Dilemma for theists!

[The Grand Nudger]

The traditional Yahweh just seemed like too much of a meanie for some people, so they dust-binned his ass. Couldn't leave it at that though, had to invent a new feel-good god. Well, good luck with that. Universalist's schisms will be hilarious to watch "God loves blueberry waffles!" - "You heretic, the Lord clearly prefers kittens!" Praise the lord and pass the hand grenades.

[Godscreated]

Simple question that's just occurred to me.. Just for theists!!

Would you give up a guaranteed place in heaven to save the souls of a 1000 atheists?

If you say no then you would not be judged or punished and be allowed into heaven anyway.

The question has no worth, Jesus says, what does it profit a man to gain the whole world yet lose his soul. The way I see it 1000 atheist do not equal the world, so I say no. There are many more examples of why a christian can not make that decision.

[Phil]

Simple question that's just occurred to me.. Just for theists!!

Would you give up a guaranteed place in heaven to save the souls of a 1000 atheists?

If you say no then you would not be judged or punished and be allowed into heaven anyway.

The question has no worth, Jesus says, what does it profit a man to gain the whole world yet lose his soul. The way I see it 1000 atheist do not equal the world, so I say no. There are many more examples of why a christian can not make that decision.

Your reply is proof positive that Christianity is nothing more than an egotistical, murderous cult that should be banned on the entire planet.

[Darwinian]

Why do so many people have so much trouble with the concept of What If?

[KichigaiNeko]

Err

They have no grounding in science??

[Angrboda]

Oddly I feel strangely both overqualified and underqualified to answer this poll.


I must also make passing remark upon the religious ignorance implicit in its framing. I worship a Goddess who only wants to gently ease you out of the illusion that is reality and into the truth that only suffuses us in the non-existence of death. No heaven. No hell. No souls.


Even as a simplification of Abrahamanic traditions it's astoundingly blind to historic Judaism. If Kali will not greet me at my end, let Sheol take me over and deliver me unto a mind numbing experience which can't be particular harsh when compared to the experience of working a year or two at a McDonald's restaurant.

I rather enjoy Chadwooter's rather blinkingly simple solution, echoing the Qabbalistic conception of nearness or farness from God. If you're going to live your life in a fantasy world, it might as well be one with a pleasing aesthetic, but perhaps that's the mathematician in me talking. I'm reminded of the tantalizing description of Emmy Noether's laws which imply that wherever you have symmetry in natural law a law of conservation automatically results. Maybe the Chadwooter theory of God results in a theological foundation for sneaking the law of Karma into an already holy religion. I must confess wonder at a God who is always there if you but call upon him is somehow mysteriously elsewhere when you need him most, and have lost any capacity to do anything about it. Maybe this is Schrodinger's God.

Meng Po Niang, brew me your strongest tea.

[Angrboda]

Opposing Panaetius, who denied the survival of the soul, Posidonius claimed that it survived the death of the body, and would continue as an organized mass of fire in the atmosphere, surrounded by other daimones like itself. He rejected the notion of a Hades, or any place of punishment beneath the Earth, for the Earth was solid. Nor did he allow that guilty souls might be punished while dwelling in the air, a view reflected in Aeneid VI. All suffering arises, in fact, from the soul’s union with the body. Rather, the soul rises until it reaches a level where the atmosphere is like itself, so that a pure soul unacquainted with irrational passions would fly immediately to the sphere of the fixed stars, while souls weighted down with their prior contact with the body would rise only to a certain level, and remain there until their substance was cleansed and they could rise higher. Many souls are so heavy and dense that they hover very near the surface of the Earth, and are eventually united to bodies once more. Thus the Earth becomes the place of punishment, from which the wise soul escapes. The soul in the heavens take their joy in observing the movements of the stars, and sometimes provide advice to those souls that are experiencing the greatest difficulty in attaining to the heavens.

—

[Godscreated]

Simple question that's just occurred to me.. Just for theists!!

Would you give up a guaranteed place in heaven to save the souls of a 1000 atheists?

If you say no then you would not be judged or punished and be allowed into heaven anyway.

The question has no worth, Jesus says, what does it profit a man to gain the whole world yet lose his soul. The way I see it 1000 atheist do not equal the world, so I say no. There are many more examples of why a christian can not make that decision.

Your reply is proof positive that Christianity is nothing more than an egotistical, murderous cult that should be banned on the entire planet.

You must be a socialist.

[frankiej]

Simple question that's just occurred to me.. Just for theists!!

Would you give up a guaranteed place in heaven to save the souls of a 1000 atheists?

If you say no then you would not be judged or punished and be allowed into heaven anyway.

The question has no worth, Jesus says, what does it profit a man to gain the whole world yet lose his soul. The way I see it 1000 atheist do not equal the world, so I say no. There are many more examples of why a christian can not make that decision.

Your reply is proof positive that Christianity is nothing more than an egotistical, murderous cult that should be banned on the entire planet.

You must be a socialist.

You say that as if it would be a bad thing.

[Phil]

Simple question that's just occurred to me.. Just for theists!!

Would you give up a guaranteed place in heaven to save the souls of a 1000 atheists?

If you say no then you would not be judged or punished and be allowed into heaven anyway.

The question has no worth, Jesus says, what does it profit a man to gain the whole world yet lose his soul. The way I see it 1000 atheist do not equal the world, so I say no. There are many more examples of why a christian can not make that decision.

Your reply is proof positive that Christianity is nothing more than an egotistical, murderous cult that should be banned on the entire planet.

You must be a socialist.

If by socialist you mean one who is able to recognize the vile hatred inherent in your statement, then yes.