Do atheist worry about eternal damnation?

[Grave_n_idle]

Christianity most definitely does not hold that being an atheist is better than being, for example, a Muslim. At least a Muslim is still trying to worship God.

So?

Muslims are doing it wrong.

Hell, I've had Baptists explain to me how Catholics are literally anti-Christ.

If you've never encountered Christians arguing that there are worse ways to worship than simply not worshiping, then you've not really researched the subject.

[Trollgaard]

Citation needed.

Sorry it took so long, got carried away with those other conversations, but this is a really basic fact. And I already provided the first citation before.

Citation 1: Orthodox Christians do not believe that all non-Christians go to Hell (or that all Christians go to Heaven, for that matter).
Citation 2: Catholics don't believe that either.

So that's two thirds of Christians right there.

And with this, I must bid everyone goodnight. Until next time!

Wrong Christians, perhaps.

You gotta be baptized.

[A Humanist Resurrection]

Nonsense. Does omniscience upgrade your responsibility to such a degree that you become personally responsible for everything done by sapient, free-willed creatures that you brought into existence?

Since your responsibility is predicated on your ability to anticipate the consequences of your actions, if your knowledge of the consequences of your actions is complete (the definition of omniscience), then your responsibility for said actions is also complete.

So you believe that God should have never created that little girl?

I'm saying that God could have created a little girl for some purpose other than to slowly waste away of starvation. Creating a sapient entity for the apparent purpose of simply watching it die is horrifying. To somehow suggest that such is doing said entity a favor of some sort is actually beyond words.

Not cop out. Speculation. If you don't like speculation, you'd better not ask any questions about the nature of the universe, because they all lead to speculation of various kinds.

My observation that the little girl lives in a miserable state of suffering unnecessarily doesn't require speculation about alternate universes the sole purpose of which is to minimize and distract from that suffering.

It's not better for you if it means that in this alternate universe you never get to exist in the first place.

That was my point.

So, if I have a child, can I beat and starve him, because the resulting broken and tormented person will be a unique individual which would have otherwise not existed? Actually, it would be better if I don't, even if it means that original unique individual never existed. Hopefully, it's obvious why.

Yes, because this universe is the one which makes us exist.

In the other universe, the one with no pestilence and disease, we don't exist. There are no humans there. The creatures in that universe are not human, and they are certainly not us.

Same point as immediately above.

Really, I thought it would be a very simple point to grasp. Suppose someone went back in time and killed Hitler so as to erase WW2 from the timeline. You know, standard movie plot. You do understand how this would probably result in you and me never being born, yes? Now suppose someone went back in time and made the FAR greater change of erasing all evil from human history.

[/quote]

I'm not really asking God to go back in time. I'm asking why a entity of perfection in all the important and relevant attributes fucked it up to begin with. If God exists and is omniscient, omnipotent, and perfectly loving, it would have created a universe where Hitler would not have existed to begin with, and the resulting people would be whoever they are.

The apparent argument, that Hitler's reign of genocide had to be so that I can be...well, I'm not sure I'd want to own that one.

[Gim]

Christianity most definitely does not hold that being an atheist is better than being, for example, a Muslim. At least a Muslim is still trying to worship God.

So?

Muslims are doing it wrong.

Hell, I've had Baptists explain to me how Catholics are literally anti-Christ.

If you've never encountered Christians arguing that there are worse ways to worship than simply not worshiping, then you've not really researched the subject.

Don't tell me you believe in the Westboro Baptists.

[Constantinopolis]

Okay, I was about to sign off, but I just saw your post and I need to respond to at least this one point, which is the core of your argument. Then I'm really going to sleep. I'm sorry, I really want to stay, but it is much too late over here.

Nonsense. Does omniscience upgrade your responsibility to such a degree that you become personally responsible for everything done by sapient, free-willed creatures that you brought into existence?

Since your responsibility is predicated on your ability to anticipate the consequences of your actions, if your knowledge of the consequences of your actions is complete (the definition of omniscience), then your responsibility for said actions is also complete.

No. I absolutely do not believe that increased knowledge necessarily brings with it increased responsibility.

If it did, then the most innocent person would be the most ignorant one, and we should all seek to be as ignorant as possible so as not to be guilty of various things.

Knowledge = guilt makes for a ridiculous view of ethics.

[Grave_n_idle]

So?

Muslims are doing it wrong.

Hell, I've had Baptists explain to me how Catholics are literally anti-Christ.

