Why be good?

[Randy Carson]

[...]One other point, it is still uncertain whether you will actually die as an atheist even if you are living as one now. An act of contrition said with one's final breath has saved many a soul, I have no doubt.

Oh, right - the famous christian loop-hole, where you can mutter a magic spell, just before you die and you get to meet Hitler, Stalin, John Wayne Gacy, or whoever else had the same idea - in heaven. 

Heh - good luck with that. Although I doubt you are stupid enough to actually believe that. Deep down you just enjoy telling tall-tales of redemption to infidels, while envisioning their inevitable eternal punishment. Or do you really expect us to believe, that you're fine with the vision of the afterlife, where you can go to hell, if you die suddenly because of a sin you haven't had time to repent for (let's say - your adulterous lover murders you during the act), while your murderer goes to heaven, if they happened to feel really, really sorry about it later in their long natural life - even just before death? Yeah, right...

You're selling god's forgiveness and mercy, as if they were  yours to grant. You should perhaps worry about your own fate and prepare your own sniveling death-bed apology.

I never said they were mine to grant nor did I imply anything of the sort.

I am curious though...on the one hand, atheists go on about how God is unfair to "send people to hell for eternity", etc, but when I point out that this may not be true, I'm castigated for speaking of God's infinite mercy.

Well, which is it?

Does God, as Christians understand Him, judge harshly and send people who do not deserve it into hell for eternity?

Or is God merciful and allow people who do not deserve it into heaven?

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Now, I can't gloss over the fact that you are NOT seeking God per se, but in that you may be trying to do (what is actually His will) known to you only by the dictates of your own conscience, you may be saved.

Sorry, I must admit I am not seeking god.   Not your brand or any other.  You see things that exist, don't have to be sought out in this way.  You may have to search to find something, but the results aren't dependent truly wanting to find it.  The Higgs Boson particle for example was very difficult to find, but there were good reasons for thinking it existed, and finding it depended not on faith, but evidence.

Now, if god obviously existed, it might make sense to say you have to seek out an acquaintance with him in the ways you've suggested.  But that's not the case.  God appears to be findable only with pick your phrase:  an open heart; grace; contrition, etc.  We don't find real things by the dictates of our conscience.  That is simply a way of saying, you can only find him by fooling yourself.  Sorry, but I don't fool myself on purpose.  God either exists or he doesn't and my conscience has nothing to do with it.

And it's perfectly obvious that as a method of fooling yourself, ask, seek, find works really well.  You can use it to "find" Allah, that The Book of Mormon is true, Yahweh, Jesus, and messages from your dead grandmother.  The fact that things people find this way are culturally dependent, and contradictory ought to be fairly good evidence that as a method it's flawed.

Do you seek truth, Jenny?

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Half this stuff I think for the first time as I'm typing it.  That's why I'm here.  If I had it all figured out, I'd be thinking about something else.  For me, this isn't about trying to relive the glory years of junior high debate club.  I'm just interested in gaining information.

Your choice of the questions you ask AND the person(s) to whom you address them are both important considerations.