This is something that has always boggled my mind. When I was a Christian and starting to become devout, I was very happy, almost like every day I woke up I had just won the lottery. Nothing could get me upset because I knew that no matter what happened in this short life, if I just focused on God etc. and kept doing the right thing til I died I'd probably end up in eternal heaven. Eternal as in infinity years, compared to just 70-80 years of an absurd life on Earth. Whereas if I were to go on tilt and be a sinner, I could face infinity years of torture! Had my beliefs not changed, I'd be a catholic monk by now.

So my first question is how any believer can be unhappy / stressed about things on Earth.

Second, how can any believer not be devout? How are God and heaven not the most important things in your life? Are people just that materialistic or is their faith just not strong, like they only 60% believe or something?

Third, how isn't it easy for any devout person not to sin? If you're just thinking about God and the big picture at all times, you'll never have any desire to sin.

Basically because while our beliefs about reality can affect our behavior and emotions at the margins, they are not even close to the only thing that causes us to act. This is just as much true for religious people as for the non-religious.

Yeah, that's basically restating the phenomenon I'm asking about. Why don't enormous beliefs like those of Christianity dominate all of a Christian's decisions?

I wanna know what goes on in one's head. Is it just that it's hard for people to think about God at all times? They just forget about God monday through saturday, until they're nearing the end of their lives?

I'm not saying any of this to criticize, I just find it hard to fathom. People live their lives as though they're atheist.

I guess part of it is, everyone seems to think they'll go to heaven as long as they don't murder anyone? Not many people seem worried at all about going to hell / not getting into heaven.

Edit -- analogy: it's like playing Chess and not thinking about your king or your opponent's, just going after pawns.

Eighty years is a hair over 2.5 billion seconds. That is a lot of time to be happy about one thing that never changes. Even after a billion seconds having sex with *insert your favorite model here* you would start to be less happy about it than when you started.

People aren't simpletons. They need variety to keep sane.

One obvious explanation is that it's not actually true and that deep down inside, most people know that. If it were indisputably true, if we saw a god on a daily basis and their interaction with us was normal and regular, I think first of all that we'd all be the same religion, there'd be no disagreements about what to believe, and that we'd behave as you describe in the OP.

Of course, over the centuries, many very clever arguments have been developed for why, if they exist, gods don't simply make themselves known to us so there's little point going there. I'm with the cognitive psychologists who suggest that religions are simply a byproduct of our tendency to impose order and purpose on what we see as a means of making sense of the world. It's been a successful behavioural tactic if that's true, but it has what you might described as 'harmful side effects'. Religion may be nothing more than a complex form of Apophenia.

It's part of love, in my experience. My wife and I have been lucky that we've dodged miscarriages, but we've witnessed some of our (quite mature, imo) Christian friends go through it. Losing a baby sucks. You have started to love this kid, and then they get taken away before you can physically see them. It sucks.

It seems you have this idea that sadness is sinful. Paul counseled that we should "weep with those who weep", not simply scoff at them for having an erroneous judgment of infinity. Nor judge them for not being happy. Or, when David knew that he had to leave Jonathan, he cried. Heck, when Jesus was told that Lazarus was dead, even God himself cried. So, I'd hazard that being sad is completely acceptable.

Similar to what OrigPos said. Basically, we live in the world. And we also live in the flesh. Even though we have the best of intentions, we will fail. See Romans 7 perhaps. Read some of Watchman Nee's stuff if you like massive tomes of theory. Or if you enjoy lighter reading, I suggest "The Ragamuffin Gospel" by Brennan Manning.

(seems similar to question 2?)

OP, as a bit more general point, christianity for a long part of its history has (to some extend rightfully) been accused of being primarily focused on the afterlife. If you take this focus too far, you can not only become unconcerned about your own well being, but, more importantly, about the well being of others. If all worldly injustices are basically just short-term inconveniences... As such, it could lead to people not trying to make the world a better place for all.

Liberation theology (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberation_theology) has brought back into focus that Jesus' message was in many ways quite worldly: against economic, societal, cultural oppression and injustices. So, this is how a christian can still be angry, sad, mad, etc.

