Question The Existence of God

^ Like you never have done that.

Besides what other possibilities are missing since you think it's a limit?
Do enlighten us if you know. We are only HUMAN
 
^ Like you never have done that.

Besides what other possibilities are missing since you think it's a limit?
Do enlighten us if you know. We are only HUMAN

I don't know what the other possibilities are because I haven't died yet - but I'm not gonna limit myself and say there is only one of two possibilities if God exists.
 
Wow, it's amazing how the concept of a tongue in cheek statement can be lost on people, did you not read the rest of my post? The tone of it was pretty clear.
 
Wow, it's amazing how the concept of a tongue in cheek statement can be lost on people, did you not read the rest of my post? The tone of it was pretty clear.


The 'concept' of tongue in cheek statements aren't lost - however re-read what you have written (don't worry, you don't have to scroll up - I'ma post it here)

I would much prefer to spend my life as an Atheist and find I'm wrong, because in that case there are two possibilities:

a) God has no problem welcoming non believers into heaven, and everything's fine and dandy.
b) God sends non believers to hell unless they 'repent', in which case why would I want the acceptance of a being who thinks it's morally wrong to not believe in him? I would then refuse to 'repent' my 'sin' and go to hell, which doesn't sound too good, but I would have the moral high ground, which due to my supreme stubbornness is much more important than avoiding eternal torment.

The 'tone' of it is exactly the same as every other comment on this thread, so why should your stance be perceived as 'tongue in cheek' and the rest be deemed as an actual opinion.
 
Edmund, whenever somebody says something wrong on the internet it was meant to be a joke, the people reading it just weren't clever enough to notice. Didn't you know?
 
Airam
Airam
your av is made of such awesome! :)
I never said anyone wasn't clever enough to understand, what I said was just misinterpreted, which in hindsight isn't really surprising as it is difficult to convey tone over the internet, had we been having this discussion face to face I doubt there would have been any misunderstanding. So I do apologise if I came across as suggesting anyone wasn't clever enough to understand what I meant, I had just thought (clearly mistakenly) that my meaning was clear. As for emoticons I wasn't aware of what any of them were here as I use quick reply when posting, and only returned here after a few years of being inactive yesterday, so I'm still re-finding my way around.

As for what I said being wrong, JCC, if I hadn't been joking what I said would have been an opinion, in which case how can an opinion be wrong? When it comes to the subject of God no one can really know the truth so how anyone can say that anybody's possible view of it is wrong is beyond me, disagreeing is fine but saying someone is wrong is completely different. From what I've read from you earlier in this thread you seem like a pretty opinionated guy, and I actually agree with a lot of what you've said, but I'm sure there are many people who would say that your opinions are wrong, and I highly doubt you would agree with them on that. Okay, that was pretty clumsily worded but do you see my point?
 
I never said anyone wasn't clever enough to understand, what I said was just misinterpreted, which in hindsight isn't really surprising as it is difficult to convey tone over the internet, had we been having this discussion face to face I doubt there would have been any misunderstanding. So I do apologise if I came across as suggesting anyone wasn't clever enough to understand what I meant, I had just thought (clearly mistakenly) that my meaning was clear. As for emoticons I wasn't aware of what any of them were here as I use quick reply when posting, and only returned here after a few years of being inactive yesterday, so I'm still re-finding my way around.

As for what I said being wrong, JCC, if I hadn't been joking what I said would have been an opinion, in which case how can an opinion be wrong? When it comes to the subject of God no one can really know the truth so how anyone can say that anybody's possible view of it is wrong is beyond me, disagreeing is fine but saying someone is wrong is completely different. From what I've read from you earlier in this thread you seem like a pretty opinionated guy, and I actually agree with a lot of what you've said, but I'm sure there are many people who would say that your opinions are wrong, and I highly doubt you would agree with them on that. Okay, that was pretty clumsily worded but do you see my point?

I don't think JCC was saying what you actually said in the original post was wrong, but that you back tracked when someone called you on it - which you appear to do so.

IF you did mean it as tongue in cheek, well thats fine (still doesn't read like that, but fair game) but its not as hard as people suggest to give a tone to something.
Also, emoticons such as 😛 which is a standard one through-out the internet as suggesting its a 'bit of fun and not to be taken seriously' is done the exact same way on every board, IM service and email that I have ever been involved with, so you shouldn't have an issue here for future reference.
 
