Quote:
Davin wrote
Based on what? You not thinking it likely just because, isn't very compelling. I'd also like to know where your knowledge comes from about the proposed god, how can you say that the god won't do such a thing?
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Hi Davin
Firstly I'm in agreement with you that there is no compelling evidence that a God (i.e. personal creator of our universe who offers us a means to afterlife salvation) of any sort exists, and it thereby takes a leap of faith to believe (or even just hope) that any sort of God exists.
For the sake of argument (assuming God's existence), the basis of determining the qualities of God comes from another leap of faith that such God revealed himself to humanity. So we (as a best guess) turn our attention to the reveared historical documents where claims about God, based on alleged revelations from God (written as non-fiction) have been recorded throughout history.
Now of course there are many claims, each describing differing Gods so which one should one place there hope in.? To me, an important aspect is impact factor. It makes sense at least to me that IF a God bothered to reveal himself , then the stories or teachings contained in such revelations would have such powerful memetic concepts that such concepts would survive and proliferate.
Based on this, it is likely that the teachings of the Christianity or Islam would be the most likely. I doubt the Moonies (small minority religious sects) have it right.
Both Islam and Christianity state that a condition of having favor with God - such as to inherit a desirable afterlife - is a Belief in such God. I am not aware of any teachings (accept the holy scriptures of Davin with the Raving Atheist Forum), which ever suggest a God would favor individuals who were Atheists.
So in Summary
1) A belief in God's existence - based on the writings of reveared religious historical documents with high impact factor yields -> desirable afterlife.
2) A disbelief in God existence - based on the writings of reveared religious historical docuemtns with high impact factor -> no desirable afterlife.
3) A mere hope that God exists - based on the writings of reveared religious historical docuements with high impact factor -> maybe desirable afterlife.
That's why I'd like to look into the original Hebrew and Greek words of the Torah and new Testiment documents (reveared documents with high impact factor) which have been translated in English to match the term "believe" to see if Hope may be within the scope of those words.