuitive side.

This is a big part of why I ultimately concluded that the "faith" or "intuition" or "just knowing" that I felt so strongly about God was actually wishing. Certainly a world with a loving, powerful God is better than one without a loving, powerful God. But believing the world to be better doesn't make it so, and historically the promise of rewards after death has been a powerful tool to keep the poor and oppressed content with their meager lot in life. It encourages complacency, it is the enemy of progress.

[actuary_pilot]

Originally Posted by V1per41

Revelation 20:10-15:


I'm sure you'll read it with some other meaning, but there are several passages making it clear that hell is a real place.

I also don't buy they "God lives by different moral standards, who are we to judge him?"
Torturing innocent people is never ok. If you think that in some alternate universe, or wherever you think your god resides, that it's somehow ok, then you are seriously misguided, and have a twisted view of morality.

By the way I didn't say that God lives by different moral standards- that was someone else. I agree that torturing innocent people is never ok.

[actuary_pilot]

Originally Posted by actuary_pilot

But Hell (or Hades) is not the lake of fire...

Vs. 14 from the King James Version...

"And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death."

The lake of fire is identified as the "second death". Death is the opposite of life.

At Ecclesiastes 9:5, 10...

"For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten.

Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest."

The condition of the dead is that they have no knowledge nor device - no feelings. They are dead - and if they are thrown into the "lake of fire" they cant feel it since the are not conscious.

And when something is thrown into a fire it ceases to exist - you can't get it back.

[TheGillotine]

Originally Posted by actuary_pilot

Since your argument has deteriorated into name calling i guess we don't need to discuss it any longer.

Have a nice day.

Don't quote-mine me. "You" in my post was referring to God (analogized). Unless you actually do give people permission to rape your children. Address the point.

Originally Posted by Mel-o-rama

Another thing I wanted to bring up about the starving children. This is more along the intuitive arguments (with a hint of a Pascal's Wager variant)...

I must admit that I want to believe God exists, because if he does, the starving children get something. They may have to wait until the next life to get "compensation." Or God may find some way to comfort them today while they're experiencing the hunger. Either way, if God exists, then I know that he's got them covered.

If God doesn't exist, then the starving children are just out of luck. They get nothing. There is no better life for them after death. It's all survival of the fittest, and they got the raw end of the stick. There are no souls, and some people really are better than others. Life is unfair, etc., etc.

I admit that I don't want to believe that. I would rather hope that there is a God. And that's where the faith comes from (hope in things that can't be seen/known). As much as it feels "off" to some atheists that a loving God would allow suffering, it feels just as "off" to me that a world of suffering doesn't have a God that we can turn to.

I just offer this up, realizing it doesn't prove anything (except perhaps to point out that the existence of suffering doesn't logically imply the non-existence of God), but it still seems to be a good talking point on the intuitive side.

But in a world with no God making things better for these children, doesn't that encourage people to help them in this life?