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I’ve stayed out of this thread and “The Thread” because it’s been wondered a few times if the mods would step in and I didn’t want my status as a mod to cause undue influence. So, let me start out by saying I’m posting this as just a regular user. Well, as far as you mere mortals know, anyway, but I don’t have super in my title by accident.
One reason I haven’t chimed in before is because many people have expressed my feelings much more eloquently than I could. I happen to fall in on the agnostic side of the discussion and, while I spent the first 15 years of my life attending church, I had insufficient interested in the topic to have retained much memory of the scriptures. I would like to think that if I’d had children, I would have followed the path taken by Star and given them enough knowledge to choose their own way but since that didn’t happen, my current knowledge of the Christian bible is fairly slim. I do have a better than average knowledge of Judaism (for a non Jew) as a result of a relationship a couple of years back, but that isn’t particularly relevant to these discussions. I also would like to make the assertion that I could put my ethics and morality up against anyone else’s and have very little for which to apologize.
The point I want to make, however, is I feel it’s patently unfair for the non Christians to criticize those that believe when they say they know that they are going to heaven and that they are being arrogant by making these and other claims. The word faith is not used by coincidence in relation to religion. If any of these people did not truly believe theirs was the correct path then they would be very poor Christians (or Jews or Muslims or whatever religion they happen to follow).
On the other hand, I feel sorry for those people who believe in a vengeful god – in one that would condemn his creations to hell simply for failing to believe. There is an interesting scene in Catch-22 where Yosarian was making some disparaging remarks about G-d being a bumbling fool and Mrs. Scheisskopf, the woman he was with, got angry with him. When he pointed out that she was an atheist, she agreed but that the G-d she doesn’t believe in is a just and loving G-d.
To get back to the original question (or are we way too far away from it now?), in spite of my lack of religious beliefs, my romantic side would like to think there is some form of afterlife. It’s actually pretty easy to believe (acknowledged by the estimates I’ve read which put something like 97% of the world population believing in some form of afterlife) and bottom line, what’s the harm in holding onto that belief? I mean, if you are wrong and there is no afterlife, it’s not like you’ll be disappointed. Of course, if you believe that your afterlife will have a specific form (heaven?), you may be disappointed to find yourself as a butterfly.
Anyway, I’ll end with this quote – not because it pertains to anything I’ve said, just because I like it and it seems to be the best philosophy I can live by:
“It's a magical world, Hobbes, old buddy! Let's go exploring!"
- Calvin, 31 Dec 1995
P.S. My use of G-d is in deference to my Jewish friends. FYI, in Judaism, it is considered a sin to erase or deface the name so it’s never written out completely. Maybe by doing this, readers will understand that I try to respect beliefs of others.
Last edited by ikehiker : 08-27-03 at 09:19 PM.
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... mostly about this part:
