Question for nonbelievers, atheists, seekers

[RobbyPants]

I am Christian, though I don't know for how long. I have questions that how an all loving God could send someone to hell for just because they don't believe. Sounds a bit like a tyrant right. I also don't understand why you have to put faith in God above everything else, even your own family and friends. Also, if God is all loving, why did he command the Israelites to burn down a village if only even one person does not believe? These are just my basic thoughts and questions

I know how you feel. I struggled with these issues for about two years or so. Even when I got to the point where I realized I didn't really believe anymore, it took me about six months to get to the point where I could even admit it to myself. It took a long time before I could ask the "hard questions" and get to a point where I could consider an answer that wasn't "but God is real".

[enoob57]

Steven,

 

I understand that is what you believe.  A lot of other people believe differently.  And as I explained, in my opinion beliefs and facts are not the same thing.

It is not from a source within me as subjective reasoning goes... but is from God's Word! Yes you can call it

just a book but it is because you have not studied it in depth. God Says-> it's all about authority 'the last o/One

standing so to speak' ... I will die, you will die, and the world rots but God Says

John 8:49-51

49 Jesus answered, "I do not have a demon; but I honor My Father, and you dishonor Me.  50 And I do not

seek My own glory; there is One who seeks and judges.  51 Most assuredly, I say to you, if anyone keeps

My word he shall never see death."

NKJV

Heb 9:26-28

 27 And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment, 28 so Christ was offered once to bear

the sins of many. To those who eagerly wait for Him He will appear a second time, apart from sin, for salvation.

NKJV

As you can see The Lord is talking of some other death than the one we all must meet and go through...

Rev 2:11

 "He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. He who overcomes shall not be hurt by the

second death."'

NKJV

Rev 20:14-15

14 Then Death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.  15 And anyone not found written

in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire.

NKJV

It is your funeral... I would be careful with it -If I were you!   Love, Steven

[Diatheosis]

 

I am Christian, though I don't know for how long. I have questions that how an all loving God could send someone to hell for just because they don't believe. Sounds a bit like a tyrant right. I also don't understand why you have to put faith in God above everything else, even your own family and friends. Also, if God is all loving, why did he command the Israelites to burn down a village if only even one person does not believe? These are just my basic thoughts and questions

I know how you feel. I struggled with these issues for about two years or so. Even when I got to the point where I realized I didn't really believe anymore, it took me about six months to get to the point where I could even admit it to myself. It took a long time before I could ask the "hard questions" and get to a point where I could consider an answer that wasn't "but God is real".

 

 

I think the difference from receiving faith from the family or God may make a huge difference. Of course, it can be everything in between too, but starting as a atheist and then slowly through experience accepting God is a whole another thing than growing up with a Christian belief system. I understand at some point one may easily want to find something outside of that too.

 

I guess the main thing is to get the scripture and the real life somehow balanced. After certain amount of supernatural experiences it's kind of hard to directly deny the possibility of higher forces, and if you get to experience God, it's easier to accept Him. Still, we must renew ourselves on a daily basis because the past alone does not sustain our experience of now, so to speak.

 

Some things are just too big and profound to be explained away with chance or coincidence. But still if we do not divert our life according to how God is leading us, life may start to feel like too heavy. But it might simply be because we are not heading towards Him. I don't think it's just about trying to make yourself believe what the Bible says because our reality is not a book in that sense, even though the contents open up some great answers. You have to take care of the other end of that spectrum too, which is your life. That's what I mean by balance.

 

I don't necessarily believe banging your head to the Bible in every situation will deliver the best results. It may be that in certain periods in our life all we need is to soak in God's presence, in the loving embrace of our Heavenly Father. Maybe those who have very strong conviction about the Bible will disagree, but if someone is on the verge of giving up believing, something else might work out better. We should not always perhaps beat ourselves that hard. Sometimes all you need is breathe. I've had those times in my life when I did not feel particularly attached to the Bible at all, not even to worship and my heart was rendered. Then only God Himself could ease that condition and I would seek for that pure loneliness from remote places in nature. But I would feel Him and feed from that.

