Ultimate destiny of non-believers? (mythology, Islamic, Israel, bishop)

[TRANSPONDER]

Originally Posted by Thomas R.

If a person's religion is untrue it's not like they're living an intentional lie. More likely they are living on something people believed was true, but turned out not to be true. Which means they're like most everyone else to one degree or another. Also due to that I wouldn't say people of the Hopi traditional religion or Shinto priests are exactly "spending their life believing a lie."

However fine let's say we've spent our life believing something that isn't true. So? Maybe our lives were richer and more fulfilling for it. And what makes you think you even know the truth or that you have it? I would say that it is certain that you don't. It's likely that after you die many things you believed will be disproved and become obsolete. Even if that's not the case there's no way you know anything but a fraction of "The Truth" because humanity in general only knows a fraction of it. We haven't unified the forces or reconciled Quantum Mechanics with Relativity or a host of other things.

Not to say that I have the Truth either because I don't. Much of the Truth is unknown to me because of the limits of my own intellect and the limits of humanity as a species. For me as a Christian I can at least have the hope that the Truth may eventually be revealed to me after death and when memory of me on Earth has evaporated to nothing. To me I found there to be no such hope in atheism and I suppose I'd rather even have a possibly false hope of getting answers than no hope at all.

This is a good argument. What it comes down to is, essentially,

(1) is it important that what we believe is based on the logical evaluation of good evidence (as distinct from what it makes us feel comfortable to believe)?

(2) do we acept that logical evaluation of the good evidence is the method with the best track record of getting at the truth?

If we buy both those parameters, religion, Culthink and fringe - science really isn't in the running.

If we don't, then one can happily select somethng to believe in - and I use the term 'select' advisedly, since only one or a few particular favoured beliefs are believed in.

That's ok so far as it goes and 'Living a lie' is perhaps a little harsh. But in many cases, it goes further than that. In wanting to persuade others of the validity of those beliefs (and it is only natural that people do) we start getting arguments put forward, facts adduced and reasoning engaged in.

But the reasoning is full of fallacy, the facts are cherry -picked, misrepresented or are not facts at all. Science is mangled to make it support the belief and, if it doesn't do that, is dimssed on the grounds that it led to the Death camps or the Bomb or some such stuff.

This is where the 'Lie' comes in. Not believing what a person may want to, but in those bods making a dog's dinner of logic, reason and evidence in trying to support that belief.

For me as a Christian I can at least have the hope that the Truth may eventually be revealed to me after death and when memory of me on Earth has evaporated to nothing. To me I found there to be no such hope in atheism and I suppose I'd rather even have a possibly false hope of getting answers than no hope at all

You'll see that the problem here is not in hoping that, after death the truths which science freely admits it doesn't know might become known to a liberated after - life, which an atheist would probaly say would be quite nice, but who knows. The problem is that you (as a Christian) are expecting a very particular 'Truth'. You are expecting that you will be told after death that Christianity was right, after all.

An atheist has the advantage - a double advantage - in that he or she is not limited to expecting only one 'truth' but is ready for any of 'em, and that He or she is not wasting this life in ignoring what we can find out while we're alive in the hope that we'll have it revaled to us after we're dead.

It's the reverse Pascal's wager. Since we don't know which of the beliefs is the right one and since it seems impossible to believe that we will (after death) be excluded from true knowledge on a selection process based on what method of worship we practiced when alive, it is better to bet that we WON'T find out after we're dead and should do what we can to satisfy our need to know in this life.

[cocytus]

Originally Posted by BOB_DARLING

What is the ultimate destiny of non-believers? Do Christians believe that they will be thrown into the Lake of Fire? If so I personally think that at least this kind of Christianty is totally discredited. What about Jewish people who don't believe? Will there be some Jews who were murdered by the Nazis in or destined for this Lake of Fire?

Ummm...the same destiny as what awaits "believers" I imagine.

