Playing God - the afterlife

[Undone]

So knapp, would you consider yourself "not Christian" at this point?

[knapplc]

So knapp, would you consider yourself "not Christian" at this point?

 

Yes.

[Undone]

Gotcha. That was my first question when I read the OP.

[Landlord]

I was Christian for 40 years. Not one time did I ever meet anyone that I could see/tell/observe/know who was "filled with the Holy Spirit." I was devout as can be, but I never, not one time, ever felt that I was "filled with the Holy Spirit." I never felt Him moving within me, guiding my actions, or inspiring me. The things I felt, saw, did, and knew were all quite clearly coming from me. I threw myself wholeheartedly into my faith, yet there was nothing there, nothing at all. In fact, as a teenager I used to frequently pray for God to send his spirit to me, to help me, to guide me, and not one time during all that fervent prayer, devoutly believing, did I ever feel in any way as if I had the hand of The Lord on me. It was always all me.

 

I think, were I an omnipotent god, I wouldn't make such things so hard to perceive. I think I would make that pretty overtly obvious, kinda like a really nice Christmas sweater that you could put on and everyone would see it and say, "I need to get me some of that awesome sweater like that guy has." Then there would be some really easy way to get that sweater, like a simple prayer and a tangible answer.

 

 

 

I'm just throwing out hypotheticals here, but say God originally was quite obvious, visible and present in our lives and world - so far as to say He walked among us, but we were so determined to escape His presence that as generations upon generations passed, knowledge of Him became harder and harder to come by?

 

Granted that brings up a whole slew of other questions, of which I know you're well aware, having seen you talk on the subject before. I know your favorite question has always been if the God of the Bible were real, why did He create us on a fallen world instead of in heaven? I always struggled to think of an answer, and still don't have a legitimate answer (although I have ideas), but in the last year or two I've realized I don't need to. That even if something defies my logic, perception or understanding, that the base, root answer of why God would do anything is for God's own glory.

[knapplc]

I was Christian for 40 years. Not one time did I ever meet anyone that I could see/tell/observe/know who was "filled with the Holy Spirit." I was devout as can be, but I never, not one time, ever felt that I was "filled with the Holy Spirit." I never felt Him moving within me, guiding my actions, or inspiring me. The things I felt, saw, did, and knew were all quite clearly coming from me. I threw myself wholeheartedly into my faith, yet there was nothing there, nothing at all. In fact, as a teenager I used to frequently pray for God to send his spirit to me, to help me, to guide me, and not one time during all that fervent prayer, devoutly believing, did I ever feel in any way as if I had the hand of The Lord on me. It was always all me.

 

I think, were I an omnipotent god, I wouldn't make such things so hard to perceive. I think I would make that pretty overtly obvious, kinda like a really nice Christmas sweater that you could put on and everyone would see it and say, "I need to get me some of that awesome sweater like that guy has." Then there would be some really easy way to get that sweater, like a simple prayer and a tangible answer.

 

 

 

I'm just throwing out hypotheticals here, but say God originally was quite obvious, visible and present in our lives and world - so far as to say He walked among us, but we were so determined to escape His presence that as generations upon generations passed, knowledge of Him became harder and harder to come by?

 

Granted that brings up a whole slew of other questions, of which I know you're well aware, having seen you talk on the subject before. I know your favorite question has always been if the God of the Bible were real, why did He create us on a fallen world instead of in heaven? I always struggled to think of an answer, and still don't have a legitimate answer (although I have ideas), but in the last year or two I've realized I don't need to. That even if something defies my logic, perception or understanding, that the base, root answer of why God would do anything is for God's own glory.

 

No, you do need to have an answer for that question. The worst truth about "god" is that it would be so easy to fake. Christianity was a backwater cult no different than the worship of umpteen other gods until Constantine legitimized it in 300AD. After that it became a state-run institution much like the Roman worship of Jupiter. After that it became the milieu of "the church," which has its own tremendously troubling history of corruption and vice. The simple truth is that the Christian "god" is quite likely to be more a political tool, more likely to be a crowd-control measure, than to be an actual factual being.

 

You cannot simply take what you've been given on faith. The legend of God is far too easily manipulated through the various times of illiteracy and ignorance that permeated Western culture for the last 2000 years to do that. It's a religion based on the words of others, with no proof of its veracity. "Faith" alone cannot be the answer, because every single thing that faith is based on can be manipulated by man.

