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I am religious and believe in free will

71 (27.7%)

I am religious and do not believe in free will

10 (3.9%)

I am not religious and believe in free will

114 (44.5%)

I am not religious and do not believe in free will

61 (23.8%)

Total Members Voted: 251

[Adragis]

I kind of like that, I think. Generally, I don't want to go to heaven. I quite like where I am, and would much rather if God (were he to exist) would just leave me here.

Same here, to be honest. Literal eternal life always seemed to me like a better deal.

[Helgoland]

That depends on the sort of heaven, doesn't it? A History of the World in 10½ Chapters contains a good example of why literal eternal life wouldn't be too enjoyable anyway...

[Rose]

Honestly, Krishna's abode as described isn't a place I want to go to either.

First and foremost, the place is for His enjoyment. And the first requirement for going there is wanting that.

As long as we want to enjoy ourselves, we stay here in the material world, going through the endless cycle of birth and death.

[TempAcc]

Well, the point in many religions is that you're already eternal, in a way, through the soul. Its just that some religions have more fatalistic views of how afterlife works. Eternal life is ok as long as it isn't samey or immutable.

Anyway, in many religions, transcending material life means many things that are now relevant to you cease to be relevant completely, including the feeling of being bored/tired, and your perception of time. So it doenst really matter if you choose to spend your afterlife watching the paint dry on a billion different surfaces in a billion different worlds, you'll probably feel just fine, as long its what you want.

I have no idea how hinduism deals with experiencing existence outside of bodily life, though.

[Rolan7]

Yeah I like that idea in modern Christianity too, that Hell is just a secular place.  Not full of torture, but forever apart from God.  Thus awful in the sense that being with God would be infinitely better...  But no actual "lake of fire" and such.  It's a very reasonable idea, and I think the world might be a better place if the editors of the Bible had believed in it.

Speaking of heresies, I've been reading up on a very interesting one: Catharism!  Some of you might know it as "That Crusader Kings 2 heresy that allows female priests" but it's a lot more than that.  It was the first appearance of several protestant ideas.  They rejected idolatry and the excesses of the Catholic church, practiced voluntary rather than infant baptism, and believed in eventual salvation for all.  They were kinda like Quakers in that they refused to kill or swear oaths, strictly following the New Testament.
http://www.cathar.info/cathar_legacy.htm#protestant

They also believed in reincarnation, even into animals, based on your conduct in life!  Interesting connection to eastern religions there.  They're explanation was that Satan, god of the world, trapped divine souls in mortal bodies.  Hell is essentially secular life on Earth, and death is no escape.  Fortunately Jesus showed us a way to end the cycle through willing spiritual baptism.  It was also kinda like Catholic last rites, though.  It was most commonly done for people about to die, inviting a piece of the holy spirit to live in the person and defy Satan's claim on the soul.

Then there were people who chose the baptism earlier, or unexpectedly survived.  These "perfects" were like monks:

When a believer underwent the Consolamentum, his or her life changed for ever.   After this rite they were members of the Elect.  From now on they would lead the life of an ascetic.  They were to be completely chaste, and were not permitted even to touch members of the opposite sex.  They were not permitted to tell a lie, swear an oath, nor kill any living creature. They would have to undertake frequent fasts, including three 40 day fasts each year.

For those who expected to die within hours this had less significance than for those who undertook the rite without the expectation of imminent death.   They lived simple, peaceful, devotional, chaste lives of poverty, often travelling on foot in pairs like the disciples, preaching and working in simple trades like weaving to earn their living.  To their followers the Elect were living saints.   Touched by the Holy Spirit, they were God's ambassadors in an alien world.  The contrast with bejewelled, warmongering, sybaritic, indolent, lascivious Churchmen living on forcibly extorted tithes was difficult for the slowest peasant to miss.

Kinda like if nuns and monks were in charge of the church.  And women were allowed to do this too - the faith was apparently popular among women for treating them completely equally.

Here's where they go farther than later protestant faiths:  They explain the New Testament vs Old Testament contradiction.  They explain why God is an abominable, arbitrary tyrant in the Old Testament, then suddenly does everything he can to save humanity.  They explain why the world is wicked, and spirituality is good.

They kiiinda say that the God of the Old Testament, creator of the world is Satan.  Having lost the rebellion in heaven, he rules over the material plane instead.  Human souls are actually angels he's trapped in "tunics of flesh" to corrupt to his will.

i think it makes sense

[TempAcc]

Catharism was basically a christian adaptation of gnosticism, in many ways. Catharism may in fact be the reason gnosticism actualy became well known, despite being hunted into (near?)extinction :v

In gnosticism, humans souls are divine sparks descended from Sophia or other divine beings, trapped in the material realm out of jealousy by the demiurge, which spawned from Sophia and is the self appointed creator/ruler of the material universe (altough he's neither, since he's also part of the material universe), and demands that all that reside in it worship and obey him.

[That Wolf]

You either die and life ends nothing happens ever again.
Or life is eternal.
What a drag I want neither

[wierd]

"gosnotic" teachings often grew out of early christian systems. the appellation "gnostic" did not really get much use at those times, excepting where used by speakers of opposition to the concepts, and now by latter historians.

Amusingly, Paul the apostle was quite adamant that these kinds of doctrines were false, and should be discarded. He rails and rants about it in much of the new testament.

