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[Hiiri]

Hiiri- yes they would, in a blink.  The sum total of human history shows how we are willing to throw each otehr under the bus for nearly freaking anything. 

Ugh.. I can't agree with this. There are more often stories of parents risking their lives for their children than of those that throw their children to the sharks so they themselves could live. And even I'm a cynical person. Even if hell was real, I don't think this would change, because some people love their children more than themselves.

Stoning your child to death is a choice of sending your child or yourself to burn in hell forever. Unless heaven is a place where you forget everything from your previous life, I don't think any of us could live there knowing we sent someone we love to hell for all eternity.

Edit: Although I gotta admit, that those that take heaven and hell for granted really do do some awful shit. So... I don't know.. that's why we should stay as far away from religion as possible.
How do I unsubscribe from this topic? It's making me sick

[lemon10]

Garg, firefox ate my post.

Hiiri- yes they would, in a blink.  The sum total of human history shows how we are willing to throw each otehr under the bus for nearly freaking anything. 

Ugh.. I can't agree with this. There are more often stories of parents risking their lives for their children than of those that throw their children to the sharks so they themselves could live. And even I'm a cynical person. Even if hell was real, I don't think this would change, because some people love their children more than themselves.
Stoning your child to death is a choice of sending your child or yourself to burn in hell forever. Unless heaven is a place where you forget everything from your previous life, I don't think any of us could live there knowing we sent someone we love to hell for all eternity.
Edit: Although I gotta admit, that those that take heaven and hell for granted really do do some awful shit. So... I don't know.. that's why we should stay as far away from religion as possible.
How do I unsubscribe from this topic? It's making me sick

God never actually has anyone go through with killing their child, and it's not a commandment of his either.
While you are right about that, the vast majority of (modern) people wouldn't stone their child for nothing, you are a bit too optimistic, people have no real problem killing others that they don't know personally, and would even kill them if the stakes are high enough.
Stoning anyone to death wouldn't send them to hell (although it might send you to hell if it counts as murder due to being unjust or something), I have no clue where we are getting that from.

I have trouble imagining a heaven that makes all humans happy for all eternity, if humans and human nature remains the same as it is, therefore i suspect that humans/human nature will by necessity be different in heaven.

People who don't believe in the afterlife also do some pretty awful shit.

Lemon10 the thing is : read the old testament ; god doesn't ask for belief, he ask for utter and complete devotion or he shall torture you for all eternity. Obey his every whim or it's concentration camp for ever. So for me, he's pretty much awful : hate homosexual ,check, ask for complete obedience, check, favor an ethnia? (the chosen people) ,check, kill/torture anyone who disagree ,check...
To keep your analogy with the policeman ,he's not asking for my wallet, he's trying to rape me with a spiked rake. Yeah i'd try to fight, even if I know that all odds are against me.

You can't fight a omnipotent god. It's like trying to fight the sun, nothing you can do has any effect. Ever. In fact it's even worse then trying to fight the sun because the sun will die in a hundred billion years or so (i am probably off by a order or two of magnitude on that), god won't. Ever.
No that's a worse analogy.
A better one is the entire world wanting you raped, and you are surrounded by a thousand soldiers with tranquilizer guns and tanks. If you try to resist they will rape and torture you for 50 years, if you don't they will rape you and let you go, and even that's not a good analogy because its finite to finite punishment, while a afterlife can be a infinite eternal punishment, or a infinite eternal reward.

Granted, their are some things i wouldn't stoop to, but I would do many actions that I considered terrible and immoral if it got me into heaven/kept me out of hell.

[devek]

Too bad God, according to the Bible, isn't omnipotent.

Genesis 3:8 "Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden. 9 But the LORD God called to the man, “Where are you?”"

You don't want to argue theology with an atheist, you lose every time (cause we generally, unlike Christians, know the bible).

[Cthulhu]

You don't want to argue theology with an atheist, you lose every time (cause we generally, unlike Christians, know the bible).

This is a dickish thing to say, and always seems to accompany bullshit (Such as using an allegorical fairytale as hard evidence for God's omnipotence or lack thereof)

[devek]

What evidence should we use when talking about God?

[Hiiri]

God never actually has anyone go through with killing their child, and it's not a commandment of his either.
While you are right about that, the vast majority of (modern) people wouldn't stone their child for nothing, you are a bit too optimistic, people have no real problem killing others that they don't know personally, and would even kill them if the stakes are high enough.
Stoning anyone to death wouldn't send them to hell (although it might send you to hell if it counts as murder due to being unjust or something), I have no clue where we are getting that from.

Yes I know we don't have any problem killing people they don't know if needed. But I'm not talking about some random people; I'm talking about your own family.. people you love.

