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Even assuming this were correct, in what Kafkaesque mental landscape does someone deliberately inflict agony
on people deep in grief like that? What is it about this impulse to make their grief as horrible as possible? To gloat that this would never happen to them?
Like I said, believers have no monopoly on virtue, and unbelievers have no monopoly on vice.
My parents converted to this sort of religion at around age 40, and they had already been socialized to be decent human beings. I don't know how it would have warped me if they had not already been well-formed, or had been significantly undermined by this sort of wanton, gratuitous cruelty. And I don't want to know.
It is the ability to breed this kind of cruelty that demands that these kinds of beliefs be countered as often as possible by those of good hearts.
Even assuming this were correct, in what Kafkaesque mental landscape does someone deliberately inflict agony
on people deep in grief like that? What is it about this impulse to make their grief as horrible as possible? To gloat that this would never happen to them?
Like I said, believers have no monopoly on virtue, and unbelievers have no monopoly on vice.
My parents converted to this sort of religion at around age 40, and they had already been socialized to be decent human beings. I don't know how it would have warped me if they had not already been well-formed, or had been significantly undermined by this sort of wanton, gratuitous cruelty. And I don't want to know.
The threads is about philosophy and logic, and NOT about scientific proofs and existence of God.
So, in among almost all faiths, the followers and believers, are guaranteed a spot in heaven.
It’s not the works, remember. It’s just having the belief, and that’s it; a cosmic red carpet welcome is awaiting.
If that’s the case then what’s the point of living a life on earth anymore?
Why the struggle of getting up every morning to go work, and pay taxes, deal with daily stress, and suffer illnesses, and go thru the slow grind of old age, and see the world’s pain and misery and crime and racism, and poverty and hunger and inflation, and disease, and tornadoes and hurricanes and earth quakes and tsunamis n whatnot?
Why not just pray to have your life ended, and be in heaven and escape all of it? Why not put your faith to test?
One response I received was, “yes I am going to heaven but I love my cat or my dog”.
I think the counter is, isn’t heaven a place of blissful eternity? There is absolutely no worry of any sort in heaven regardless of your circumstances and relationships and emotional attachments with anything in this world.
Or, the old saying goes true for such faiths, “Everyone wants to go heaven but no one wants to die.”
Or, the faiths where the believer believes to have a guaranteed spot reserved in heaven, seems to fail this test of logic?
'Why Not for end of life' is because the word Father means: Life Giver ( Not life taker )
Father God's purpose, God's Will, is that Earth be inhabited forever - Isaiah 4:18
Adam was meant to live forever on a beautiful paradisical Earth.
Adam's disobedience threw a temporary monkey wrench into God's purpose for Earth and man to exist forever on Earth.
Only people like those of Luke 22:28-30; Daniel 7:18 are called to heavenly life - Revelation 20:6; 2:10; 5:9-10.
The majority of mankind (Psalm 37:9-11 which ties in with Jesus' promise at Matthew 5:5) are to inhabit Earth forever.
Jesus forewarns us that before he takes the action of Isaiah 11:3-4; Rev. 19:14-15 that there would be great earthquakes, disease etc. as found mentioned at Luke 21:11; Rev 6:8. Not that there things are caused by God, but that man has dominated man to man's hurt, man's injury - Ecclesiastes 8:9
I wonder who it was that initially decided what God MUST be and created the Omnis? Personally, as I tried to explain my encounter to my intellect, I assumed NOTHING about what attributes the God I encountered MUST have. I used only those I had experienced and unambiguously knew were true. You said God MUST be omniscient, Shirina, why is that, exactly?
Why must God be omniscient? Well, he doesn't have to be omniscient. However, if you believe in the Bible, there are plenty of passages that imply this fact. The passage about God knowing the number of hairs on your head. That God knows the death of every sparrow. And on and on.
But even more important is whether or not your God is perfect. I mean, if you want to worship another fallible, imperfect being, well, more power to you. But for me, the only God I would truly worship would be a god who is perfect. Otherwise, I'm simply throwing myself on the ground at the feet of ... an extraterrestrial that is merely a much older and as such more technologically advanced than humanity - but is just as fallible and full of flaws - and is as killable and subject to death - as any standard human. I could respect a being like that. I would certainly envy his knowledge. But worship? Why?
