According to the Christian God, you will be rewarded w/ eternal life and riches in heaven if you do x, y, and z. So people are basically only doing x,y, and z so they can receive a reward, not because it is the right thing to do. In essence, God is bribing people. Christians, I want to know your viewpoint on this, or show me why my thought process is whack. Thank you.

False dichotomy. It could be for both reasons.

Loaded language.

How would you describe what God is doing?? What word would you use.

God is charging admission into His heaven. This is the only place life can be sustained after nature takes its inevitable mortal course. If you're unwilling to do what is necessary to go there, you're free to choose death.

As an atheist psychologist I can tell you straight away that yes it does, if your goal is to condone certain behaviors.

However, in terms of the Christian god I think the severity of both rewards and punishments are unnecessarily high, and that the distributions of the rewards and punishment is down right silly...there is no learning in it.

However god might not have effectiveness on her agenda.

This is in the ballpark.

I think God knows its inevitable people will misunderstand him to some degree so in order to maintain a certain level of law and order while people are in the world he lets us believe in heaven and hell.

But Christian universalism is the most accurate view as it demonstrates both God's power and holiness and demonstrates that God's justice is proportionate and remedial rather than punitive. People think justice is suppose to be punitive. But God's view of justice is rehabilitative and designed to restore people. In criminal courts of law today punishment and rehabilitation are both aims of the justice system so we tend to confuse these in our mind and see only punishment/reward in God's plan.

By Dr. Stephen E. Jones
If God Could Save Everyone WOULD HE?:
http://www.dimensionsoftruth.org/oth...yone-would-he/

The Tension in Creation:
http://www.gods-kingdom-ministries.o.../Chapter13.cfm

how about the word threatening

don't accept (insert deity) into your heart as your one true gawd? Then suffer (insert eternal punishment)

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morality does not come from religion.

Loaded language.

How about the phrase making you an offer you can't refuse.

Accept God's terms for admission into His heaven or be left to your own devices (i.e. permanent death when it inevitably occurs: what has been translated "eternal punishment" in English versions of the Bible).

An argument-free non sequitur assertion. Nothing for me to work with.

It's not about not accepting God's terms, but about not believing that God that made those terms exists.

If when I die God asks me to accept his terms or die I will gladly accept his terms. I won't choose to die.

It's stupid to say someone chooses to die, just because he doesn't believe in something.

You misunderstand. Belief in God is included in the terms to get into His heaven after your death. As far a God is concerned, you DO have a choice whether to believe in Him or not. He designed you and knows your every thought, so He would know.

i think a lot of people would say that true belief is not a choice at alll...

To me it like someone telling you that if you keep playing trash hands you will end up losing hands and going broke.

He doesn't know every thought if he knows that.

A lot of people would be very wrong then.

I would definitely say that the reward/punishment view is wrong. Although many people turn it into that.

You need to look at it in terms of natural consequences. God is letting you know what you need to do to have eternal life, and the consequence of not following down that road.

If I told you that putting your hand in the fire will burn you, and you do it and get burned. Did I punish you with the burn? No. If you don't put your hand in the fire and don't get burned, did I reward you with not getting burned? No.

To say God rewards/punishes implies that things could be different. The rules are not arbitrary, they are what they are as a natural extension of God's nature.

How can someone choose to believe in Yahweh then?

Yeah i know a series of choices...


Attention all believers please stop believing in God right now. Its easy, its just a choice.

Your last statement is a total stawman.

And if you think that people don't convince themselves to believe things, you are totally naive. You really have never met someone that convinced themselves they are in a good relationship, or that they were good at something when they were not?

People choose to believe things all the time. Maybe not at a drop of a hat, but they choose none the less.

Well; If you rigged the floorboards, stoked the fire, hid the bandages, turned off the main water valve and cut the phonelines I think we can make a good case against you either way.

Maybe but its also just reality. You cant choose to stop believing in God and i cant choose to believe in one right now. We would both need new knowledge to override the knowledge we already have.

Ok thats all fine. Going under the idea its possible to choose to believe in Yahweh then tell me how someone can choose to believe or not believe in him.

Jib i was a believer. Do you think i choose to believe and stop believing? Because thats just not my experience.

I am not you. I can never know your experiences.

So are you denying that people in my above post exist?

Well for most people "good" is pretty obvious. At least in the beginning. Do you think that it is blurred whether or not killing someone is wrong? Or that helping someone in need is right? Do you think that most people do not know what sort of direction they should move towards even if some of the choices along the way are blurry?

Do you think that for most people who live selfish lives really never knew what the right thing to do was? I guess maybe I give people too much credit.

People having false beliefs about themselves and their capabilities doesn't establish that they choose them. God's existence is not a subjective question (a la "am I good at this?" or "does she really love me?") it's a question of objective fact.

Do you think people can choose to believe what the answer to such a question is when there is insufficient evidence to persuade you? Can you choose to believe that the number of stars in the universe is odd?

Well i never chose either.
I denying i can choose to believe in Yahweh right now. So telling me to without the how is kind of pointless.


But we've gone down this road before and im interrupting Mr. tame_deuces wb.