Life, death and atheism (82)

I had a teacher who said look at the evidence and decide for yourself. I am still waiting for your evidence so I can decide for myself. I never made the assertion there was a hell, you did.

I do have evidence. I sent him an e-mail the other day, I am still waiting for a reply from him. Now what is your evidence it hasn't ended?

What is it about being asked for evidence which is so difficult? If i said you were a child molester I would have to provide evidence that you had done it, should you take me to court. Without evidence it is a baseless accusation.

So what? Just because someone has a concept of a place with which to frighten the proles doesn't mean it exists. Evidence please for the existence of Hell.

I have no proof that Unicorns do not exist in South Africa, and neither does anyone else. Which doesn't mean they do exist, it just means I have no evidence to say they don't exist. I don't have any evidence to say Hell doesn't exist, but then again I did not start by asserting its existence.

Faith is belief without evidence. Evidence which can stand up to scrutiny. I have trust that when I switch the lights on they will be illuminated, because it has happened many times before. Sometimes I am let down, but in most cases my financial supplication to the electricity company brings me earthly rewards.

The trouble with religious faith isn't the faith, it is the faithful. When it doesn't work out it isn't because the faith didn't work, god decided it wouldn't work. Something other than the faith was at fault.

I know you will remain a incapable of seeing that evidence is quite important in the proof of various religious concepts when trying to make other people understand it, but my replies aren't aimed at you, they are aimed at the other people who can see both sides and realise you are just posturing a position which served a purpose once, but the world has moved on.

I have the perfect accent for conflict resolution, shame about the personality.
What can be asserted without proof can be dismissed without proof. - Christopher Hitchens

It is not the asking for evidence, it is the inability to recognise or understand / interpret the evidence.

The evidence of God's existence is all around, you cannot understand it.

The reason he hasn't replied is that you are using the wrong computer and software.

On your behalf I sent a communication using the correct software and have been informed that your friend is indeed serving his pennance in hell.

If you would like to learn to use the software yourself it's called prayer and any priest will instruct you.

God has told me that the concept of hell, as promoted by the Abrahamic religions is false, as indeed is heaven. God has also told me that it is constantly misrepresented by religions, particularly the Abrahmic religions.

God says that ironically it is religions where there is no god such as Buddhism, or seemingly polytheist such as Hinduism, that hold the pointers for humanity to lead a life considerate to others.

God says that it's nature is not to be found in any single book as all books have been written by the imperfect human hand. (Humans are perfect as humans, but in a different league to God). God would like to remind the believers of religions who hold their books to be sacred that the books are all flawed. God says that it's omnipotence will not be contained in a book or dictated to by any religion.

God has told me to point out unequivocably that what I am writing here is flawed, by being channeled through a human filter, even though it is as direct communication as it can give. These words will be open to ridicule and critiscism by those who have elegant logical argument skills and who by clever arguement seeks to show that a) God does not exist, or b) their religion is right.

God has also told me not to feed the egos of those who wish to argue such.

Expect anything, anticipate nothing.

Bored

now

please

stop.

Zen S&M: The sound of one hand slapping.
'()_/)
(>'.'<)
(")_(") < MINE!

The available (hearsay) evidence regarding an afterlife suggests that the only way to get into heaven is by accepting Jesus and submitting to God. Provided you do these things then it's almost immaterial how good a person you might be, as if you're bad you can repent and accept Jesus and still get in, but if you're good and don't then you're excluded and punished for eternity.

Additionally, whilst on Earth, regardless of how you live your life you may suffer or be rewarded somewhat arbitrarily by an omnipotent God who could do something about it if he cared, but prefers to act in "mysterious ways", which seem anything but mysterious and somewhat random. Which seems to make praying all but useless.

Therefore, whilst a believer may have faith that heaven exists and an atheist asserts that is doesn't, both without any proof; a rational person may look at the evidence without bias and determine that even if it does exist, it's governed by a cruel, uncaring, vain, jealous and conceited being, and so is not the kind of place that any normal person would want to spend an eternity in anyway.

The fact that hell is painted as an eternity of suffering merely serves to present heaven as the lesser of two evils.

Apart from some extreme fundamentalists I don't think that most religious people really do believe it deep down. I think they're too caught up in it from an early age to back away, so they become accustomed to and can accept the inconvenience of the rituals, but when it really comes to the crunch reality kicks in.

If people really believed in such a supposedly wonderful afterlife then if they got sick they'd accept it was God's will and would be eager to be welcomed into the kingdom of heaven, instead of seeking the science of man and medical treatment to get better.

They would welcome death, for themselves and their families, instead of desperately clinging on to life for as long as possible.

In fact, were it not a sin, surely most would want to commit suicide at the earliest possible opportunity, but with that option off the table then any chance of an early or accidental death would seem to be a blessing to celebrate, rather than a tragedy to mourn.

