Theists, do they really exist? (hell, church, atheist, bible)

[Racket]

Well i thought Id throw this one in after seeing the other thread 'Atheists, do they really exist?'

SO...Theists, do they really exist?

I think in every religious persons mind there must be some doubt seen as though very few (if any- im not sure) religious people live a 'perfect life' acording to thier beliefs. Surely if you Totally believe in god and heaven/hell etc you would live a 'perfect life' no matter what. Because if I believed I would either go on to live FOREVER in heaven or hell I would see my time on earth as a very short 'task/test' and would abide by the 'rules' to the very letter. Most religious people dont though, they spend time enjoying thier life not worshiping etc. So how can you totally believe. If you did, wouldnt you not care about enjoying this life and be totally set on 'getting into heaven'?

[Marodi]

I don't think so, becasue the christian god says to give everything up and live a life for him, meanwhile I don't see them out on the streets. Thus, I don't think they believe, but merely act like they believe.

If there was no 'reward' for believing, i'd say 99% of them wouldn't believe. If this omnipotent god is as powerful as they claim, he'd know that they only believe in him for the reward, not because they actually believe. Sorta like hanging out with a friend you don't like purely because you like using their stuff like TV, car, house, popularity, etc. and once they figure out they aren't flattered but feel used.

[Tesaje]

I had to laugh at this one. If it is absolute belief in the whole religion, then yes there are a few but they tend to be put away in prisons or mental health institutions as dangerous sociopaths or end up as suicidal nut jobs who go to meet their maker like the Jim Jones group. But there is all kinds of elastic reasoning (as evidence on this board) for how they truly believe in all the bible as it is written but it doesn't really mean what it says but it was written accurately as inspired directly by god but that's not what god really meant ... and on and on. These are theists but like any atheist, they are rational enough to know they can't go around stoning to death any adulterer or apostate they meet and adhere to the other proscriptions like love thy neighbor and judge not lest ye be judged.

What you can't get these fundamentalists to admit is that they do not really believe every word of the bible but pick and choose among it to form their theology. Other less literal theists are just as sincere in their theology but see that the bible is not literal. They are more honest in their belief structure.

In the few years before 1000 AD, there were large groups of fanatics who were certain that the Apocalypse was coming at 1000 AD (never mind all the inaccuracies of the calendar at that time) and gave away all their possessions and wandered the countryside living exactly as the Jesus of the bible demanded so that they could be among the saved. There were so many, it became a huge social problem. Fields were left fallow and food supplies dropped dangerously because people abandoned their secular concerns, beggars were everywhere, You couldn't find a smith to shoe your horses because they were out begging and living as Jesus said. The Church had to try to get these nuts to stop believing the end was near and deny it was imminent in an effort to get them back to work. It was truly a mass delusion in a very ignorant population that had been feed the brain washing of the bible their whole lives.

[Lucidus]

Good post Racket. I tend to agree that most, if not all religious people suspect somewhere in the back of their mind that their beliefs are not true. I remember last year reading some articles about how Mother Teresa had her doubts. If someone like her who did live her life serving God had doubts then every other religious person must also. I think that theist choose to believe in God or gods despite the evidence to the contrary and what they know must actually be true. I read somewhere that the definition of faith is "believing in something that you know is not true". I think that is a good definition and that there are no real theist.

[steffan]

I believe that most christians at times have doubts, thinking ones anyway. however it is probaly less comman in a great many nonchristian beliefs