you seriously don’t understand god
says the poor lost soul who also says
why be good if there is no hell
Do many adults still go around
spoutingbelieving whatever they heard from their parents or Sunday school teacher when they were children, just to get them to stop asking “complicated questions”?EDIT: a word
Does anyone think this is real?
I’m glad you asked. It bends my brain imagining one person making up this conversation. He’s clever. It also bends my brain that two people could have this conversation. either way it’s kinda genius.
Everything is real on the internet
What I find even more reprehensible than the sentiment “Without the threat of consequences, why should I be decent?” is that their own fucking book holds the answer to their goddamn question (not an expletive here, their god should and probably would damn them for it):
“So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.” - Matthew 7:12
The first half of this is a principle independent of religion, a fundamental social contract, the most critical idea underpinning any functioning society: Expect your behaviour to be reciprocated, and act accordingly. If you want others to help you if you need it, help people (if you can). If you want others to be kind to you, be kind to others. If you’re gonna be a prick, expect others to be just as prickly to you.
If all that keeps you from murdering people is the threat of eternal damnation, you forget that your own scripture says “If you kill people, expect that others may kill you in turn.”
Bonus: the biblical Jesus was known to hate hypocrites that pick out one piece of scripture to follow and ignore another and pharisees that carefully interpret and follow the letter of the law to find loopholes and ignore the heart of it. Those people lawyering their way around the otherwise unmistakable passages about generosity and giving away your wealth? Believe it or not, straight to hell.
More disgusting than the sentiment mentioned at the start is the hypocrisy of selectively applying it, the inconsistency in their own beliefs, the hollow facade of devotion while spitting on the principles they perjure to obey.
Signed, an apostate whose faith was shattered by fallacy of preaching love while children suffer and threatening hell while blasphemers thrive.
“Have you accepted the al pastor into your heart?”
I always hate that argument. Why be a decent human without the threat of eternal damnation? I mean that threat doesn’t seem to stop a vast number of religious people from being unbelievably cruel to their fellow humans, so…
Religion doesn’t stop a bad person from being evil. It can convince a bad person they’re still good (better!) when they do evil.
And good people don’t need religion to do good. But it can make them overlook the evil of other religious people and protect them, making them bad.
The best-case scenario is that religion can have no effect on how good or bad someone is. Good people stay good despite religion, not because of it.
If anything, it just used as justification for bad behavior. “My genocide is completely justified. It’s what God wanted!”
About a month ago there was a Christian philosopher making exactly this argument, perhaps not realizing how absolutely psychotic he sounded like.
wtf this guy is still around?! I watching some cringy debate video with him vs Christopher Hitchens (RIP) or someone like 15 years ago when I was an edgy teenager and YouTube was new (shit it’s actually like 20 years ago fml)
edit: also he totally knows that’s his schtick
I don’t. It tells you, in clear language, the type of person that this “loving Christian” is. They literally can’t imagine altruism, and that says more about them than what they think they’re saying about me.
It also tells you they only care for the Christian tribal identity, not the actual teachings of Christ.
To be Christian is to be like Christ, not… whatever the hell these people think they are.
Virgin “I live in an existentialist mental hell I’ve been indoctrinated into” vs Chad “A meaningless life in a purposeless universe means I’m the master of my own destiny, and therefore I choose to eat tacos”
People may argue against this, but they probably have never had a real, good taco.
Okay this is actually a perfect eastern vs western philosophy debate hidden in a taco.
I am going to make some very broad strokes here. So no armchair quarterbacking me. I know it’s way more nuanced but I’m not writing an essay on Lemmy.
In general Western philosophies always have a “goal.” Your human life is to prove your worthiness. You need to look back and atone for your past mistakes. You need to look forward so you can do the right things to be worthy. It is very little about being in the now.
Eastern philosophies are much more about being aware of the moment. The past has happened it cannot be changed you should not worry about it. The future doesn’t exist so there’s no need to focus on it. The only thing you can affect is the very moment in time you’re in and the only way to affect it is through your actions.
In this case tacos are the moment. So next time you’re eating a delicious taco. Spend that moment to be one with your taco. Concentrate on the smell. Then feel the texture as you pick it up. How the various colors interact with each other. Then as you bite off some, feel the textures in your mouth and how the flavors interact. Watch yourself, be aware of every time you chew. Remember there is no past there’s no future there is only tacos.
