Three Days

why wouldn't you seriously examine a faith that speaks of a loving God and eternal life?

Everybody gets the same deal when they die, regardless of what they believe.

 

I'm not a Christian but consider myself a person of faith and follow an organized religion.

I have nothing against Christianity personally and on the whole think most Christian teachings are a good thing. I think what bothers atheists and agnostics, and those of other faiths, is the feeling that Christianity as an institutions and Christians are trying to push their faith on us or impose their belief system into govt. practice.

Part of what makes this country great and a beacon to all is that there is freedom of religion and people of all faiths are free to come and practice their faiths as long as they don't impose on others.

Faith by its nature is an area that is beyond rational or empiracal understanding which IMO it is important to have faith. The questions like why we (as individual conscience beings as opposed to a species) are here and what happens to us when we die are things that can never be answered and are the realm of faith. OTOH though many people are troubled when faith is used to justify everything even if there are rational explanations or when faith is used to drive a political agenda or a political agenda is used to drive a faith.

 

I'd rather spend the last few days formulating a fiendish escape plan.

 

Does it have to be fiendish?

That reminds me of the story of an interview with Neil Armstrong or one of the other astronauts on Apollo 11. Somebody asked what they would've done had the rocket not fired to get them off the surface of the moon (or something like that), since they had a limited supply of air, etc. It was meant to be a philosophical question about how would he have spent his last moments knowing they were coming, would he try any dangerous experiments, what-have-you.

And the answer was something along the lines of "I'm pretty sure we'd have kept trying to get the rocket to work."

 

And anybody can take isolated verses from the book and make it look good. What's your point? I'd be willing to guess that more than 90% of people who read the Bible and believe what is says read, hear, and listen through a process known as filtering, where they take what they want to hear and apply it to make Christianity look absolutely great while all the bad stuff is left behind.

 

Religion is our attempt to materialize the unknown and put into context what we call reality. Same with science. Things are less scary when there's an apparent order to everything.

Reality and existence are almost impossible for our minds to wrap around, so we cling to ideas that give us answers. Usually religion. That's not to say there isn't a god, just why we need one.

With three days to certain death, anyone -- Christian or otherwise -- would examine their existence and its meaning. And more than a few would consider Pascal's Wager. Whether or not they find meaning in one particular faith depends on who the person is and what questions he's asking.

 

Oh yeah. Otherwise, it wouldn't be much fun, would it?

 

If there is an all powerful God, He is definitely smart enough to sniff out the liars.

It depends on the life I lead, and to the extent of how much my regrets have affected me. Whether to the extent of the circumstances that I accept those three days or not. I'd probably be greedy even if I did lead a rich life, but some part of me would accept it.

Sure, everyone would want to continue to exist, but in what form? If you were to leave behind your existence and memories to join eternal bliss, then that would mitigate death. But since you're living at this moment, you're forced to preserve your existence, your identity. There's no certainty that you will be you in the possibility that there is an afterlife.

I guess that's my roundabout way of saying that all three will encounter the fear and process of death the same. We all came to life the same way, so why should how each of us believes how we will die influence the way we treat others?

 

is this the same loving God that wiped out the entire earth's population with a flood except for 8 humans and 2 creatures from all the other species?

 

I wanna play. OK, the second cellmate is a Druid.

Actually, the Druid has you beat here, as his/her religion is at least several hundred years older than yours. Both cellmates are devout practitioners, one a good Christian, the other a good Druid. They both make pretty good arguments: pacifist and loving Christ on the one hand, nature deities and magic on the other, all fun stuff. But that's all they do, argue about religion. I want to talk about my family or the nature of beauty or love, or even play a game of cards, but they both insist upon converting me. Since it all comes down to faith, I have a hard time deciding. I want to pick the right Heaven, seems kinda important, but which side is right? Apparently I can't hedge my bets. I do want to make one of my new friends happy, and the eternal life in paradise thing sounds nice, but which one to choose? Two straight days of constant bickering, won't let me sleep; I can't take it anymore. They won't shut up. Then, Eureka!, a moment of divine inspiration. I find my religion.

I go with the Druid. Reason: both religions, all religions, make the same amount of rational sense, none. No sense arguing about 'em. But at least the Druids let you sacrifice virgins, so bye bye to the good Christian. Three's a crowd. So that night I put on the shiny new robe, say goodnight to my Druid brethren, and get a good, quiet night's rest before the big day.

It isn't that atheists/agnostics never think about the big picture, that somehow it never occurred to us that life would be/seem a lot easier if we believed a Big Guy(s/Girls) up there was calling the shots. Personally, I just can't buy it. To posit that atheism/agnosticism is somehow the default position, is the result of somehow avoiding/ignoring the metaphysical, Big questions, is not to understand the logical underpinnings of atheism/agnosticism.

