Question to Christians

[purplepurpose]

In the Swedenborgian church doctrine, the afterlife is a continuation of the direction your life was taking while on earth. In this world we are in a state where we can either choose to accept the Lord and reject sin or to embrace sin and reject the Lord. Those who love their sins more than the Lord will shed the whatever good remained in them and plunge deeper and deeper into Hell. Meanwhile, those who love the Lord more than sin are cleansed in and brought into fuller communion with Him.

No third option? Only with God or in hell? Amazing logic.

[downbeatplumb]

Atheists don't wish for this stuff, we just don't think there is a god.

Do you ever get doubts like "what if there is a God?"

No.
Its a silly question.

[Drich]

a little presumptuous don't you think? In that you think you know what the second death is? Death here in this life is the ceasing of cognitive thought and the termination of biological life. But the question should be, is this what the second death is or is limited to? Scripture describes something else. There is a reason why many believe Hell is eternal torment, because in part that is what the bible describes Hell to be, (for satan and his angels) but at the same time Jesus Himself says it is where the soul is destroyed.

Now what Jesus said, did not include a time limit on how long this destruction/death would take. Think RotJ and the Great Pit of Carkoon (where the sarlacc digests his victims over thousands of years.) Death is most likely not immediate. I have it on pretty good authority/It is my thought that you will 'simmer' in Hell based on how you lived your life. And once the evil is burned away then what's left is also consumed by hell fire. Meaning your sanity is finally consumed, and either what's left is burned up or is further burned won't really matter much any more.

The most amazing thing is that this stuff is embraced by people who WISH to be almost as slaves/servants to a God as a blessing or a tool to KILL their ambitions, preforming some sort of mental lifelong choking of their ambitions. Path of a martyr is creepy.

Again you presume too much.

This time the presumption being you believe your 'ambitions' exceeds the station God could place you in. Unless you are lucifer himself I can almost guarantee that What God has created you for (and subsequently you being faithful to what he has given you) will make you more joyful/content or rather over fill any ambitious need or want you could ever have. Ambition is a bottomless pit that you must fill inorder to find contentment and happiness, which again is an impossible task.

On the other hand If we can get our minds past the idea of being a slave, the tasks we will be given will literally be what we were made to do, and in doing them will find joy and contentment that the ambitious and 'free' will never know.

[Drich]

I'll agree with your first two sentences, but disagree with the rest.  The great scientific and economically endowed countries of the western world were the product of a christian majority of scientists, engineers, doctors, teachers, business people, etc.  Christians have always been doers.

Wasn't China more advanced than the West until the Industrial Revolution?

Which was brought on by a christian majority of scientists, engineers, doctors, teachers, business people, etc.

[downbeatplumb]

Wasn't China more advanced than the West until the Industrial Revolution?

Which was brought on by a christian majority of scientists, engineers, doctors, teachers, business people, etc.

They may have been Christians because back then it was a crime not to be, but the discoveries were despite of religion not because of it. When people believed in the bible as you do there was a period of long stagnation, it was only when the bible was set aside that progress was made.

[Neo-Scholastic]

They may have been Christians because back then it was a crime not to be, but the discoveries were despite of religion not because of it. When people believed in the bible as you do there was a period of long stagnation, it was only when the bible was set aside that progress was made.

Yet the Christian foundations of an intelligible order and the efficacy of reason remain the unacknowledged and necessary basis on which the intellectual tools of that progress depends. They were absent outside the West and that is also why liberal democracy developed in the West. Natural law, human dignity, and inalienable rights are all contingent on the existence of God. To deny the existence of God is to undermine the foundations of natural science and liberal democracy.

[downbeatplumb]

They may have been Christians because back then it was a crime not to be, but the discoveries were despite of religion not because of it. When people believed in the bible as you do there was a period of long stagnation, it was only when the bible was set aside that progress was made.

Yet the Christian foundations of an intelligible order and the efficacy of reason remain the unacknowledged and necessary basis on which the intellectual tools of that progress depends. They were absent outside the West and that is also why liberal democracy developed in the West. Natural law, human dignity, and inalienable rights are all contingent on the existence of God. To deny the existence of God is to undermine the foundations of natural science and liberal democracy.

