Robyn Highart
New Member
Heaven and Hell, the end paths of life are eternal.
Life on Earth is temporary. Actions done here determine the final destination of the soul. Therefore life on Earth is a test.
In Christianity, we assume that we only live one life on Earth, therefore the result of the test is final.
Problems.
1. The test is wildly unfair, arbitrary and ultimately redundant.
How can the souls of the living be judged, when they all have free wills, but hugely different starting conditions and surroundings?
Let's assume that Final Judgement is not a standardised, good or evil test. Let's assume that it is takes into account the actions of the individual, relative to their circumstances. How can such a test be applied, when those relative circumstances are what would alter the individual's choices and responses to the circumstances themselves, including:
- Parents, family, people who the individual meets.
- Location and culture at birth (especially pre-global travel)
- Time of birth (peasant who knows nothing but work and religion vs. highly educated and sceptical person born 1,000 years later. Is the latter less fit for Heaven because he was taught to think critically and rejected illogical religious tenets?)
- Inherited, innate behavioural traits (genetic traits statistically proven to alter propensity for violence etc.)
- Geographical concentration of good and/or religious people to influence the individual (If you're surrounded by good people, you will be likely to act in a good way, no?)
It is said that people like savages who have never been taught about Jesus would be saved. How does that differ from someone who was taught about Jesus, but was brought up by drug dealing, psychopathic animals and lived in an area where crime was commonplace. If they die before repenting, are they going to hell?
It just seems to me that "Free Will" is influenced by a myriad of factors in life, and that even though we each have a choice to do good or evil, sometimes even our own understanding of those concepts isn't the same.
I want to believe in God. I don't want to simply wilt and cease to exist. However, we live in a logical universe, and religion has fallen behind in the explanation department considerably. When I talked to priests and asked them these fundamental questions they had nothing. Some even tried to give me some pseudo-scientific babble about outdated models of the atom and trinities and so on. I just cannot respect this belief system if it cannot answer basic questions about it's main appeal.
2. Babies/mentally disabled/otherwise unconscious beings.
How can these beings exist in heaven? In fact, how would we, the conscious ones exist in heaven? Would we remember this life? If not, what was it for? Why did we need this lesson, this test? Are we going to be some benign animals without free will? If we do remember this life, then I posit that it takes effort to be good. Will this no longer be the case in Heaven? Will it simply be endless euphoria, as if constantly pumped on heroin? If not, could it be possible to sin in Heaven? After all, even good people sin all the time. Would they be sent to hell from heaven?
If you've read this, please don't consider me some die-hard fedora atheist. I'm just writing this out of frustration because I don't think I could ever believe in God, and that anyone who does must simply be repressing these questions in the back of their heads or never even considered the logic of it all. It's very convenient to simply say that this world doesn't work like Heaven and people could never understand it whilst in this plane.
I don't relish in making these accusations against the idea of heaven. But if you look at it objectively it makes absolutely no sense.
The sad truth is, that it was never meant to make sense. Theology has not advanced in any truly fundamentally significant way since the bible was finalised. No great revelations have come. No answers to explain it all. I think it was always about power and control, and if you learn enough about the world you will eventually see that it's all a big scam.
Because the alternative would be that God prefers people to be ignorant and only those who blindly follow what the oligarchs of religion say deserve to be in heaven. Not those who use their God-given brain to learn about his creation and figure out that the things purportedly written in his name make very little sense.
It falls perfectly in line with the decline of Christianity in contrast to Islam's rise. Whilst Christianity is most prevalent in the wealthy and ever-more educated West, the downtrodden and ignorant countries where Islam thrives are to me comparative to the unread masses the Church had under its heels in Europe for over a millennium.
I look forward to any concrete counter-arguments or critique of my thinking.
Life on Earth is temporary. Actions done here determine the final destination of the soul. Therefore life on Earth is a test.
In Christianity, we assume that we only live one life on Earth, therefore the result of the test is final.
Problems.
1. The test is wildly unfair, arbitrary and ultimately redundant.
How can the souls of the living be judged, when they all have free wills, but hugely different starting conditions and surroundings?
Let's assume that Final Judgement is not a standardised, good or evil test. Let's assume that it is takes into account the actions of the individual, relative to their circumstances. How can such a test be applied, when those relative circumstances are what would alter the individual's choices and responses to the circumstances themselves, including:
- Parents, family, people who the individual meets.
- Location and culture at birth (especially pre-global travel)
- Time of birth (peasant who knows nothing but work and religion vs. highly educated and sceptical person born 1,000 years later. Is the latter less fit for Heaven because he was taught to think critically and rejected illogical religious tenets?)
- Inherited, innate behavioural traits (genetic traits statistically proven to alter propensity for violence etc.)
- Geographical concentration of good and/or religious people to influence the individual (If you're surrounded by good people, you will be likely to act in a good way, no?)
It is said that people like savages who have never been taught about Jesus would be saved. How does that differ from someone who was taught about Jesus, but was brought up by drug dealing, psychopathic animals and lived in an area where crime was commonplace. If they die before repenting, are they going to hell?
It just seems to me that "Free Will" is influenced by a myriad of factors in life, and that even though we each have a choice to do good or evil, sometimes even our own understanding of those concepts isn't the same.
I want to believe in God. I don't want to simply wilt and cease to exist. However, we live in a logical universe, and religion has fallen behind in the explanation department considerably. When I talked to priests and asked them these fundamental questions they had nothing. Some even tried to give me some pseudo-scientific babble about outdated models of the atom and trinities and so on. I just cannot respect this belief system if it cannot answer basic questions about it's main appeal.
2. Babies/mentally disabled/otherwise unconscious beings.
How can these beings exist in heaven? In fact, how would we, the conscious ones exist in heaven? Would we remember this life? If not, what was it for? Why did we need this lesson, this test? Are we going to be some benign animals without free will? If we do remember this life, then I posit that it takes effort to be good. Will this no longer be the case in Heaven? Will it simply be endless euphoria, as if constantly pumped on heroin? If not, could it be possible to sin in Heaven? After all, even good people sin all the time. Would they be sent to hell from heaven?
If you've read this, please don't consider me some die-hard fedora atheist. I'm just writing this out of frustration because I don't think I could ever believe in God, and that anyone who does must simply be repressing these questions in the back of their heads or never even considered the logic of it all. It's very convenient to simply say that this world doesn't work like Heaven and people could never understand it whilst in this plane.
I don't relish in making these accusations against the idea of heaven. But if you look at it objectively it makes absolutely no sense.
The sad truth is, that it was never meant to make sense. Theology has not advanced in any truly fundamentally significant way since the bible was finalised. No great revelations have come. No answers to explain it all. I think it was always about power and control, and if you learn enough about the world you will eventually see that it's all a big scam.
Because the alternative would be that God prefers people to be ignorant and only those who blindly follow what the oligarchs of religion say deserve to be in heaven. Not those who use their God-given brain to learn about his creation and figure out that the things purportedly written in his name make very little sense.
It falls perfectly in line with the decline of Christianity in contrast to Islam's rise. Whilst Christianity is most prevalent in the wealthy and ever-more educated West, the downtrodden and ignorant countries where Islam thrives are to me comparative to the unread masses the Church had under its heels in Europe for over a millennium.
I look forward to any concrete counter-arguments or critique of my thinking.
