The Tension of Faith

I think you're confusing the sort of prayer you do in quiet moments with the sort of prayer you do when you're entire life is being blown away in a category 5 hurricane. I would do something practical and if I couldn't I get the scotch out and hope for the best.

Another contentless reply. What ARE you talking about?

If that IS the point, then of course I understand that Faith doesn't actually want her friends to go to hell, but nevertheless she thinks they will. If that's a point you think requires making, well ok.I think it unlikely to carry much weight with her friends but at least it's a coherent intellectual position. It's hardly a difficult point to make or understand.But we've moved on. In the case of the doctor, it's obviously very likely to be true - he's acting on ral evidence in the real world. In the case of a hell belief for the majority of all mankind, the argument has progressed on to why it is obviously NOT true or at least not internally consistent within the belief system in question.Edited by Tangle, : No reason given.Edited by Tangle, : No reason given.

It matters what anybody says, I don't discriminate between belief systems.If what you say is blatantly immoral - like condoning the condemnation of the vast majority of all human life on earth to everlasting torture despite no fault of their own (and even because of a fault of their own) - then you'll be judged by me to be morally deficient.And, by the way, the smugness you've often presented at being one of the 'saved' and the glee you've often expressed in informing many of us here of our impending everlasting torment will almost certainly not help you much when your turn comes to discuss matters with your putative maker. Thus it is written.

I'm absolutely not, you've exposed those emotions more than once. I particularly enjoyed your exclamation "boy are you in for a surprise". Interesting remark given we're on a debating site, but you do have a point, what you say very rarely, if ever, actually contains anything that I think matters at all - except in the negative way of pointing out how disgraceful and dangerous fundamental religious beliefs are.

Er, why not?

Well that was helpful.The second half of what I said was hope for the best. ie sometimes there's nothing left to be done. At that time you might as well pray as do anything else; everything is equally useless.Edited by Tangle, : No reason given.

And I see it differently again. So what? He has no more idea about god's thoughts than my cat. (And like, god, my cat doesn't exist). This is typical....

quote:

---

There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, "Thy will be done," and those to whom God says, in the end, "Thy will be done."

---

....t's such bollox, there is virtually no-one like this, life is not binary.

But this is just gibberish, as they say here, it's not even wrong. It has no contact with real life, it's a comment from within a weird religious bubble. People are just not like this.

Of course we don't. Life is far, far more complex than that. We are born with predispositions and we're conditioned by the environment and society we find ourselves brought up in. We don't just choose to be either naughty or nice, like a computer programme. Nor do we stay in one format all the time. We're not binary. GDR language here is pure religious babble that bears no resemblance to how we know we work....

quote:

---

I think that the point is that ultimately we all choose to yearn for life that is based on unselfish love no matter how bad we are at it, or we succumb to a life that is about is about looking after our own needs and interests above all else

---

'...choose to yearn for a life based on unselfish love' Do me a favour....

It's obvious Phat, your dad, his love for you and the $20 bill are real and they exist.What you call God is not real and does not exist. If he did, the $20 bill would have been unnecessary, the sky daddy would have sorted it first because his imaginary love for you is infinite.

It's not cynicism; it's just the way it is. You know that a cynic is what an idealist calls a realist? Well it should, understanding that there is no arsehole looking down on you threatening the worst torture imaginable just because you got born is rather positive. I believe that I'm not drowning so I'm not in need of rescue. As soon as you realise that, it's all fair sailing. Why do you need to give up hope? Just get on with living a good life - it's not a complicated thing, religion has made a mess of your head. If there is a god, just living the best life you can MUST be enough for him - if it's something else then he's not the god you believe in anyway.Edited by Tangle, : No reason given.

'Do as you would be done by' is all you need to know. That covers it entirely. Stick to that and forget everything else, it's just causing you unnecessary problems."Do to others what you want them to do to you. This is the meaning of the law of Moses and the teaching of the prophets" (Matthew 7:12 NCV, see also Luke 6:31).

The Catholics got round this problem by inventing purgatory. Even to them it seemed unfair that god would condemn someone forever that hadn't done something truly evil, so they graded sins into venial and mortal. Mortals went straight to everlasting hell but venials got a lighter sentence.So pretty much everyone had to spend a bit of time in purgatory before getting into heaven. Of course the concept of time is a bit tricky here but never mind.There were/are all sorts of ways to limit this purgatory time - buying indulgencies, performing odd rituals and so on. The very best was confessing your sins to a priest, receiving absolution and dying immediately afterwards. That got you straight into heaven.They must have such a lot of fun making this shit up.

Pokinghome has no more information about god than you or I do, when you're reading people like him and Lewis you're simply choosing the god fiction you prefer. No they're not. Atheists are under-represented in US prisons.

quote:

---

When religious individuals accuse atheists of having no morals, one fact atheists frequently cite is the miniscule percentage of atheists in US prisons. However, getting accurate, reliable data on the religious identities of US federal prisoners is often difficult because the Federal Bureau of Prisons does not release that information unless someone requests it through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). A few weeks ago, the editor of the Friendly Atheist blog, Hemant Mehta, did just that, and he published the data he received.

​

Unsurprisingly, at 0.10 percent, atheism still represents a tiny percentage of the religious identities of inmates in federal prison, though that number has risen slightly since 2013, when atheists made up 0.07 percent of the federal prison population.

---

Edited by Tangle, : No reason given.