xeren

Okay, my roommate and I (I, an atheist, thechort[his username], a christian) began a discussion about belief in the existence of god, which i shall post here, upon which we will be posting back and forth, and because we reached a bit of an impasse in the discussion, i encourage you all to chime in!

It goes like this:

My argument is that God punishing someone for not believing in Him is unfair. If people do not find enough evidence for the existence of god, then why should they be punished for something they cannot force themselves to believe in?

To which thechort replied: What about the possibility that people, though they cannot force themselves to believe in God because they do not find the evidence convincing, do not see the evidence as convincing because they don't want to see the evidence as convincing (as a result of whatever bias they may have from their past). At that point, if they were given the evidence yet did not look at it in an unbiased light because they didn't want to, and as a result, could not believe, then they should be punished.


Now, i would like to hear people replies to this argument, but

Atheists, please do not argue that no one deserves eternal punishment, because that is a separate topic and will just derail this thread. Another thread can be started for that puropose.

Theists, please do not argue that you can choose your beliefs, because this discussion takes it as a given that you cannot choose what you believe, you can only choose how to decide what to believe, and then what you believe follows from that. Again, another thread can be started for that purpose.


Ummmm, ready, go!

Celsus

Uh... That sounds to me like a pretty standard ad hominem. You don't agree therefore you must be biased, etc. OTOH, there is Biblical basis (i.e. the Bible participates in plenty of ad homs), and so it ends up with this circular reasoning:

Of course, you have to first not love the truth, then God sends you a lie, then you can't find the truth. Then presumably, the truth sounds like a lie and a lie like the truth. Round and round the mulberry bush... Typical Christian reasoning.

Joel

Psycho Economist

Wow... sounds like that flame war we all had with Satan Oscilates my Metallic Sonattas back at the first of November.

thechort

Hello, I'm thechort, xeren's roommate, and I wanted to clarify my position in this discussion. To do so, I'll use an analogy I discussed with xeren for a while before we posted this thread. Here goes...

Suppose person A (referred to as only "A" from here on) is taught to believe that a certain group of people is inferior. Not only that, but he is taught to hate them, and killing one from that group is to be encouraged, even celebrated. In reality, this group of people is not inferior, and sufficient evidence in support of this truth exists. "A" either ignores this evidence, or does not seek it out. "A" then murdurs someone from this group of supposedly inferior people. Should "A" be held accountable for his actions? Are repurcussions/is punishment just? Or furthermore, necessary? I feel that it is, and we see it throughout history and in our very own cultures. Consider Nazi Germany: taught to hate, persecute, and ultimately kill Jews. Overwhelming evidence exists in the world today, and existed then, proclaiming that Jews were no less human and deserved no less liberty than any other person in this world. And rightly so, much of the world believed this. Yet Hitler's Germany believed otherwise, and drove forward one of the most atrocious acts in history. Should they be held accountable for their beliefs, and more specifically, for the actions that were prompted by their beliefs? Yes!

Now suppose for the sake of this argument that God does exist and that sufficient evidence for His existence is present in the world. In no way do I take these things to be trivial, but for the sake of this thread (a discussion of punishment being warranted or unwarranted), I will assume these things to be true. If this is the case, then a person "B" could ignore or dismiss or simply not seek this evidence. Would God be unjust in punishing this person for his unbelief? I see a very strong parallel between person "A" and "B," and if "A" is punished for murder (a manifestation of his belief that a certain group of people is inferior and ought to be killed), then I think person "B," after ignoring the evidence for God's existence, would not be unjustly punished if he were indeed punished by God. Intellectual disbelief in God would strongly influence many of the life choices of that person; in other words, action follows from belief, as in the example with "A".

At this point, it would become a discussion for whether or not there is sufficient evidence for the existence of God, but I hope we can save that for other threads and stick to the issue at hand: can a person be justly punished for his beliefs? I believe the answer is yes, but I think it is important to recognize the strong connection between belief and acting on that belief, as seen in the case of "A". When such a person chooses to ignore the evidence that would have otherwise changed his beliefs, he becomes accountable for his subsequent actions, though they may appear on the surface to merely be "unavoidable" manifestations of his belief.

Ronin

So ~ under your hypothetical scenario, we're not working with a benevolent deity?

Why does this God hate non-believers?

Should this God be punished as in the person A scenario?

Since Hitler believed in God and still behaved that way, would your God still punish Person A, who also believed in God?

If person B never hated or killed anyone and only behaved in a helpful, humanitarian manner ~ but did not find any evidence to believe in God, would he still be punished?

If so, for eternity?

Unum

I don't think it's a question of whether or not God "hates" non-believers.

Think of it this way.

Say you're a middle manager in a huge company. You have a bunch of people working above you and a bunch of people working below you. Some of the people that work below you, won't recognize you as their boss. They just refuse to acknowledge it thinking that they know everything. They might even do good work, however if they were to just recognize you and give you their respect you could teach them a few things about how it all works, some procedures to make their work more enjoyable and make them more productive to the company. When it comes time to doling out bonuses and promotions, would you recommend these people for these things? Or, would you even possibly demote them or dock their pay in order to get them to pay attention? A demotion or a dock in pay might seem an unfair "punishment" to the employee receiving it, yet in reality it can be considered perfectly fair as it is in the best interest of the company and the employee involved.

Here is how I feel it is in regards to this analogy. There is one boss, that boss is God. We are all at the exact same level of employment with every other human, we all work in the same company and our promotions or demotions are handed out when we die. Also, the company is trying to produce such products as love, smiles, happiness and harmony. Large bonuses are given to those people who can or even try to create these products.

Peace,

Unum

Ronin

What if the employees find no evidence that there is a manager at all (as no one has even located the office) and therefore feel the need to outperform the employees that still insist,with the use of forged documents obviously written in their own handwriting, that there is a manager?

Does the simple lack of recognition warrant a demotion, dock in pay and/or actual torment for an eternity?

<looks out at the beautiful night sky>

What a sad, silly way to think.

Shadownought

Really?

Is Yahweh punishing person B for his disbelief alone, or the life choices that would OBVIOUSLY follow from such a disbelief?

Exactly what sort of life does Person B lead, and what does it have to do with his disbelief?

phlebas

I disagree.

If your Person A kills a jew or whomever else because of his beliefs, he should actually be punished for his actions. A person can hate jews/gays/Republicans/mimes/lawyers/cats in his hard little heart all he wants. But acting on those beliefs is what causes problems. Harming someone else is a punishable offense.

Same holds for Person B. If this person doesn't believe in God by either not seeing the evidence or actively ignoring the evidence, that harms absolutely no one. I guess you can argue that it hurts God, but you would think an all-powerful deity would have a thicker skin. Of course, if person B allows his disbelief to manifest in harmful behavior, that's a little different.

So, no -- disbelief in God (or even belief that one class of people is inferior) is not enough to deserve any sort of punishment.

It's sort of a moot point anyway. The evidence person B is so hypothetically ignoring doesn't exist. If God was sending evidence, God could do a much better job. Claiming that god only sends evidence to people who already believe is cheating.

tk

Actually, there are some bosses in the world who deliberately seek out bootlickers, and fire them. If a Perfect Divine Being exists, I should expect him to have at least the same degree of wisdom.

Indeed, I think a wise boss will reward people based purely on their contributions to the company, rather than how well they suck up to the boss.