Do You Wonder If It's Wiser.....

[lonelee]

Is it wiser to simply believe in Jesus and God? You know, for 'fire insurance'? I suppose this comes down to Pascal's Wager. Although the more I think about it, the more I realize (or believe) that Pascal's Wager fails with other religions claiming to be the only way to heaven. Any thoughts?

 

Also, do you find that Christians are actually better people being humble? Sometimes it makes me think that they are actually on to something, having reverence for the message in the bible, rather than not ignoring it. I have wondered lately if me ignoring the message, or even minimizing it, might be a dangerous thing? Are Christians wiser not ignoring the message? Any thoughts on this? Thanks!

[oddbird1963]

Lonelee,

 

I have found that Christians are by no means wiser or humbler than anyone else. Even the so-called wise ones spout irrational rubbish.

 

The only advantage to becoming an active Christian when you don't truly believe is to prevent cultural and social friction. I'm not saying that's good or bad. It's just a question of survival tactics.

 

What message , exactly, are you talking about? What is the "messsage" that Christians are supposedly onto that Jews and possibly Muslims do not have access too? Or, does your idea of faith actually include those two groups?

 

But is there a message that Buddhists, Taoists or Zoroastrians are not on to?

 

I am really curious to see you state the "message" you are minimizing. I think that will go a long way in understanding the guilt, fear or angst you may be going through.

 

Oh! And to answer your question, "No. I don't think it's wiser."

[par4dcourse]

Do you honestly think it's a matter of choice? I choose to not believe? Atheism suddenly sprang up because us rebellious types decided to be different?

 

The Santa analogy is worn out, but it is pertinent. Why don't you decide to believe in Santa again, just in case?

[♦ Fuego ♦]

Is it wiser to simply believe in Jesus and God? You know, for 'fire insurance'?

 

Nope. No more than we should be afraid of Zeus, Isis, or ______.

Besides, a god as psychotic as Yahweh wouldn't be impressed by such "belief" anyway. He'd find a way to toast your biscuits.

 

Also, do you find that Christians are actually better people being humble?

BWA-HA-HA-HA-HA! ...no. In any group of people there are those who are by nature quiet and introspective, and those that are brash and shallow. Christians are no different, despite claims to the contrary. Now, they have a built-in guilting mechanism that is supposed to make them stop being arrogant SOBs, but that only works if they recognize that they are such. Usually, they justify it as righteous anger or "hating those that hate You", or similar rubber stamps.

 

 

Sometimes it makes me think that they are actually on to something, having reverence for the message in the bible, rather than not ignoring it. I have wondered lately if me ignoring the message, or even minimizing it, might be a dangerous thing? Are Christians wiser not ignoring the message? Any thoughts on this? Thanks!

Again, the "message" of the scriptures is that we are hell-fodder, awful rebellious anti-god things that are barely tolerated and are fully deserving of being tortured forever in flaming sulfur for not believing. This is evidence that their god is psychotic (cannot feel guilt), arrogant, intolerant, harmful, sadistic, validates slavery and rape in the Old Testament, and generally acts like a tantrum-throwing brat. In short he is evil. But he *loves* you... Right. If our culture quit supporting this religion, it would start fading from the planet, just like all the other religions that were once incredibly popular and had enormous temples and systems of priests and sacrifices.

[ClaraOlive]

Also, do you find that Christians are actually better people being humble? Sometimes it makes me think that they are actually on to something, having reverence for the message in the bible, rather than not ignoring it. I have wondered lately if me ignoring the message, or even minimizing it, might be a dangerous thing? Are Christians wiser not ignoring the message? Any thoughts on this? Thanks!

 

LOL, do you know any actual Christians?! If the Christians you know are really more humble, you're fortunate in your experiences.

 

For me, turning belief on and off just isn't possible. If I don't truly believe in Christian tenets, I can't make myself believe them as fire insurance. I can't make myself have reverence for something that I don't believe to be true.

 

When I was in the process of deconversion, I tried to believe without belief, and THAT was a dangerous thing. It's possible to be in an in-between state for a while though, where you're superficially certain that Christianity isn't true, and then you're pulled back by thoughts that the Bible might be true or that ignoring Christianity is dangerous, but the next day, you can't bring yourself to believe in Christianity, and so forth. A lot of people go through that. A lot of people on this site have had that experience. But people who remained Christians have also gone through something similar, chosen differently, and will tell you that they had a "crisis of faith" at some point.

