Answers needed

[Louis Chérubin]

Louis, you have good grammar and are therefore somewhat educated.
I want to talk to you ...We all do.
But we're not talking to Louis, we're talking to a theological zombie who is preprogrammed to tell us that his indoctrination is complete.
Yes, we know how you feel about almost everything!
Because we read the fucking book too ...
Not exactly sure why you came here?  Like I said. These are the public religious toilets where the fresh mass produced mindless zombies come to shit and run...

You want to impress us ...tell us something you didn't get from the bible!

Hi ignoramus,

Actually, I'm just in the middle of my education (premed currently). I also don't want to impress you. :-) If you really care, I came to see what an "atheist forum" was all about and how you express your beliefs. Thanks again for what you've shared so far!

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I would love to. 

1. Yes, there is a God (seen in nature and the Bible)
2. The universe came from an omnipotent creator
3. My life has purpose: to worship God.
4. People suffer because of sin (which came because God created man with a free will, the best possible creation)
5. Yes, there is life after death
6. Yes, because God created me a moral being
7. Yes, we can know truth (about nature and super-nature)

You answer for point (3) is something I was thinking about today. 
 You life is dedicated to worshiping god and to me this is something I find depressing on so many levels and it prompts me to ask you some questions.
I don't think it derails the thread too much so I don't think it's wrong to post the questions here.

1) You dedicate your life to god, which is an awfully long time, have you put much consideration into thinking about the fact you might be wrong in doing this?

2) Are you aware that putting forth a lot of dedication towards things for long periods of time often causes psychological denial?  Like a person who has invested money into a bad investment but continues investing money.  Do you ever think that in the future you may just change your mind about god existing but then look back and see that you have wasted years of your life?

I'm asking these things because I could be like you, but I love doing things that in your religion would be considered sinful but in nature is fairly common which is having sex outside of marriage, before I had sex in my life I was anxious, angry depressed and so on, and ontop of that I find praying, going to church and so on very very boring and time consuming.
Now maybe you have a whale of a time going to church, maybe your church has you singing and dancing, and maybe you don't want sex outside of marriage and you have a nice wife.
But what I find morbidly depressing is that what if I had a belief that was basically it's ok to go through this life avoiding what makes me feel really good and gets rid of my depression, go to my local church and be bored, but at the end of it is a fairground of happiness once I die.  It seems like a horribly optimistic bet on my behalf to assume it's true that the fairground exists.

But as I say I totally take into consideration you might be one of these stereotypical happy Christians with a wife and children with a monogamous attitude to sex and who loves church.

Hi paulpablo,

This is indeed a really interesting topic. Have you read Blaise Pascal's Pensées? If you don't read French, I would recommend W. F. Trotter's translation. In it Pascal proposes his "wager argument." Basically, if you're not sure God exists, believing him is the better alternative. You do loose some temporary pleasure from acts the Bible forbids, but what if God does exist? If he does, you forfeit temporary pleasure for the much better eternal joy.

Also, contrary to popular opinion, many Christians are quite happy people. Personally, I immensely enjoy my life: God, nature, people, learning. Sex and drugs are not the only things that give pleasure.