As for what I said being wrong, JCC, if I hadn't been joking what I said would have been an opinion, in which case how can an opinion be wrong? When it comes to the subject of God no one can really know the truth so how anyone can say that anybody's possible view of it is wrong is beyond me, disagreeing is fine but saying someone is wrong is completely different. From what I've read from you earlier in this thread you seem like a pretty opinionated guy, and I actually agree with a lot of what you've said, but I'm sure there are many people who would say that your opinions are wrong, and I highly doubt you would agree with them on that. Okay, that was pretty clumsily worded but do you see my point?
Yeah, I see your point. My approach to debate, as most have probably learned, is to criticise and mock until my opponent is so crushed by their own humiliation and self-loathing that they end up rocking backwards and forwards in the foetal position for hours on end until they conclude that I was obviously the victor and leave feeling intellectually enriched and just a tad* attracted to me.

This approach occasionally spills over into situations where it shouldn't, and I end up being a little too matter-of-fact about people's opinions. I'm not sure that this is one of those situations, though, since your actual words were "this leaves two possibilities" and in the event that a god does exist (not necessarily THE God, overlord of all, father of Christ, smiter of sinners and lover of the Pope), there are many more possibilities than that, which is what Edmund was trying to get across.

*very
 
I admit I didn't read this whole thread... but... just for argument sake... how could one BELIEVE and then FIND OUT that God doesn't exist? I mean... think about it for a minute. If you believe all your life (or even just some of your life) and then you die, and there's no god, then you don't know it anyway.

Am I being sensical? Or...not so much?? 😉
 
how could one BELIEVE and then FIND OUT that God doesn't exist?
What, is that your reason for not believing?

I suppose what your getting at is that faith is a waste of time, and probably because you dont know anything about what changes in your life because you have faith versus not having s faith. Belief doesnt go hand in hand with boredom or a wasted life. If I die and there is no God, then I have died and lived a life the same way any other human on this planet has died and lived a life.

And trim your sig.
 
What, is that your reason for not believing?

I suppose what your getting at is that faith is a waste of time, and probably because you dont know anything about what changes in your life because you have faith versus not having s faith. Belief doesnt go hand in hand with boredom or a wasted life. If I die and there is no God, then I have died and lived a life the same way any other human on this planet has died and lived a life.

And trim your sig.
Erm, I don't see where you're reading that from in the quoted post. At all.

The way I understand the post, it's more to mean that it's pretty much epistemically impossible to "find out God doesn't exist". In the situation in question: You have faith in God's existence while you live, then you die and, as God doesn't really exist, you fade into nothingness. You won't ever find out your faith was in vain, though, since with the fading to nothingness, your mind/perception doesn't change anymore.

If anything, that's a reason in favor of believing - at least believing in an afterlife (it gets a bit more complicated with the God question, though... after all, you could believe in Allah all your life, and then run into Krishna in the afterlife. 😛 )

Faith in life after death cannot be disappointed. The belief that it's all over with death can be. Thus, if your aim is to avoid disappointment, belief in an afterlife is the only logical and rational way to go. 😉
 
Washburne
Washburne
I know it wasn't you that brought it up but good to see the point I tried to make (not that I tried that hard :P) is once again on the table. :)
Erm, I don't see where you're reading that from in the quoted post. At all.

I just trimmed the post to its most poignant sentence. I appear to be saying the very same thing you are. As for not getting what I read into the post, I thought it was fairly obvious. He's talking about the disappointment of our belief being proved untrue.

My point is the 'disappointment' (if you could call it that since death without an afterlife would lack the feeling of disappointment obviously) is entirely meaningless to the way we decide our faith. I dont worry that my life was spent wasted because I prayed to God only to find out it wasn't true...that would be a strange way to view things.

To the original quote: how could one BELIEVE and then FIND OUT that God doesn't exist?

Why not? If im wrong, im wrong. I've quite happily BELIEVED in something only to FIND OUT God doesn't exist. Whats the big?
 
D
DayVBayB
but isnt there a difference in dying and being oblivious to ur false faith and realising it before you die? even for the short time period you feel like you've wasted away. no disrespect.
This has probably been discussed to death (😉) already, but what about other religions/faiths/beliefs? what if u followed a particular religion and only found out that RIGHT BEFORE you died, your religion was wrong and another was correct?

NB: EB did say that you would find out RIGHT BEFORE you died, so believers will have to to know that they believed in nothing essentially.

- sorry for using CAPS, i just ceebs using html coding right now..
 
S
Silum
Its the same meaningless question. If your wrong, your wrong, it dictates nothing.
DayVBayB agrees: but isnt there a difference in dying and being oblivious to ur false faith and realising it before you die? even for the short time period you feel like you've wasted away. no disrespect.

No disrespect taken. I see the difference, but how does that alter how we live or how we choose our faith? You dont know till the end so it changes nothing. Sure someone here is going to be 'surpised' either the athiest, the christian, the buddists, the greeks, whatever... but what does that mean? To me anyway, it seems a strange thing to be discussing in any great detail (which we are doing) in a thread about faith...it belongs in a what if exestential thought thread. In the same way that discussing when or how we die has ultimately little relevance to how we live. Very bored of this one now, so im out.
 
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