[TRANSPONDER]

Originally Posted by Thomas R.

Moderator cut: orphaned

Fair enough. They are, interestingly enough, the questions I'd like answers to also and, if we went to some place after we died where we got all the answers to those questions, that would be nice.

But the point is that, for all we know, we will not get to any such place and as far as the evidence goes, it looks like no -one ever has, so, the bet is that we should better try to find out the answers that we can here and leave the possible 'other place' until after we die, since, as I say, there probably isn't one.

Unless the other place is in some way dependent on having signed up to some belief system otherwise we won't get it, which is what I covered by talking of expecting a specific and particular 'Truth'.

[Thomas R.]

Even if I devoted my life to answering unanswered questions it's unlikely I'd answer more than a fraction of them.

However I get what you're saying. If non-believers can go to Heaven and get these answers too then there's no real advantage to being a believer. However if belief is wrong than non-belief is better because you'll do more to learn/achieve in this life.

Unfortunately I'm getting rather ill so I might have to stop there. Still I'm not sure if atheists go to Heaven or that trying to do everything in this life is even desirable. It seems like a good deal of pressure.

[Thomas R.]

I think a difference Vic is that I'm talking about actual religions in the real world, not stereotypes of religion that exist in an atheist's imagination. I think I might be getting a fever though so read some Richard Swinburne or Alvin Plantinga or Huston Smith or something before you get back to me.

[I am free]

The God of the Bible is a wrathful God, yet He loves you enough to let his son be whipped, tortured, jeered at, hung on a tree and die for YOU. Because He wants to spend eternity with you. Would you let all of that happen to your son for someone else you loved if it was the only way to save them? God is loving because no matter how many times I screw up, He still loves me.

~A College Student

[I am free]

I would like to formally apologize for all the "christians" that have been accusing, angry, and just rude on this forum, other webpages, and in real life. Christians are supposed to practice being "Christ-like". Name calling, stupid smileys, and the like are immature and insulting not just to the unbelievers these "christians" are talking to, but also to those of us who seek to clear the stereotypical view of real christians as being intolerable, religious bigots. To all the "christians" who fit into what I described above, please think before you speak. Thank you.

[Boxcar Overkill]

Thanks for the apology, but I assure you will all give as much as we get here.

[june 7th]

This one is veering off topic, folks, so let's keep the OP in mind and get it back on track, okay?

Thanks.

[rifleman]

Originally Posted by allenk893

√ Most unbelievers know exactly what is going to happen to them, they just choose not to take action for it.

√ Please tell me why most Atheist know more bible verses off the top of their head than I do! So I make no excuses for them.

√ The only reason unbelievers don't believe is because they have a fear of hell. All of them. They fear hell so they decide to reject the notion of a God and Heaven/Hell because they know the consequences that the bible foretells about it. And they STILL choose to not believe. Well, that's their fish to fry.

...in my personal view **we are all one and the same. No one is excused before the Lord.

Well OK; thank gawd you noted, correctly, that this is only your "personal view". Thank the Godz that you're also not in charge of this nation! Or our educational system!

("You vill all bow your headz undt pray to our nationally sanctioned God, on my kommandt! Now!") {Remembering that Hitler was, after all, a good Christian!}

**BTW, I'm NOT anything like you! We are not all one and the same. I came from a thoughtful and opportunistic proto-ape. But you? We educated scientific Evolutionists are having second thoughts about that: the devoutly religious denialists may indeed have descended from some other early organism. A blind bat perhaps?

So yup; I AM officially excused from your personal spiritual lunacy. I, unlike you, am unfazed by thinking things all the way through, and will therefore be excused from a meeting with your wooden-icon God.

But even if I do have the odd dis-pleasure of meeting Him, I will then be asking exactly why He made me the outrageous skeptic that I am, it all being pre-determined by Him anyhow, according to you folks.

Well anyhow; muddle on, my friend!