xeren

Okay, I may have posted this before, but, i can't find it so i thought i'd bring it up again:

Let's say god does exist, but i go through my life not convinced, and end up dying an atheist.

Didn't god, an omnicient being who knows the future with perfect clarity, know that, if he were to create me, i would not choose him and would end up in hell?

Essentially, isn't god creating a person just to send them to hell?

-xeren

Nectaris

You, me, and all those people, who because of their culture have never been exposed to the "right" theistic bent. As well as all those cultures and peoples that are older than the "right" god.

Of course, there is the Xtian belief that when Yeshuva bar Youssef died on the cross that all the people that came before were freed from hell, even the pagans and atheists.

So I guess it's just our bad luck to have been born after Yeshuva bar Youssef. . .

Dave

abe smith

Ain' no "god".

Nectaris

Hi Abe,

As an atheist, I agree with you. I think it's more of an intellectual exercise-to wonder why an all knowing, all powerful creator god would bother creating me only to send me to eternal hell fire at the end of my life. Why not skip the whole life bit and just send me directly to hell?

AbbyNormal

And that, my friends, is why I'm an atheist.

Add to that, why does God "want you to know him", etc, when he already knows otherwise? I think at this point the theist uses my all-time favorite get-out-of-jail-free response: "We aren't meant to understand the ways of God". <img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" />

And people say they turn to religon looking for answers......

Regards,
AbbyNormal

[ November 27, 2002: Message edited by: AbbyNormal ]</p>

Keith Russell

Greetings:

I would like to ask this:

If I die an atheist, having devoted a great deal of my life to thinking and concluding that 'God' is impossible, must 'God' send me to 'Hell'?

Wouldn't an omnipotent, omniscient 'God' be able to decide to make an exception or two--wouldn't 'God' be able to do anything 'He' wants?

If not, why not? Why would 'God' be bound (or evenobligated) to send certain people to 'Hell', and others to 'Heaven'?

What would be the point of having omnipotence, if one still had to 'follow the rules'?

Hmmm?

Keith.

Wave Man

Well.

As a Christian, albeit not a fundamentalist bible thumper, I can imagine how God created us with a free will to choose what we wanted to do. He knew people were going to do good, and He knew some would do evil, but He probably thought that giving humans free will was still better than making them slaves of some other will.

And you have your free will to choose what you want to believe, etc, right?

As for how God will judge people, there are many opinions I suppose, but since I am not God and since I will never be in that position, I find it more fruitful to concentrate on my life here and now, as a Christian, and leave God to do His business. As he gave me a free will.

I have no doubt He will judge fairly, but as for specifics I, as a normal fallible less-then-omniscient being do not know, and again: it really is not my business to judge people, so I don't. And, if I can get people to open their hearts to His love and accept Him, by example or conversation, that is more important to me (and effective) than telling someone he will go to Hell.

Thank you.
Ronin

xeren

But don't you see, as a being that knows the future, He knew that i would use my free will* to not choose him.

So, one second before he created me, he thought to himself, "Hmm, if I create this guy, he is going to use his own free will to not choose me, and i am going to have to send him to hell."

And what did he do? He created me anyway.

-xeren

* - I don't believe in strong free will, but to avoid turning this into a free will debate, which can be found here:<a href="http://iidb.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=56&t=000454&p=2" target="_blank">Free Will</a>, I will for the sake of argument, agree that we do have free will.

Philosoft

Better how? Better because God says it's better or just better? And is it really better or does God just think it's better?

<strong> It's not at all clear that we choose what to believe in anything but a very narrow sense of "free will."

<strong> Fairly how? Fairly by human standards or fairly by God's? Because I'm constantly reminded that these are not equivalent.

<strong> Interesting. Is this your name? I ask because we have a poster here who goes by that screen name. He is, shall I say, enigmatic? But in a cool way.

Fiach

Atheism is arrived at by deep, considered, rational thinking and critical analysis of all scriptural bases for existence of God(s).

Those who are the most devout believers generally forsake critical analysis and rational processing of data, in order to blindly believe scriptures all of which are irrational on close examination.

So, if there is a God. If God created/designed the human brain/mind, the most rational data processor, capable of filtering out irrational rubbish, then he made us as we are.

He designed some of us with rational brains that are so tightly filtered to weed out rubbish from reasonable data, that we are biologically prone to be rationalists.

He also designed other brains that take all input almost without question, avoid critical analysis, accept all data on authority. They either cannot reaaon fully, cannot filter outrageous rubbish from simple facts, and accept all on hearsay.

The rationalist group have a very high risk or likelihood of being atheists or agnostics. The second group are inevitably going to be theists or accept some religion substitute (UFOism, Big Footism.)

If God made us with the brain structure that we have, is there any justice to condemning one to hell because his brain efficiently filters out what appears to be incredulous bollocks. Is it just to reward the wanker with limited rational capacity, because he/she cannot differentiate reality from rubbish, and accepts a theology deliberately designed to appear as rubbish?

If there is a God, and that God wanted us to believe in he/she/it, that God would reveal himself/herself to all of us convincingly at the same time. He would not give some deliberately crazy sounding prophesy to some village nutter out behind the barn, and expect all of the saner people to believe the nutter. That is the foundation of all religions. Some eccentric bloke gets a revelation that no one else hears, and everyone else is compelled to believe it. I don't think so, unless God is deliberately devious, the ultimate trickster.

But then he creates some brains capable of saying, "hey, that doesn't make sense. It sounds like bloody nonsense." Those people are not going to believe was seems crazy. Should they/we be punished because our brains think more clearly?

Fiach