Can't seem to let go.

[Autumnlicious]

Every time I see this thread, I think of Rick Astley...

You can easily give all the spiritual bullcrap up - simply concern yourself with other things that actually do matter to you and are real.

[Oldandeasilyconfused]

The harsh truth is that there will be no afterlife sunflash

Nah, I can't make that assertion because I don't actually know. I'm with Dawkins,who puts his personal certitude at 6.9 on a scale of 1 to 7

I assert only "I don't believe".Perhaps a minor quibble in practical terms because I live to my life as if there are no gods,soul, afterlife etc.etc. I dismiss presuppositional apologists out of hand, laugh at new earth creationists and consider organised religion parasitic.

My atheism is an effect,not a cause. Not a matter of choice,but an inescapable conclusion. I was [slowly*] led from devout Catholicism to atheism via many side paths.The inevitable conclusion was reached by using a basic tool of skepticism. IE having the audacity to demand proof.

So far,no proof has been forthcoming in recorded history. I remain open minded,but am not holding my breath.


*emotionally, I wanted and needed to believe. I grew up ,just a little.

[sunflash]

I could swear i read this post before...

One doesn't 'turn' to atheism... if you do not believe in gods then you are by definition an atheist. If you do believe in gods, then you are a theist

I did post this before, but I didn't add to it for a while, so I thought I should start a new thread.

When I was a kid, I didn't believe in God but I was afraid to die. When I was a bit older I read a leaflet that told you how to feel God's presence and receive his spirit. I thought at the time that I did receive God's spirit and I believed from then on.

I think that if you really want to believe in something, you can make yourself believe in it.

[fr0d0]

I think that if you really want to believe in something, you can make yourself believe in it.

Absolutely. But this belief isn't a default - it's an active belief. What you believe that needs no thinking about isn't Christianity or religious faith. That's purely superstition.

[KichigaiNeko]

Read some Terry Pratchett....

In ; Reaper man, Mort, Hogfather, Soul Music are the main ones he features in. And he likes CATS!!



You will really suplant your fear of DEATH...he really is a nice guy. .



Bummer a a job though



I like the guy.

On another note...have you looked into the Meso-American notion of death??

As a motorcycle rider you have to come to terms with the fact that you 'walk with DEATH' every time you turn the key.... see also Rincewind

[Eilonnwy]

I used to be a Christian until I came accross a Jewish site which convinced me that Christianity is false. Now, I would consider myself an agnostic, but I feel like I should follow a religion simply to avoid a bad afterlife. I know this sounds cowardly and that there are so many choices, but I grew up believing in a burning hell and I find the idea of this terrifying.

I did too. Granted my brand of Catholicism wasn't so much about the fire and just more separation from God as punishment, I still had difficulty accepting that when I die, that's it. It was a belief that I clung to for a while, believing in the soul and ghosts, if not god. However, if you do a decent evaluation of the evidence for an afterlife, you'll find it extremely lacking and that the most likely thing that happens when we die, is that we cease to exist and are no better off than before we were born. It's scary to think of not existing, but it's not painful anymore than not being born is painful.

But I don't think I can follow a religion that condemns people for their beleifs, sexuality, race etc and this is one reason why I haven't followed a religion yet. There are a few reasons, but fear keeps me in this sort of limbo.

You don't have to follow a religion to believe in an afterlife, even so, how do you know that it's no better than wishful thinking?

I posted at thread like this a while ago, and several members have provided helpful advice, but I still don't feel that I can turn to atheism. I don't think I can be an atheist with this uncertainty, like Dawkins can. How can I let go of religion?

Ultimately if you're uncertain then you lack a belief and are atheist, at least as far as I'm concerned. But you are whatever you want to be. If you feel comfortable stating that you're agnostic, that's acceptable and I certainly won't say "NO YOU HAVE TO BE ATHEIST!!!"

If you want to let go of religion, why not study it? It may seem like a weird suggestion, but if you study religion and research all the problems that religions have, you may feel more solid in your education to say "Hey, I know this is not for me."

Islam in particular concerns me. I thought that evolution would have disproven many religions wrong, but Islam doesn't seem to reject the idea.

Catholicism doesn't reject the idea of evolution, so your point?

