On Hell and Forgiveness

[Amarok]

The larger point I am making to Kit is that reasonable people can disagree. We don't have go around think other people are mentally or morally deficient just because they have reached different conclusions.

One does not need to be either to be delusional

[Angrboda]

I think it is just plain stupid to think a person can be eternally happy with just their thoughts. Humans need relationships, contact, routines, stimuli, affection, etc. etc. or they will go off the rails. Emotions attached to nothing directed at nothing and from nothing become meaningless. Only regret persists. Add to that black void of no inputs or outputs and that is a horrible existence. Your "it's not that bad" is simply ridiculous.

If God exists, you are not totally removed from his presence right now. He sustains the universe (and you) in being by his will whether you know it or not. The point is that know one knows the significance that separation will have on someone's soul. 

Which means that nobody knows, even if your scenario is the case, what the effects would be. they could be quite positive, right?
I simply disagree that contemplation is such a torture. In fact, I have little doubt that I could survive isolation if provided basic necessities. That doens't mean I don't like being around (certain) people. But it does mean it isn't as vital (for me) as many make it out to be.
I see no reason why 'only regret persists'. If anything, I would say that the positive memories would persist longer and become more and more precious over time. And I disagree with your claim that such an existence would be meaningless. meaning is something derived at the time.
If the choice is non-existence or existence in the presence of a tyrannical deity, I definitely prefer non-existence.

Locked-in syndrome, in which the patient is conscious and aware, but otherwise unable to speak or act, may be the closest thing to what you are imagining. Few recover from locked-in syndrome, but the account of one survivor might offer some potential clues.

Marsh has never spoken publicly about his experience before. But in an exclusive interview with the Guardian, he gave a rare and detailed insight into what it is like to be "locked in".

"All I could do when I woke up in ICU was blink my eyes," he remembered. "I was on life support with a breathing machine, with tubes and wires on every part of my body, and a breathing tube down my throat. I was in a severe locked in-state for some time. Things looked pretty dire.

"My brain protected me – it didn't let me grasp the seriousness of the situation. It's weird but I can remember never feeling scared. I knew my cognitive abilities were 100%. I could think and hear and listen to people but couldn't speak or move. The doctors would just stand at the foot of the bed and just talk like I wasn't in the room. I just wanted to holler: 'Hey people, I'm still here!' But there was no way to let anyone know."

. . . . . . . .

"You're at the mercy of other people to care for your every need and that's incredibly frustrating, but I never lost my alertness," he said. "I was completely aware of everything going on around me and to me right from the very start, unless when they had me medicated," he said.

"During the day, I was really lucky: I never spent a single day when my wife or one of my kids wasn't there. But once they left, it was lonely – not in the way of missing people but the loneliess of knowing there's no one there who really understands how to communicate with you."

. . . . . . . .

"Time goes by so slow ... It just drags by. I don't know how to describe it. It's almost like it stands still.

"It's a terrible, terrible place to be but there's always hope," he added. "You've got to have hope."

Locked-in syndrome: rare survivor Richard Marsh recounts his ordeal

[The Grand Nudger]

To be evidence  concerning a proposition (like 'God exists'), the observation has to change the probability of the proposition being true. It *isn't* simply that the observation is consistent with the proposition (if the negation is also consistent, for example). I have yet to see one piece of information that changes the probability that the statement 'God exists' is true in a positive direction. So I deny that Step 2 applies in the case you want to apply it to.

Hypothetically speaking, would God raising someone from the dead after, say, oh, I don't know, a public crucifixion qualify as a "piece of information that changes the probability that the statement 'God exists' is true in a positive direction?" Asking for a friend.

You must mean "would stories of- " and the answer is an obvious no...it doesn't raise the probability of the contents being true anymore than stories of a demi god slaying a three headed dog does.

[Neo-Scholastic]

The larger point I am making to Kit is that reasonable people can disagree. We don't have go around think other people are mentally or morally deficient just because they have reached different conclusions.

Reasonable people can disagree, until something unreasonable is introduced as falsely reasonable.  When it comes to matters of religious faith, it is only reasonable to comprehend that one preferring the fantasy disconnected from reality has issues relational to delusion.