If you've never encountered Christians arguing that there are worse ways to worship than simply not worshiping, then you've not really researched the subject.

Don't tell me you believe in the Westboro Baptists.

Westboro Baptists are far from the only Baptists. I'm not even convinced WBC is actually a religious group.

I'm talking about everyday encounters with Southern Baptist Convention Baptists.

[Grave_n_idle]

Knowledge = guilt makes for a ridiculous view of ethics.

But one, ironically, scripturally consistent with both the Hebrew and Greek scriptures.

[Gim]

Don't tell me you believe in the Westboro Baptists.

Westboro Baptists are far from the only Baptists. I'm not even convinced WBC is actually a religious group.

I'm talking about everyday encounters with Southern Baptist Convention Baptists.

It's true that some Catholics are corrupt, due to living an opulent lifestyle.

[A Humanist Resurrection]

No. I absolutely do not believe that increased knowledge necessarily brings with it increased responsibility.

If it did, then the most innocent person would be the most ignorant one, and we should all seek to be as ignorant as possible so as not to be guilty of various things.

No, a person might simply be innocent (or just guilty of a lesser act/crime) because they could not reasonably anticipate the outcome of their actions. This is why, for example, legal systems frequently hold juveniles or the intellectually impared to lesser punishment (if any) than fully competent adults.

In the case of God, however, there is no outcome which it cannot reasonably anticipate. Again, by the very definition of omniscience.

So, if God created a universe where pestilence exists, and God must reasonably anticipate that doing so would result in a little girl slowly suffering and dying miserably, then God must have intended that suffering and dying as an intentional outcome of its creative action.

Ergo, God created the universe for the direct purpose of making a little girl suffer and die, and is thus directly responsible for the same. If my ethics are "ridiculous," then God's are expressly evil.

[Grave_n_idle]

Westboro Baptists are far from the only Baptists. I'm not even convinced WBC is actually a religious group.

I'm talking about everyday encounters with Southern Baptist Convention Baptists.

It's true that some Catholics are corrupt, due to living an opulent lifestyle.

Almost irrelevant, really.

The Baptist arguments for Catholics being anti-Christ start with their lack of understanding of salvation through grace, but extend far further.

Don't go down that rabbithole if you can avoid it.

[A Humanist Resurrection]

Knowledge = guilt makes for a ridiculous view of ethics.

But one, ironically, scripturally consistent with both the Hebrew and Greek scriptures.

It all kicked off with that Tree of Knowledge thing, right?

[Gim]

It's true that some Catholics are corrupt, due to living an opulent lifestyle.

Almost irrelevant, really.

The Baptist arguments for Catholics being anti-Christ start with their lack of understanding of salvation through grace, but extend far further.

Don't go down that rabbithole if you can avoid it.

That's just ignorant "Christians" making the call. Don't heed too much into that.

[Forsher]

Also, with reference to the going to sleep thing... where do the memories come from? What is the more convoluted explanation? That memories are a function of some experienced experience or whatever else? In any case, it's all very well to point out that the consciousness could be discontinuous (sleep as teleportation) but practically the experience between the two states (i.e. one of non-disruption/boringness/nothing happens and one of disruption/interference) is identical... for surely we can only bother with such thoughts because we assume they're indistinguishable states (and ignore that parsimony is generally preferable).

The memories are functions of the neural connections in your brain. The thing that might not be continuous is the experience: you can't find evidence to support that it's actually the same conscious entity before and afterwards. This is strongly related to the Hard Problem of Consciousness, and is fundamentally impossible to resolve.

Functions have inputs... which brings us back to: where do the memories come from?

If memories are continuous, this implies that the neural connections are continuous too. Those are, on a certain level, experiences. Providing some other explanation for the continuity of memory, therefore, requires more steps, more assumptions, less parsimony. We can't say for sure whichever answer is the true one and even if we think parsimony is bunk and arcane solutions are preferable, that we can't say for sure means, necessarily, that the issue is a trivial one.

[Gim]

But one, ironically, scripturally consistent with both the Hebrew and Greek scriptures.

It all kicked off with that Tree of Knowledge thing, right?

The Original Sin.

[Hretva]

To answer the initial question, No, not at all.

[Gim]

To answer the initial question, No, not at all.

I don't know how this thread became complicated, when one can just post a simple answer.

[Frank Zipper]

Citation needed.

Sorry it took so long, got carried away with those other conversations, but this is a really basic fact. And I already provided the first citation before.