And I got it all from the bible, assuming it's the word of God. Child disobeying their parents is defying the ten commandments (Thou.. shalt.. um.. honor thy father and mother whatever), and one would assume he would go to hell for breaking the law of God. And if the parents don't stone him to death, they're defying the word of God. Although I guess I was wrong before, it seems the child would go to hell one way or another... (unless he repents before his death, I suppose..)

The whole topic is so abstract to have any real discussion about it, though.

What evidence should we use when talking about God?

I don't think we're talking about evidence or the existence of God; it's about hypothesis that heaven and hell exists.. I don't know anymore...

[Cthulhu]

What evidence should we use when talking about God?

Logic.  If God's omnipotent, then he can make a rock bigger than he can lift it, make 2+2=5, etc.  That makes him irrational and makes discussing him pointless.  Either God is limited or he exists outside the realm of logical discussion.

[Leafsnail]

While you are right about that, the vast majority of (modern) people wouldn't stone their child for nothing, you are a bit too optimistic, people have no real problem killing others that they don't know personally, and would even kill them if the stakes are high enough.

Uh... are you sure you're not just focusing on sociopaths rather than the general population?  You'd expect to see a much higher rate of murder if this were true.

I mean, people who have killed often later feel terrible guilt for their actions even if they didn't know the people involved.

Granted, their are some things i wouldn't stoop to, but I would do many actions that I considered terrible and immoral if it got me into heaven/kept me out of hell.

But didn't you just say

It's like trying to fight the sun, nothing you can do has any effect. Ever. In fact it's even worse then trying to fight the sun because the sun will die in a hundred billion years or so (i am probably off by a order or two of magnitude on that), god won't. Ever.

So, no matter what it is this being is asking you to do, you should do it, regardless of how low you have to stoop... right?  Or are you saying that some principles should be preserved even if fighting this being would have no meaning?

[Scaraban]

Whelp, first couple pages got me pissed enough to log off and do some schoolwork so I guess good job everyone. See you all in a few hours after I cool off.

[lemon10]

Granted, their are some things i wouldn't stoop to, but I would do many actions that I considered terrible and immoral if it got me into heaven/kept me out of hell.

But didn't you just say

It's like trying to fight the sun, nothing you can do has any effect. Ever. In fact it's even worse then trying to fight the sun because the sun will die in a hundred billion years or so (i am probably off by a order or two of magnitude on that), god won't. Ever.

So, no matter what it is this being is asking you to do, you should do it, regardless of how low you have to stoop... right?  Or are you saying that some principles should be preserved even if fighting this being would have no meaning?

Their are some things that I couldn't bring myself to do. That's not fighting, simply non-compliance.
quote author=Leafsnail link=topic=82592.msg2240517#msg2240517 date=1304378020]

While you are right about that, the vast majority of (modern) people wouldn't stone their child for nothing, you are a bit too optimistic, people have no real problem killing others that they don't know personally, and would even kill them if the stakes are high enough.

Uh... are you sure you're not just focusing on sociopaths rather than the general population?  You'd expect to see a much higher rate of murder if this were true.

I mean, people who have killed often later feel terrible guilt for their actions even if they didn't know the people involved.
[/quote]
Lets say someone breaks into your house and is going to kill you. If you had to kill him to survive would you?
Lets say someone breaks into your house and is going to rape and kill your children. If you had to kill him to stop him would you? would you feel very guilty about it?
If you had to teach your kid to hate gays, and stone adulterers, and do other similar stuff, or he would go to hell, would you?

If the stakes are high enough, pretty much anyone will be willing to kill, and even death pales in comparison to hell.

Under biblical god (and pretty much real world religion ever), essentially the worse you would have to do is be complicit in what the mob does by not stopping them (I expect you could probably opt out of stoning people without ill consequence as long as others would be willing to do it).



On a totally unrelated note: If you are religious (and believe in a good afterlife), why is death bad and something to be avoided? It seems to me that if you think you are going to heaven (and so is your family & friends), then isn't someone's death it a joyous occasion (since they are going to heaven)?

[Shambling Zombie]

I guess it would be hard to tell what we'd do in a world ruled by an Ultimate Tyrant-style god who demanded utter devotion and obediance. The stakes couldn't be higher (eternal torture vs eternal bliss) and the actions demanded involve unspeakably vile deeds (stoning someone who is guilty of breaking a non-violent commandment thus sending them to hell, or turning people over to mobs... ect).

Many in real life have stood before powerful tyrants and suffered horribly for it, and many have thrown their lot in with tyrants in exchange for a safer existance, so I think that some would fight even if it was hopeless, and some would side with a tyrant-god even if fighting was not hopeless.

That's my thoughts, anyway.

