Mace

In my last thread entitled "Whoa: Confusion" I told you about my religious doubts and on the verge of stumbling onto Agnostic Land.

Now the only thing keeping me from this is fear.

Because I don't know what lies out there. So what to do? If I leave I'm afraid that this God who exists(?) will put me on the waiting list for hell.

On the other hand my mind tells me that this is wrong. That it's not really faith if the only thing keeping me with Christianity is fear.

Worshiping out of fear?

I hate this feeling because I know it's not right dammit! If you follow an omnipotent being out of fear then it's not love! But on the other hand it's the only thing holding me to this thin line of religion. :down:

Viti

That same fear holds many people to religion, and it is a completely baseless and groundless fear. The entire concept of eternal torment or reward for what one believed in a finite life given 0 evidence, makes no sense when coupled with any definition of deity. Why would an omni being be so petty?

Eldarion Lathria

Mace. there is nothing to be afraid of. There is no hell, no judgement, no lake of fire. There is nothing in the dark, no devil, no demons, no spooks. The phantasms of religion are not real.

Eldarion Lathria

Spanish_Inquisitor

And why would an omni-benevolent god use fear to coerce anyone to do anything?

You do realize, of course that spending eternity in heaven is equivalent to hell. Spending an eternity anywhere would be equivalent to hell. So what's the difference? What have you got to lose?

SI

Selsaral

The fear could be less influencial if you consider the fact that the whole idea of getting spanked by Satan for eternity was invented by people to control you. It's just a story. You're being had, manipulated, and bamboozled by falling for it.

If God threatened me I would be terrified. But he didn't. Some human told me God threatened me.

There's a sucker born every minute.

Lord Umbra

I find it...enlightening(?) that Xians are fond of using this acronym for FEAR--FALSE EVIDENCE APPEARING REAL.

A bit of a Freudian tipoff that the scripture "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom", is nothing but a load of cobblers.

Don't fret about it, Mace. I'm certain many of us ex-Xians went through the same feelings. (I know I did for about two-three months.) The irrational fear of "god" will vanish as soon as you cement it in your mind that there is NO god to fear!

Mace

Kind of like the school bully's messenger telling you the dude had it out for you?...

Selsaral

Yep and he'd kindly pass on my lunch money to the bully for me so I wouldn't have to worry about getting accosted by the (much more rude) bully.

How convenient for the messenger that there never needed to be a bully for the scheme to work.

Yahzi

He already has - just for writing that sentence. If God is even 1/10 as sharp as an 8 year old, he already knows you are not really on his side.

But you think you can lie to God and pretend to worship him and get away with it? I assure you, God can tell you are lying, and will punish you with the rest of us.

Mat 7:21 Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.

The will of the Father is that you love and admire him. You cannot do this. You are already lost. Pretending isn't going to help. In fact, the notion that you could pretend to worship God and fool him with your act has to be even more insulting than being an atheist.

On the bright side... there isn't any God there to fear. When you die, you go to the same place you were before you were born. The only justice or mercy that exists in the world is what we make; the only meaning is what we make; the only reward is a healthy and happy life. Is a flower less beautiful because its blossom is only for a short time?

Mace

I know you're only trying to joke with me here... but man...