So are you saying that I am unreasonable and delusional? I say that because if that is your opinion of me personally what would I have to do, other than renounce my faith, to demonstrate otherwise?

[The Grand Nudger]

Make an effort at being reasonable, for a change, lol?

[Aroura]

 

Poly, it is a hypothetical question.

You know how sometimes atheists on this site set up hypothetical scenarios asking us what we would do if God told us to kill people, or if we found out God was evil? And then they complain when theists say "well God wouldn't do that", rather than actually answering the hypothetical?

Well, I always try to answer. I would appreciate it if someone answered my own hypothetical in return.

(We can address you loving your wife later.)

I want to give this an honest try.

I also have difficulty answering your hypothetical because I'm having a hard time getting from where you begin to where you end.

The hypothetical just seems like nonsense. Unless God also changes, entirely, my current definition of love, then I don't know how he could convince me of that.  I'm honestly not trying to be snarky, but this is like someone asking me, what if a human person could show you that really, they are a raccoon?  They are the very definition of a raccoon.  Would I accept that?  I would say, a human person cannot be literal raccoon.  That's a nonsense question.  And this is even deeper and more nonsensical than that.

Here are a few things I would personally consider to be attributes of love: selflessness, caring about that other person/group and not yourself, putting that other persons needs before your own, not needing to be loved back, truly unconditional loving them no matter what, giving them support and kindness and understanding even when they make mistakes, validating their feeling and interior life even when it is not necessarily something I agree with.  That's not a complete list, but would certainly be a good starting point. 

I've also been in an abusive relationship, and the world we live in combined with the demands of god to love him from the bible seem far more similar to the relationship of a narcissist to their child or spouse.  Fish Love.  A narcissist loves how a person makes them feel, how they advance their goals, how they can show you off or use you.  If you embarrass them, criticise them, or fail them in any way, they will punish you. Oh, they can make you feel good.  They can make you feel as if you are the center of the universe, and so important to them.  But it is a lie, a facade.

I know you've heard this comparison before, god the abusive husband/boyfriend, and I'm sure you hate it or are tired of it, but it's just so spot on.

So I hope that answers your question.  A God that demands love in return and punishes you if they do not get it, one that gets so upset at the misbehavior of his offspring that he murders them, and tortures them to teach them lessons, is not the embodiment of any definition of love that I'm aware of, nor can it be unless the nature and definition is drastically altered.

[Catholic_Lady]

I also said that I don't understand the question well enough to give an answer. I asked for clarification and didn't get it. In what way does it make sense to say that a deity 'is love'?

In simple terms, it means love only exists because God exists. Being loving is inherent to God's very nature and core. And so the only reason love exists in the first place is because God exists and so it is through Him/because of Him that love exists at all. It also means there is nothing about God that is unloving. He is pure good.

I know you don't believe that, but that is why it is a hypothetical.

---

I guess I need further clarification, because I'm not sure what that implies. Does this mean you would accept or reject God in the scenario I presented?

I don't know. Is God 'truth' as well as being 'love'? is there a difference (I think there is)?

Yes, He is truth.

[Silver]

So are you saying that I am unreasonable and delusional? I say that because if that is your opinion of me personally what would I have to do, other than renounce my faith, to demonstrate otherwise?

Nothing, but you shouldn't be worried about changing yourself for my benefit. I can consider you a delusional theist, yet still respect you in other accords outside of your faith.

[Angrboda]

You lost me, Neo.  Granted he's likely exaggerating or mistaken by saying that there's no evidence, but your reply seems to only further confuse matters.

I understand only part of your confusion.  "Personal" evidence, after all, is not evidence for anyone except the "personal" believer alone.  Others who agree with any other "personal" evidence are merely adhering to group synergy and need for acceptance.  I highly doubt everyone's "personal" experience is precisely the same, but rather more akin to upbringing and childhood indoctrination.

I'm not limiting their evidence to personal evidence or religious experience alone. I think their evidence is crap, but to say they have none is a distortion, in my opinion.

[The Grand Nudger]

Then love only exists because a god exists....why this should lead to a change in whether or not I would accept or reject a god is still unclear.  Plenty of things only exist because some easily rejected fucker existed.