[Leafsnail]

Their are some things that I couldn't bring myself to do. That's not fighting, simply non-compliance.

What if this ultra fascist god viewed the two as the same thing?

Lets say someone breaks into your house and is going to kill you. If you had to kill him to survive would you?
Lets say someone breaks into your house and is going to rape and kill your children. If you had to kill him to stop him would you? would you feel very guilty about it?

Possibly.  That doesn't mean I'd have "no real problem" in doing so.  In any case, you moved the goalposts to "Guilty person about to cause harm" (from "Innocent person not about to cause harm").

If you had to teach your kid to hate gays, and stone adulterers, and do other similar stuff, or he would go to hell, would you?

I'd rather not have kids, frankly, and I'd point out that this god would be a total bastard to an even greater degree if he punished other people for what I do.  I guess I would do it since it involves other people (although in practical terms I'd take any other option).

[lemon10]

I guess it would be hard to tell what we'd do in a world ruled by an Ultimate Tyrant-style god who demanded utter devotion and obediance. The stakes couldn't be higher (eternal torture vs eternal bliss) and the actions demanded involve unspeakably vile deeds (stoning someone who is guilty of breaking a non-violent commandment thus sending them to hell, or turning people over to mobs... ect).

Many in real life have stood before powerful tyrants and suffered horribly for it, and many have thrown their lot in with tyrants in exchange for a safer existance, so I think that some would fight even if it was hopeless, and some would side with a tyrant-god even if fighting was not hopeless.

That's my thoughts, anyway.

If a god like that proved conclusively that he existed, routinely did miracles to prove to people that he was real, and proved the afterlife existed to people (and said exactly how to get into it and not what to do), then I am fairly sure most of the resistance would be gone after a few decades, and its "morals" would rapidly become ingrained in society, since parents would teach it to all their kids due to A) not wanting to go to hell personally (since teaching your kids god was evil would probably send you to hell) and B) not wanting their kids to go to hell for disabaying.
I honestly doubt their would be any resistance after 10-20 years if he showed everyone heaven/hell and let them see them fairly often, since I suspect that proof of that magnitude would stop anyone from doing things against his will. For instance I think he would have little trouble stopping everyone from having sex (for both homosexuals and heterosexuals)  if the punishment was hell.

If you had to teach your kid to hate gays, and stone adulterers, and do other similar stuff, or he would go to hell, would you?

I'd rather not have kids, frankly, and I'd point out that this god would be a total bastard to an even greater degree if he punished other people for what I do.  I guess I would do it since it involves other people (although in practical terms I'd take any other option).

That wasn't what I was saying. He would punish them for not following his commandments, and if you taught them that X was fine, and they did X and god was against it, they would go to hell.

Lets say someone breaks into your house and is going to kill you. If you had to kill him to survive would you?
Lets say someone breaks into your house and is going to rape and kill your children. If you had to kill him to stop him would you? would you feel very guilty about it?

Possibly.  That doesn't mean I'd have "no real problem" in doing so.  In any case, you moved the goalposts to "Guilty person about to cause harm" (from "Innocent person not about to cause harm").

You would have a problem doing it (and i suppose saying that people wouldn't have a problem with it was wrong), but you would do it if you needed to.

Their are some things that I couldn't bring myself to do. That's not fighting, simply non-compliance.

What if this ultra fascist god viewed the two as the same thing?

It's not fighting, and presumably he's smart enough to realize it. But it doesn't really matter what he considers it. Fighting god would result in hell. Non-compliance against god would result in hell.

EDIT: I should also say, that the abrahamic god isn't quite as bloodthirsty as you are making him out to be. The punishment for homosexuality was death, it didn't mean that everyone had to personally stone the dude. He once tested one of his people to see if he would sacrifice his son (a dick move i admit), but didn't make him go through with it. It says that "“Anyone who attacks their father or mother is to be put to death ," harsh and outdated laws for sure, and he is a dick, but not nearly as bloodthirsty as you guys make him sound.

And don't forget what you call terribly immoral was the global cultural norm for thousands of years, and in parts of the world still is. It wouldn't be that hard to shift it back for the most part.

[Shambling Zombie]

Just to clarify, I wasn't talking about the Abrahamic God in particular, instead the hypothetical situation about the god of ultimate badness having control of who goes to what afterlife.

Secondly, children sometimes do things even if their parents teach them it is wrong. I would still hope some would have trouble stoning their children to death, even if the child violated your rules and a god's.

[devek]

Another interesting thought most people don't know.

Jews don't consider god to be omnipotent, they consider him to be almighty. It avoids all the inconsistencies regarding the immovable object, but he can still make a rock no other entity can move.

One thing that is on my "todo" list is their views on necessary existence. I always forget to bring it up when I am talking to them...