[Orange Wizard]

Yeah I like that idea in modern Christianity too, that Hell is just a secular place.  Not full of torture, but forever apart from God.  Thus awful in the sense that being with God would be infinitely better...  But no actual "lake of fire" and such.  It's a very reasonable idea, and I think the world might be a better place if the editors of the Bible had believed in it.

Alternatively, people who believe in the Bible could choose the believe that Jesus was speaking in parables when he described Hell.
Really, there's a lot of ways around it. No reason to assume you're definitely going to be tortured for eternity.

[Bohandas]

When a believer underwent the Consolamentum, his or her life changed for ever.   After this rite they were members of the Elect.  From now on they would lead the life of an ascetic.  They were to be completely chaste, and were not permitted even to touch members of the opposite sex.  They were not permitted to tell a lie, swear an oath, nor kill any living creature. They would have to undertake frequent fasts, including three 40 day fasts each year.

For those who expected to die within hours this had less significance than for those who undertook the rite without the expectation of imminent death.   They lived simple, peaceful, devotional, chaste lives of poverty, often travelling on foot in pairs like the disciples, preaching and working in simple trades like weaving to earn their living.  To their followers the Elect were living saints.   Touched by the Holy Spirit, they were God's ambassadors in an alien world.  The contrast with bejewelled, warmongering, sybaritic, indolent, lascivious Churchmen living on forcibly extorted tithes was difficult for the slowest peasant to miss.

Kinda like if nuns and monks were in charge of the church.  And women were allowed to do this too - the faith was apparently popular among women for treating them completely equally.

Here's where they go farther than later protestant faiths:  They explain the New Testament vs Old Testament contradiction.  They explain why God is an abominable, arbitrary tyrant in the Old Testament, then suddenly does everything he can to save humanity.  They explain why the world is wicked, and spirituality is good.

They kiiinda say that the God of the Old Testament, creator of the world is Satan.  Having lost the rebellion in heaven, he rules over the material plane instead.  Human souls are actually angels he's trapped in "tunics of flesh" to corrupt to his will.

i think it makes sense

Isn't that last part also the basis of Heaven's Gate and the Church of Scientology?

[TempAcc]

Is it? I thought scientology was about an alien overlord ruling earth, how people have superpowers except not thanks to alien ghosts possessing them, and giv monies pl0x.

And heaven's gate didn't even have a single ideology. It was just (mostly) about how aliens want us to evolve but you can only do that by fully becoming aliens in all except body, and rejecting all supposedly human feelings and notions, except that changed over time according to the leader's whims (altough he genuinely believed in what he said), and after making several wrong predictions on when the aliens would finally rescue them from the world, decided that a passing comet was in fact an alien ship and the only way to reach it was by killing themselves before it went away.

Hell, even heaven's gate is very different from scientology in a multitude of ways, with the exception of the aliens are god thing.

[Bohandas]

Is it? I thought scientology was about an alien overlord ruling earth, how people have superpowers except not thanks to alien ghosts possessing them, and giv monies pl0x.

And heaven's gate didn't even have a single ideology. It was just (mostly) about how aliens want us to evolve but you can only do that by fully becoming aliens in all except body, and rejecting all supposedly human feelings and notions, except that changed over time according to the leader's whims (altough he genuinely believed in what he said), and after making several wrong predictions on when the aliens would finally rescue them from the world, decided that a passing comet was in fact an alien ship and the only way to reach it was by killing themselves before it went away.

Hell, even heaven's gate is very different from scientology in a multitude of ways, with the exception of the aliens are god thing.

Yes, but they are both sort of like gnosticism. Scientology has spirits pervasively trapped in bodies, and Heaven's Gate has aliens trapped in human bodies.

[TempAcc]

Today, while reading up on stuff between tasks, I stumbled upon the Adversos Christianos (a series of third century texts containing arguments against christianity by  neoplatonist philosopher Porphyry), or rather, whats left of it in the arguments that refuted it (the actual books were destroyed by the order of Theodosius II). One of the remaining quotes attributes to Porphyry mentions that "The gods have proclaimed Christ to have been most pious, but the Christians are a confused and vicious sect".

I find it hard to disagree, mostly, and I have nothing against christians, as I am one myself, sort of :v

[Orange Wizard]

That goes for people in general, I think. Some people are nice. Most people are just people, and people do shitty things. It's not unique or absent from any one group.

Except the Reformed church, obviously. We're all perfect and holy and incorruptible and humble.

[Frumple]

*googles Reformed Church Scandals*

*immediately sees child abuse hits*

>_> <_<

This is why we use the word "almost" in front of all :V

Though I guess I am occasionally curious about churchgoers' attitudes towards church corruption. From what I understand the religious circuit is pretty close to one of the largest fraud/corruption/etc. sectors in the world, with pretty sizable amounts of money basically disappearing, on top of everything that doesn't get reported (which is posited to be pretty substantial in and of itself, heh), yearly. Which is fairly understandable -- a church is pretty close to a confidence artist's wet dream, heh. Understand many churches have council type things or member participation in decision making and suchlike to attempt to curtail that, but, uh. I've seen that in action in a few different churches and ahahahahaha. Yeah, not so much.

Anyone have notable experience with how congregations manage that stuff? What sort of balance gets struck between the trust generally needed to be given to the clergy and the fact that, well. A fair number of them are pretty crooked?