RJS

Ok.

PS - you should tell your friends who know how to make unsuspecting people levitate to move to Vegas. I think they have a good future there.

RJS

No - I am saying God will decide and whatever is decided will be just. At a minimum, however, I think it likely that we all will be judged on our actions (in addition to beliefs).

parkdalian

So if one commits murder because of a traceable brain abnormality, and because God judges us on our actions, one goes to hell?

I don't mean to be picky but if God judged by our particular internal and external circumstances and environmental factors (which only God can do after all) rather than our actions, we'd all surely merit neither heaven nor hell.

wdog

RJS,

with all due respect, you cannot say that lack in belief in god is due to some sort of vanity. It was precisely my search for the truth outside myself that led me away from christianity. I hold it is quite the other way around. My search was out of a sincere drive to learn as best I could about the reality around me, and not to kid myself about anything. The search for truth is not vanity. On the other hand if one jumps to a conclusion about eternal life, heaven, etc. then I would say that person is really worried about themselves and not any type of objective truth. After all it is far more comforting to think you are going to heaven than to think that you are just going to die.

christianity has much more to do with vanity than atheism. I don't think of myself as the center of the universe at all, in fact my looking outside myself with an attitude of humility leads me to non belief and acceptance of the world as it is. Christians think that each one of us is 'special' in god's eyes and we all have a place in heaven as one of god's 'children'. I think we are just some intelligent creature on an obscure planet in a large universe with no particular special meaning attached to our existence. Tell me what point of view is more vain?

I started with a deep desire to believe, I was going to pentecostal church and wanted to really become a hard-core apologist. As I kept searching, the more than christian theology fell apart. Deep down there is an instinctual desire to believe in god, as we want to think we are special and someone has control. You said it is hard to imagine someone like me, well here I am.

RJS

Do you think this is true for everybody, almost everybody, most, some?

Also, I would certainly not be surprised to see someone fall away from a particular faith - i.e. leave Catholocism and become agnostic. Taking deep faith all the way to atheism is more interesting - and I know many here would state that is their story (you, expreacher, etc.)

Mageth

Ok.

PS - you should tell your friends who know how to make unsuspecting people levitate to move to Vegas. I think they have a good future there.

Levitation may be within the realm of science one day. What am I saying, one day? Go to <a href="http://www.fnal.gov/pub/ferminews/Ferminews01-04-13.pdf" target="_blank">this newsletter from Fermilabs</a>, page 13, and read about the Meissner effect.

Keith Russell

xeren:

You seem to think that the fact that one has chosen to believe a thing rather than its opposite, means that beliefs are not chosen.

Its as if you would only accept that our beliefs are chosen, if we can easily choose any option.

I have already chosen not to believe in Santa Claus. I chose to deny Santa's existence based on the fact that I reasoned (correctly, I believe) that all claims for Santa are nonsensical/impossible; that all claims for Santa contradict a great deal that I already know to be true.

Based on this evaluation of the evidence 'for' Santa, I chose to deny Santa's existence; I chose to conclude (believe) that Santa is not real.

And yet you say that our beliefs are not chosen, and you want me to believe in Santa, to convince you.

Yet, my choice not to believe in Santa, though, should be convincing enough that our beliefs are chosen.

If it isn't, I don't know how to help you.

(Or, do you think that because one's choice might be based on evidence, that one really hasn't 'chosen', at all? If so, please explain how you arrived at this conclusion...)

Keith.

[ October 16, 2002: Message edited by: Keith Russell ]</p>

Shadowy Man

Can you choose to believe in Santa again, but just for the next five minutes? Then after that you'll no longer believe.

xeren

Keith, you missed my point, i was telling you to try to believe in Santa because i knew that you conuldn't. You can't makeyourself believe in him.

How are beliefs chosen? You say that once you found claims for Santa's existence to be non-sensical/impossible, you CHOOSE not to believe in him. I don't believe that for a second.

Do you think that, if you had wanted to, once you found claims for Santa's existence to be impossible, that you could have CHOSEN to believe in him despite everything that you'd learned?

-xeren

Tom Sawyer

I was just reading a book that dealt with this very issue and it really pissed me off the way the author handled it. I was thinking about how I would handle the situation if the events of the book happened to me and it deals very relevantly with this topic.

The book is called Strange Highways by Dean Koontz. If you haven't read it, don't bother. The basic situation is this: a guy in his forties suddenly finds himself twenty years back in time reliving a night where he made a bad choice that messed up his entire life. The guy is an atheist and he finds himself teamed up with a nice Catholic girl to stop a serial killer he had a chance to stop the first time around, but didn't.

The part that's relevant to this topic is when they are talking about how he came back in time. He started talking about quantum fluctuations and other such crap and the girl asks if that was the case, why would he be at this night that was so important and not some random other night where he just sat around watching TV or something. He still doesn't accept it and it's not until the end that he rediscovers his faith (because he always believed, of course, and was just denying the Truth, like all atheists do )

Anyways, what annoyed me was that the author thought that an atheist in this situation would still try and find a natural explanation for the events. If I (or any other atheist, IMHO) found myself suddenly back in time, exactly in a position to change a major turning point in my life to one of good instead of one of evil, I would certainly take that as proof that there was a higher power putting His hand into things. That would be undeniable evidence and I would be a believer.

In the real world, however, things like that don't happen. If they did, there wouldn't be atheists. My beliefs would most certainly change if I came across that or a similar situation. Any of this airy-fairy crap about feeling God in my heart and stuff like that doesn't cut it, though. If I'm going to believe in an omnipotent God, I'm going to need a demonstration of omnipotent power in order to do so. If His power is infinite, then it costs just as much energy to give me that demonstration as to not give it to me.

A natural universe precludes the existence of a supernatural being. I don't just 'choose' non-belief after looking at the evidence anymore than I 'choose' to believe that 1+1=2. It is simply the only conclusion I can come to.