jennylynn

Hello, I really didn't realize that this was the wrong forum lol. I'm sorry. I was in a big hurry to ask the question and I wasn't thinking. But thanks for the answers. I honestly don't know what I believe in.

Peter Watts

It's not a dumb question, but why in the world are you posing it to atheists — who, by definition, don't believe in God?
Are you a Christian?

Weltall

If you'd like to introduce him to me, ask him to drop by my place for dinner this Thursday. I've been wondering if I'll ever get a chance to meet the big guy and we need a fourth person for our poker game afterwards.
On an unrelated and more serious note, welcome aboard jennylynn. Stay as long as you like! :wave:

BadBadBad

No, Jenny, these aren't dumb questions at all. First of all, I don't believe any gods exist. Therefore you can't have faith in something that doesn't exist, and no amount of good will allow you to be with a god that doesn't exist.

Now let's presume God does exist for the sake of argument. How do you have faith in God? God revealed himself unequivocably to Noah for example. He told him to build a boat. There's going to be a flood. In this case, God is real. He demonstrated himself to Noah, and based upon that, Noah could have faith based upon that demonstration.

Outside of that Biblical story, God isn't real. God hasn't demonstrated or revealed himself. You first have to have faith in the story and those that brought it to you. You can only trust that the story is true. You can't know it's true. If you don't know God exists, how can you have faith in God? You can have faith in the people that tell you this story, but you can't have faith in a god you don't know for sure even exists.

Now on the question of how good do you have to be to be with God, that is a very good question. First of all, you have to forget about any definitions you have of good. We have to look at this from God's point of view. So the real question you have to ask first is what is good from God's point of view? That's quite a tough question. Anyone want to take a stab at answering it? Once we have that, then we can move on to how much good do we have to do to be with God. So if we've gotten any answers on how much good, which we haven't, it doesn't really help us. Can we back up to asking what is good with respect to God?

BadBadBad

But you didn't answer any questions at all. You said no you don't have to go to church to be a good Christian. That wasn't the question. It was do you have to go to church to be faithful to God. That was an entirely different question.

You also didn't answer the question as to how good do you have to be to be good enough for God. You said I should just be a good person and that I should know what that is. Only in terms of God, I don't have any idea what the term good means. I don't know what it means, and how good of a person do I need to be? You didn't answer that, and that was the key question. You also said I should admit to Jesus that I've screwed up and mean it. Only what have I screwed up on and how can I mean it if I don't know what I did wrong? It seems like your simple non-answer raises more questions that it answers. Care to clear up this simple matter for me? I'd really appreciate it. It's a very good and important question.

Rational BAC

OK---

You don't have to go to Church to be faithful to God.

What is a good person? I think if you think you are a good person---you probably are. Works for the majority of people anyway. Will give you that a sociopath would have not a clue.

Most people know intrinsically what "good" means. And what "bad" means.

Just keeping things simple here as per the OP.

Stumpjumper

I would have to say no. Especially when there are multiple Churches to choose from how would you determine which one God prefers. Jesus said that where two or three are gathered I will be in your midst. In my opinion, Churches serve a purpose in this life but attendance does not mean faithfulness to God any more than non-attendance means a lack of faithfulness to God.

I don't think God shares his love and grace based upon how much good we've done in this life but I certainly think its important to love our neighbor as ourself and do as much good as we can. If there was a set number of good deeds to be acceptable to God, I would hate to think I would stop when I reached that number.

We are all prodigal children lost in a distant land unaware that all the good we do in this life we do for God and all the bad we do in this life we do to God. Of course in the story the Father welcomed his son home with open arms.

TransverseWave

Welcome. I'm an atheist, so this isn't exactly a Christian take on the matter.

Some people find attending church helpful, either because they're part of a community, or because they find value in the worship -- to take one's mind off daily concerns occasionally and to concentrate on what's good is no bad practice -- or both. And if it's helpful, why not? But if it isn't, I can't imagine that God would be deeply concerned if you don't do something that isn't doing anyone any good. It's a counterproductive human attitude to insist that people follow rules for the sake of following rules; if there is a good God, I imagine he'd have more sense.

Similarly, if there is a good God, I don't think he's very likely to be counting what percentage of good actions people perform to see if they make the cut. My thought is that he'd probably be more concerned with people's characters: he'd probably want to see them develop into people who do good out of compassion and integrity, rather than because anyone is keeping a tally and will reward or punish them.

BadBadBad

OK then, how can you be faithful to a god that you can only have faith that he exists at all? For example, do you think it makes sense to say that I have faith in leprecauns that they will give me a pot of gold? You could say that you have faith in the myth and legacy of leprecauns. Here's another example. Bob tells me that Bill will come and give me 100 dollars. If I say I have faith in Bob, that makes sense. If I say I have faith in Bill, that doesn't make any sense. I don't know Bill, nor do I have any reason at all to have faith in him. All I'm really saying is that I have faith in Bob. You have faith in the myth, legacy, and culture of Christianity not God.

Yes, what is a good person in the eyes of God? Even more simply what does the term good mean in terms of God? Any word that is associated with God is rendered meaningless. If I think I'm a good person, what does that have to do with God's definition of a good person and whether I am one? Plus, I'm an atheist. I mock the concept of Jesus/God. I am a good person, but I'm happy to insult the concept of God at the slightest opportunity. In other words, fuck God and the donkey he rode in on! Am I a good enough person to be with God? Even though I'm an atheist, I mock and insult the concept of God, and I have no relationship with Jesus what so ever, I think I'm a good person. If God exists, I think I'm still good enough to be with God. Am I good enough? What does God think? What do you think God thinks?

Most people intrinsically know that butchering babies with swords is bad and rejecting someone that would command that is good. Only most people that represent your religion historically seem to be a bit mixed up on basic morality such as this.

So getting back to the simplicity of the OP question, first we must settle the simple matter of how you can be faithful to a God you can only have faith exists. You skipped that basic question in your seemingly omniscient answer that no you don't have to go to church to be faithful to God. We need to know how and what before we can just accept your assertion that no you don't need church.

Then how "good" do you have to be? What is good with respect to God? Is it simply whatever I want good to be? If I'm a psycho baby killer, is that good just because I think it's good? If I'm an atheist, is that good enough to be with God? Simply what is good with respect to God? It seems like if God were to actually have revealed himself, we should be able to come up with a simple and authoritative answer to this question as an absolute minimum.

jaded_revenge

Faithful is believing somthing without reason. To become faithful, you usually have to be told what to beleive, chruches to that, so yeh, to be faithful, you msut go to church.