[BigRedBuster]

I was Christian for 40 years. Not one time did I ever meet anyone that I could see/tell/observe/know who was "filled with the Holy Spirit." I was devout as can be, but I never, not one time, ever felt that I was "filled with the Holy Spirit." I never felt Him moving within me, guiding my actions, or inspiring me. The things I felt, saw, did, and knew were all quite clearly coming from me. I threw myself wholeheartedly into my faith, yet there was nothing there, nothing at all. In fact, as a teenager I used to frequently pray for God to send his spirit to me, to help me, to guide me, and not one time during all that fervent prayer, devoutly believing, did I ever feel in any way as if I had the hand of The Lord on me. It was always all me.

 

I think, were I an omnipotent god, I wouldn't make such things so hard to perceive. I think I would make that pretty overtly obvious, kinda like a really nice Christmas sweater that you could put on and everyone would see it and say, "I need to get me some of that awesome sweater like that guy has." Then there would be some really easy way to get that sweater, like a simple prayer and a tangible answer.

 

Knapple,

 

I have to say that I have been right where you were. That is why I had to do what I described earlier on this board and take "religion" out of the discussion in my head and simply answer for myself if there is a higher power. My answer was yes. If yours is no, I understand.

[knapplc]

I don't have a problem with the concept of a "higher power." It's when we start defining that "higher power" with no proof that I take a step back. Without some tangible thing to go on, everything can be manipulated, and therefore cannot be trusted. Faith is good - but at some point you have to realize that all you're putting your faith in is other humans, because without a directly intervening god, there's nothing to stop them from changing the narrative to suit their ends.

[BigRedBuster]

I don't have a problem with the concept of a "higher power." It's when we start defining that "higher power" with no proof that I take a step back. Without some tangible thing to go on, everything can be manipulated, and therefore cannot be trusted. Faith is good - but at some point you have to realize that all you're putting your faith in is other humans, because without a directly intervening god, there's nothing to stop them from changing the narrative to suit their ends.

 

That's exactly right. That is why I triy my best to separate human religion and my faith. My family is catholic. My wife gest frustrated at me because I don't get all tied up in the Catholic traditions. I simply say, those are traditions that were created by humans. If I believe in God and follow what I think he wants me to do, that will be good enough for him.

 

On a more light hearted note, at one point in my quest for an answer to all of this, I asked myself, "when I die, would it be worse to be wrong in that I DO believe or DON'T believe?"

 

One way, I spent my life believing in something that doesn't exist and I die and nothing happens. The other way I end up for eternity living a life of hell.

 

I got a personal chuckle out of that when I asked myself that.

[BigRedBuster]

I don't have a problem with the concept of a "higher power." It's when we start defining that "higher power" with no proof that I take a step back. Without some tangible thing to go on, everything can be manipulated, and therefore cannot be trusted. Faith is good - but at some point you have to realize that all you're putting your faith in is other humans, because without a directly intervening god, there's nothing to stop them from changing the narrative to suit their ends.

 

 

Also, I want to say, this i why I don't get caught up in "my religion is right and yours is wrong." Personally, I don't know how anyone can make that call.

[knapplc]

On a more light hearted note, at one point in my quest for an answer to all of this, I asked myself, "when I die, would it be worse to be wrong in that I DO believe or DON'T believe?"

 

For the longest time, that was my argument to myself to not renounce my religion. I've had that thought - and probably expressed it here - several times. I'd imagine it's pretty common.

[Undone]

I don't have a problem with the concept of a "higher power." It's when we start defining that "higher power" with no proof that I take a step back.

 

But it's important to go one step further back and to ask whether or not "truth" actually exists. It seems as obvious as a baseball bat to the face that it does. But our cultural bend is now leaning towards relativism, and relativism slowly contorts these topics.

 

Is it logical to say that the "truth" can't be found? I'm sure that argument can be made. But it can just as easily be made that it can be found. Truth exists, it exists somewhere. That's where the task of both scientific and theological apologetics enter, stage right.

[knapplc]

A being's existence doesn't devolve into a "truth" discussion, though. Unicorns are either real or not real. The "truth" of the question is a byproduct, not the actual answer.

[Undone]

A being's existence doesn't devolve into a "truth" discussion, though.

 

I disagree there. When it's posed as a yes or no question, it does.

[Whistlebritches]

Heard this being discussed the other day and thought it was a pretty interesting topic. If you were God, "The" God, the one-and-only, and you had created this joint and we were all your children, and you had this groovy afterlife you wanted all your children to join you in when they die, how would you separate "the wheat from the chaff?"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

tl;dr: If you were God, what would be your criteria for allowing humans into heaven?

 

My criteria is simple though difficult to specifically define: Were you an a-hole? Not coincidentally it's also the same general guideline I use for my own life.

[knapplc]

I guess what I'm getting at is, "truth" can be used semantically as a distraction from the greater question of "is there a God?" We get so hung up in labeling that search that we forget to focus on the actual question. In the absence of a present god, the semantic is all we're left to grasp at. And that's a huge problem.