Sainthood.
That’s laughable.
We live in an imperfect existence.
Sinless people are impossible.
I can tell you a million sins of each saint right now.
What makes me stand apart is that I try to violate as little consent as possible and have a new plan for all of existence.
I’d literally laugh at someone if they called me a saint, and I’m the best exemplar, not just on earth, but all of existence to deserve such a title.
You are delusional.
Saints are not sinless.
You should study more.
You want me to study more?
I’ve studied under the saints dude.
I’ve studied under every fucking thing that crawls on this earth.
I’ll tell you something about learning…
We never stop learning until we die, and we never die.
LOL.
Ok.
Is that intended as a helpful assessment or a direct insult?
I call people face to face psychotic if they are.
Delusional is kind.
It just means they don’t know what they’re talking about.
Psychotics aren’t talking about anything even though they are talking.
Besides, if you really read every post on ILP and deconstruct then, everyone ad homs.
I actually get angry at people like iambiguous who will take 10,000 words to call someone a dipshit without saying it. Just fucking say it dude. Save me the 10,000 characters and then gloating that you never insulted someone.
It’s fucking ridiculous.
I understand as a moderator this is important to you, I’m highlighting the larger picture and maybe we can take it to meta.
I think you’re on the right track. The people, places and things of scripture are types or figures of spiritual realities. You are also prudent to be tentative about your interpretations. The deeper the myth the greater than number of interpretations it generates.
The concept of hell as a place of eternal punishment is refuted by the time factor. If you had a child who did some minor crime, would you have him beaten for twenty years? If not, then you are more moral than a God who would. The punishment must fit the crime. Nothing a human can do in this flyspeck of existence merits an eternity of heaven or hell–hence grace. As for the wager, a line from the Lord’s prayer goes “Do not put us to the test”.
The only way to influence skeptics and atheists is by setting a decent example of how to live.
Here’s a different way to think about Hell:
The duration of the time it takes to commit the crime doesn’t match the punishment.
For example, it only takes a few seconds to murder someone. Does that mean the murderer should only receive a few seconds of jail time? Of course not.
One could shoot up a kindergarten class in 1 minute. Should they receive 1 minute of jail time as punishment?
No.
This explains more:
catholic.com/video/is-etern … punishment
Lastly, the Bible had dozens of passages about rewards for Christians.
So, there you have it, folks: nonbelief in the God of Pascal’s Wager is equivalent to shooting up a kindergarten class!
Nice God you got there, fella!
And this nonbelief, we are told, requires eternal punishment! Yet even kindergarten shooters are not punished eternally!
Lol, no.
Further, Hell is a choice. People only go there because they choose it.
If you chose it, it wouldn’t be hell.
I’m going to call you TS from now on.
Totalitarian Spirit.
Disagree.
I believe in free will.
I believe in free will too, as a matter of fact.
And no one, except maybe for a masochist, chooses eternal torment.
The sinister idiocy of Pascal’s wager is twofold: The idea that we can choose our beliefs, the way that we can choose the color of a car, and the idea that there is some invisible entity who will punish us for eternity for having a wrong belief, even when we are not responsible for that belief.
I did remark earlier that pascal in his text tries to address my point, and seems to think that we can somehow brainwash ourselves into believing an unbelievable thing. I’ll give him credit for at least recognizing the problem.
To compare nonbelievers to people who shoot kindergarten kids does not do credit to you or your religion. It is, as your fellow theist noted, infantile. It’s actually much worse that that, but it’s a start.
I think it is important to notice what choice means with respect to free will.
If I have free will, I am free to choose what I have for breakfast, what job to take, what book to read. Etc.
It does not follow that I am free to choose a belief, at least not if I am rational. I do not choose beliefs, believes come to me. For example, I don’t choose to disbelieve in Santa Claus. I simply don’t believe in Santa Claus (this is not a choice on my part) because I see no evidence for the existence of such an entity, and a mountain of evidence militating against the existence of such an entity.
Same with Pascal’s God.
Pascal addressed your objection:
“But at least learn your inability to believe, since reason brings you to this, and yet you cannot believe. Endeavour then to convince yourself, not by increase of proofs of God, but by the abatement of your passions. You would like to attain faith, and do not know the way; you would like to cure yourself of unbelief and ask the remedy for it. Learn of those who have been bound like you, and who now stake all their possessions. These are people who know the way which you would follow, and who are cured of an ill of which you would be cured. Follow the way by which they began; by acting as if they believed, taking the holy water, having masses said, etc. Even this will naturally make you believe, and deaden your acuteness.”
So, you can use your free will to pray and go to Church. Gradually, you may come to believe.
Further, there is no evidence that Santa Claus is real. There’s tons of evidence that Jesus was. Comparing the two is like apples and oranges.
TS,
Your belief in freewill is false.
Existence must exist in order for you to exist. That’s what allows you to be sentient btw. Conditions and otherness. Strange loop self recursion.
If you had FREE will, you could exist without existence existing.
How do you know free will is false?
What did you use to come up with that conclusion?
That’s is comedic.
I’m sorry, you really think you can exist without existence existing? That everything you do doesn’t have some sort of condition that allows you to do it?
Yes, I already noted that Pascal addressed my objection — I noted it twice, in fact. I’m afraid I just don’t find his advice useful. Also, I would not like to “cure” myself of unbelief, whatever that means, exactly. If I am to be “cured” of unbelief, it is by the very thing that Pascal says we should not seek: evidence (or “proofs” as he wrongly calls it). And there is exactly as much evidence for Santa as for God: none. You write “Jesus,” but I am separating him from God. There is no contemporaneous evidence for the existence of Jesus, and possibly he did not exist at all, but there is no way to tell. If he did exist, he certainly was not divine. No one is divine,