Where do we go when we die and are you afraid?

[arewethereyet]

You say that most ethical standards originate from the Bible...how about this...the Bible was written by men. Ethics were already in existence and the men wrote from their life experiences in the Bible. No one claims that all the words in the Bible were directly from a God or Jesus.

The Bible did not "invent" ethics.

[Duty]

People do not choose what to believe - we merely believe that which we perceive to be the truth. If you persevere with with psychology Shazza then one day you might qualify to be a psychiatric nurse. You cold then spend your working week caring for dozens upon weekly dozens of people driven to utter madness through the wicked concept of hell cooked up by the (human) authors of the bible/koran etc and proliferated by ethically delinquent slaves of those (and other) faiths, such as yourself. True story. Fuck religion now, and forever more. 2c

[Shazzalovesnovels]

Yeah, I might change to a bachelor of arts. I have no Idea what I want to do with my life. But I'll always wonder about the depths of the human mind.

    


Not at work.

Thanks for the vid. Although I'm not sure if you're being patronizing.

---

You say that most ethical standards originate from the Bible...how about this...the Bible was written by men.  Ethics were already in existence and the men wrote from their life experiences in the Bible.  No one claims that all the words in the Bible were directly from a God or Jesus.

The Bible did not "invent" ethics.

True, you guy's didn't claim that. I must not be paying attention.

This reminds me of The Da Vinci Code lol

Yes the Bible was written by men. But it's the word of God.
EDIT: and God is the origin of ethics. No one is more moral than Him

[Peebothuhlu]

    


Not at work.

Thanks for the vid. Although I'm not sure if you're being patronizing.

Not at all. Sharing some humour.

I'm really a nice 'Thuhlu.  

Cheers.

Not at work.

[zebo-the-fat]

Without understanding probability you're in no position to determine how many coincidences is 'too many'. Your inability to grasp the physics of the 'Big Bang' doesn't mean it doesn't make sense. It is a scientific fact that the universe was once much, much smaller than it is now.

You can say all the same things about Brahma or Ptah as you say about Yahweh, except the 'based on the Bible' part. Have you read it cover-to-cover, btw?

I agree. 
So who made the universe? and if particles did explode to make the universe, who made those particles? You probably hear theses questions from 'theist's?' on the daily.

If your god made everything, who made god?
If a god made everything, where was he before anything existed? (heaven or "another plane of existance" is no answer because that would be part of "everything")

[Duty]

Shazza (Sharon?), if we just leave the source of the big bang as being a "dunno-mystery" - how would life on earth/the solar system/galaxy etc look different if god(s) did NOT exist? More tsunamis and congenital birth defects?

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Ethical standards come from the Bible? LOL. Kill the men, boys, and women who aren't virgins. Take the virgin girls to do with as you please. OP, which female would you like to be in your Bible? The dead ones? Or the sex toys?

[Mister Agenda]

No, I haven't read the whole Bible (I'm only up to Leviticus to be honest).

So I haven't read enough to pick or choose. But I'll do what feel is right in my heart. I've noticed that most ethical standards we live by originate from the Bible. So how can people denounce it anyway when they're living by it (indirectly, but still living by it).

Can I ask, do you (as an atheist) believe that you chose to be an atheist so you could sin without a guilty conscience?

PS: Got a lot of time on my hands : )

At least you're trying, a lot of people never get as far as the third book in their most sacred text.

Everybody else does what they feel is right in their heart. They get that feeling from their experience, innate moral instincts (empathy, fairness, love, and reciprocity), and upbringing. Most of the moral standards we live by are also endemic to cultures that are unfamiliar with the Bible. The majority Christian country of the USA has a much higher murder rate than Japan has, is that an argument for Buddhism or Shintoism? Jainism condemned slavery 500 years before the time of Jesus, who never mentioned it in a disparaging tone. Much of the morality that we approve of in the Bible predates it or supersedes it. Ever so gradually, the arc of religion in the world bends towards humanism. As far as denouncing the Bible, it approves of slavery, prescribes the death penalty for things it is your right as an American to do, commands taking virgin girls as sex slaves, forces women to marry their rapists, brothers to marry their dead brother's wives, and on and on. There's plenty to denounce, and nothing good you can't find somewhere else.

People don't choose what to believe, they believe what they're convinced is true and don't believe what they're not convinced is true. I didn't choose to become an atheist, I became one the moment that stopped believing God is real. When I was young I was a Pentecostal, spoke in tongues, got dunked, and read the Bible cover-to-cover twice. The Bible convinced me not to be a Pentecostal anymore, but it didn't make me an atheist. I just couldn't believe the petty, changeable being depicted in the Bible was being accurately described...I thought God had to be better than that. It took about 15 more years for me to become an atheist, and before I stopped believing in God I stopped believing in alien abductions, ancient astronauts, Bigfoot, clairvoyance, ESP, ghosts, Nessie, psychokinesis, reincarnation, telepathy and a bunch of other things I thought were true because I was raised without any sense of skepticism whatsoever. God was the last one to go, taken down by just applying the same standards as I applied to every other unsubstantiated claim I had already let go of.

Sinning without a guilty conscience never crossed my mind, nor have I noticed that being an atheist in any way assuages my conscience when I have done something I knew was wrong.

[Shazzalovesnovels]

People do not choose what to believe - we merely believe that which we perceive to be the truth. If you persevere with with psychology Shazza then one day you might qualify to be a psychiatric nurse. You cold then spend your working week caring for dozens upon weekly dozens of people driven to utter madness through the wicked concept of hell cooked up by the (human) authors of the bible/koran etc and proliferated by ethically delinquent slaves of those (and other) faiths, such as yourself. True story. Fuck religion now, and forever more. 2c

It's so hard not to take some of this stuff personally haha. But I'm on atheist turf so I should know what to expect. Anyway, I find the prospect of caring for mentally ill people kinda exciting. Do you really believe that people who believe in a heaven and hell are crazy or are you just being mean? I just don't understand how I can live as good person (not because i want to go to heaven, but because it's just in my character to be good) only to die and end up with the same fate as a serial r**ist or murderer. No. There MUST be something more. 

Thank you for your recommendation (I did find it a little funny), and you may call me Sharon : )

[Mister Agenda]

I agree. 
So who made the universe? and if particles did explode to make the universe, who made those particles? You probably hear theses questions from 'theist's?' on the daily.

That a 'who' was involved at all is an unwarranted presumption. We do get the Kalaam Cosmological Argument fairly often around here.