I have heard conflicting reports about what it takes to be saved. Muslims just need you to utter a few words to enter into a life changing contract that severely limits what you can do with your life, a bit like saying 'Beatlejuice' three times or 'I do'.
Then there is Pascal's wager where the argument goes that you have nothing to lose by believing in a character called God, who happens to also be a god. A bit like someone being called Human I suppose. If you accept this wager then you will manage to protect yourself from an eternity in Hell. That is, assuming that you pick the right god who happens to be called God.
In my personal experience, most theists that proselytise want you to devote significant time and effort at their church. This is understandable because any half-way decent business will try to lock you into a lifetime of using their product. Therefore they object to their mark saying that they'll leave it for now and rely on a death-bed conversion instead. I've been told that the conversion won't be sincere, but surely if you're about to die and be judged then surely that will be when you are most sincere? How exactly is sincerity judged by gods?
What about the millions who are default christians, muslims, jews, hindus etc because it's the culture they were born into, do not regularly attend religious ceremonies and never give religion any more thought than necessary? Are they going to be damned? Is it acceptable to claim to be one of these? If all that is required is to tick the right box on government forms then it seems an easy way to avoid Hell for example. What is the minimum we can get away with to avoid damnation in your belief system?
Some theists believe that your actions here in the real world determine what kind of rewards you get in the non-real world after you die. Yet they never explain how this works in practice. Do you get issued with a spiritual stamp book upon conversion where your good and bad deeds get marked down? What kind of weighting is applied to good deeds vs bad deeds and how does the balance convert to rewards in the non-life? Does this mean you can jump the queue at the food counter or does it result in a better class of accommodation or more virgins to exploit? If there a virgins, are they selected based on your gender and sexuality and can you specify no geeks? If you are asexual then can you trade them in for another reward, much like marking down vegan on the dinner menu.
If the good and bad deeds are equally weighted then it should be relatively easy to save up a net amount of good deeds. But what if one bad deed wipes out a life time of good deeds if you die before your next confession? And does this mean that if you convert later on in life then you will never manage to accrue as many good deeds as the lucky ones who were born into the same religion and so will always be second class citizens in the after-life? Are good deeds weighted to take into account time left alive? If so what is stopping the system from being exploited by people converting when they realise that they have terminal cancer and give away all their personal belongings? How exactly does personal circumstance weigh the goodness of your deed? Will it be easier to be good if you are rich and can do more with your wealth? What about someone who has led a life where nothing has gone wrong for them and who
isn't trying to survive every day? It's important to know what kind of people we're most likely to spend eternity with.
How exactly do good and bad deeds get recorded? When you sign up, does some omnipresent omniscience holy force start following you around recording your every action? What about privacy concerns? How can we be sure that our actions will be properly judged? What kind of character witnesses does your god have? Is there an appeal court for decisions that we do not agree with? Or is it judged by what's in your heart? In which case those with huge egos or who suffer from the Dunning Kruger effect will automatically get the most rewards because they sincerely believe that they are the best at everything. And if your every action does not get recorded but your memory gets read instead, then is there a risk that a lifetime of good deeds will get wiped out because of senility, neuro-degenerative disease or death by head injury? Are there off-site backups in place?
As you can see this opens up a lot of questions and I would like theists to explain how their god's loyalty reward scheme works in practice. I think this will be useful because most atheists are agnostic and do not have a belief that there is no god, rather they just lack a belief that there is one. This will be an opportunity for theists to advertise their particular god so potential converts can choose the personal salvation plan that is most suitable for them.
Please describe what exactly the paradise being offered is like, the minimum required to avoid Hell, whether your loyalty reward scheme is incomptiable with other reward schemes on offer and what exactly is required for it to apply. After all, we're all used to insurance companies using some excuse not to pay out and we wouldn't want to judged as being the wrong type of christian for example.
Then there is Pascal's wager where the argument goes that you have nothing to lose by believing in a character called God, who happens to also be a god. A bit like someone being called Human I suppose. If you accept this wager then you will manage to protect yourself from an eternity in Hell. That is, assuming that you pick the right god who happens to be called God.
In my personal experience, most theists that proselytise want you to devote significant time and effort at their church. This is understandable because any half-way decent business will try to lock you into a lifetime of using their product. Therefore they object to their mark saying that they'll leave it for now and rely on a death-bed conversion instead. I've been told that the conversion won't be sincere, but surely if you're about to die and be judged then surely that will be when you are most sincere? How exactly is sincerity judged by gods?
What about the millions who are default christians, muslims, jews, hindus etc because it's the culture they were born into, do not regularly attend religious ceremonies and never give religion any more thought than necessary? Are they going to be damned? Is it acceptable to claim to be one of these? If all that is required is to tick the right box on government forms then it seems an easy way to avoid Hell for example. What is the minimum we can get away with to avoid damnation in your belief system?
Some theists believe that your actions here in the real world determine what kind of rewards you get in the non-real world after you die. Yet they never explain how this works in practice. Do you get issued with a spiritual stamp book upon conversion where your good and bad deeds get marked down? What kind of weighting is applied to good deeds vs bad deeds and how does the balance convert to rewards in the non-life? Does this mean you can jump the queue at the food counter or does it result in a better class of accommodation or more virgins to exploit? If there a virgins, are they selected based on your gender and sexuality and can you specify no geeks? If you are asexual then can you trade them in for another reward, much like marking down vegan on the dinner menu.
If the good and bad deeds are equally weighted then it should be relatively easy to save up a net amount of good deeds. But what if one bad deed wipes out a life time of good deeds if you die before your next confession? And does this mean that if you convert later on in life then you will never manage to accrue as many good deeds as the lucky ones who were born into the same religion and so will always be second class citizens in the after-life? Are good deeds weighted to take into account time left alive? If so what is stopping the system from being exploited by people converting when they realise that they have terminal cancer and give away all their personal belongings? How exactly does personal circumstance weigh the goodness of your deed? Will it be easier to be good if you are rich and can do more with your wealth? What about someone who has led a life where nothing has gone wrong for them and who
isn't trying to survive every day? It's important to know what kind of people we're most likely to spend eternity with.
How exactly do good and bad deeds get recorded? When you sign up, does some omnipresent omniscience holy force start following you around recording your every action? What about privacy concerns? How can we be sure that our actions will be properly judged? What kind of character witnesses does your god have? Is there an appeal court for decisions that we do not agree with? Or is it judged by what's in your heart? In which case those with huge egos or who suffer from the Dunning Kruger effect will automatically get the most rewards because they sincerely believe that they are the best at everything. And if your every action does not get recorded but your memory gets read instead, then is there a risk that a lifetime of good deeds will get wiped out because of senility, neuro-degenerative disease or death by head injury? Are there off-site backups in place?
As you can see this opens up a lot of questions and I would like theists to explain how their god's loyalty reward scheme works in practice. I think this will be useful because most atheists are agnostic and do not have a belief that there is no god, rather they just lack a belief that there is one. This will be an opportunity for theists to advertise their particular god so potential converts can choose the personal salvation plan that is most suitable for them.
Please describe what exactly the paradise being offered is like, the minimum required to avoid Hell, whether your loyalty reward scheme is incomptiable with other reward schemes on offer and what exactly is required for it to apply. After all, we're all used to insurance companies using some excuse not to pay out and we wouldn't want to judged as being the wrong type of christian for example.