Western philosophy
if god is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent then what is the point in anything
- John Calvin
Such mentality likely has to do with the environment. I read some that strategy games are more popular in Northern Europe than in Southern Europe, with the explanation that strategic planning is more essential for survival when the amount of sunlight is limited and there are months were you can’t really go outside because of snow and coldness.
That would mean adverse conditions require it more to plan for the future. Coldness is indeed just an example for such an environment.
Umm so it doesn’t get cold in Nepal, Tibet, Bhutan, the Gobi Desert, Northern China, etc.?
I have no idea how it plays between northern and southern Europe but there’s no way that the cold environment has anything to do with this it gets equally as cold if not colder in some parts of Asia. Plus many of those places don’t have the abundance of resources that would be provided by the forests or coasts of Northern Europe.
That’s not funny
True. Tacos are a serious subject.
People who say they are only good because of the threat of eternal damnation are literal psychopaths.
Exactly. It just sounds like they would do anything if they were sure they wouldn’t be punished for it.
I’m only good because of the law. I don’t like the idea of spending the rest of my life in jail.
Then you’re not good, you’re just law compliant.
Lawful Neutral
Laws are not written to make people good. Following them doesn’t make you good.
There are countless laws that don’t send you to jail. Do you break them?
I can confirm that Heaven is on Earth and it’s on the side of the road in Mexico. 🥰
If you need the promise of punishment to be good, then you’re not a good person.
You’ve not understood to Existence until you’ve gone “oh good. foo-ood.”
Source: Been a student, subsidised, unsubsidised, employed also, then left alone too. Unemployed, Also an intern, and not as much.
Foo-ooood is goo-ood. Just grab it. If you can. Tacos are better than death.
Agree 100%. (Sorry everyone who is sick of me bringing this up, but…) I am currently suffering from a condition where I can’t eat solid food and I haven’t for close to a year now. You have no idea how lucky you are if you can eat and enjoy food. It doesn’t sound like something that would be a lucky thing, but it absolutely is. There is nothing in this world like a really good meal.
Have you tried liquid tacos?
This person is openly telling you that the only thing stopping them from being a shitty person is some myth about otherworldly punishment after they die.
Which, of course, means they’ll be juuuust as shitty as they believe they can get away with.
also the bible says genocide is ok and its ok to do all sorts of things to folks who aren’t your “neighbor”
Yeah, the “why be good if there’s no God/Hell” is a disturbing as fuck argument, because it essentially says that if they decide that their god wants them to start killing, they’ll do it.
I’m good because if I do something bad, I feel bad about it. It’s pretty simple.
exactly. i understand that doing bad things is bad because i feel guilt and shame when i do bad things. conversely, i feel good when i do good things. I also understand the broader implications of both-- not to mention that i have empathy and can see the impact of my actions upon others while caring as well.
i don’t need a fairy tale to threaten me with eternal torture in order to not be a sociopath.
That’s the problem. These people lack empathy. They don’t feel happy when they make someone else happy unless they get something more than that out of it.
If you and I have an interaction that leaves us both happy, that’s socialism and GOPJesus frowns on socialism.
The number of murderers who claim
goodGod told them to do it is non-zero.who claim good told them
Was this a typo?
Yes, rather an autocorrect-o.
I had a coworker catholic who both said that statement, and also argued animals had no souls, so no one should ever get in trouble for animal abuse. Along with his ridiculously heated response to any government involvement in Healthcare, and the way he got close to yelling when discussing these topics while also claiming he was just being logical, not emotional. Why yes he did call women emotional, how did you know?
People like him scare me, because it sounds like if he could use some religious context to say I didn’t have a soul, he’d probably come to the same conclusion he did about dogs.
One of those increasingly more common conservative Catholics. Disappointing.
Yeah that’s my takeaway from that argument as well. If you have to be threatened by some vague notion of a future punishment in order to not be a complete dickwad, you’re clearly not a good person.
Why be good if there’s no hell? Because to live is to suffer. Society sucks. Accepting that, working past it, and being kind to those around you makes everything slightly more bearable. You are to be kind to others because it’s the right thing to be.
One crisis of faith away from a murder spree.
I’ve said it before I’ll say it again. If you need the threat of eternal damnation weighing over you to be a good person, you’re not a good person.
