Googling For God

[Leonard James]

I'm sorry I didn't realise Sweden and everywhere else had banned religion.

Since nobody said that they had I have no idea what this comment refers to.

That's precisely why I didn't bother to answer. Vlad loves to waste time creating straw men to argue about.

[Hope]

Hope, for a supposedly intelligent man you make some really stupid statements and this one is a corker.

It's only a corker if you misunderstand what I said, Matt. 

[Owlswing]

How do YOU know they're lies You DON'T !!!
Make their lives better by all means, as this is what as humanity, we SHOULD be doing but not let us do what the Christians did & use this as a way to 'convert' them.

I'll help you but get rid of any religious ideas?? ?!?!?! How dare you ?!!??

Help them unconditionally. Don't help them and feed them religion too.

A lot of people choose religion Len.

It gives them answers they need.

I disagree.

Most people do not "choose" religion. In one way or another, whether by evangelism or familial membership, they have it thrust upon them and it probably gives them, rather than the answers that they need, the answers that they want to hear.

No religion, telling some poor sod living in abject poverty and suffering a multiplicity of unpleasant diseases, that it will lead them to a better life in this world and/or the next is telling the truth. It is telling blatant and horrendous lies because they are selling a belief not a truth.

No religion's promises regarding life after death are true, except to the believers in that religion as it is only based upon belief not upon certainty or known facts - and that includes my own religion. My belief in the cycle of Birth, Life, Death, and Re-birth, while strong, is nothing more than MY belief and it is the Pagan acceptance of this fact that results in the Pagan refusal to proselytise.
 

[Owlswing]

When life is difficult, belief in a better one to come is a clever carrot to offer.

Except that most Christians - if they think about the after-life at all - probably seen it in terms of 'different' as opposed to 'better'.  As I've pointed elsewhere, albeit in slightly different context, these ideas of worse/better seem to come more regularly from the non-believers here.

Bollocks!

In how many films, plays, historical dramas, books, have you seen someone say about someone who has died "He/she/it has gone to a better life", or are you saying that all scriptwriters and other authors are non-believers?

[Hope]

Don't help them and feed them religion too.

You'd be surprised how many non-religious people the same sentiment applies to, Len.  You'd also be surprised to know how many religious contexts it doesn't apply to.

[Hope]

Bollocks!

In how many films, plays, historical dramas, books, have you seen someone say about someone who has died "He/she/it has gone to a better life", or are you saying that all scriptwriters and other authors are non-believers?

Remarkably few, Matt.  If you think about the various euphemisms for death, religious and otherwise, that get used in such contexts, you will realise how few actually make a judgement about better or worse.

[Owlswing]

Hope, for a supposedly intelligent man you make some really stupid statements and this one is a corker.

It's only a corker if you misunderstand what I said, Matt.

You said

Doesn't the rain fall and the sun shine on all humanity equally?

. . . and posited that they do - anyone with an ounce of commonsense knows that they do not.

But I should have expected this answer, you really do not like to have it pointed out that you have made a silly or fallacious comment and throw out this "you are too stupid to understand what I am talking about" defence.

[Hope]

You said

Doesn't the rain fall and the sun shine on all humanity equally?

. . . and posited that they do - anyone with an ounce of commonsense knows that they do not.

But I should have expected this answer, you really do not like to have it pointed out that you have made a silly or fallacious comment and throw out this "you are too stupid to understand what I am talking about" defence.

If I have made a silly or fallacious comment, Matt, then why is this a commonly used piece of English phraseology?  'Equally' isn't only a quantative term; it can also refer to manner.  If you look at the definition at www.oxforddictionary.com, you will find that the first definition is "In the same manner or to the same extent" (my emphases)

[Owlswing]

You said

Doesn't the rain fall and the sun shine on all humanity equally?

. . . and posited that they do - anyone with an ounce of commonsense knows that they do not.

But I should have expected this answer, you really do not like to have it pointed out that you have made a silly or fallacious comment and throw out this "you are too stupid to understand what I am talking about" defence.

If I have made a silly or fallacious comment, Matt, then why is this a commonly used piece of English phraseology?  'Equally' isn't only a quantative term; it can also refer to manner.  If you look at the definition at www.oxforddictionary.com, you will find that the first definition is "In the same manner or to the same extent" (my emphases)

Sorry, Hope, but I consider your statement to be in error by both definitions.

[ProfessorDavey]

When life is difficult, belief in a better one to come is a clever carrot to offer.

Except that most Christians - if they think about the after-life at all - probably seen it in terms of 'different' as opposed to 'better'.  As I've pointed elsewhere, albeit in slightly different context, these ideas of worse/better seem to come more regularly from the non-believers here.

Bollocks!

In how many films, plays, historical dramas, books, have you seen someone say about someone who has died "He/she/it has gone to a better life", or are you saying that all scriptwriters and other authors are non-believers?

Actually not just better, but paradise, no less than perfect.

So the notion that christianity considers afterlife in heaven to be merely different than life - no better or worse, just different is frankly laughable.

[Rhiannon]

I did the Christian thing for many years and being perpetually in God's presence is something to be longed for. It's not supposed to be like this life and it certainly isn't regarded as 'just as good'.

[ProfessorDavey]

I did the Christian thing for many years and being perpetually in God's presence is something to be longed for. It's not supposed to be like this life and it certainly isn't regarded as 'just as good'.

By that I presume you mean it is meant to be better?

Isn't the whole point that it is meant to be perfect, paradise no less, and also eternal.

