I don't get the whole heaven thing

[Elok]

Well Kucinich, I think I already said it's not so much a punishment as a way to keep the sinners from ruining it for the people in heaven. Sin is a disease, and if you refuse the medicine you have to be quarantined. Quarantine's not fun, but it's not fair to demand that the entire universe stretch to accomodate your problems, is it?

Also, the idea of righteousness for its own sake is innately theistic. Under any system of doing good, there has to be a protocol for determining what "good" is. In religions, good is generally the will of a higher power. In others, like for example Molly Bloom's pet Secular Humanism, it's an extension of sociological theory or some such. Good leads to what's best for the group as a whole, even if it sucks for the individual. Problem is, while good for goodness' sake sounds nice, it's quite obviously contrary to human nature. Following an order without individual justification of some sort is not the kind of thing people do normally. You might as well suggest that we improve the environment by not eating. It's a fallacy. Furthermore, "be good just because" sounds like the kind of brainwashing most atheists ostensibly protest...

Think of it this way: when parents tell their kids, "pick up your toys or you won't get ice cream," they are almost certainly doing it so they can laugh as their offspring jump through hoops for their amusement. After all, they have the power to pick up the stupid toys themselves and save the kids a lot of grief. Wouldn't parents who REALLY loved their children give them ice cream no matter how they behaved, instead of forcing them to conform to some stupid arbitrary set of standards to get a reward? Huh? Huh?

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
So then, whatever I claim comes from God, is the truth?

Evasion, evasion, evasion. You can choose one of two options:

1) it's somehow possible to tell when God is telling you things, and obviously I, as an atheist, am not responsible for figuring it out

2) it's NOT possible to tell when God is telling you things, and thus your entire religion is false

Not the point. There are some things I'm not really sure of, that I don't understand. How can I properly obey something I don't understand?

You don't have to understand it. Your moral code is a function, which takes some action and returns a "morality" (how moral or immoral something is). You don't have to understand its function in order to use it.

Anyways, though, I don't care if you "properly" follow it - you're TRYING to follow it.

He has greater knowledge than I.

Circular.

I'm asking, how does he know MORALITY better then you, considering that you, BY DEFINITION, know the whole of what you consider to be morality (as that is in fact the prerequisite for you to consider something your morality).

No, but there are observations that seem to work better. Such as when you do something, that you really don't know why you did this, then see later that it actually works out better than your original plans. I've had that numerous times in my life, where I've taken one path, even though I don't know if it is the best one, and later on it makes much more sense.

And I've seen times where I've gone against this because I want to be in charge, and found myself in a bind.

None of which has to do with morality. That's just effectiveness.

I didn't say that. All I said is that my moral code cannot be the same as God's, because there are things that I do not fully understand, which is contrary to what you just assumed, that there are no differences between the moral code of a believer, and Christianity.

All this says is that I have my work cut out for me.

All this says is, you don't, in fact, obey God. Not only do you not obey God perfectly, but you don't even obey God at all. You obey your moral code. You cannot in any way call yourself Christian.

I love him, because he has already loved me. That's the key distinction I wanted to make. It's not 'random theological garbage, but the truth.

That has WHAT to do with what it was responding to?

There's a difference between adhering to a moral code, and trusting in God.

Not inasmuch as trusting in God is part of your moral code (or at least God's).

What does it mean to be self-interested?

To act so as to maximise your pleasure (not in the epicurean sense - perhaps "enjoyment" is a better word).

You have to submit your self to Christ, which means the death of self-interest. You do things for the glory of God, and not for your own benefit.

In which case Heaven as a reward is total nonsense, as striving to get into Heaven would automatically nonsense.

Self-interest is more about doing things for your own benefit, for your own reward here on earth, and not in heaven.

Actually, your self-interest DOES extend into the "supernatural".

Because the disobedient would be less happy in Heaven, then they would be in Hell.

Ah! So it's not a reward! God is just giving everyone the best possible experience in the afterlife, and some people have different tastes!

Why, then, would anyone bother preaching to trust in God? it would be like me trying to convince people who'd tried (and hadn't enjoyed) rowing to keep rowing so that they could have the experience.

How can you earn what is given freely?

Perhaps "merit" is a better word than "earn". But here's an example - you earn grades, even though they are given freely.

[Ben Kenobi]

Evasion, evasion, evasion. You can choose one of two options:

Not evasion, but merely trying to direct the conversation down more profitable lines.

Why do you presume the worst of me?