 

I'd say, don't panic and don't feel like you have to make a decision right now (forcing people into a snap decision is just an attempt to get them to make an emotional rather than a rational response). If you continue to think about it and read about different ideas and philosophies, read apologetics and their rebuttals, read the Bible for what it actually says instead of in a tunnel-vision devotional way, and read the thought processes of other people who left Christianity... I think you'll find that you'll have reached a conclusion that isn't driven by fear of some sort of unknown consequences.

[lonelee]

Thank you for the replies. It's like Clara said, turning belief on or off isn't something that can be done. I guess I just wondered if I should *try* to believe again?

 

What message , exactly, are you talking about? What is the "messsage" that Christians are supposedly onto that Jews and possibly Muslims do not have access too? Or, does your idea of faith actually include those two groups?

This is why I mentioned Pascal's Wager....it fails at the Christian level when placed beside any other religion that claims to be the only way to heaven. All religions fail. The message of Christianity that I was referring to was "Jesus saves", but I do take into account other faiths. It's like someone else said in the testimonies section...this is a head spin!

[Carmen]

Pascal's wager is basically based on fear. In fact, I think the basis of a lot of people's belief is a fear of hell. Would a loving god really give us no substantial evidence for his existence, then expect us to believe in him based on only fear and faith?

 

As one of the above posters pointed out, anyone who lives by the OT god is certainly not going to be a better person. I think it depends a lot on what part of the Bible they focus on. I see a lot of Christians who just look at Jesus and the NT writings and ignore the OT. They just cherry-pick the good parts of the Bible, in other words. I still highly respect Jesus' teachings and I think he was a great moral teacher. I know a lot of Christians who strive to follow Jesus' example and largely ignore the monstrous OT god, and they often are very humble and kind people, because they want to be like Jesus. But there are plenty of humble and kind people who aren't Christians as well. Christians really aren't any different than the rest of us, they just have a different set of ideas about reality.

 

Also, sometimes "humility" is actually just a huge ego trip for some Christians. They aren't really humble because they are proud of their own show of "humility".

[Vomit Comet]

I thought about doing that, about having my "fire insurance" while breaking free of the constraints (particularly the one that has to do with p-u-s-s-y). But the cognitive dissonance would be too great. The one event that did the most to prompt my deconversion was when I had horrible wake-up-screaming nightmares eight nights in a row of my current girlfriend being sucked down to hell by demons.

[godlessgrrl]

Is it wiser to simply believe in Jesus and God? You know, for 'fire insurance'? I suppose this comes down to Pascal's Wager. Although the more I think about it, the more I realize (or believe) that Pascal's Wager fails with other religions claiming to be the only way to heaven. Any thoughts?

 

If you're going to rely on Pascal's Wager to determine your choice of religion to believe in, it makes the most sense to believe in whatever religion has the nastiest hell.

 

Frankly I prefer to believe things because they're true, not because I'm trying to hedge my bets.

 

Also, do you find that Christians are actually better people being humble?

 

I don't find that Christians are significantly better or worse than people in general. They're just able to use religious dogma to justify their goodness or badness, their arrogance or humility.

 

Sometimes it makes me think that they are actually on to something, having reverence for the message in the bible, rather than not ignoring it. I have wondered lately if me ignoring the message, or even minimizing it, might be a dangerous thing? Are Christians wiser not ignoring the message? Any thoughts on this? Thanks!

 

Which message is that?

 

The message of love? Or the one of genocide? How about the misogynist message? Or the one of xenophobia, or homophobia? The one that tells you to love god, or the one that tells you to hate your family?

 

Frankly I'd say you're better off ignoring as much of the bible as possible. There are far better, more humane belief systems to follow.

[Thurisaz]

Is it wiser to simply believe in Jesus and God? You know, for 'fire insurance'?

 

If you were a gawd, would you prefer people who really believe or people who just go through the motions because they consider it safer?

If that gawd could possibly exist, and if it would not be the bloodthirsty sadistic bastard as which it is described by da wholly babble, would it "save" you if you just "believe for safety reasons"?

 

Also, do you find that Christians are actually better people being humble?

 

Humble?!

 

Okay to be fair, there are christians (my term for those who find the message "Jesus was a good man, let's try to be at least a little bit like him" in da babble, and nothing else) and holier-than-thou hate-all-who-disagree kill-all-infidels morontheists. The former admittedly can be humble. But then, just how much antipathy do we harbor for that kind of believer anyway, as opposed to the willfully-braindead hatemongers?

 

Sometimes it makes me think that they are actually on to something, having reverence for the message in the bible, rather than not ignoring it.

