@sloth @pat I would like to talk some time about the topic. Unfortunately there is no PM’ing here. Perhaps I’ll communicate here as I trust most of those here but not all on this or any other forum.
I think this summarizes my thought on prayer (at least as we understand prayer and God from the Bible)
"But people do pray, and they pray for a lot of different things, you know, your sister needs an operation on her crotch, your brother was arrested for defecating in a mall. But most of all, you’d really like to fuck that hot little redhead down at the convenience store. You know, the one with the eyepatch and the clubfoot? Can you pray for that? I think you’d have to. And I say, fine. Pray for anything you want. Pray for anything, but what about the Divine Plan?
Remember that? The Divine Plan. Long time ago, God made a Divine Plan. Gave it a lot of thought, decided it was a good plan, put it into practice. And for billions and billions of years, the Divine Plan has been doing just fine. Now, you come along, and pray for something. Well suppose the thing you want isn’t in God’s Divine Plan? What do you want Him to do? Change His plan? Just for you? Doesn’t it seem a little arrogant? It’s a Divine Plan. What’s the use of being God if every run-down shmuck with a two-dollar prayerbook can come along and fuck up Your Plan?
And here’s something else, another problem you might have: Suppose your prayers aren’t answered. What do you say? “Well, it’s God’s will.” “Thy Will Be Done.” Fine, but if it’s God’s will, and He’s going to do what He wants to anyway, why the fuck bother praying in the first place? Seems like a big waste of time to me! Couldn’t you just skip the praying part and go right to His Will? It’s all very confusing."
-George Carlin
That’s amazing. Rome is just an amazing place, except the subways.
Something I have been thinking about and both and @mnben87 have mentioned is that both of you indicate a seeking experience with regards to I guess a sort of “looking for God” and not finding Him, sorta thing.
That, I think would separate you guys from traditional atheists\ agnostics who just seem angry at God and hostile towards religion and religious people. I don’t detect hostility from either of you, but perhaps more of a disappointment.
I understand, to a certain point, what you guys mean. Sometimes I feel nobody is home when I call.
Am I not asking yall to get super personal, but if either of you could describe something of your experience, I would like to hear it and perhaps it may be helpful to others to hear your perspectives.
After all, all the apologism (not sure if that’s a word), scripture quoting or philosophical argumentation in the world isn’t going to be helpful to a person who’s been there and found it wanting.
I will try to look for a way to send you my private email. Not sure how, but if you have a 3rd party communication source that’s secure, let me know. I am not on facebook, twitter, or any other social media…
Update:
I went to your website and sent a message. Let me know if you got it.
I emailed you back. Thanks.
My last post was a George Carlin quote, lol.
I actually do try to be open minded. I do get a bit worked up if I see real negative impact to others because of religion. I am thinking about the people in the LGBT community for example, or families that are driven apart because of difference in religious views.
Perhaps discussion is the best path forward, but it is also so hard to have these conversations much of the time. I don’t feel it is a conversation I can have with my parents for example. I think more conversation in general will lead to more tolerance.
I basically felt like this all the time. I was a dedicated Christian for 23-24 years of my life (of course probably not all that dedicated from 0-8 years old). I always feared that I wasn’t actually saved, not dedicated enough, sinned too much because of not experiencing a “personal relationship” with Jesus. When I was having these thoughts I was still a Christian.
Then I started to think about questions like: why would a loving God send his creation to Hell?, Why does a person’s religion (or lack of) seem to depend so heavily on where they were born?, Does God dislike people born outside of areas that are heavily Christian?. At the same time I started questioning things in the Bible. I realized that some of the stories don’t add up. We don’t have proof of a flood, or of the Israelites even being in Egypt, among other things. I started questioning some of the moral teachings of the Bible, and found some of it to be lacking.
Eventually, I realized that I don’t have better reasons for believing what I believe compared to a Muslim in Iran or a Hindu in India.
I realized that if God was truly a loving, understanding God, that he wouldn’t punish me for using the brain he gave me. I realized that if I am to go to hell, that I would not be sent there by a loving God. I would be sent there by a terrorist, irrational God. It wouldn’t be by the God who I was taught about who loves me.
I have come to the conclusion that my best approach is to stay open to evidence, but I’ll hold off on belief until that evidence is shown to me. This evidence has to be sound. It can’t be something that is easily explained by another explanation.