1) it's somehow possible to tell when God is telling you things, and obviously I, as an atheist, am not responsible for figuring it out

Thus the dilemma. How can I show you how God works, if you do not believe God exists? You must first acknowledge the existence of God before we can discuss whether or not God can talk to people, and how he does so.

2) it's NOT possible to tell when God is telling you things, and thus your entire religion is false

It is possible, there are plenty of examples in the bible. However, you don't even believe in God, so these folks must be delusional.

So I have no choice but to ask you, what sort of evidence would you believe? If I were to make a case for God, what evidence would you prefer?

You don't have to understand it. Your moral code is a function, which takes some action and returns a "morality" (how moral or immoral something is). You don't have to understand its function in order to use it.

Yes I do. If I merely do something without understanding, than I am merely an automaton with programming. You would not believe something 'just because' so why should I?

What is a part of my moral code has to be limited to what I understand. If I do not understand, how can it be said that I really believe?

Secondly, I do not need to understand something perfectly in order to believe in something, but I must understand enough so that I it makes sense.

Circular.

I'm asking, how does he know MORALITY better then you, considering that you, BY DEFINITION, know the whole of what you consider to be morality (as that is in fact the prerequisite for you to consider something your morality).

Morality is extrinsic and universal. These are meta-ethical questions again. You assume a positivistic morality, that does not apply to everyone, and must be retained inside of ourselves. What are your justifications for believing in a morality that can only be personal?

None of which has to do with morality. That's just effectiveness.

Read Cybershy's posts. What morality can be said is what works best for the human machine. What is moral, is what works best for people.

All this says is, you don't, in fact, obey God. Not only do you not obey God perfectly, but you don't even obey God at all. You obey your moral code. You cannot in any way call yourself Christian.

Funny. Cyber PMed me to congratulate me for becoming a Christian based on that last post. I had to tell him thanks, but I've been one for awhile. Odd that the two of you would come to opposite conclusions based on the identical evidence.

I obey God, because I have confessed my own sinfulness and my brokenness, and have acknowledged that he is the only one who can help me.

Of what Christianity teaches, some I understand, but I have much to learn.

Christianity is not about learning Christ's teachings to the letter, but rather about submitting oneself to Christ.

Much of what I believed before being Christian, I have had to discard. And surely, there will be other things as well.

That has WHAT to do with what it was responding to?

Everything, with respect to motivations, which is the core of the post. You insist I am motivated by my desire to go to heaven, while I am providing an alternative you have not considered.

Not inasmuch as trusting in God is part of your moral code (or at least God's).

Skywalker, have I always trusted in God? If not, then when I trusted God, then and only then, did it become part of my moral code.

To act so as to maximise your pleasure (not in the epicurean sense - perhaps "enjoyment" is a better word).

How do you maximise pleasure? Through indulging oneself here on Earth?

If you do not believe in God, then that is the only way you can maximise your pleasure. You cannot assume that one will benefit from heaven without first acknowledging the existence from God.

In which case Heaven as a reward is total nonsense, as striving to get into Heaven would automatically nonsense.

Precisely.

Actually, your self-interest DOES extend into the "supernatural".

Only by submission to Christ. Hence, heaven has nothing to do with self-interest. For if I were self-interested there would be no motivation to submit myself to Christ.

Ah! So it's not a reward! God is just giving everyone the best possible experience in the afterlife, and some people have different tastes!

No, the best possible experience is with him. Those who reject him, are allowed to bear the consequences of their decision. I am sure that initially, people will be happier in Hell, but once they have met God, they will want to trade places.

Why, then, would anyone bother preaching to trust in God? it would be like me trying to convince people who'd tried (and hadn't enjoyed) rowing to keep rowing so that they could have the experience.

Because we understand the blessings that God has offered us, and weep for those who do not do so. We want them to enjoy the fruits of heaven for eternity.

Perhaps "merit" is a better word than "earn". But here's an example - you earn grades, even though they are given freely.

We do not merit the grace of God, because all of us fall short. It is like a test. One, that none of us can pass. To continue this analogy, the only grade we merit is failure, since we are all sinners.

[Robert]

Originally posted by Kucinich
Nope. Christianity is not ALL about morality; it's just a significant fraction of your holy text and beliefs are concerned with morality.

There are two things.
1. The 'theory', the believe system.
2. the results to someones life.

The important thing, thing it all is about is #1.
As in a relation. If a girl is in love with me, and I'm in love with her, there's only one thing that counts, and that's that we love each other and want to live with each other.