So no, I don't think that many actually believe it. I believe that they wish it was the case, because that makes the notion of death somewhat less frightening and more palatable, but a wish or a hope is a lot different to an absolute belief.

The story is flawed though in that it ignores that there's a cost for belief and implies that it's simply a logical protection against being wrong. But it's not simply about having faith and so there is a cost. There's a price to pay in how I'm expected to live and enjoy my life. I don't want to be told how to do that by someone who threatens me with imaginary consequences for not complying. I don't want to sing hymns or indulge in cannabilistic rituals on Sundays to appease some mythical being. I don't want to manage my personal relationships on the basis of ancient tribal beliefs and customs. I certainly don't want to do any of these things in return for something that frankly seems quite unappealing, even it were real.

Most of all though, I don't want to sacrifice one second of my time, energy, thoughts, feelings or emotions, that I only have for one brief life, on the vague, unrealistic and totally unbelievable possibility of what might happen after that life has ended.

Based on the available evidence, as far as stories go, I prefer the one where the kid prays for a bike and doesn't get one, and then realises God doesn't work that way, so steals one and asks for forgiveness instead.

Well quite - a particularly untidy north London flat and a half eaten tuna sandwich would certainly befuddle the average mortal looking for evidence of divinity.

Clearly however, you do understand it, and thus must have a better model of brain than I, to be able to see in the aforementioned half-sandwich with such certainty, that which I cannot.

Also... Hell... If the devil is the bad guy, why was he put in charge of running it?

Also... the apple... Why put it there in the first place - I mean come on, didn't God understand Poisson distributions? Given an infinite amount of time, a exponentially growing population, and finite probability of someone eating the damn thing in each day, it wasn't misfortune, it was fucking inevitable. That's not woman's fault, even blaming the snake is piss poor, its sheer bloody design negligence - he should have been struck off the architects register right then*.

* I do fully appreciate that I'm going to hell for this, but as I'm fairly convinced its a bit like Las Vegas, I don't really mind.

And all men kill the thing they love, By all let this be heard, Some do it with a bitter look, Some with a flattering word, The coward does it with a kiss, The brave man with a sword!

If we take the New Testament as being completely accurate, the shepherds quite simply wouldn't be watching their flocks by night on the hillsides in Palestine in late December. It's going to have been either around Easter time, or mid-late September. Jesus, it appears, was most likely a libran.

I've seen a couple of versions of the story, there is one argument which lists the 25th of December as the winter solstice on the Julian Calendar and subsequent adjustments causing the actual solstice date to move back a few days. The other is that the 25th of December is the date of the rebirth of the sun-god, with the old sun "dying" on the shortest day of the year (21st or 22nd, depending on the year) and for the next couple of days, the sun rises in the same place on the horizon, but after 3 days of limbo it can be seen to be moving back in the other direction and signals the rebirth of the new sun - and with it, celebration and feasting. The Romans enjoyed the midwinter festival and added it into their aquisitive polytheistic culture (they celebrated *everybody's* gods) in the form of Saturnalia but it was an established festival way before then. It's much easier appropriate an existing festival than to try to introduce a new one along with the new god, which is what the christian church cunningly did, ditching the ridiculous extravagance of Saturnalia for Sol Invictus Festival and later Natalis Domini.

So let's recap... The sun god died and rose again 3 days later, and so we celebrate the "birth" of the new sun god (the son of god?) on the 25th of December. Any of this sounding strangely familiar to anyone..?

These are historic facts by the way, not some kind of conspiracy theory by hocus pocus new age hippies.

So do feel free to enjoy your faith. And the bits of other people's that you continue to steal every year. I don't criticise anyone for their faith, nor do I belittle anyone's intelligence because they think differently to me. I merely set out my own reasons for not being a part of religion which lives a rather pompous lie around this time every year and I would like to put a few facts straight. An evangelist of the truth, you might say.

Enjoy.

We really like cheese, we like Zeppelins. WE LIKE THE MOON!

Edited 31 Dec 11, 3:21 PM by Beau_Tox

I suspect if you do some tracing back through version of the new testement published through the centuries,that some coruption has crept into the printed word.As for the rest,well it proven they stole from everywhere to make their religion work.

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Edited 1 Jan 12, 5:15 AM by Empress_Martine

The point of existence. I do not think there is one. Or, rather, I do not think there is an objective one. Subjective ones, of course, are all around us, but the fact that all the self-proclaimed objective ones conflict with each other makes them subjective too.

Going on the hypothesis of "we get this life and then nothing," then, what prevents nihilism? For me, humanity. I do not think humanity has any objective worth, but as a human it has a great deal of worth to me. In the grand scheme of things, humanity means bugger all, but that doesn't mean that we should find it valueless.

So then for me the point of existence is to keep humanity (both collectively and as individuals) going, to improve everybody's lot in life as much as may be.

Theist-nontheist bashing cycle resumes in 3...2...1...