 

Christians obey da babble. Morontheists also do. As we all know, the cursed book allows or bans literally everything, it just depends on what other (contradictory) parts you ignore. Everyone who tries to obey da babble must ignore part of it to remain (seemingly) consistent. Which is why the whole thing is so fucked-up.

[Riz]

Is it wiser to simply believe in Jesus and God? You know, for 'fire insurance'?

 

I think about this a lot, actually. In fact in trying to get away from Christianity, it's things like this that keep me confused and almost on the verge of going back even though I know.. I know I don't want to.

 

I've come to realize that it isn't really about having extra insurance though.. the reason I have these thoughts is because Christianity's cult-like organization has basically brainwashed me over the years, and now I seem unable to function correctly without it in a lot of ways. I have all of these nagging voices in the back of my mind that are definitely NOT "God", telling me "You'll go to Hell if you don't believe in Jesus, He's the only way remember?"

 

It's not about insurance, it's about control. Even as I try desperately to get away from it and make it stick (this is my THIRD time trying to fully leave Christianity), I feel compelled to keep on considering it.

 

It's scary... I like that it scares me this time around though. Fear makes me realize it isn't normal.

 

 

 

Also, do you find that Christians are actually better people being humble?

 

Almost every Christian I know is 10x more judmental, critical, and somewhat egotistical than every last non-Christian I know. I can't generalize though, I can't say "all" Christians are like this, but I can effectively say that most of the ones that I personally know exhibit these disturbing traits which are in contradiction with their very own faith.

 

"Humble" doesn't make the list for most of the ones I know.

 

Sometimes it makes me think that they are actually on to something, having reverence for the message in the bible, rather than not ignoring it. I have wondered lately if me ignoring the message, or even minimizing it, might be a dangerous thing? Are Christians wiser not ignoring the message? Any thoughts on this? Thanks!

 

Well it's funny you know.. The central message of Christianity has long been wiped out past about the third-century. Prior to that, the actual message of Christ wasn't a bad one (nor was it an original one, in fact it was the same message you could find in any other religion)... love. tolerance, acceptance, equality (yep this one kinda got tossed out when the Church formed but the original message DID include equality), charity, humility, don't kill each other, yadda yadda yadda ...

 

But the "message" of the Christian church today doesn't reflect any of the original values at all.

 

What's more is that you can find these core values in almost any religion except the extremely crazy cults out there that just want you to kill yourself Point is, the "message"? Isn't news. You don't have to be a Christian to live by the message, in fact if you really want to live by that particular message you may want to choose a religion that ISN'T Christianity... You'd be more apt to actually get people who practice what they preach.

[Guest Babylonian Dream]

I think that just to be on the safe side, you should be a zoroatrian. Unlike the christian devil, the zoroastrian one won't be fun to hang out with down there in hell for eternity.

 

Though of course, Pascal wouldn't advocate for that, his conartist style wager was meant to maintain a large christianity, not advocate for Zoroastrianism.

[oddbird1963]

How much do you concern yourself with being injured or killed by an asteroid landing on the earth?

 

It is a real threat with documented history, but not too many people have ever reportedly been struck by an asteroid.

 

That's about the degree of risk there is to having to suffer any given hell. Actually, the risk of an asteroid seems greater, since there is a documented history and a known explanation of how asteroids hit the earth.

 

So, no. I don't think it's wiser to believe anyway, just in case. As if you could believe something you don't believe. You must mean 'go through the motions of following a religion.' I don't think that allows people to escape hell.

[florduh]

Is it wiser to simply believe in Jesus and God?

One may choose to ACT AS IF they believe just for the false comfort, but once you know better it impossible to believe the empty promise. You need a reason that is better than just hedging your bet in order to truly believe in your heart, and that's all that counts according to the story. Pascal's Wager is the most irrelevant and flawed argument of all.

[Ouroboros]

There is a magical, invisible, super-powerful being who demands that you believe in him or he'll hurt you.

 

Now do it. Pascal's Wager tells you to.

 

The being's name is Ahura Mazda.

[Xerces]

You'll find many of the beliefs, such as the golden rule, are scattered through out other belief systems, Xtianity is nothing special, just some good philosophy mixed in with some screwed up dogma.

[Snowflake]

Is it wiser to simply believe in Jesus and God? You know, for 'fire insurance'?

 

I wonder if belief is that easy to turn on and off at will? Christianity just didn't work like it said it would. If I tried it again, I would get the same result.

 

Also, do you find that Christians are actually better people being humble? Sometimes it makes me think that they are actually on to something, having reverence for the message in the bible, rather than not ignoring it.