 

Walking with God is not a repeat pattern. Because God is the Creator, He is creative. Some people might be terrified about that, even believers who go to church a lot and read their Bible. But I am seeking a supernatural God who can empty me of the human brokenness and pour in the living waters of glory. That alone will sustain me and my belief.

 

Sorry for the off-topic, but I kind of felt this was needed. It will  be hard to live by the biblical values if we are devoid of the Spirit that inspired them. Then all that is left is the legalism and God forbid, may that be never even close to my heart. Without mercy, we are nothing.

[RobbyPants]

Sorry for the off-topic, but I kind of felt this was needed. It will  be hard to live by the biblical values if we are devoid of the Spirit that inspired them. Then all that is left is the legalism and God forbid, may that be never even close to my heart. Without mercy, we are nothing.

 

 

I'm not sure if that was directed at me or everyone, but I'm not bothered about it being off topic. I understand why you posted it.

 

 

After certain amount of supernatural experiences it's kind of hard to directly deny the possibility of higher forces, and if you get to experience God, it's easier to accept Him. Still, we must renew ourselves on a daily basis because the past alone does not sustain our experience of now, so to speak.

 

 

I used to think I had experienced God, but I've found that same profound feeling from other things, both while I was Christian, and afterward, too. This lead me to two conclusions:

1. The thing I felt was the same thing others felt when they described feeling God, and likely wasn't a good argument for the existence of God.
2. Other people were feeling something even more profound that I wasn't. This lead to lots of feelings of guilt, that despite how much I wanted to believe, I couldn't, and it might still somehow be my fault. That was a very rough year of my life.

 

Some things are just too big and profound to be explained away with chance or coincidence.

 

You'd be surprised how many things can be explained in the world by coincidence. Part of it my have to do with my background in statistics, but people in general have a hard time grasping iterative probability. For example: take the chance of any one random person winning the lottery; it is very rare. Now, take the chance that someone will win in any given drawing; the numbers shoot up drastically, because of the number of times you are iterating over individual drawings.

 

Couple that with people's selective memories. We are really good at finding patterns where there are none, and about remembering hits and forgetting misses once we set our minds on a conclusion. With those two things together, I'm more inclined to believe things are a coincidence when they appear like a coincidence, absent any other evidence of a link.

[Diatheosis]

Thanks for your contribution. At times of no direct experience of God's presence I sometimes think of everything I've been through and really just ask myself can it be explained in some other way. Certainly, I am sure no human being can grasp the absolute, the totality of the sum of this reality in one instant. Otherwise we could not continue normal everyday life, I suppose. Unless, of course, the whole capacity to understand things would be permanently increased radically. Then we might be able to sustain our human life whilst perceiving eternal issues. Jesus is a good example of this analogy, although perhaps not if you consider Him just ordinary man of that time who got slightly misunderstood for some part of teaching.

 

Whilst I do not advocate any other religion besides, some Eastern mediation gurus apparently are experiencing some quite different states of consciousness and maintaining that. Where is that coming from, is debatable.

 

As I do not know particularly your walk as a Christian, I cannot speak too much about that, mainly testify of my own journey. I am not a full time minister, but even I have had experiences where chronic pain has been commanded to dismiss in Jesus' name and it indeed has done that. I am sure many members on this board could testify of some quite amazing things having happened.

 

So I am curious how do you explain these instances? Is it our mind selecting to shut down a certain part of the brain in order to carry out the commands? And yet, healing is a fact. I know personally an evangelist who prayed over a deaf man who had never heard in his entire life and he could hear instantly after that. One can always doubt and suppose the possibility of hoax but I've been through some quite interesting things in my life and altogether it just does not fit any scientific box of life. The problem being, it's real life and spontaneous which makes it hard to examine in a glass tube in a laboratory, so to speak.

 

I am sorry to hear of all the pain you got to go through because you felt there's something wrong about you and that's why the spiritual life of a Christian did not carry out. I find it extremely hard to fit in any box too, and many times it feels like walking on no man's land. I am a former atheist, hard core new ager and then got saved in Christ. But we are all different and I find many times the need for human beings to identify themselves has to do the sort of unknowing or insecurity of our place in this existence. Words help communication, but eventually when we are left alone with out no other human resource, that's the time when you really get to know your depths. That's why many mystics seek solitude. To find the real spot being in God. It's not an easy job and requires breaking away from many associations we become accustomed in our daily life, thus feeling completely broken down but if we succeed in that we will find such power this world can never offer.