But as soon as we do live with each other, it will have results in our lives. First of all, we live both in the same home, we will do things to please each other. We'll try to avoid things the other hates, etc. etc.

But #1 is still the thing it is all about.
So is it with christianity. It's all about the 'theory', the believe system.
And all what comes with #2 might be important, but it's not that important. In fact, most of it should be the natural thing to do, when #1 is a fact.

But I do agree with you that CyberShy isn't making sense. He seems to be taking something like theiosis-the concept of oneness with god-and removing the more difficult moral aspect from it, to turn it into some kind of Far East mysticism attained by self-discovery alone

You clearly didn't get it.
But you are right about the fact that it does compare with 'far east mysticism' at some points.
These mysticisms oftenly admit that humans are doing wrong by default, and should turn to the good side.
Mostly they admit that this hardly can done in one life.
That's why they invented reincarnation.

But after the so-called reincarnation of 100s of generation we see that not much has changed.

Nope, because heaven is basically a reward for doing good (or what God says is good). Other moralities emphasize doing good for the sake of doing good. Christianity says "do good because in the end it pays off BIG". In that, it really trivializes morality to self-interest.

Like we've said multiple times in this thread: it's not.
You clearly have not understood us, nor have you understood the Bible.

If heaven is not intended as a reward for doing good, then why is it denied to bad people?

It's not denied to bad people.
Where did you get the idea that heaven is denied to bad people?

Would it be denied to a good person who was only good in order to get into heaven?

If someone would be perfectly good, he would get into heaven. Only Jesus was that perfect.
People who do good to achive heaven are not looking down upon in the Bible. Jesus even gives suggestions to a person who asks Him how to get in heaven.

The thing is that we can't live that perfect. And indeed, our thoughts count as well.

But in the end, you should read it as: "You cannot get into heaven because you're imperfect" rather than: "Because you sinned you can't get into heaven"
Heaven is perfect, how can it stay perfect if it's inhabited by imperfect people?

We need to be made perfect.
And in order to be made perfect, we need to understand that we're imperfect. That's what the law and the 10 commandments do.

And God will make everybody perfect.
Thus in fact, sinners / imperfect people can get into 'heaven' (the new earth, as explained already)

on one hand, Christianity reduces morality to self-interest, on the other, God is arbitrarily cruel.

Well, what's wrong with self-interest?
But in fact, it's not only self-interest. It's mutual-interest.
I want to be with God, since I love Him. And He wants to be with me, since He loves me. He'll make me perfect for that reason.

He's not cruel, since He'll make everybody perfect who asks Him.

Is it immoral for God to kill people?

Not according to the Bible. According to my moral code, it is.

Is it moral to your code to terminte the life of terminal ill people, who are suffering badly, and who ask for it?

CyberShy: You were there I guess.........?
In the mind of the early church fathers, and you saw them thinking: "What if tell them there's a hell....?"

St Leo: You misphrase something, get a few positive comments, and stick with the idea. A few hundred years later, you've got an entire new concept hammered out. Eh.

The thing is only that we have enough evidence that the Bible didn't got centuries to let people misphrase things. You could be right if we would have found the earliest scriptures in 400AD, and only a few of them.

But the fact is that we have many many many scriptures already in 400AD, that are very very faithfull to each other. And we have even much older scriptures.

God has (according to the Bible) told people to do things that I sure think are wrong.

Do you think it's possible that you might be wrong about your opinion on that, but you have that opinion bc you lack the complete knowledge on the situation, the circumstances and the things that were prevented, and I don't know what...?

Or are you 100% sure that your moral opinion on the matter is true?

In that case, if God told you to, for instance, kill a child, would you do it?

I think I wouldn't
I'd rather sin for not listening to God than kill a child because I got a voice in my head which apparrantly was not God.

In fact, why do you bother to say you're following God when you're really following some moral code that just happens to be the one that God follows?

In my opinion the moral code that comes with the Bible is the only way to become really happy, as a person and as a society.
I don't listen to God because it's God who says so, but because I see and believe it is the right thing to do?

Except that trusting in God is part of your moral code, so my point stands.

Since when is trusting someone a part of a moral code?

That's what I said. They do not obey the Christian moral code. And you've just shown that Heaven IS a reward for meeting this code.