On top of that - if you embrace your human life, you'll end up in spots where you behave less than perfect. "If you're just thinking about God and the big picture at all times..." seems like a somewhat naive idea of how people actually work.

I shoulda clarified, I wasn't talking about deaths of loved ones. Though I imagine thinking they went to heaven, and that you'll see them there some day, helps the mourning process.

Not just afterlife, but God. I was taught that you're supposed to "see God in everyday life". You can still help the poor and all that stuff, and spread the message to others.

But yeah, I basically understand, we live in the world and flesh. That distracts people from their religion most of the time, people "have lives". Part of me gets that but part of me doesn't get how there aren't more Tim Tebows (going around throwing off-target passes).

I guess it is. My thought was, I can understand how a non-devout person sins. But I always hear devout people talking about how hard it is for anyone to be free of sin.

Or maybe Christians are just human like everybody else, it could be that simple. Even if there were gods that showed up on a regular basis and commonly interacted, even if the 'authority' was clearly manifested and beyond doubt, we'd still find things to be mad, sad and happy about, that's what we do. After all, the gods made us like this and gave us free will.

Possibly, you're over-thinking this.

I don't know, if God/Jesus actually showed up today and told everyone to quit the BS, yet people continued to sin like crazy, they'd pretty much deserve to go to hell or at least be killed for being so dumb.

i'm pretty sure Christianity says that's already happened

Heh good point. Well I don't exactly believe that that happened :P

Edit -- oh, but did the people who kept sinning in the biblical stories actually know that Jesus was God? Didn't they doubt? (And who wouldn't doubt some shaggy guy in rags walking around saying he's some kind of god.) Mightyboosh meant a visit from God where he actually makes it indisputable that he's God.

Not quite. I'm saying that your implicit model of human psychology is false. You are implicitly assuming that our beliefs about reality (e.g. such as about God or religious matters) should determine our actions and attitudes towards life. Since the beliefs of religious people manifestly do not do so, you are confused. What I'm saying is that you shouldn't be confused by this: our beliefs do not have this large an impact on our attitudes and actions. If you are interested, this is a bit long, but a good primer on why we shouldn't think the mind is a blank slate that responds only to our conscious beliefs.

Well, we've had a number of discussions on what it means to live as though you're an atheist (the general non-Jibninjas consensus was that there is no such thing).

That being said, I think there are some good reasons for thinking that religious beliefs are a special case. One of my hobbyhorses in this forum is that I think both religious and non-religious people tend to incorrectly treat theology as constitutive of religion. While I think theology is important, and a fun topic of discussion, I think our best contemporary theories of religion (e.g. In Gods We Trust) indicate that religion is much more about social identification and justifying our intuitions than abstruse theological claims or special religious experiences of the divine.

On this account, it is not a mystery at all why religious people don't act in the ways we would think their theology say they should act. The pressures of social life and the evolved adaptations of our psychology are just much more powerful than the motivational push that comes from theological beliefs. Thus, while we might have some beliefs about heaven or hell, and they will have some motivational force on our actions, we are even more strongly motivated by social expectations, in/out group dynamics, and so on (For more, I agree with almost everything Razib Khan says here).

I'm pretty sure it's because (almost) no one truly believes.

I was just like you as a kid and planned on becoming a priest. (Why would anyone not become a priest?)

i think OP makes some good points, I also think the other OP (Original Position) makes some good points in response. we're all human at the end of the day and even if you believe in a christian version of god/life/the universe you also believe that we are locked in the flesh and trapped in this mortal coil which is indisputably full of distractions, sin, corruption etc. and nobody is free of that. that's what this life is, we're just here to live it. the NT itself even provides passages about god understanding that we are living a material life and therefore have material needs etc.

the only way to remove yourself from the material world is to withdraw completely and become some sort of hardcore ascetic, spending your days deep in prayer/meditation on the side of a hill somewhere. not only is this hugely impractical and the sort of life that only a select few could pull off even if they wanted to, in the mind of a lot of people (including me) it's a bit of a cop out. if you believe and accept that christ's message was real you should be out there trying to make a difference, not spending all your time locked in a room reading esoteric tomes and rejecting the rest of humanity.

i think a believer should/does have a different perspective from which to look at life, and probably shouldn't be getting too stressed out about certain things. i agree with you heehaw on this. i guess ultimately it varies from person to person depending on life experience, personality etc.

