For those of you who are common Christians, meaning that you go to church on Sundays and everything like that, but religion isn't as important as kids, work, everyday life.

Now, if I believed in God and Hell and all that - I mean truly believed - I would imagine that every waking second of mine would be devoted to Him. I notice a lot of people who claim to believe in God, and would fight for it, break a lot of the "rules" and kind of put religion on the back burner. For an eternity in Heaven, I would assume one would do everything in their power to get in.

Any thoughts on that?

I think you imagine incorrectly.

I think that drunk driving can be deadly, yet I've done it.  At one restaurant, I know I should stop eating lunch well before the plate is clean, yet I always finish everything.

If you've never let your attention wander or done something you thought might be a bad idea, you are extraordinary.


Here you assume that their behaviour flows from a quid pro quo of an unbroken stream of correct action for an eternity in heaven.  In my experience, that assumption is also wide of the mark.

Still, I wouldn't even take the chance. I'd be a virgin forever, and do nothing but pray and to go church. It just seems like it would be too risky. See what I'm saying? Like, if Jesus came back, everybody would stop what they're doing and at least try to be perfect. And isn't Him coming back the same as truly believing?

What does get you into heaven, and what doesn't? I probably need to brush up on my reading, but it just seems to me if I truly believed in something like that, I would be a lot different than most theists.

I think it was Master P that said, "why would I want to go to Heaven wearing white robes and listening to bad music, while I can go to Hell and smoke a blunt and get my **** ******?"

An interesting read is The Devil's Apocrypha. It's a book kind of read like the Bible, where Satan is the good guy trying to save the humans.

So, you believe - really believe in the God of the Bible - but you don't spend every waking moment trying to be Jesus like, studying His word or try to become what he claims you have to be to get into Heaven - since you say its hard.

Why is it hard?  Why is belief, or Faith, difficult?

Is it, perhaps, that your brain is screaming out for you to be rational, but your emotions and fear are pleading for you to play it safe and bet on Pascal?

Then, think about the idea that you can never be good enough to get into Heaven - but your religion gives you a pass to be bad: Jesus took all your sins upon himself.  So, you don't have to worry.  Just believe in a character in a mythological story and you will be forgiven....


OK, I see why Faith is difficult.  Damn impossible, I'd say...

Again, a view into Zuk's world of "all things are equally credible so we can't take a position"

This is common from the Credulous. Often Xians use the parent analogy for God : "Suffering exists because God lets us scrape a knee to learn how to stand"  Of course, this is utterly offensive to a woman who is brutally raped, or a child molested by a Preist, or 100,000s of people killed in a Tsunami.

So, here we see Zuk's version: "I know drunk driving is bad but I did it"

So, one, we see he simply has poor judgement, but two that he equates believing there is a god with drunk driving.

Zuk, you believe that walking in front of a speeding car would kill you, have you done it?  Have you thrown a child down some stairs, do you believe it would kill them?

Zuk is trying to equate a mild belief (drunk driving happens all the time, and actually exists) to the belief in a God.  If you truly believed you would die if you drove drunk (and statistics would not support your belief), you wouldn't do it.  Just like you wouldn't jump off a 12 story building.

So, obviously, religious people who sin simply don't believe that God really exists.  They are simply dellusional, in that they then turn around and try to convince others of the "reality" of a god.




edit: btw, for all of you who say "but I really believe god exists". Either you don't really and just hang onto it for comfort, or you don't believe the retribution taught in the Bible ( or other religious texts).

Ask yourself if you really believe in god as strongly as you believe you will die if you jump off a building.  If so, then you must have ample evidence which you can produce immediately.

(Pat, perhaps you will insert your "love" evidence here? (which, I believe we have shown to be unconvincing)

If you did that you'd be a Mormon.  Those guys have an unpaid clergy and work at it all the time.  No money, no compensation, only constant work. 

There are people in other churches like that too, but not to the overall degree of unpaid people doing all kinds of work.  Wife comes from a big Mormon family, but we don't feel like kicking the tires on that one.