 

By and large, I have found that Christians are not better people or more humble than any other people. In some ways, they are more arrogant than others, in that they feel that they are morally superior to the rest of us heathens and sinners. They take us sinners on as prayer projects and I resent that, and their attempts at appearing humble don't ring true to me. Think of Jimmy Swaggert and his tearful prayer after being caught with a prostitute, Oral Roberts saying God was going to call him home if he didn't get his million...although I'm not sure what he was going for, humility, humiliated, he got his millions. It worked.

 

There are messages in the bible that are downright bizarre, some that are funny, some that are boring, some that are beautiful...I'm not sure that having reverence for a particular message makes them better people. I think people are what they are.

 

I find that I've become more humble as I've grown older and made more and more mistakes in my life. As I recognize my own limits and shortcomings, it tends to take the winds out of my sails.

[Crazy Donna]

Is it wiser to simply believe in Jesus and God? You know, for 'fire insurance'? I suppose this comes down to Pascal's Wager. Although the more I think about it, the more I realize (or believe) that Pascal's Wager fails with other religions claiming to be the only way to heaven. Any thoughts?

 

Also, do you find that Christians are actually better people being humble? Sometimes it makes me think that they are actually on to something, having reverence for the message in the bible, rather than not ignoring it. I have wondered lately if me ignoring the message, or even minimizing it, might be a dangerous thing? Are Christians wiser not ignoring the message? Any thoughts on this? Thanks!

 

I do not think it's wiser to believe in jesus and god.

 

It is merely Pascal's Wager all over again. But belief is not something you can turn on or off. I got to a point where I could not believe in god and be a christian, and I'm telling you, there is no going back. Once you have gone as far as I have, you can't just forget all that you've learned that debunks christianity, and become a christian again. It's exactly like Santa or the Tooth Fairy. You now know enough about their reality that you are unable to believe. As an exercise, try believing in Santa for five minutes. You'll soon see that belief is something you cannot turn on or off.

 

There are a multitude of religions out there. I suggest you get on wikipedia and do some reading about Sikhism, Buddhism, Islam, Judaism, and Paganism. Read up on at least three of those. That will give you some perspective on the variety of religions. Right now, you're in a religious harbour, but by reading about other religions, you leave the harbour and go out into the ocean, and see many harbours. Your perspective of christianity will change if you see it in comparison with other religions. My faith in the message of christianity first began to chip away when I started to learn about the teachings of other religions, many of which make a lot of sense and are quite similar to christianity. They all essentially teach the same thing. It's like being at the hardware store, looking at paint swatches. You take a step back, and see it all, instead of just the different shades of purple. There is variety. If god loved everyone, there wouldn't be that much variety, because he would make sure everyone got his message. Either there is no god, or he doesn't give a shit about humanity, because he confuses the world with multiple religions.

 

You are afraid. You have been indoctrinated with a belief system, and you are struggling to cope without it. If you were raised as a christian from birth, you probably have no other operating system to function with. You are afraid of hell. I know because I've been there. But seriously, there is no proof of god, no proof of hell, and millions of other people don't believe in them. Why? Because religion is culture specific. You're a Westerner, so chances are, you live in a country where christianity is the dominant religion. If you had grown up in down town Tokyo, chances are you would not be a christian.

 

Think about it. The god of the bible loved you so much that he is infecting you with responsibility for someone else's sin, the consequences of which are eternal damnation, and burning for eternity in unquenchable fire. Then, if you don't believe in his son, who he sent to die for your sins, you still get to go to hell. However, the evidence for the son's ressurection is non existent, if you ignore the sketchy, contradictory stories of it written decades after the event. Funnily enough, historians alive at the time don't regale us with the story of the ressurection.

 

To be a christian, you have to believe that you are responsible for someone elses' sin. You then have to believe that jesus was the son of god, and was born of a virgin. If a pregant woman came up to you in the street today and said "oh, I'm a virgin," you would not believe them. Why do you believe some ancient stories, all of which seem to disagree on important details, when your own common sense tells you that virgins do not fall pregnant unless it is via in vitro fertilisation, a technology they obviously did not have in antiquity. You then also have to believe that this jesus person performed miracles, (again, no evidence, no records via other historians) then was killed, and rose from the dead. You actually have to believe that jesus rose from the dead. I don't know how anyone can believe that someone can be actually dead, and then come back to life. Sure, I've known people who've died on the operating table (I've had a family member die twice and be resucitated) but that is different. They were only dead for about a minute, and there was no tissue death. If jesus was dead for three days, there would be no way he could miraculously come back to life. Either he didn't die to begin with, or he didn't come back to life. Or he didn't exist. Your own common sense tells you this, and yet you still have this need to discount your common sense and cling to superstition. The discomfort you are feeling is that you KNOW these things are impossible, yet you are trying to BELIEVE that they happened, based on no evidence.

