god as he sees people

[ultraman]

does anyone think that god might be disappointed in all of us? sometimes I think that their are those who have already been chosen to go to heaven and many of us will be in hell. I would like to think that i am going to heaven i can assume that i will go but that is not up to me to decide. Sometimes i think that i can do good and just be taken to heaven when i die. i can ask for forgives over and over again and again but god is no fool it is human nature to do what we think is a good deed but it has to come from the heart not because we think we will go to heaven. I believe in god i am no expert on god or how he does things sometimes i have a hard time excepting things for what they are and how they are. I just wonder how much we really think we know god?

[Seadragon]

Not necessarily Jake. I consider myself a 'good' person but it is other people and not religion that makes me want to do 'bad' things.

[Rev Sermon]

Just to play devil's advocate, why does everyone assume that it is "good deeds" that will get you into "heaven"?

All the world's religions disagree with each other so the vast majority must have got the message "a bit wrong". Maybe those of us who have done most to promote global warming or steadfastly worn leather trousers will be the ones who have the pearly gates thrown wide for them.

Just a thought.

[wolf63]

Seadragon - perhaps the phrase was badly chosen. I think that we are born, we live and then, finally, we die. Nothing happens after this.

Life is challenging - sometimes it is fun and fulfilling and sometimes it is hard and stressful.

I, too, am shocked by the tsunami mother's thoughts. Maybe thinking these things was the only way that she could cope with what had happened. Luckily I do not have children - I would have been a terrible mother.

[beso]

The concept that "God will put you on the right path" is used by the believers to justify following their own instincts without regard for for rational analysis. Scientific research has shown a close correspondence betwen the believer's concept of God's Will and their own personal attitudes. When something changes their attitudes, their assumptions about God's attitudes are similarly changed.

Time and time again from at least the earliest written history, believers adopted the attitude that they had been chosen by God to fulfil His will on Earth. This frequently involved forceful domination of other people, often through wholesale massacre. Of course their actions simply reflected their own twisted desires unfettered by any sense of genuine morality.

[Le Chat]

I can never understand why God would wish to create humanity in order to worship him. I mean how arrogant is that? What's the point?
I have in the past tried to be a born again Christian but it quite simply didn't work. I tried really hard but I simply ended up summizing that in order to be a proper Christian (in my case) you do actually have to be intellectually slightly dim. I met alot of people who whilst being "infused with the love of the Lord," were actually judgemental, pompous and boring.
There is alot of guilt built around followers of religion as they are always having to second guess themselves and in some ways are in fear of putting a foot wrong....and then again, there is also a pick and choose element. My friend who is a staunch Catholic actually used contraception and slept with her soon to be husband and yet does not see this as breaking any law.
As Roger Taylor of Queen once said "The problem with religion is that it tends to f*** people up!"

[mibn2cweus]

God was invented by prehistoric savages kneeling, trembling and groveling at the foot of a spewing volcano in an attempt to appease mother nature. Present day knowledge no longer excuses such behavior and ever evolving technologies never afforded us the luxury of ignoring or applying available knowledge unwisely. Believing apart from a prerequisite understanding or in spite of existing knowledge has always come at the price of consequences we can now more than ever no longer afford to disregard.

The blessings offered by virtue of an ability to reason will only be bestowed upon those who choose to learn and practice the proven methods and benefits of sound reasoning invariably and without exception. To be human is to understand and accept the nature of that which amongst all living things is our unique inheritance, and evolutionary advantage, that which we stand to gain from learning, knowing, understanding and realising what is in our mutually beneficial rational best interest.

The habit of longing for and lusting after a free lunch is a bad one to form and a hard one to break but anything worth having is worth achieving . . . as I see it.