You would think they would have to at least stop being the people they were. I mean, if I was a Christian and my friend/lover/family/etc. went to Hell, I'd be mortified. If I was in heaven and NOT upset, then I would no longer really be ME. God would have changed me (which defeats the idea of free will) or deceived me (which some would feel goes against the idea of an omnibenevolant God).
I honestly think that I wouldn't last at all in heaven. If you're in heaven for eternity, people are going to show their human nature. Christian or not, people never stop sinning, and I wouldn't want to go about with this perfect wannabe Jesus attitude constantly. If I see an attractive girl I have no problem thinking that, and I want things(I don't mean sexual things by that, either). I want possessions is what I mean, and I want to enjoy myself. Lust and sex go together most of the time, I believe, and I wouldn't want to be in a place that doesn't allow that. Of course, if I was in heaven I would be thinking about all the people who didn't make it into heaven. I wouldn't be able to look God or Jesus in the face without being pissed off out of my mind about their terrible morality, and I wouldn't have fun being around all these uninteresting people. I'd be reminded of all the horrors God committed in the Bible.
Yeah. Last place I'd want to be is a place populated entirely by Christians. lol. Nothing against them as individuals, but I disagree with the whole mindset and that which stems from it. The problem with heaven is that we would lose all of our individuality and free will to become assimilated into what God defined as perfect. You might as well just die, because God seems just to make a "perfect" person to go to heaven in your place anyway. In heaven, we would be freed of all of our humans viced, and be granted all the divine virtues necessary. But then are we really us? Or human at all?
Of course. But since we can't KNOW either way, all be have is a belief on this matter. But you answered it yourself, we care what we believe. Hence this topic .
Well, and especially if you're going to basically sacrifice your entire life to a set of principals that come with believing in a God and an afterlife. If you happen to be a Christian you're supposed to thrive to be like Jesus, and, well, you should be pretty confident that's what you believe is true if you're going to basically set aside your entire life for that.
I do believe in God and I am always working my way up to find a better divine understanding of this world around me. I have turned to many of those new age books, attended many different churches of different parishes, all to find a specific purpose. At one point I was an atheist, then agnostic, and now....now I don't know. I have realized that there is indeed a higher being. I have respect for all people of different religions. I just enjoy reading all these sacred texts and interpreting them to fit me and my soul. Therefore I chose that yes, I do believe in God but do not belong to a specific dogma. Maybe I will someday. My spirit and Thought Adjuster changes just as much as anything else. I have recently taken a liking into this book called The Urantia Book. (Notice the user name) and have felt a better understanding of the world and worlds to come. Basically this book isn't a how-to book on how to find yourself and become an (insert religion here) but rather it is just an outlet. Simply an outlet. It explains the human being in relation to the First Source and Center, being either God or whomever- just the grand and diving higher being.
yea , i believe in god. why? look , i thank god and i curse god. why do we do it? because he/she is the maker of "the world of living". not the world himself. but that's my belief.. ; )
Ive questioned it recently, but not after today in church. I actually felt his presence and i just broke down in church and started sobbing, and a stranger at the church came up to me and said to me "would you like me to pray for you?" and i just hugged her and cried on her shoulder. Its amazing to feel something like this..
It is amazing, sure, but it's definitely not the presence of God. I've felt it before, too, I don't think the feeling of someone doing this with you would wow any psychologist.
There's one question I'd like to put forward as a very strong atheist. See, i've had debate after debate about whether "god" exists or not, and a while ago it struck me that I didn't need to use an argument to try and prove that "god" doesn't exist. All I needed to do was prove that he wasn't worth worship. I'll explain, see, god is all powerful, all loving etc. and yet, with all the terrible things that go on in the world, he does nothing, yes? Well, I have no doubt you've heard someone say that before, and the simple response is, "oh, god gave us free will to make our own decisions and mistakes." Okay, quite a catch 22 for the atheists cause there's really nothing you can say to that, except this maybe; If god is all powerful, and has the ability to right all the wrongs of the world instantly, and he doesn't, because he'd rather we all kill ourselves, because that was our choice. Well then, why in the hell would I want to worship him? If he can cure all diseases, stop famine, prevent natural disasters, stop babies dying every single day. If he can stop all that, and make the world perfect, but choses not to, because it's somehow our responsibility, well then I don't want to worship him. I'll use an example as well. Say I created a bunch of clones, and built a massive environment for them to live in. And I could control anything in that environment, and I can see it all with hidden cameras. What if, one day I see one of my subjects walking into a volcano I built. He doesn't know what it his, and he decides to jump in. Assume I could stop it happening, and save this man's life, but didn't. Would that make me worthy of devotion from my subjects? Imagine I then had the audacity after this event to talk to my subjects from the heavens, and tell them that I created them, and the world they live in, and so they must worship me. Why should they? I wouldn't be a guardian to them, i'd just be some sick scientist performing some twisted experiment. In my view, that's what god is. He can help, but doesn't. have you ever lost someone you loved? Through accident or illness? Well, god could've stopped that. But he didn't. Why? "Free will". Well, imagine for a second what this world would be like without so called "free will", if god decided to help any time anything went wrong. If someone was to get hit by a car, he'd save them, nobody would come off with a scratch. Nobody would ever have to experience pain. Society would be a utopia, and with control and guidance from god, everything would be perfect. Wouldn't that be amazing? So, whether god exists. That's hard to argue. But whether I should worship a being that doesn't maintain his creation, well... that's easy.
CHRISTIAN COUNTERARGUMENT: God originally wanted it to be that way, but we are the ones who chose to be separated from him when we ate from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. It's a terrible argument, but Christians will believe they walk all over you with it. However, I agree with what you're saying, and I do think that's one of the best arguments against God, aside from just quoting scriptures themselves.(Like the bears mauling the kids for calling a prophet 'baldy', and the killing of a man under God's order because he was picking up sticks in the forest on the Sabbath)
The odd thing is, people say there is no paradise without free will. Then they say God gives us free will. Then they say heaven is paradise. So is there no free will in heaven? If it is truly heaven, shouldn't there be free will?
Okay, thanks for that. I'll show how that argument is incredibly flawed. To paraphrase the brilliant comedian Ricky Gervais; "Why did god put the snake there in the first place? Or the tree, one or the other, I mean, it was an accident waiting to happen. Where was he by the way when this was happening? He's meant to be everywhere so when the snake came up to Eve why didn't he just go "shutup, shutup, shutup, don't listen" Or why didn't he just at the start go, "Eve, I wont lie. If you eat the apple, it will kill you, oh and by the way, if a snake comes and talks to you, he's a lying bastard". And so we see god could just as easily have stopped that from happening but didn't. It's a pathetic argument with no logical premise.
Very good point. And I think that's one hell of a scary thought for people who actually believe in Heaven and Hell. Can you imagine how it would be like if all people in Heaven would have no free will, they'd walk, talk, live all in the same way. It's would be one fake monotone place.
I posted that in Random Thoughts the other day. However, they would say that the point of it was that man had the choice of either being with God or separation from God, and he left it up to them to decide. Then they decided they'd take it upon themselves and eat from the tree.
No but you see god created man and manufactured a situation in which Eve would eat the apple. There was no choice involved in my opinion. If god is all knowing, as christians think he is, then he would have known after putting everything into place that Eve would chose to eat the apple. And besides, he didn't stop communicating with us then, did he? The whole old testament is full of god talking to people. There just seems to be some random point at which he stops all of a sudden.