 

Again, my sincere sympathy and compassion for your pain with what you got to go through. I am fully aware of that having gone from one field of believing to another, many times actually. The crossing often hurts, but I know many of the sides, just went through them in a different order than you. Which means, I believe in God after denying Him. 

 

Eventually, no answer this world offers will make it through when it comes to our last stop, the departure from this world. I know many people who were clinically dead and recovered telling about being removed from the body and were able to tell details of what happened around them, not only in the immediate surrounding but also outside of the reach of senses. For me that's no big news, as I used to depart from my body consciously many times years ago and could do the same.

 

The human mind really is full of mysteries, and yet it is just a small reflection of the universe we live in. Why is it able to do so many strange things that have not that much to do with the evolution of the species as such? If it is not designed by someone who put all things in motion for reason.

 

We are kind of getting further away from the topic but I hope no one minds that

Edited August 30, 2013 by Diatheosis

[LuftWaffle]

I am Christian, though I don't know for how long. I have questions that how an all loving God could send someone to hell for just because they don't believe. Sounds a bit like a tyrant right.

 

These questions don't have easy answers, but I'll try to give an answer to you.

The reason it seems so tyrannical is because the statement isn't 100% accurate.

 

Saying that God sends people to hell just because they don't believe is somewhat like saying judges send people to prison just because they can't get a good lawyer.

Lack of a good lawyer isn't the primary reason people get sent to prison. People get sent to prison because they have broken the law. While a good lawyer might get you a suspended or less severe sentence, the lack of a good lawyer isn't why people go to prison.

 

Likewise, lacking belief in Jesus' substitution for our moral crimes, isn't the reason people go to hell, it's because of their moral crimes. Jesus is likened to a lawyer in the Bible, He is the one who will defend us before the Father and His defence is airtight because He already paid for our crimes. In a way double jeopardy is in effect.

If people go to hell it's not because they lack belief in Jesus, it's because they rejected the defense attorney and opted to defend themselves (something which doesn't work).

 

I'm sure you'll say, "Yes but the punishment should fit the crime and most people crimes are miniscule compared to eternal torment in hell". I think a couple of things can be said here.

 

Moral failings cannot be undone. If you kill somebody, you cannot un-kill them. If you commit adultery you cannot un-commit it. If you tell a lie you cannot un-tell it.

So it's not that a person will sit in hell and after a finite period their lies will be untold, their selfishnesses will turn into un-selfishnesses etc. You can't turn back time.

 

One might think that good deeds will counter bad deeds, but that doesn't work either. Suppose a surgeon commits a heinous crime, he wouldn't be able to offset his crime against all the people that he saved on his surgical table, could he?

Could a fireman burn down an house because he's saved so many others? Could a lifeguard drown a person because he saved many from drowning?

 

So the fact that many people may consider themselves good people and perhaps they've done a great deal of good, the bad still hangs over them.

 

So once a person has rejected Jesus' substitution, there isn't anything a person can do to offset their moral failings, not in this world, and not in the next.

[LuftWaffle]

 

I am very interested in knowing how those who do not take God's Word as God's Word think of moral and ethics.

 

What is good, what is bad or evil?

 

What is right and what is wrong?

 

 

And especially:

 

How do you define and what arguments do you have for your ideas?

 

It's interesting for me to know what kind of views there are, so please satisfy my curiosity

 

I don't have any particularly good answers for defining good and evil, but I also consider them rather abstract concepts. To give you an answer as to why I think it is better for people to cooperate and not harm each other as opposed to behave selfishly is twofold:

 

1) This first reason could be summed up in the Prisoner's Dilemma. Basically, if you run the math on it, individually, it's in a person's best interest to defect, but if you look at the two as part of a group, the group does better if they both cooperate. Also, if you don't view the conflict as a single event, but rather as a series of events, people would remember past events where you defected and would likely defect against you in the future. So, in short, selfish behavior is almost certainly short-sighted.