[KichigaiNeko]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxl9TM9oa...re=related

Susan Sto-Helit is DEATHs grandaughter. Long story that begins with 'Mort'

[EggSpurt]

Fear is stronger than logic. You can justify things logically to yourself but they'll still be difficult to let go of. Look at phobias. A person can tell themselves a spider or a mouse is harmless a thousand times over and fully know it, and still get chills up their spine at the thought of holding one in their hand. I'm deathly afraid of having my blood drawn and I fully know the pain is minuscule compared to the months of pain I have (and ignore) because my wisdom teeth. It's completely irrational, but that's what human beings are.

The other day i read a story about a man on death row who was pardoned after spending 26 years in prison. He was pardoned because DNA evidence exculpated him. In my mind I thought "wow, that's probably one of the worst things that could possibly happen, to be imprisoned, falsely, for a third of your entire life!" I sometimes read stories of people who were released from prison after 50+ years of incarceration, and this is already unimaginable to me. All we have to do is say 'you will be punished for three millennia" for the severity of the punishment to lose all meaning. Nobody is capable of comprehending three thousand years. So when you consider HELL, and someone's burning in it for an e t e r n i t y, the length of time is completely lost on us. But the more you dwell on trying to comprehend the length of time that an eternity is, (usually by ignoring infinity and substituting it with something that can actually be semi-comprehended), then the extent of the sadism, cruelty and malice becomes more and more inescapable. It becomes SUCH a bad punishment, that no earthly crime can compare to it. Even if Stalin and Hitler were to suffer in Hell, their punishment should be measured by the amount of lives they've ruined (let's say 100 years in hell for each human being they've killed). So at worst, if we blame all the deaths in WWII exclusively to Hitler - about 50 million lives - and multiply that number by 100 years, then even Hitler, the worst mass murderer in human history should be able to leave Hell after 5 billion years. And what's 5 billion years in comparison to eternity? Is it even in the same league? Not even close!

Now let's consider the idea of sunflash ending up in hell because his search to determine what is real and what is fabricated led him to conclude that god doesn't exist. Is it then fair for him to spend more time suffering in hell than Hitler should? Of course not. It's beyond preposterous. But you're still afraid. Because fear is irrational.

So my suggestion, for what it's worth, is if you have to accept Hell as possible, no matter how improbable, then also accept the fact that you going to hell is supremely unfair, to the point of it being utterly ridiculous.

Consider the pardoned inmate that I wrote about earlier, who was imprisoned unjustly. He maintained his innocence the whole time, even though he was certain that he was going to be executed. Would it have ever been right for him to proclaim himself guilty, simply because he was under an authority that had the power to destroy him? The answer is no. If you are innocent, or the punishment does not fit the crime, then you stand up for what you know is right. I know that eternal hell is not right. Not even for fuckin' Hitler. So if you're going to be scared of it, then take comfort in knowing that you don't deserve it! And since you don't deserve it, no matter WHAT you do in life (believe, not believe, believe in the wrong deity, lie, cheat, steal, commit adultery, burn down an orphanage, whatever), eternal hell is too severe a punishment for all of those.

I mean, doesn't it piss you off? Doesn't it make you angry that in the afterlife a murdering child rapist gets the same sentence that you do, and the worst thing you ever did is considered that the universe functions according to natural laws that do not require supernatural tampering? It pisses me off to the point where I'm no longer scared of hell, but angry at the douchebag who would put me there for such a ridiculous reason.

Let me just repeat. If there is a hell, you're gonna suffer more than Hitler should. If that doesn't make you consider how sick and twisted and ridiculous the idea of hell is, maybe nothing will. But like I said, fear is irrational.

---

As if my last post wasn't long enough, here's something a Christian friend of mine sent me. More food for thought.

"Truly, I believe the idea of a burning, festering place of suffering is preposterous. It’s figurative. Hell or the words it was based upon; Tartaroo, Hades or Sheol depending upon whether it’s Greek or Hebrew, New Testament or Old Testament refers to an actually place (a fucking piece of real estate) where corpses and fecal matter were disposed of by burning. They referred to where you went depending upon how you lived your life. If you were a criminal, dissident or general shitbag…they sent your corpse there when you died."

[Joe Bloe]

I used to be a Christian until I came accross a Jewish site which convinced me that Christianity is false. Now, I would consider myself an agnostic, but I feel like I should follow a religion simply to avoid a bad afterlife. I know this sounds cowardly and that there are so many choices, but I grew up believing in a burning hell and I find the idea of this terrifying.