[Leonard James]

I did the Christian thing for many years and being perpetually in God's presence is something to be longed for. It's not supposed to be like this life and it certainly isn't regarded as 'just as good'.

By that I presume you mean it is meant to be better?

Isn't the whole point that it is meant to be perfect, paradise no less, and also eternal.

A tempting belief to offer! Little wonder so many fall for it!

[trippymonkey]

If it's Paradise then why do we have all this mythology of The Bible ?

[Owlswing]

If it's Paradise then why do we have all this mythology of The Bible ?

It is part of the mythology of the Bible! Well, the NT, anyway.

[Harrowby Hall]

I did the Christian thing for many years and being perpetually in God's presence is something to be longed for. It's not supposed to be like this life and it certainly isn't regarded as 'just as good'.

Indeed. And life in Heaven is supposed to be a reward for a righteous life on Earth. What kind of reward would not be desirable?



Righteous: there's a word we haven't seen on this forum for a long time. The scientific sort of righteous, that is ....

[Outrider]

Places with lower life expectancies and more poverty are more religious

Nothing we didn't know already, but it bears repeating.

Less toys therefore not so much of a childish or adolescent delusion of invincibility?

Perhaps. Or, perhaps, less education, less grasp of the realities of life, and a higher sense of desperation that there must be something better than this...?

O.

[Hope]

Indeed. And life in Heaven is supposed to be a reward for a righteous life on Earth. What kind of reward would not be desirable?

Is it, H?  Not sure that is the message in the New Testament.  Rather, its the result of a renewed relationship with one's creator.

[Outrider]

Surely it the religious with their purported deity looking out for them who are much more likely to develop a delusion of invincibility.

And why would that be, PD?  After all, is it even true to say that their  'purported deity (is) looking out for them'?  Just what do you even mean by ' ... looking out for them' in this context?  Doesn't the rain fall and the sun shine on all humanity equally?

That would be evidence-based thinking, and if they were given to that they wouldn't be accepting the unevidenced god-claims in the first place.

Does God only perform miracles in the lives of those who believe in him?  Biblically, that never happened; instead, a miracle was just the opening for Jesus to explain to people who he was and what his purpose was.

Do gods perform miracles at all? Maybe these desperate, poor, starving people are waiting for one of these hinted at miracles.

O.

[Outrider]

The problem with Google is that it can't differentiate between someone with a negative connotation of God carrying out a search, and someone with a positive one.  Related to this, it can't work out the purpose for which someone does a search.  Nor can it tell us what the person's conclusion was after reading the material.  It could be that, having read an article or two on 'Why God allows suffering' the reader changes their attitude to God.  As such, I would suggest that no-one is any the wiser having read this article than they were before doing so.

About God? No, they aren't, but that's not the point, it's not an article about what Google can tell us about gods, it's an article about how what people are asking about gods is changing. It tells us about people, and their attitudes and interests.

O.

[Rhiannon]

I did the Christian thing for many years and being perpetually in God's presence is something to be longed for. It's not supposed to be like this life and it certainly isn't regarded as 'just as good'.

By that I presume you mean it is meant to be better?

Isn't the whole point that it is meant to be perfect, paradise no less, and also eternal.

'Paradise' was seen as the place to wait to the resurrection of the dead, or possibly the restoration of the state of creation in the Garden of Eden when heaven is restored on earth.

The Gospels are sketchy on the details of heaven but Jesus said there will be no male or female, but a becoming 'like the angels' who perpetually praise God. It basically means that instead of seeking to have a relationship with a god you can't see you are always in his presence, always bathed in his love, and free from suffering, and presumably loss and desire too. There is nothing that the Christian could possibly want more than this and it goes beyond 'better' - it's envisaged as unimaginable bliss.

And it is actually a very different vision of heavenly existence from that of the generally accepted view of being reunited with loved ones.

[Hope]

By that I presume you mean it is meant to be better? 

I suppose it depends on whether you regard life in Malibu as being better than life in Bondi.

[Outrider]

How do YOU know they're lies You DON'T !!!

We don't know they're lies, but even if we assume that they aren't, which particular set of unevidenced supernatural claims should we be advocating? Given that, in a lot of cases, the poverty, hardship and suffering these people are undergoing is the result of conflict between these competing assertion-clusters that we call religion, adopting none of them and advocating living well regardless of them seems a valid way forward.

I'll help you but get rid of any religious ideas?? ?!?!?! How dare you ?!!??

No. Secularism - help them, but encourage everyone to keep their religious ideas to themselves.

O.

[Hope]

About God? No, they aren't, but that's not the point, it's not an article about what Google can tell us about gods, it's an article about how what people are asking about gods is changing. It tells us about people, and their attitudes and interests.

O.

I wasn't talking "About God", O.  I was pointing out that having read the article I doubt whether anyone is any the wiser "about people, and their attitudes and interests", simply because we can't be sure of the purpose or motivation of the searchers.

[Outrider]

Indeed. And life in Heaven is supposed to be a reward for a righteous life on Earth. What kind of reward would not be desirable?

Is it, H?  Not sure that is the message in the New Testament.  Rather, its the result of a renewed relationship with one's creator.

A beneficial result from a benefactor with the capacity to give or not give - please explain how that doesn't constitute 'a reward'?

I appreciate that there are Christian theologies out there that don't support this idea (Calvinism?), but in this description entry to Heaven is explicitly pitched as a reward for good behaviour.

O.