Citation 1: Orthodox Christians do not believe that all non-Christians go to Hell (or that all Christians go to Heaven, for that matter).
Citation 2: Catholics don't believe that either.

So that's two thirds of Christians right there.

And with this, I must bid everyone goodnight. Until next time!

Am I looking at the right bit of the second one? The language is all rather obtuse to me.

818 "However, one cannot charge with the sin of the separation those who at present are born into these communities [that resulted from such separation] and in them are brought up in the faith of Christ, and the Catholic Church accepts them with respect and affection as brothers .... All who have been justified by faith in Baptism are incorporated into Christ; they therefore have a right to be called Christians, and with good reason are accepted as brothers in the Lord by the children of the Catholic Church.

[Alvecia]

To answer the initial question, No, not at all.

I don't know how this thread became complicated, when one can just post a simple answer.

Well, it'd be a pretty boring place to hang out if all we did was answer yes or no question

[Gim]

I don't know how this thread became complicated, when one can just post a simple answer.

Well, it'd be a pretty boring place to hang out if all we did was answer yes or no question

Ah, yes, true, true.

[Salandriagado]

No, because other sources exist. If your book was the only source, then yse.

I have great news, then! Other sources about God do exist!

First of all, the Bible itself is not one source, but a collection of sources. There are between 66 and 73 books in the Bible (depending on the version), and these are separate texts written by separate authors over a period of about 1000 years. So that's a bunch of different sources right there.

All of which we have copies only of editions that were edited long after they were published. The number is also irrelevant, because they all contain such flaws, and thus are all worthless as evidence.

And then there are countless other texts which affirm the basic fact of the existence of the Biblical God, but were not made part of the Bible itself. They sometimes say very different things about God, but all agree that He exists.

Again, which are either lost or edited much later, often by the same people that did the above editing. The number is also irrelevant, because they all contain such flaws, and thus are all worthless as evidence.

Then there are thousands (if not millions) of people who claim to have had personal experiences that proved to them that God exists. Again, they say different things, but one thing they agree on is that this God exists.

Hallucinations are not evidence.

Okay, I was about to sign off, but I just saw your post and I need to respond to at least this one point, which is the core of your argument. Then I'm really going to sleep. I'm sorry, I really want to stay, but it is much too late over here.

Since your responsibility is predicated on your ability to anticipate the consequences of your actions, if your knowledge of the consequences of your actions is complete (the definition of omniscience), then your responsibility for said actions is also complete.

No. I absolutely do not believe that increased knowledge necessarily brings with it increased responsibility.

If it did, then the most innocent person would be the most ignorant one, and we should all seek to be as ignorant as possible so as not to be guilty of various things.

Knowledge = guilt makes for a ridiculous view of ethics.

That doesn't follow in the slightest. That's only true if you think that the sole purpose of ethics is to avoid ever taking responsibility for anything, which is frankly fucking disgusting.

[broken quote snipped]

Functions have inputs... which brings us back to: where do the memories come from?

In the brain, of course: those certainly appear to be continuous. It's just consciousness that doesn't have that evidence.

If memories are continuous, this implies that the neural connections are continuous too. Those are, on a certain level, experiences. Providing some other explanation for the continuity of memory, therefore, requires more steps, more assumptions, less parsimony. We can't say for sure whichever answer is the true one and even if we think parsimony is bunk and arcane solutions are preferable, that we can't say for sure means, necessarily, that the issue is a trivial one.

Not at all: the explanation is exactly the same. Nobody is claiming that the brain isn't continuous: only that consciousness might not be.

[Ashmoria]

Atheists should be terrified of non-existence, which is what they believe will happen to them, and is far worse than damnation.

but I didn't exist for billions of years before my life. that wasn't terrifying, why would the billions of years afterwards be?

[Suicune]

Eternal damnation can't be much worse than this world we're in already, right? So I'd rather focus on the here and now.

[Gim]

[quote="Salandriagado";p="31433304"

Hallucinations are not evidence.

[/quote]

Don't know if they're hallucinating or you are. I'm just saying you could be. Not entirely sure whether you are.

[Slovenya]

it makes sense that if they are absolutely sure there is no life after death, and there is no God, then there wouldn't be a heaven or hell, or any form of eternal reward or damnation.

[Gim]

it makes sense that if they are absolutely sure there is no life after death, and there is no God, then there wouldn't be a heaven or hell, or any form of eternal reward or damnation.

There would be Hell, if the Devil exists.