 

2) The second reason is somewhat related to the first, but we get more done when we work together than when we work separately. If we work together, we need to have a framework of trust, otherwise everything falls apart. At the end of the day, my ability to go to Taco Bell and use the Internet as opposed to having to hunt for my own food and defend it from marauders is based on my willingness to cooperate with others and their willingness to cooperate with me.

 

 

I'd like to give some comments on this if I may.

The problem with the prisoner's dilemma is that there's a disconnect between the right thing to do and what's best for the prisoners. It may serve as an explanatory example for why acting in your own interest may not be the best thing for the group, but notice that the outcome is still morally deficient. The right thing for both prisoners to do would be to actually confess the greater crime as well as the lesser crime and serve their time.

 

The other thing is that while morality entails unselfishness, game theory isn't an explanation of why we ought to be unselfish as it is an explanation of why we ought to be more selfish.

Think about what you said, "At the end of the day, my ability to go to Taco Bell and use the Internet as opposed to having to hunt for my own food and defend it from marauders is based on my willingness to cooperate with others and their willingness to cooperate with me"

In other words, by cooperating you're getting more benefit for yourself than you would if you didn't.

 

So in effect we ought not be selfish so that we can be more thoroughly selfish.

Or, if selfishness is short sighted, one could say "we ought to be less short sighted so that we can be more thoroughly short sighted"

 

Lastly, the major problem here is that these descriptive explanations do not carry any prescriptive weight. One might say that a person who acts selfishly will lose some benefit from the group, but why ought one pursue benefits from the group in the first place? Suppose I don't care that in the end it'll be to my detriment to kill people, I just want to do it? You can't say there's anything morally wrong with it, in effect the action is just foolish because killing people means you lose societal benefits, but if I'm not interested in the long term benefit, so what?

 

Game theory in essence assumes that one ought to play the game to win, but why believe that? Why is winning better than losing? You might say we've evolved the desire to win, but what if my desire is the opposite? What if I don't care about transmitting my genes to the next generation and I don't care about the benefits of cooperating with the group?

Why is going to taco bell better than hunting your own food?

[RobbyPants]

I'd like to give some comments on this if I may.

The problem with the prisoner's dilemma is that there's a disconnect between the right thing to do and what's best for the prisoners. It may serve as an explanatory example for why acting in your own interest may not be the best thing for the group, but notice that the outcome is still morally deficient. The right thing for both prisoners to do would be to actually confess the greater crime as well as the lesser crime and serve their time.

Oh, certainly. I wasn't citing the prisoner's dilemma from a moral stance, but rather to explain the ideas of cooperation over personal interest.

 

 

The other thing is that while morality entails unselfishness, game theory isn't an explanation of why we ought to be unselfish as it is an explanation of why we ought to be more selfish.

Think about what you said, "At the end of the day, my ability to go to Taco Bell and use the Internet as opposed to having to hunt for my own food and defend it from marauders is based on my willingness to cooperate with others and their willingness to cooperate with me"

In other words, by cooperating you're getting more benefit for yourself than you would if you didn't.

 

So in effect we ought not be selfish so that we can be more thoroughly selfish.

Or, if selfishness is short sighted, one could say "we ought to be less short sighted so that we can be more thoroughly short sighted"

Does morality entail unselfishness? Certain moral teachings say so, but I don't know that morality itself does. All morality is in a vacuum is a distinction between right and wrong, or a set of societal customs and rules. What those distinctions or rules are is left to any particular moral teaching.

It's not just a benefit to me; it's a benefit to everybody. While I personally gain from my own benefit, everyone else gains as well. Taco Bell and the Internet is just a stand in for a pretty high level of personal convenience due to us working together. Lets take a look at the opposite end of the spectrum, where we don't work together:

So, each person would be hunting and gathering their own food with little time for anything else, hoping that someone wouldn't kill them for the food that they just spent the time collecting. In order to do things like farm, we need to work together. We live in a world where practice does indeed make perfect. So, if you have two farmers, it is more productive for one to grow rice, the other to grow beans, and for them to trade with each other than it is for each to grow their own rice and beans. Specialization leads to increased productivity, and that leads to an increase in capital, and eventually an increase in expendable income and free time. Also, this level of specialization allows us to get more advanced technology and medicine, leading to longer and higher quality lives. 

