brahma

When I see someone who is guilty as sin get away scot free with a horrendous crime and go on to live a long, healthy life, I wish I could say, "You'll be sorry when you go to hell and satan sticks his pitchfork in your ass". Or when I am really sad that a loved one is going to die, I wish I could say, "He was a good person. Surely he will have enternal bliss". Or I could say, "I wish I could have spent more time with him, I guess I can do that after I die and go up to meet him".

I guess that's the reason for the popularity of religion, selling something that isn't true. But my question is, "are we infidels missing out on some peace of mind and comfort that believers have"?

I think the price believers pay for such false peace is heavy, but dont you sometimes, just sometimes envy them?

Ojuice5001

What exactly is comforting about the idea of an afterlife? I mean, I can see why rewarding the good and punishing the evil seems like a good idea. But men and gods seem to always ruin it. The ideas of heaven and hell start out benign, but something always ruins it. The hell becomes too cruel. The heaven becomes too mercenary. Purgatory is created to line the pockets of priests. That's what happened in Catholicism.

And then the Protestants come along, and they create a system of heaven and hell that is even more absurd, because it is arbitrary. Faith in God could conceivably be a fine thing, but why in heaven does God think that faith in him is more important than everything else put together? This seems to portray God as having the kind of self-centeredness that Christianity condemns.

I am agnostic about the afterlife. If there is one, I see no reason it would necessarily reward and punish people at all. Probably it merely ejects people from this life into a completely different world. This makes the afterlife a prospect not much better than surviving a shipwreck and living in some completely different part of the world. And who knows how the gods treat humans in the afterlife? Some of them, such my own patron Postverta, will treat us quite fairly, but history and mythology show that the gods have a side that is quite dangerous for humans.

So all things considered, you should hope that there is not an afterlife, not that there is one. There are just so many ways it could be worse than this life.

--Rats live on no evil star

(Edited to add signature)

[ April 08, 2002: Message edited by: Rats live on no evil star ]</p>

brahma

Your statement presupposes that the afterlife is arbitrary in nature. Not all christian doctrine teaches that. Catholicism has specific punishments for sins, the more egregious your sins the worse your punishment. That kind of set up appeals to me. And the thought of being able to meet departed loved ones does too. I guess my original question was more a philosophical question than a practical one, though I inadvertently worded it to sound practical.

Zimyatin

Once I tried to imagine there was a god, an omnipotent being that encompassed all. I have to admit it felt nice. I did it because a good number of the people in the office I worked at were very fundi. I wanted to see why they were so defensive about their religion. It's almost like a drug - and how dare someone try to take it away. So to answer the topic question: Yes, I sometimes wish there was a god. But I sometimes wish I was immortal and a casanova. It does no good to live in la-la land.

Methos

I don't know much about Catholicism, but it does seem to be more reasonable in its beliefs about the afterlife than Protestants are. Not everyone is punished equally. And for entrance into heaven, there apparently is a "baptism by desire" which means that people who live good and moral lives may be able to get into heaven even if they don't believe in Jesus. I don't think that it's talked about much, but it exists.

But back to the orginal topic about wishing there is a god, I do often hope that there is one. I no longer believe in a deistic or theistic god, because that is just ridiculous. Right now I'm leaning towards pantheism or panentheism because I want to believe in some kind of deity (panen) or a divine quality to the universe itself (pan). It would be nice if there is an afterlife, because nobody wants to end their existance after an average of 70 years. So, I want to believe that there is something after life. But I still find it hard to believe. So, like Rats, I'm agnostic towards it because I don't know if there is an afterlife or not, and nobody will ever know.

Eric

Sephiroth

Hell no! I vastly prefer everyone just ceasing to exist over having people getting punished over their beliefs which results in some (up to maybe half?) good people going to Hell.

MeBeMe

yes.

Panta Pei

Wishing won't make it so

I'm vastly more pleased with reality...has anyone had a glass of merlot with chocolate cheesecake?

NOGO

God is suppose to be the guy who gives us everything that we want.

We have enemies and long for God to punish them.
We have friends and want to see them again.
We fear death and we want God to give us eternal life.
God is they guy who will fix everything for us.

But what if He doesn`t?
What if He exists but his plan is not eternal life for us?
What if He wont punish our enemies?
What if He wont reward our friends?

How can God answer so many contradictory demands from millions of people?

Don`t wait for God do it now!