That is where I am at.
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Excellent post. I appreciate you sharing that.
I think we all share (people like yourself and the religious) in what’s known as “The problem of evil\ suffering.” Giving it a title doesn’t minimize the problem, it’s a big one. One that has been written about quite a bit and yet no one seems to totally have an answer for. I’ll need some time to think over what you said to give a decent response. I really appreciate your honesty.
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Yes, this is one of the big issues I have. I can’t reconcile an all loving God and hell.
I don’t feel that with the evidence we currently have that it is fair (and we are to assume God is rational) to base who goes to heaven and who goes to hell based on faith. I myself honestly came to the conclusion that it is irrational for me to believe. It wasn’t because I wanted to sin, it wasn’t because I was mad at God (not saying you are saying this, but atheists / agnostics get this a lot). So, if I honestly come to this conclusion while being as fair as my brain allows when evaluating the evidence, I deserve eternal hell? To me this is about as far from loving as I can imagine.
These thoughts lead me to the conclusion that if there is a heaven and hell, and that the Bible is accurate, that who goes where is not really based on free will, and would be predetermined by God (as I think for the most part belief is not a choice).
I agree with you on that, but there are a lot of other reasons why people are supposed to go to hell.
Somewhat agree. I personally believe if there is a God, that it is very unlikely that we will be judged on faith.
I don’t think anyone deserves to go to Biblical hell. I could support the idea that Hitler gets 100 or even a 1000 years of torture for each Jew that was killed under his watch.
I don’t think it is necessarily immoral to have the punishment be worse than the crime. It almost needs to be in order to be a deterrent in many cases, but a infinite horrible punishment for a finite crime is sinister and about as immoral of an act as I could think of.
Well this I can address. At least at the extremes there are people so depraved that hell may be too good for them. These assholes in Africa who come into villages and rape men ,women and children, murder, torture and kill them all deserve no mercy in my book.
Or we can go with good ol’ Hitler, Stalin, Jeffery Epstein or Mao… These were some special kind of assholes. They earned hell with flying colors. They probably have plaques on the wall of hell.
As far as average people, I am not sure how to reconcile that. I don’t pretend to know who is or is not going to hell.
I think the hell, fire and brimstone pastors have done a lot of damage. “Step one toe out of line and your going to hell.” But I always noticed one thing about those guys, it wasn’t so much, “do what they Bible says”. But do what they say the Bible says or hell awaits.
My interactions with the Almighty haven’t been judgy like that.
I try to think of it in terms of like what my kid would have to do for me to earn my absolute dismissal from me. I am not sure where the threshold is, but it would have to be pretty awful. And then then realize God is much smarter, more just and more merciful than I.
I think people can certainly earn hell, I cannot say I know where the line is. But I can say that if there wasn’t hell, we would have to make one because there are people who belong.
I don’t know why God allows evil, but I there is evil, serious evil.
Do you cry yourself to sleep thinking about Hitler burning in hell every night?
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Wasn’t Hitler Catholic? I don’t believe in hell, but if true, I wouldn’t be opposed to a million year sentence. Forever is too much.
The Nazis had some weird occult beliefs, they “believed in Jesus” but they claimed he wasn’t a Jew of course, and a bunch of other weird stuff.
I heard some stuff about time being relative to movement and things like that, basically if you leave the earth then time doesn’t move at the same rate because the earth travels through space at a constant speed. So if there is a hell you can’t expect a million years there to be equal to a million on earth.
Sounds like you’re building a case for sentencing reforms.
@mnben87. That was a really great post, and I’m glad for the honesty you shared. I salute you.
I agree with this. They have done so much damage it’s difficult for me to even put into words. For me there is a definite element of critical arrogance in many of those types, and a serious misunderstanding of grace in others.
I don’t agree whatsoever in “hippy dippy UU God” because there must be a standard of some kind, but I think there’s a reason for key commands: “love thy neighbor as yourself” and “seek justice, love mercy, walk HUMBLY with God”.
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I started to write a small essay concerning Hell for the uninformed and misinformed in the thread, but this 5 minute read complete with verses does the job.
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Hell is not a place.
I’ve heard it’s pretty cool.
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I think they used it as a metaphor for Australia.
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So you didn’t bother to read a 5 minute article?