emotional

Sitting in front of a computer, it doesn't take great courage to say "I will disobey God even if He burns me in hell". But Christians and Muslims say that if you had to spend just one moment in God's hell, you wouldn't be so cocky.

My take on this is that it's an issue of trust. I trust God not to be the evil blackmail-master of Christianity and Islam, and I trust that all the inhumanities attributed to Him are the fictions of evil-hearted men. Christians and Muslims worship a Satan of their own making. Let them have their pleasure therein. I trust that God's mercy extends beyond the lifetime of a person. Certainly I may be besmirched with sin right now, and I grant that God does not look upon sin, but I believe that the sinner is sent to hell in order to be cleansed of his sins and then get out of there. Eternal hell is mere sadism and has no remedial value.

God never issued a command to sacrifice goats, or to believe in Jesus crucified, or to encircle a black stone seven times. The whole idea of worshipping God, of pleasing Him, is incoherent, because God lacks nothing and therefore requires no worship, cannot be pleased. Therefore the only commandments are the humanistic commandments: to act in love and kindness towards other people. That is the law, there is no more beside that.

Darth Dane

I have been told that the Law is thus:

Everything is allowed
Not everything is advisable to do!



What gives Life?

Love making.

If we want to have Life on earth, we have to make more Love(not necassarily sex!) Hate kills all of us, Love gives Life, so the most common sense action to do is to Love thy neighbor as you would Love yourself. Because surely you wouldn't hate and kill yourself....of course some may disagree.


Hell is, imho, a prison of the minds who believe in it.



I don't believe in Hell I believe in Love.






DD - Love & Laughter

The_Unknown_Banana

I like your thinking. I actually went to church the other day with a friend (read: Got dragged to a church ). Anyway, they would basically sing the same verses over and over again, and then have speakers who told stories that basically said the same thing the verses did. (Just as I remember it from the last time I went to church, about 10 years ago) I thought, man, if there is a God that knows everything etc, I'm pretty sure he'd be bored off his rocker right now.

(I wonder how people justify singing "He is so great" etc over and over again. It's not like God would need to be told this. Hence, it is obviously purely for the people's benefits, or to renew their religious mindset. But that's another topic of course)

NonHomogenized

so his book says. I'll have an awful lot of time on my hands to find out, if you're right, now won't I?

a) I'd have a long time to find out
b) I'd have a lot of motivation
c) I'd have exactly what better to do with that eternity? Let's see... spend all day getting tortured, or spend all day getting tortured while trying to find a way to force god to be held responsible for his actions?
d) funny, I thought "lucifer" had quite a bit of influence on earth. Indeed, he and god seem quite chummy at times in that book of yours.

You seem to be disregarding how long eternity would be. Even if I couldn't actually accomplish anything, I could still try, and try, and try. And, if I failed for all eternity, I'd have lost nothing. What's he gonna do, punish me for *another* eternity? Punish me *more* for eternity? And if I suceeded, I'd have gained at least half of what I'd be interested in gaining. Either god would be held responsible for his actions, or I'd cease to exist. Or both.

I ate Pascal's Wafer

Sure. That's not what we're talking about, though. If God is as you describe him, then he is not unjustly punishing people, and thus we can worship him without feeling horrible (assuming, of course, that he wants to be worshipped, or that any of us choose to worship anyone). What we are talking about is the Christian concept of god.

Huh? What's to be angry about, and why are we confused? If God punishes people unjustly, then why are we confused for being unwilling to worship him if there is no good reason for us to do this?

Many Christians would beg to differ. Since their concept of God is more prevalent in our society than yours, we prefer to discuss these issues in the context of the Christian concept of God.

-Nick

Arken

Simple self-preservation. Not kissing Hank's ass would definitely get him to kick the shit out of me, but if I kiss him and definitely get the million dollars if I left town (Hank showed this to me personally and actually pointed out where the million dollars could be found outside of town), I'd kiss his ass no matter how many people he kicked the shit out of. After all, what's the point in not kissing Hank's ass if he's going to kick the shit out of anyone else who doesn't kiss his ass anyway?

catmar

No. That's why I'm atheist. Didn't feel comfortable being part of a group when I disagree with several of their major beliefs.

Mageth

Magus:

a) He is immortal and its 100% impossible to kill Him or for Him to even die for that matter

This throws a rather big wrench into the "Jesus is God and died for our sins" story you're rather fond of recounting, doesn't it?

mike_decock

Do you really believe this? It's not hard to imagine pleasure without pain. You don't need to suffer starvation to enjoy a chocolate sundae.

-Mike...

Citrusponge

I could easily worship a god I disagreed with, but it would be impossible for me to love this god.