Because to me a truly good being - whether a supernatural god or another being full of flaws - would never demand worship from anyone. A good being would never EVER demand that we love it, that we put IT first above all other things, and all the rest of the idiotic rules regarding obedience. You know - let's obey to the letter the 10 Commandments but ... yeah, we'll cherry pick out all the rules about slavery. IF you are a fan of the Bible. If you're not then those things don't matter.
But then again, if not through some ancient book written thousands of years ago when neither the author or the readership knew anything about anything regarding the natural world. Killing a bunch of animals will not cure you of leprosy - and no, having an animal look at stripes while it gives birth will not result in the babies having a striped coat of fur. Bats are not birds, dolphins are not fish, spiders are not insects, and the earth is not "suspended" in space. Neither does it have four corners. The number of rampant scientific errors are quite extensive.
And this is what happens when you worship a God who isn't omniscient. And yet, for all of the nonsense contained within the Bible, the Qu'ran, or the other bizarre things found in Eastern religions - they are the ONLY record of who and what god is - and what this god expects.
Not that being written down a book gives a god sudden validity, mind you, but it is the ONLY way more than one person can come close to experiencing the god - or so the belief goes. Yes, yes, there is "personal experience," but that is even more unreliable than ancient books. Unfortunately, this is how fake religions and cults are formed - someone things he had some kind of personal experience with an "entity" and is charismatic enough to get other people to believe his BS. Not that everyone who says this is a liar, of course. Some people DO actually believe they saw what they saw. It's duping others into believing it that carries the danger.
So yes - unless you don't mind worshiping imperfect beings who are really no better than YOU are, God would have to be omniscient. Without omniscience, god could easily make mistakes based on a lack of knowledge, ignorance, and/or simply lacking in information. Even if God's brain acted like a super Wikipedia wherein if God wanted to know something he just had to consult the multiverse and instantly know whatever he wanted, it still wouldn't be enough. Because having that ability does NOT guarantee this god would know what he needs to know. Thus God could still screw the proverbial pooch by not knowing he needed to know something in order for his own actions to be ... pure (for lack of a better term).
Quote:
Originally Posted by MysticPhD
I have hope that the absurdity of these beliefs about God and His motives is becoming increasingly evident to more and more people, Shirina.
Well, I think I pretty much explained in my long, verbose, "too long, didn't read" style so that everything could be covered in one post, more or less, thus saving ourselves a ton of back-and-forth nonsense that would equal to the same amount of reading and typing as one longer post would create.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MysticPhD
They are entirely the result of our flawed primitive human imagination and ignorance. It will take time because our human vanity and hubris insists on deciding what God MUST BE despite having no basis in fact or reason.
All of the gods currently worshiped under an organized religion are the result of our flawed and primitive human imagination - including the idea that a being could be omni this and omni that without there being some cross-contamination. For instance, if God is omni-benevolent, he cannot commit an evil act. But that prohibition would mean he can't be omnipotent. Right? God possesses so many "omnis" that it becomes a lot like an animal with too many legs. The poor thing can no longer run or walk because its legs continue tripping over each other.
The problem with you, my dear Mystic, is that you've decided to intertwine Christianity in with your own personal belief system - as if you needed that validation from a holy book in order for you to believe in your own version of god. I know I've said this to you before. Christianity is filled to bursting with flaws, and the Bible itself, as I said, is replete with various chapters and verses that go into more detail about God's presumed omniscience. However, ironically enough, knowing that a perfect being would need to be omniscient was one of the few things the Hebrews got right when putting together their precious Yahweh.
After all, many past civilizations like Greece and Egypt did not worship gods that were necessarily omniscient. Greek gods, for instance, were often fooled or tricked by mere mortals, usually causing the god to throw fits of anger and do something nasty to the poor human. For example, read the Greek legend of poor Arachne - and why even today spiders are called "arachnids." I'm sure you already know that story.