I would say that there are plenty of good reasons for us to all cooperate, even if at the end of it all, I can experience it as my own personal gain.

 

Lastly, the major problem here is that these descriptive explanations do not carry any prescriptive weight. One might say that a person who acts selfishly will lose some benefit from the group, but why ought one pursue benefits from the group in the first place? Suppose I don't care that in the end it'll be to my detriment to kill people, I just want to do it? You can't say there's anything morally wrong with it, in effect the action is just foolish because killing people means you lose societal benefits, but if I'm not interested in the long term benefit, so what?

If a person decides to kill or otherwise act against the group, that is a danger to the group. It seems obvious that the group would want to act against that individual. Whether it's morally "wrong" or not is beside the point. In a system that isn't dictated by a higher authority, "right and wrong" are basically decided by group consensus. By and large, a lot of "right and wrong" are things that are deemed harmful to society.

Also, I don't see how theological morality would protect you from someone who doesn't care. I could ask you the same question and reword it as "Suppose I don't care that in the end it'll be to my detriment to kill people God considers it wrong for me to kill people, I just want to do it? You can't say there's anything morally wrong with it If God won't stop me from doing it, in effect the action is just foolish because killing people means you lose societal benefits I get punished in the afterlife, but if I'm not interested in the long term benefit afraid of going to Hell, so what?"

When it all comes down to it, people want to see killers brought to justice in this lifetime, regardless of whether or not God will judge them later. The 5th/6th commandment (depending on the list you use) doesn't stop people from killing people, but laws make it so we can take action against people when they do.

 

 

Game theory in essence assumes that one ought to play the game to win, but why believe that? Why is winning better than losing? You might say we've evolved the desire to win, but what if my desire is the opposite? What if I don't care about transmitting my genes to the next generation and I don't care about the benefits of cooperating with the group?

Why is going to taco bell better than hunting your own food?

Actually, I don't think people by and large care about transmitting their genes to the next generation. We have evolved to like sex and we have evolved to love our children, but we never actually evolved to want to have kids. People figured out birth control several thousand years ago and have been trying to have their cake and eat it too for quite some time.

As for who says Taco Bell is better than hunting? I do, for myself. You can certainly feel that withdrawing from society is better morally or experientially, and that's fine. For the most part, society as a whole has decided to cooperate.

Edited September 5, 2013 by RobbyPants

[LuftWaffle]

Thanks for the response, RobbyPants.

 

Think about the implications of what you're saying. If moraly evil acts are merely acts that goes against what is better for society and if it's fine if people choose to do so, then behaving immorally is fine. But that goes against our moral sensibility, doesn't it.

 

Let me highlight the pertinent statements:

 

"In a system that isn't dictated by a higher authority, "right and wrong" are basically decided by group consensus."

"You can certainly feel that withdrawing from society is better morally or experientially, and that's fine. For the most part, society as a whole has decided to cooperate."

 

In other words doing something nasty like raping someone isn't wrong per se, it's merely acting against the moral consensus.

 

"As for who says Taco Bell is better than hunting? I do, for myself."

Why should another person feel obliged to hold the same view you do?

 

On the question of why one should care about the moral consensus, well, the answer is that it'll benefit you in the long run. Why ought one care what benefits you in the long run? Why not just live in the now?

 

 

 

Does

morality entail unselfishness? Certain moral teachings say so, but I don't know that morality itself does.

By entail, I simply mean that moral acts are usually unselfish. I think this can atleast in principle be shown to be sound. Keep in mind that you also made the connection between morality and selfishness when you said, "...So, in short, selfish behavior is almost certainly short-sighted"

 

 

Also, I don't see how theological morality would protect you from someone who doesn't care.

That's a different topic altogether. We're discussing the nature of morality, not what the best way to prevent immorality is.

