(June 28, 2015 at 11:58 am)Randy Carson Wrote:(June 28, 2015 at 11:45 am)Mr.wizard Wrote: Doesn't address my question. What if god wasn't offering eternal salvation, would you still be willing to submit to him? Is it really doing the right thing? Submitting your to a god that holds eternal torture over your head hardly seems like doing whats right for the sake of doing whats right.
If there were no heaven and no hell, then what would be the purpose of paying any attention to God at all? What you're proposing is that there would be no consequences for ANY of our decisions (beyond our valuation of their effects on others). You would be completely free to do whatever you want (according to the dictates of your own conscience), because in the end, it all comes to nothing anyway. So, sure...ignore God...He's irrelevant.
But that's NOT this situation in which we find ourselves. (It is the situation you believe to be the case, but that is a problem owing to your lack of faith.) We have been shown the alternatives (heaven & hell) as well as the loving nature of a God with whom we may have a personal relationship. God is love, He loves us, and He is lovable. Choosing to do what God wants because we love Him and desire to be with Him for eternity makes sense in that context.
However, there have been many saints whose experience of God's love was SO profound that they were able to say they would willingly endure the pains of hell for eternity if that was what God wanted.
I can honestly say that I'm not at that level.
Well no actually your not free to do whatever you want, we are still accountable to each other within the reality in which we inhabit. Heaven and hell are of no consequence to me because I don't believe either of them exist, but I'm am still bound by the same rules and consequences that believers are in reality.
Again your doing what gods want because you want love in heaven and not hell, if he was offering neither you would not be willing to submit to him, so it boils down to what makes you happy. You think your options are profound love in heaven or eternal torture in hell, your not picking heaven because you love god, your picking heaven because its preferable to hell. Also the fact that you think an entity is showing you profound love by giving you a choice between eternal worship or eternal torture, tells me you don't care who this entity is and your really only concerned with where your ass ends up.