Again, one of the ironies of the Christian god is that we are led to believe that he is perfect - and yet we see indications of Yahweh's imperfections all throughout the Bible. Most of his magic stunts, for instance, could have been done in a far more efficient way. I mean, did God *really* have to kill everything with a messy flood that left hundreds of millions of corpses lying around and ensured no plantlife would remain due to the lack of photosynthesis? Not when all-powerful God could merely snap his fingers and all sinful people would just disppear into nothingness ... right? The repeated instances of idiocy regarding these kinds of "wondrous" events are, by themselves, reason enough not to believe in any of it ... let alone the omniscience of god.
Why? What's the point of "enduring to the end."? My life ended years ago and now I'm just waiting to die. Something else I have to do, some might claim? I doubt it. It's relatively easy to get through things when you have a good family, a fun circle of friends, a big support network so that there will always be something good to balance out the bad. Trust me when I say that SOME people don't have that. Life essentially becomes a neverending series of bad news and more bad news. The good in life simply doesn't exist - no joy, no anticipation, nothing to look forward to, no one there to listen. People always talk about getting "through" things. But to say that one gets "through" something implies that there is an ending - like going through a tunnel. Sooner or later, you'll see the light at the end of it. But that's not always the case. I know for a fact based on personal experience that sometimes one enters a tunnel that will literally never end. There is no "getting through" it ... because once it begins, it's really the end. This is why I don't take as dim of a view on suicide as many do - because no one can truly understand the dark places where some people are forced to reside. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying people should end their lives over petty, trivial, banal, and very temporary setbacks. Getting dumped by your paramour, losing your job, dealing with divorce issues - most things are things you get through. But then there are the things you *don't* get through - things that will forever haunt you. Yes, there are the obvious horrific diseases that some people suffer with ... This is why I'm a firm believer in "death with dignity" instead of forcing a person to live through every second of their misery and pain - and for what? Because of an interpretation of a Biblical passage meant for the Hebrews 3,000 years ago? Because those who are young and healthy can't stand losing the person who will forever be strapped to a hospital bed with tubes sprouting from nearly every orifice? Is it fair that a person who has everything make the demand of someone who has nothing to stay in this world, miserable and in pain? It's a complicated question.
for readers feeling this way
please know that there are resources, and please reach out and use them
for readers feeling this way
please know that there are resources, and please reach out and use them
Shirina isn't simply depressed, so don't gaslight or minimize her.
Any depression she has is largely reactive, because she has an incurable chronic health situation that has ended her ability to live her chosen life.
No amount of "resources" will change that.
I am sensitive to this because my prior / late wife reached this point of existential crisis when she was walking into walls thinking she was going in straight lines. There IS a point (that varies by individual) where this calculus comes into play.
But in this post she isn't even really talking about herself or her in-this-moment thinking around this, so much as this situation people can find themselves in and the question of whether suicide can ever be a rational thought process.
Right now I want to have more experiences. The time may come when I either don't, or want an escape hatch at least if I there's nothing but suffering in my future. And the disabled have to think this way, lest they reach a place where they don't have the strength or independence to make such decisions for themselves.
for readers feeling this way
please know that there are resources, and please reach out and use them
LOL! You couldn't even direct that post to me ... on a personal level, could you.
You just didn't have enough compassion to say, "Oh Shirina, if you're having suicidal thoughts, let me see if I can help you."
Nope. You left a cold impersonal post not even said to me by name. Instead, it was written like a corporate greeting card. You merely used me as an example.
This is the kind of thing that causes more suicides that it stops.
Just thought you might want to be aware of that - since I'm well aware that your Christian compassion only extends to those who agree with you and not to those evil atheists. Those baby-eating atheists. Good riddance to them if they jump off a bridge. Right Tzaph?
My demise would likely brighten your day, wouldn't it.
my comment was clearly addressed to readers who feel what was described in bold including:
suicide
a neverending series of bad news and more bad news
good in life simply doesn't exist - no joy, no anticipation, nothing to look forward to, no one there to listen
enters a tunnel that will literally never end.
There is no "getting through" it
why I don't take as dim of a view on suicide
dark places someone who has nothing to stay in this world, miserable and in pain
--------------
there are compassionate, caring professionals who are trained to help people who are feeling that,
and it is important to let readers know those resources are available, and encourage people to reach out.
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