Also, you forgot to mention the sex and relative attractiveness of the two cellmates. As you know, as an atheist I have only the hedonistic pleasures of this lifetime to console me, so this is an important factor if I have only three days to live. If the Druid is an ogre and the sacrificial Christian lamb is as lovely as the actual Kate Beckinsale, and is as

in her hypocritical refusal to follow the tenets of the very faith that she's so busy proselytizing, then I'm pretty sure I'd rethink my choice. Less preaching, more Beckinsaling, I say.

 

Come on, Outlaw, God would never be that cruel. There were seven pairs of the "clean" animals.

 

I know what type of response you want here...one that flames this post, but you are not going to get it with me.

Actually, outlaw, I am going to try to practice what I preach here in responding to your post:

Background

I don't know if you have ever read the book of Genesis or not or if you have, it was a long time ago. For the time being, I will have to assume you have not. In the beginning, God created Adam and Eve and the 2 of them got along with all the other creatures in the world. But when the serpent tempted Eve to eat the "forbidden fruit" and then she got Adam to eat it, man's eyes were opened to sin. Adam and Eve knew right away that they were naked and it ashamed them (earlier in Genesis, the author makes it a point to say that they were not ashamed of being naked). Not only that, but Adam and Eve knew that they had done a bad thing and for the first time, they feared God! God, of course, knew what had happened and that led to Him banishing them from the Garden of Eden.

Okay, fast forward to the story of Cain and Abel. Thanks to Adam and Eve getting kicked out of the Garden of Eden, man was no longer oblivious to temptations and other evils in the world. This reared its ugly head in the tale of these 2 brothers:

"At a time appointed by God, Cain brought his harvest from the field as an offering unto the Lord, but Abel brought a lamb. The Lord showed respect toward Abel and his offering, but He did not honor Cain and his offering.

Cain was furious, so the Lord asked, "Cain, why are you so frustrated and angry?" God then reminded Cain that the death of an animal was required for sacrifice. Just as fig leaves did not cover Adam and Eve's sin, a gift of bloodless plants and vegetables could never cover sin either.

God said that refusal to bring an animal for sacrifice displayed Cain's rebellion, because he was not worshiping as God had instructed. The Bible says that Abel's sacrifice showed faith in God's words, but Cain's sacrifice did not. Throughout the Scriptures, God reveals that without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sin.

But Cain still refused to obey God and bring an animal sacrifice. Instead, he blamed the problem on Abel, his brother, and when they were in the field, Cain attacked Abel and killed him.

This is the first case of one person killing another in the Bible.

Story continues:


Then the Lord asked Cain, "Where is your brother Abel?"

Cain answered, "I don't know: Am I my brother's keeper?"

God said, "What have you done? I hear the voice of your brother's blood crying to me from the ground. Now you will be cursed on the earth soaked with your brother's blood which was drawn by your own hand."


Paraphrasing here but it is stated later on in Genesis, "God saw that man's wickedness on earth was great and that the thoughts of their hearts were always evil. People everywhere were full of violence. God was sorry that He made man and His heart was filled with pain." If you really think about it, God never intended for things to be this way but because of one act that Adam and Eve did, it jumpstarted everything else such as Cain killing Abel and all the wickedness and violence that was going on at that time.

No one really knows how long the world was like this: it could have been a hundred years or five hundred years or even longer. But I think that it went on too long for God. And who knows for sure how many times God reached out to these people back then. I am sure that He gave them plenty of opportunities to recant and repent of their evil ways. However, there was one person that loved God and had a relationship with Him and that man was Noah.

What Does It Mean?

I get out of reading the story of the great flood and Noah that God wants more than anything to have a personal relationship with you! Nothing pleases God more than when someone decideds to let Him in their life! The people back during Noah's time did not know of God and did not want to have a relationship with Him. As stated above, God's heart was deeply grieved and pained by this.

And there are other stories in the Bible that talk about how God put some of the people that He loved the most through some horrific pain and suffering (most notably Job and David). However, these individuals continued to trust in Him and kept a personal relationship with Him.

If you want to really think of something that is not fair, outlaw, then think about how God let his only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, die at the hands of sinners. To me, I think that is harder to swallow than the flood. But just like with the flood, God had a purpose behind it - it is like an old Twila Paris song, "God Is in Control".

