Stephen T-B

A simple question for Magus55
can you - and I mean you, personally - choose to believe or not believe in something?
Could you, for instance, choose to believe in Thor or Odin or Zeus? Could you choose to believe in Santa Clause?
Do you choose to believe in the Holy Trinity on Monday but choose not to believe in it on Tuesday?
Are you like the White Queen in Alice in Wonderland, able to believe in the unbelievable because you practise believing ten unbelievable things before breakfast every day?

Magus55, if a thing is unbelievable, it is unbelievable. End of story.
The “evidence” you speak of is all internal: it is provided by something which is itself open to disbelief.
And if the veracity of a thing can be disputed, then it is not a Certain Fact. Certain Facts are just that for the very reason that they are not disputed.
The truth of the Bible stories are disputed, ergo they are not Certain Facts. And if you think you believe them because you choose to, you delude yourself: you believe them because you need to. In fact, your “belief” is not belief: it is certainty, and its source is within your own psyche.
“I know that my Redeemer liveth,” is not hyperbole. It is a statement of fact.
Your certainty springs from an interaction between your inherited characteristics and your up-bringing and your culture and your experiences. This interaction is different in every individual, which is why some individuals do not need the certainty of an “outside” power which takes care of them and promises them the ultimate antidote to the fear of dying - eternal life - and some people do; and why those who do all have slightly different ideas about the characteristics and requirements of the God of whose existence they are certain. Their ideas of the deity they adopt lie within general parameters laid down by their cultures and their priests, but are then fine-tuned by each individual to make it personally acceptable.
The “certainty” however, is the same; and being a certainty, the atheist’s inability to share it is incomprehensible. Worse, it suggests to you, the Believer, that there exists an alternative, and the only way you can deal with that is to brand me, the atheist, as being pig-headed, obtuse, and wilfully wicked; it accounts for why Believers like you embrace doctrines which cast unbelievers like me into the everlasting flames of damnation.

hezekiah jones

Originally posted by Magus55
If you had faith in Jesus, he vouches for you to God the Father, if you rejected him, he says he never knew you.

So are Jesus and "God the Father" the same thing or not? Two separate things? If Jesus has to tell "God the Father" stuff, there are things "God the Father" doesn't know? And then Jesus lies to "God the Father," by saying he never knew the unbeliever?? Do you just make this shit up as you go along, or what?

MrDarwin

Yes, that's precisely where I was going with this. Why would a loving and merciful god ever withdraw one's chance for salvation? What purpose does it serve? Why put a time limit on it? (And an unpredictably variable time limit, at that--most people don't know when they are going to die, which means that people who live longer have more opportunity for salvation than those who die young.)

Assuming we will still have free will after we die, why can't we continue to choose salvation as an expression of that free will?

And if we won't have free will, then what's the point in punishing us when we are incapable of choosing to do right or wrong? Taking away my free will would take away one of the core attributes of my being, transforming my soul into something else entirely which is no longer me. It reduces God to nothing more than a sadistic child torturing a kitten or a puppy.

Furthermore, what purpose is there is allowing souls to suffer forever in the first place, with no hope of their suffering ending, ever? Exactly how is God expressing this love towards those of his/her/its own creations who have been damned?

MrDarwin

It is not a "refusal" to believe because many of us do not see that "evidence" as reasonable at all. Precisely what do you believe is this "reasonable" evidence?

I beg to differ. Your salvation is one of the hypotheticals that the Bible deals in.

MrDarwin

I'm afraid I don't understand. Why is it any less sincere than somebody asking forgiveness before they die? Magus, do you seek salvation because you desire everlasting life with God, or because you fear damnation and Hell? Or both? Why would the motives be any different for a conscious soul, possessing free will, after they die?

Bree

Supposedly Jesus can't come back to earth until everyone has heard the Gospel. That doesn't really answer your question - it just adds fuel to the fire.

Waiting for Magnus' answer...

Magus55

Because you only desire to be with God now that you saw him and know your fate. You didn't give a crap about him on Earth because you were in no danger of his judgement and thought he was a big joke. Now that your dead and being judged - your fate was sealed on Earth - Earth is the only time you have to seek forgiveness - once dead - your decision is in stone.

God is not dumb - you don't hate him, reject his existance, and do whatever you want with no reguard to him on Earth and then say before him, oh i was just kidding - i really did seek your forgiveness so like can i come in?

Ensign Steve

This brings us back to the original question. How can a just and/or merciful god punish us eternally for a finite lifetime of sin? That is neither just nor merciful.

You have put up some answers along the lines of us not being able to understand god's ways, or sin against god being so horrible that the eternal punishment is just, but you have not told us your basis for making those claims. We have asked specific questions about this, and you have not answered them.

Jen

Paul2

You've "seen god" through his works and the bible. How is it any different that you choose to believe and follow him here on earth and someone seeing him after they've died and then begging for forgiveness?

Ojuice5001

Magus55,

Does that have to be the case? I can see your point if we're talking about someone who "repents" five minutes after he dies, but I would think that if I were in hell long enough I would repent just as sincerely as the people who repent before death. After all, if there's no pleasure in hell, I would no longer be tempted to sin, and thus neither temptation nor doubt of Yahweh's sovereignty would interfere with the process of repentance.

Here's an analogy to show this is possible. Say a kid disobeys authority (his parents) with no good excuse. But after he grows up, his parents don't have authority, and he's not tempted to disobey the people who do still have authority over him. Isn't it quite easy to repent the sin of disobedience? And if there's no temptation or unbelief in hell, all sins are like this.

Saying that this is not repentance won't work either. That means that it's impossible for an adult to repent of disobedience to parents, or an impotent man to repent of fornication, etc. But surely you don't want to agree to that.