This has been adressed several times, but it keeps coming back. Heaven is not a reward.
Heaven, no: THE NEW EARTH (the Bible says not that anyone will go to 'heaven') will be perfect.
Only perfect beings will get into heaven.
Nobody is perfect, that's why God makes us perfect.

If you say you're not perfect, you can stay the way you are, but the concequence is that you can't get into heaven.

Thus, my objection stands, that Christianity really says, "one ought to obey God because it is in one's self-interest".

That's because you want that opinion to be true.
You're not truely reading what we write, you're more reading into our postings, and bending everything in such a way that it fits with your holy opinion.

Obviously, bad people = does not obey the Christian moral code.

people who try to follow the so called christian moral code are still bad people, according to christians.
Christians say: all people are equal sinner.
Both christians and non-christians.

Thus, you obey God in the same sense that the king in The Little Prince rules over everything

God is not like the king in your story (which is a good story btw)
Since God has oftenly showed me in person, and to the entire world, that everything does obey to His commands.

Take 1948, after 1900 years of exile Israel is refounded and the Jews are getting back. As been forsaid 3000 years ago.
Both the exile and the return were forsaid.

The Bible says that Jerusalem will be a big problem in the end of times, all countries will have an opinion on it, and everyone who intervenes with it will 'cut itself'

The Bible says that in the end of times knowledge will significantly grow.

And there's much more.
Not to mention all those prophecies that have been fullfilled by Jesus.

And like I said, as I experienced in my own life.

So tell me, is Hell a nice place? What's it like there?

No, it's without God.
It's like my house when my wife is not there and everything that reminds me to her will not be there. And she'll never return. I would hate it.

Hell is worse, since the impact of God on happyness is much bigger than the impact of my wife. Eventhough she's a godess and the love of my life.

But if I tell my wife to go, she'll go.
And if you tell God to go, he'll go.

Thus, trusting in God is the expection one has to meet in order to get in.

You have to be renewed, and ask God for that.
So you must trust God to be able to renew you.
The expection to get into the new earth is: being perfect.

If you know another way, take that other way.
But I tell you, there is no other way.

But first: do you admit that you're imperfect?

I bolded a different section than you did. Notice how obeying the commandments is the prerequisite for "entering life" (I assume this means immortality in Heaven, right?), thus, one ought to obey the commandments because they allow one to "enter life". Ergo, one ought to obey the commandments because doing so is in one's self interest.

Jesus shows that no-one is perfect, by showing that no-one keeps the commandments.
The commandments, the law, has been given to show that we're imperfect.
Anybody who claims to be perfect can test himself, do I match with the law?

What happens to beleif in God if super intelligent beings from far away come along with no such belief in their entire history. They would surley indicate that God doesn't exist otherwise some of them would surely beleive int he same craetor of all of us.

Another *what if* question.
*if* that happens I will most obviously stop believing in God.

You can choose one of two options:

1) it's somehow possible to tell when God is telling you things, and obviously I, as an atheist, am not responsible for figuring it out

2) it's NOT possible to tell when God is telling you things, and thus your entire religion is false

It's #3: you're broken and do for that reason not understand what God asks from you. You're responsible for being broken, since you can ask God to fix you. And since you're responsible for being broken you're responsible for doing wrong as well.

[Rogan Josh]

Originally posted by CyberShy
No, it's without God.
It's like my house when my wife is not there and everything that reminds me to her will not be there. And she'll never return. I would hate it.

Hell is worse, since the impact of God on happyness is much bigger than the impact of my wife. Eventhough she's a godess and the love of my life.

But if I tell my wife to go, she'll go.
And if you tell God to go, he'll go.

nice analogy - I will have to remember that one.

[Elok]

This thread is too huge for little lazy me to answer, but as to Kucinich's "rowing" analogy, the idea is that sinners are people who have slowly convinced themselves to more or less dislike everything they are presented with, because it is not entirely theirs, done entirely their way. The sinner is an innately unhappy person unless the world constantly shifts to accomodate his/her desires. Which usually involves making others unhappy.

Think about the stereotypical evil of our time, the Crooked Corporate CEO. They don't want money for what can be done with it; people who have accumulated massive wealth have massive wealth because they can't or won't put what they have to meaningful use. There's no point in getting more money except for the imagined glory to be had over the peasant folk below. This is an exaggerated and extreme example, but I'm pulling things out of my rear here...

[Docfeelgood]

Originally posted by Kucinich


I'm an atheist, I'm just posing an interesting question. It's fun

[Rogan Josh]

c'mon doc - give him a break - he's only 14.