My father is not a Christian and my sister along with her husband are what I called "wayward" Christians (they were or are Christians but they have strayed from the path). I pray for them all the time that they will find in their heart a calling to get to know the Lord. Does it bother me that I may never see them again after they die? Yes, it does a lot, but I have no control over that. They are the only ones who can make that decision just like you, me, and anyone else here. All I can do is try to live my life the best that I can and do what I feel God wants me to do. And that is an eternal struggle! That is what makes being a Christian so hard, I think.

One of my favorite passages in the New Testament is from the book of Mark, Chapter 2, verses 13-17:
And he went out again by the sea;
and all the crowd came to him, and he taught them.
And passing by he saw Levi the son of Alphaeus
sitting at the tax office, and he says to him, "Follow me."
And standing up he followed him.

And he happens to be dining in his home,
and many tax collectors and sinners were dining
with Jesus and his disciples;
for there were many, and they followed him.

And the scholars of the Pharisees
seeing that he was eating with sinners and tax collectors
said to his disciples,
"Does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?"

And Jesus hearing says to them,
"The strong have no need of a physician, but those who are ill;
I did not come to call the just, but sinners."


Of course, this was a hard passage for me to really appreciate when I was a kid, but now that I am older and I have gone through some of life's experiences, it is very comforting to me that Jesus is always wanting to help those who need Him. That is a lot better than if He felt that those sinners weren't good enough for Him. That is why you hear people say that God is a loving God or at least that is what I feel.

Remember, God is always waiting and hoping that you will take the time to try to have a personal relationship with Him. There is nothing more that he looks forward to that - whether it is done today or on your death bed, God will always be there for those that need Him.

 

Manny, that was clearly a heartfelt post for you. Thanks for posting it.

 

Athiest are not worried in the least about eternity. When we die we cease to exist.

 

KB7,

In your hypothetical, I would probably find even less reason to embrace religion than I do in everyday life. You yourself describe the Christian God as 'just,' yet this same God is allowing 3 people (myself included) to suffer and eventually die unjusty. That would probably be the most coherent thing on my mind (besides the more instinctive responses of fear, anger and sadness).

Because my ambivalence toward religion (Christianity in particular, as that is the religion of my family) is such a strong part of my personality, I don't know if I could bond with the other two men. I would probably find their religious preachings naive and ultimately pointless, and in turn, they would probably find my atheism to be unsettling. An especially fundamentalist Christian might even see me as some kind of Satanic temptation that intends to break his faith and thus divert him from heaven to hell at the last moment. I doubt that even the best of circumstances could bridge such a gulf.

Manny,

Assuming that the first part of Genesis is not a metaphor for humanity's development of its unique mental awareness, I view the story of Adam and Eve and the tree of knowledge the same way I see a parent who places a loaded gun out in front of a young child and tells him or her, "Don't touch." Just about everyone here would condemn such a parent as "careless" and "irresponsible," yet many do not reach the same conclusion with God (who placed an even more dangerous object before two childlike beings and again said "Don't touch"). God himself creates and sets man off on the path toward "evil," yet blames man when the inevitable occurs. Again, this does not seem like a just God.

Ultimately, I am not religious because I think any attempt to know God/gods is futile, and no scenario (including one where I was facing death) will change this belief.

 

Is this "you" separate from the rest _of the "universe"?

 

sub,

I see where you are coming from as I have had conversations with my father about religion some in the past (he considers himself a deist, not an atheist which I don't know if you consider yourself an atheist, agnostic, deist, etc). He has never really talked about the Garden of Eden, but your reasoning, I think, would be similar to what he would say.

I look at it like this - in the beginning, God had no need to worry about Adam and Eve disobeying him because they did not KNOW of sin and there was an innocence there. Sure, you can say, well what about the serpent? It used to bother me, too, that you had all these creatures that were innocent and loving except for this one in the serpent. But God has always done that - test people, especially those who have a close relationship with Him.

When I read the "Purpose-Driven Life" a couple of months back, the one thing that really shook me to the core was Warren talking about when something tragic happens in your life, like losing your parents in a car wreck or a child to leukemia, etc, you should NOT get upset with God and cry out, "Why God did you let this happen??!!" You should instead look at it as "What do you want me to learn from this, God?" or "How will this help my faith become stronger?"

It is like I said earlier, I cannot control what others do or how they feel - I can only control one person and that being myself. I have been a Christian for close to 15 years now and I still find myself constantly coming up short to Him. However, I keep trying to do the best I can in understanding what He wants me to do.

You never know when He will call you - it may take a dramatic event in your life or a so-called "angel" looking out for you, but I do believe that God uses others as a vessel to reach out to those who need Him. It is up to them to follow or not.

Max - glad you enjoyed it; I always get a lot out of your posts when you talk about your faith as it helps me with my own faith.