 

To be a christian, you also have to believe that god answers prayer. Now, I've spent a lot of my life praying, not for selfish things, but for the benefit of others. I have prayed in absolute, unshakable faith that people would not die, that god would protect them, that god would restore them to full health, knowing that when I ask for something of god in faith, it will happen. Either god is a liar, or he doesn't exist. That person died. I tell you, I was genuinely shocked, because I had asked for their healing in total faith. It was a relative of a close friend, and I was speechless when I found out they had died. It was not simply a 'god said no' episode. I was not asking for something selfish. I was asking for god to save the life of a person I didn't know, on behalf of a friend of mine, whom I loved greatly. I was doing it out of love for her. And yet, this person died. My motives were clean, and god still said no. So either god doesn't follow his own rules for prayer, doesn't give a fuck about humanity, or doesn't exist.

 

In the old testament, there is a passage where god tells moses that he will harden the heart of the pharaoh. I think it is Exodus 7, I am not sure of the verse. If you know the story, you can find it easily. god tells moses that he will harden the heart of the pharaoh, so that he has an excuse to send the plagues on Egypt. That is evil. I read that, and I realised that if there IS a god, he was obviously hardening my heart against him so that he could send me to hell. That is sickening, and yet that is the logical conclusion you must draw from the bible. The god of abraham, being omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent, gives us free will, but knows even before he creates us, what our weaknesses will be, how we will sin, and whether or not we will end up in hell. If he exists, then he creates many of us for the explicit purpose of being tortured eternally. As I have written elsewhere, it is no different to me breeding baby guinea pigs so that I can burn the babies to death in a forty gallon drum. If he was a loving god, he would not create beings that he knows will turn against him. If burning us for eternity was truly heartbreaking to god, it would not happen. Either he is not omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent, (and by such standards, not a god) or he doesn't exist.

 

As for the humility of christians, how can they be humble if they think they are on a divine mission? If they are on a mission to serve god and save mankind from eternal damnation, how can they possibly be humble? They may ACT like they are humble, but I'm telling you, if they truly believe that they are saving the world, and are divinely appointed by god, it's all a facade. My experience of christians is that the good ones are no better than atheists, and the REALLY REALLY SUPER JESUS LOVING CHRISTIANS (you know the kind) are a bunch of arrogant arseholes, intent on doing 'god's will', which somehow is indistinguishable from their own. Anything they want they can rationalise as the will of god. So, they want a nice house and a big car? They get them. Bugger giving that money to charity, god has 'blessed' them, so they can have a big house and a big car. If christians were truly humble and gave away everything they had, there would be no rich christians in nice houses, no christians wearing brand name clothes, no christians in public office (because that would be taking glory that they should otherwise give to god) no christians answering back, or in the limelight, or taking legal action, or preaching on television. If they were truly humble, we would never have heard of Benny Hinn and Creflo Dollar and Joyce Meyers, or their ministry. Ministries would be private affairs, not organisations with a public profile, but private, secretive acts of generosity. If they were truly humble, we would never have heard of their exploits. christians would be private people doing 'god's will' on their own, without public attention. christians would not be household names. And with the money they would put into society, we could cure all manner of ills.

 

No, christians are no better in the humility stakes than the rest of us. In fact, some are worse than any nonbeliever could be. How can they be humble if they think god is endorsing their every action? Seriously? Are you joking?

 

You are clinging to belief because you probably don't really know what the option is yet. Just avoid christianity for a while and meet new people and introduce yourself to new ideas. Then, you'll see christianity for the total disaster it is, and you'll be able to shake yourself free of it's irrational fears of hell and the afterlife.

 

Ask yourself this. If there was NO hell, would you still want to believe? And furthermore, what kind of god would need the weapon of hell to coerce you into believing anyway? He is the all powerful god, who trumps free will, and yet still needs to threaten you with hell. Some god.

[Vixentrox]

Pascal's Wager is a no go with me. I can't believe in gods now even if I wanted to without concrete proof of existence any more than I can make myself believe in the easter Bunny as true or that goblins live under the mountains. However if I was going to pick a god to follow it darn sure wouldn't be that shit god of the Bible.

[OpheliaGinger]

Pascal's Wager is inherently flawed because it just assumes that the only god is the Christian god. What if it turns out that Allah is the one true god? What about Thor, Ra, or Xuchilbara?