 

The distinction is that in an objective moral ethic some acts really are wrong and there's a transcendent moral imperative that doesn't depend on mere feelings or desires or cultural preferences.

The problem with subjectivism is that nothing is really right or wrong. A person who acts against the group preference is merely acting unfashionably. A person who doesn't care about winning "the game" isn't doing anything wrong, they're simply playing a different game. Which explanation best describes our experience of the world? If somebody stole you wallet do you say to yourself, "darn, that guy acted really unfashionably" or do you say "what that thief did was wrong"?

 

If morality is subjective is anything really wrong with anything?

[RobbyPants]

In other words doing something nasty like raping someone isn't wrong per se, it's merely acting against the moral consensus.

Well, as creepy as it sounds, yes. There are cultures that hold that raping is okay under certain circumstances. In some countries, a husband can legally rape his wife, and no one over there will stop him, yet we find that extremely disturbing over here.

 

"As for who says Taco Bell is better than hunting? I do, for myself."

Why should another person feel obliged to hold the same view you do?

Do note that "Taco Bell" was a generic stand-in for convenience, free time, and discretionary spending. I'm not literally positing that Taco Bell is the be all and end all of my moral theories (although, TB is pretty awesome  ). Also, I answered you in the last post, in that context: no one is "obligated" to hold that view, yet most people do. We agree to play by the rules and in exchange, we get the protection of the law and all of the benefits of cooperation.

 

On the question of why one should care about the moral consensus, well, the answer is that it'll benefit you in the long run. Why ought one care what benefits you in the long run? Why not just live in the now?

The same reason one might choose to forgo one snickers bar now in exchange for two later. The same reason people go to work today for a paycheck that won't come until the end of next week.

 

 

By entail, I simply mean that moral acts are usually unselfish. I think this can atleast in principle be shown to be sound. Keep in mind that you also made the connection between morality and selfishness when you said, "...So, in short, selfish behavior is almost certainly short-sighted"

Sorry, I think I was mixing terms a bit there in a way that was super confusing. In that context, "selfish" meant "short-sighted, selfish behavior", as opposed to the longer term cooperation (even though that still would benefit a person, and could be considered selfish).

 

 

Also, I don't see how theological morality would protect you from someone who doesn't care.

That's a different topic altogether. We're discussing the nature of morality, not what the best way to prevent immorality is.

Actually, I do think it's important to the topic and hand, and I'll address it below:

 

The distinction is that in an objective moral ethic some acts really are wrong and there's a transcendent moral imperative that doesn't depend on mere feelings or desires or cultural preferences.

The problem with subjectivism is that nothing is really right or wrong. A person who acts against the group preference is merely acting unfashionably. A person who doesn't care about winning "the game" isn't doing anything wrong, they're simply playing a different game. Which explanation best describes our experience of the world? If somebody stole you wallet do you say to yourself, "darn, that guy acted really unfashionably" or do you say "what that thief did was wrong"?

It is true that nothing would be right or wrong in the cosmic sense of the word, and you could substitute "fashionable" for "right", "moral", or "good", and you'd be largely right. That being said, society can still codify rules and laws based on what they feel is right and wrong (even it they aren't appealing to a higher authority to make that distinction), and those rules make the "morality" actionable, and that's the important part. What good is it telling people it's Wrong (with a capital 'W') to kill if you don't do anything to stop or punish them?

Regardless of how you get your morality (group consensus or from a higher authority for sake of this discussion), in the end, what we care about is that we can work toward making people behave a certain way. As far as our day to day lives go, the origins of the abstract concepts don't matter so much as how we interact with them (rules and enforcement).

 

If morality is subjective is anything really wrong with anything?

In the cosmic sense of the word? No.

Now, I can understand why that sounds troubling. I was raised Christian and found the idea of moral relativism deeply troubling for while. I raised the exact concerns you are raising now. When I stopped believing in God, I didn't then say "Well, I guess I can just do what I want, now". Instead, I tried to figure out why I feel this way. I allowed myself to look at other options I wouldn't previously allow myself to consider before hand. To be honest, when I believed in God, I wasn't thinking about divine authority when I was making decisions on how to behave.