I couldn't disagree more.

The god of the bible is a hierarchical god with this idea giving legitimacy to tyrants and indeed is still the claim that our queen makes to legitimize her rule. This is antipathy to democracy. And it is notable that the idea of democracy came from a non-Christian nation for purely secular reasons.

The idea of a god is a halter to progress, by professing to be the answer to everything it negates the desire to seek more knowledge and this is what we see in the past. The bible also supported oppression, misogyny slavery and is full of anti-humanistic claims.

The idea of god has been the bane of the west and to reject the idea of god is the only way to further science and liberal ideals.

[Rhondazvous]

In the Swedenborgian church doctrine, the afterlife is a continuation of the direction your life was taking while on earth. In this world we are in a state where we can either choose to accept the Lord and reject sin or to embrace sin and reject the Lord. Those who love their sins more than the Lord will shed the whatever good remained in them and plunge deeper and deeper into Hell. Meanwhile, those who love the Lord more than sin are cleansed in and brought into fuller communion with Him.

No third option? Only with God or in hell? Amazing logic.

You were expecting logic?

[SilverFrog]

So, atheists get what they wished for? Independence and pride in death(non existence)?


No wonder religion is formal(not serious) world wide, as people don't wish to turn their life in to "little purgatory" for heavenly afterlife.

a little presumptuous don't you think? In that you think you know what the second death is? Death here in this life is the ceasing of cognitive thought and the termination of biological life. But the question should be, is this what the second death is or is limited to? Scripture describes something else. There is a reason why many believe Hell is eternal torment, because in part that is what the bible describes Hell to be, (for satan and his angels) but at the same time Jesus Himself says it is where the soul is destroyed.

Now what Jesus said, did not include a time limit on how long this destruction/death would take. Think RotJ and the Great Pit of Carkoon (where the sarlacc digests his victims over thousands of years.) Death is most likely not immediate. I have it on pretty good authority/It is my thought that you will 'simmer' in Hell based on how you lived your life. And once the evil is burned away then what's left is also consumed by hell fire. Meaning your sanity is finally consumed, and either what's left is burned up or is further burned won't really matter much any more.

So you have it on pretty good authority?  Wow, you must be really important. You seem to relish in describing the pain of hell. 
You are one sick puppy there Drich.

---

So, atheists get what they wished for? Independence and pride in death(non existence)?


No wonder religion is formal(not serious) world wide, as people don't wish to turn their life in to "little purgatory" for heavenly afterlife.

Why do you think that the christian life is a purgatory?  Do you think that atheists enjoy their lives more than christians?

Well Lek, let me put it this way. 
I now enjoy life much more than when I was a christian.
And you can take that to the bank.

---

They may have been Christians because back then it was a crime not to be, but the discoveries were despite of religion not because of it. When people believed in the bible as you do there was a period of long stagnation, it was only when the bible was set aside that progress was made.

Yet the Christian foundations of an intelligible order and the efficacy of reason remain the unacknowledged and necessary basis on which the intellectual tools of that progress depends. They were absent outside the West and that is also why liberal democracy developed in the West. Natural law, human dignity, and inalienable rights are all contingent on the existence of God. To deny the existence of God is to undermine the foundations of natural science and liberal democracy.

What a lot of hogwash. Repeating platitudes doesn't make it true.
"Natural law, human dignity and inalienable rights". You have to be kidding, right?
Have you read your bible?

[Simon Moon]

Atheists don't wish for this stuff, we just don't think there is a god.

Do you ever get doubts like "what if there is a God?"

Even if there is a god or gods, there is no possible means to know what, or even if, said god(s) would punish nonbelievers. 

The probability that a god(s) exists is vanishingly low, add to that the probability that said god(s), if they did exist, would be of the sort that would punish disbelief, is even lower. 

When I did believe in the Abrahamic god, I spent zero time worrying about the punishment from all the other gods I did not believe exist. Why should I worry about punishment from the Abrahamic god?