Maybe god hates "yes men". Maybe infidels go to heaven and fawning sycophants go to hell. Be careful.

[sunflash]

Fear is stronger than logic. You can justify things logically to yourself but they'll still be difficult to let go of. Look at phobias. A person can tell themselves a spider or a mouse is harmless a thousand times over and fully know it, and still get chills up their spine at the thought of holding one in their hand. I'm deathly afraid of having my blood drawn and I fully know the pain is minuscule compared to the months of pain I have (and ignore) because my wisdom teeth. It's completely irrational, but that's what human beings are.

The other day i read a story about a man on death row who was pardoned after spending 26 years in prison. He was pardoned because DNA evidence exculpated him. In my mind I thought "wow, that's probably one of the worst things that could possibly happen, to be imprisoned, falsely, for a third of your entire life!" I sometimes read stories of people who were released from prison after 50+ years of incarceration, and this is already unimaginable to me. All we have to do is say 'you will be punished for three millennia" for the severity of the punishment to lose all meaning. Nobody is capable of comprehending three thousand years. So when you consider HELL, and someone's burning in it for an e t e r n i t y, the length of time is completely lost on us. But the more you dwell on trying to comprehend the length of time that an eternity is, (usually by ignoring infinity and substituting it with something that can actually be semi-comprehended), then the extent of the sadism, cruelty and malice becomes more and more inescapable. It becomes SUCH a bad punishment, that no earthly crime can compare to it. Even if Stalin and Hitler were to suffer in Hell, their punishment should be measured by the amount of lives they've ruined (let's say 100 years in hell for each human being they've killed). So at worst, if we blame all the deaths in WWII exclusively to Hitler - about 50 million lives - and multiply that number by 100 years, then even Hitler, the worst mass murderer in human history should be able to leave Hell after 5 billion years. And what's 5 billion years in comparison to eternity? Is it even in the same league? Not even close!

Now let's consider the idea of sunflash ending up in hell because his search to determine what is real and what is fabricated led him to conclude that god doesn't exist. Is it then fair for him to spend more time suffering in hell than Hitler should? Of course not. It's beyond preposterous. But you're still afraid. Because fear is irrational.

So my suggestion, for what it's worth, is if you have to accept Hell as possible, no matter how improbable, then also accept the fact that you going to hell is supremely unfair, to the point of it being utterly ridiculous.

Consider the pardoned inmate that I wrote about earlier, who was imprisoned unjustly. He maintained his innocence the whole time, even though he was certain that he was going to be executed. Would it have ever been right for him to proclaim himself guilty, simply because he was under an authority that had the power to destroy him? The answer is no. If you are innocent, or the punishment does not fit the crime, then you stand up for what you know is right. I know that eternal hell is not right. Not even for fuckin' Hitler. So if you're going to be scared of it, then take comfort in knowing that you don't deserve it! And since you don't deserve it, no matter WHAT you do in life (believe, not believe, believe in the wrong deity, lie, cheat, steal, commit adultery, burn down an orphanage, whatever), eternal hell is too severe a punishment for all of those.

I mean, doesn't it piss you off? Doesn't it make you angry that in the afterlife a murdering child rapist gets the same sentence that you do, and the worst thing you ever did is considered that the universe functions according to natural laws that do not require supernatural tampering? It pisses me off to the point where I'm no longer scared of hell, but angry at the douchebag who would put me there for such a ridiculous reason.

Let me just repeat. If there is a hell, you're gonna suffer more than Hitler should. If that doesn't make you consider how sick and twisted and ridiculous the idea of hell is, maybe nothing will. But like I said, fear is irrational.

---

As if my last post wasn't long enough, here's something a Christian friend of mine sent me. More food for thought.

"Truly, I believe the idea of a burning, festering place of suffering is preposterous. It’s figurative. Hell or the words it was based upon; Tartaroo, Hades or Sheol depending upon whether it’s Greek or Hebrew, New Testament or Old Testament refers to an actually place (a fucking piece of real estate) where corpses and fecal matter were disposed of by burning. They referred to where you went depending upon how you lived your life. If you were a criminal, dissident or general shitbag…they sent your corpse there when you died."

That helps a lot actually, thanks :-)