A perhaps more interesting result appeared when people were asked whether they believe in God, Heaven, Angles, the Devil, and Hell. You can see the results of this question in the figure above. Apparently, more people believe in Heaven than in Hell. I would like to ask any Christians out there how this result can be explained. If good people go to Heaven when they die, shouldn't bad people (or atheists like my self) logically go to hell? How can you believe in one and not the other? Don't get me wrong though, I think it is good that people pick the nicer parts of religion, it just seems odd.
Another question that I ask myself is what people think hell is like? Do they really believe in a hell where the devil is forever tormenting you (like in south park), or is it something of a more metaphysical nature? Do they believe in it just as an abstraction (whatever that means)? It is probably superfluous of me to state my opinion here, but I will do so anyway. I think that the idea of hell is extremely unlikely and really quite ridiculous. Enough so that I am never afraid of what is going to happen to me after I die. But if any of you hell believers out there are right, I guess it will please you to know that my afterlife will consist of eternal torture…
Hey I thought you had some very good points. you mentioned that good people will go to heaven and bad people will go to Hell, at least according to what you think Christianity teaches. Is that what you think it teaches. Then if that is right, then what is the standard for "good" vs. "bad" according to what you have understood it to be.
SvaraRaderaI have yes, both white lies as well as just blatant lies. However, I lied much more when I was younger. Now I try to keep it at a minimun, and if someone asks me a straight question I do not lie, that would be hard on my consciousness.
SvaraRaderaWhy the question?
Anders, just curious really to see your answers. If someone tells lies, what are they called. Put it this way, if I told you a lie, what would you call me?
SvaraRaderaI lier I suppose... But it would depend quite alot on the particular situation, and what the consequences were. Some lies are justified if you ask me.
SvaraRaderaHave you ever stolen something, irregardless of its value at anytime in your life?
SvaraRaderaI think one of the boring things about the "science/religion" war (at least as concerns Christianity) is that it is typically just slugged out on a very dull pitch, ie that provided by a certain type of evangelical theology.
SvaraRaderaBoth sides of the debate simply accept the same premises about what god "must" be like, how one should read the bible (ie like a foreign language phrase book), the nature of faith, etc etc. But for everyone else, this is all pretty alien. For example, atheists typically characterise religious faith as being a sort of blind dogmatic adherence to some sort of belief in the face of all evidence to the contrary. But this is, to put it politely, balls. :-). I mean, if that was really the case, then why would someone like Aquinas spend his career writing millions of words in rational defence of Christian theology, rather than just laying out the things one "must believe"? Just as an example.
Whilst a Christian (and a pretty orthodox one at that) I simply reject a whole row of these assumptions, as has, incidentally, the bulk of christianity through the ages and indeed now.
The encounter with Islam is even more egregious, of course. I won't comment much on this as I know rather little about Islamic theology. However, the casual identification of an entire culture - one that was considerably more accomplished and civilised than the west during certain periods - as a bunch of towel-headed psychotic maniacs strikes me as being not entirely helpful...