"Are people just that materialistic or is their faith just not strong"

That probably offers two very good explanations.

"Third, how isn't it easy for any devout person not to sin? If you're just thinking about God and the big picture at all times, you'll never have any desire to sin."

don't agree with that. we're hard wired to want and need certain things, even the saints had desire to sin, average joe doesn't have a chance.

That may be what is actually happening but I don't think it answers the question about levels of belief. If god is real, if an eternal heaven and hell are real etc etc, how could anything else possibly ever compete with that in the mind of the believer? There are plenty of examples of those who eschew all peer pressure, all of the social pressure and stick to their guns so I wonder why aren't all theists like that and why are those that do act in that way considered to be 'extremists'? It seems to me that that behaviour should be the norm. It does cause me to question the intensity and level of belief in those that don't act in such a devout way.

Can this be flipped? I'm an atheist, and I'm pretty hardcore, I never accidentally slip into a prayer, I never catch myself asking god for favours or making the sign of the cross or betraying my beliefs so as not to appear unusual or different, and this is despite pretty constant social pressure to do so. I'm committed to my atheism (I don't even have to try it's so embedded), why aren't all theists similarly committed?

why do smokers smoke despite knowing it's bad for their health?

when something is out of sight, it's in our nature to carry on like it's not there to some extent or other.

How does the desire to sin go away in Heaven. Will our minds and thoughts be rewired?

And if so could i even call me me?

i think if either of us ever made it to heaven, whatever that is, we would have no desire to sin because we would desire nothing but the blissful state we were existing in.

at a guess. can't say i'm too sure though.

Then i wouldn't really say we are hard wired to sin.

And God should probably let everyone into heaven...

As Orp mentioned, much of our actions is based on social pressure/expectations. IME most Christians aren't focused on theology.

It depends more on what crowd you end up hanging around with. If your church and friends are very liberal or nominal then you will likely just go with the flow.

People are emotional. It still sucks when your dog dies or when a family member gets cancer. I think many Christians hold a belief in heaven that exists in a vacuum and can't really be conceptualized in a meaningful way.

What does it mean when you say that you are "committed to your atheism"? What does your atheism require of you?

(This is clarification important, because there are many on this forum who would insist that commitment to atheism entails NO requirements at all.)

whilst in this mortal coil i think sin is inescapable and therefore in our wiring to some extent. whatever comes next will probably involve some sort of slightly modified consciousness/identity in which, if we have made it into "heaven", we genuinely have no desire to sin anymore, because we are no longer bound to this world/our bodies etc.

i don't disagree entirely with the second statement, although speaking from experience, there are plenty of people who don't really come high on my list of folk i would like to spend any more time with than i had to.

Just want to identify this as a common but, in my view, misguided prejudice against liberal Christians. Many Christians with more traditional theological views regard liberal Christians through moralistic lens. They'll acknowledge that e.g. Mormons and J.W.'s are sincere if misguided, but they don't think liberal Christians really believe in anything at all (usually stated in a disdainful way as above). I think this is false as liberal Christianity actually has a very rich theological tradition.

It is true that liberal Christians are not as dogmatic about their theological beliefs and so they are more open to those with different views. However, this greater openness is at least partially a result of their theological views about religion--that true religion has more to do with social justice, liberation from oppression, or a mystical experience than the acceptance of certain doctrines.

However, I particularly want to point out that it is not accurate to say that liberal Christians will likely just "go with the flow." Many liberal theologians and religious movements have been oriented directly against the status quo. For instance, liberation theology is an explicitly political understanding of the teachings of Jesus which understands him in quasi-Marxist terms as opposing himself to the ruling powers of society. The Social Gospel movement of the early twentieth-century is another example of this emphasis on changing the status quo, of not just "going with the flow."

batair, would you say we're hardwired to urinate?