ConservativeAtheist

How could we tell? There are already several people that currently claim to be the second coming of Christ...and we all know they are lunatics. David Koresh said he was the Messiah...and look what the ATF did to him. :devil1:

Half-Life

Well, if someone told you that if you go to foreign country x, there will be laws and regulations to follow and a president, you wouldn't find this unreasonable. But, let's say you went to country x and didn't see any laws anywhere and didn't see the president around anywhere but people told you to trust them and you gotta follow the laws anyway.

Would you follow or be skeptical and ask where everyone is?

Let's say God is up in Heaven and he's saying "Why isn't that atheist going to Mass?!?!?! Oh wait a minute.....that's right......he doesn't even believe I'm here so why would he go to Church?"

Now let's say he's up in Heaven and says "Why isn't that Catholic going to Mass? He believes I exist but he wants to skip to satisfy his own greed. He'll get his someday!"

Does it make sense for God to get pissed because an atheist doesn't follow his Laws when the atheist doesn't believe he exists?

Deus Ex

So 2000 years from now, people will read in their sacred texts how the ATF killed the Messiah. They will be known as Koreshians. :Cheeky:

elevator

Plenty of people today claim to be the second coming of Jesus (or the manifestation of other deities). I have a distinct feeling that if Jesus lived today instead of 2000 years ago he might have been treated as a nutcase instead (he might have escaped the crucifiction though...)

Half-Life

Not if he was standing out in the middle of a tsunami smiling and waving to everyone on CNN. ><

Deus Ex

If Jesus had not ascended back to heaven, but had stayed on Earth for the last 2000 years, he would have a lot more believers.

Half-Life

Cmon, he got bored in 3 years and had to go back to Heaven. And you expect him to stay for 2,000 years???!!?

cycomiko

and what about all the people that lived BEFORE jesus was even born? i dated a christian girl once (ONCE!) and asked her this and she said "let me ask my dad". then he gave me some BS answer.

BornAgainst

Perhaps atheists are insincere in their disbelief -- that is, perhaps their disbelief is their primary act of rebellion against a god that has revealed itself to their interiority.

Or perhaps atheists are presented with what they perceive other people (interiorities) and they find that they cannot believe based on their testimony alone, as the experience or reason on which their beliefs are founded are hidden from the other. Perhaps the god has not revealed itself to the atheist on their interior.

Perhaps the rules of god are such that its orders must always be subject to doubt or that belief in the god is contingent if only because it has granted internal freedom to believe or not, regardless of reason or other objective consideration. Perhaps the concept belief seems to imply necessity, in that if the relevant propositions are expressed or revealed, belief follows out of hand and can simply be considered a synonym for the ability to now communicate or spread the proposition. Perhaps the atheist sees a contradiction in a god that asks that belief be both contingent and necessary, so that, at best, the atheist can only say, I don't know about that -- "seems paradoxical or contradictory to me. Are you asking me to instantiate a contradiction in saying 'I believe'? Odd of you, god." And thus the atheist is left with the rather airtight assumption that god is a figment at best. If it turns out contrary to good sense that the atheist is wrong and that god is real, will they be faulted for having acknowledged their own inability to reckon the apparent contradiction between freedom to believe and the necessity impled by aboslute omniscient Truth? On the contrary, will god welcome them with open arms if they had inadvertently acknowledged that they were at a loss of establishing any airtight dogmas but nevertheless, unbeknownst to them, followed the silent or subconsiously whispered orders of the god? that'd be neat.

will atheists be condemned, instead, if they have lived life not only honestly but with a sense of humor about their own as well as the ignorance which one can reasonably assume everyone else suffers from?

Half-Life

I am assuming that everyone who died before Jesus got a "get out of hell free" card. They must present it to God on the day of judgment in order to gain entry into Heaven. I really hope the first of the first humans didn't lose their access pass to Heaven after all these years.

Of course, this implies that God plays favorites and likes the people born before Jesus better than he does us.