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What if there is a god?

Has anyone here every thought about what if there happened to be a god. It doesn't really matter what god or what religion just if there is one. When you die what do you think they/him/her would say and how you would react? If they were a god that passed judgment, do you think that they would understand your reasons for not believing and forgive you or would they punish you without question?

I was raised Christian and while I don't believe anything they say, the above still crosses my mind quite often. I'm a musician and I get a lot of gigs playing for church services, especially around Christmas and Easter. It's hard not to listen to the sermon and try to understand their way of thinking during these times and these questions always pop into my mind during and after the service.

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Permalink Reply by Chuck on June 30, 2009 at 3:39am

I think in Revelations it states that only 144,000 will go up to heaven. Doesn't the Catholic Church have that many saints already?

Really...I would make the argument that if you have a metaphysical system that includes the possibility of a godlike creature judging you, then you haven't thought this through enough. You probably have gotten to the point where the typical religion story doesn't make sense to you and so the "god" they sell doesn't make sense either, but you haven't studied the problem enough to gain certainty that it just isn't necessary or even reasonable to include "god" in your system of thought. I encourage you to study further.

Good luck in your pursuit of the reasonable.

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Permalink Reply by Drawz on June 30, 2009 at 9:47pm

As far as I know the Jehovah's Witness' are one of the few sects that adhere to that number. Which always made me wonder why they're the ones knocking on peoples doors trying to recruit more members, seems like they're just making their own odds of getting into heaven that much slimmer.

Now, I am an agnostic but as for the gods of the established religions of the world, I think Lazarus Long said it best: "men rarely (if ever) manage to dream up a god superior to themselves. Most gods have the manners and morals of a spoiled child."

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Permalink Reply by Jo Jerome on July 1, 2009 at 2:47pm

144,000 virgin males. So my quick answer to the door knockers is that I automatically don't qualify, so why bother?

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Permalink Reply by Ogden Lafaye on November 28, 2009 at 3:45pm

The Catholic Church has a tendency to canonize those who contributed the most to the Vatican's coffers. Thats lately. In earlier times it took hundreds of years, long after the church had forgotten the "saint" in question. The laity began bringing it up over and over for local/cultural/pride reasons of course. The church, in a great show of investigation and considered thought, simply appeased the locals by canonizing someone whose true life, failings and crimes had long been obscured by time.

Catholicism is up there with all the other dishonest forces in mankind's history. It is a criminal organization.

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Permalink Reply by daniel becker on July 5, 2009 at 8:55pm

define god, because it seems like god these days is an incoherent puzzle with ill fitting pieces. creator is probably the most common definition of god. i do not think any religions legitimately worship a creator, they worship this characterthat gives morality, governs the universe, etc. thus i think this notion that god will judge us (that religions spew to believers) are not to be taken seriously. the god that religions worship i am very sure is fabricated, and its characteristics are too. if it turned out that a creator was proven by science, it would be unrecognizable in comparison to the god of religion. i dont think a creator would judge us, or based of our existence on a small planet in the middle of nowhere, even try to contact us.

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Permalink Reply by Andy Armitage on July 6, 2009 at 4:30am

Hmm. Would he/she/it not understand that you didn't choose not to believe? After all, belief is not a choice. Interesting to ponder on, though.

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Permalink Reply by Rev Hellbound Alleee on July 6, 2009 at 9:54pm

If there is a god, then the rules of cause and effect do not apply, we cannot trust our senses and Purple Monkey Dishwasher mxysptlyk Bizzaro Superman.

But since we can communicate and up is not down, I'm pretty sure there are no supernaturals messing with our naturals.

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Permalink Reply by Manimal on July 8, 2009 at 12:22pm

I would just ask to be forgiven and be on my merry way

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Permalink Reply by Dr. Terence Meaden on October 6, 2009 at 10:19am

Some christian asked Bertrand Russell what he would say if he found himself meeting god after he had died.

Russell replied at once: "God, why did you make it so difficult for me to believe in you?"

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Permalink Reply by Dr. Terence Meaden on October 6, 2009 at 10:28am

Further to the point, just as no-one can prove there are not a billion bunches of burnt blue bananas orbiting the sun, you cannot prove that there ain't a god somewhere.
But as true scientists we can say that both the former and the latter are such unlikely occurrences that the possibilities are as near as dammit to zero.

Terry Meaden, of the discussion group "Origins".

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Permalink Reply by Loren Miller on November 16, 2009 at 2:19pm

"Burnt Blue Bananas," eh?

[Yours truly wonders what burnt blue banana plasma looks like in a spectrograph...!]

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Permalink Reply by Ogden Lafaye on November 28, 2009 at 3:51pm

I've got the teapot on my refrigerator. Water is getting scarce but there are still a lot of bananas (and black cats)

Burnt blue bananas go well with refried beans and sour cream...yum. I saute my "blue" (overly ripe to the point of black) plantains in butter SLOWLY, heat up the rice and beans, crack open the sour cream, heat up a few buttered tortillas and voila: a genuine Mexican dinner.

I will bet that 3 in 10 Christians would favor a plan to shoot black cats into the sun. Heyyyyyyyy plasma cats.