There is a worldwide announcement made by god telling everyone that hell has been permanently closed. This means that everyone will go to heaven regardless to their crimes. Without the threat of punishment would you still worship that god?
Would you care about your parents, their values, ideals and hopes for you if they did not punish you?
Excellent point. It also shows the lack of understanding from SL. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Jan.
Eh? Firstly if there was a worldwide announcment, one wouldn't believe - they'd know. Secondly knowledge of the existence of the entity does not mean they'd worship it. The question is asking, (theists, not atheists), whether they would continue to worship such an entity if the threat of eternal burning was not there. Get a clue jan.
That depends: were you worshipping God before not to go to Hell, or were you worshipping God for creating you and everything around you?
I'm an atheist.. hence I can't say I have ever worshipped any gods. I thought it interesting to see if theists would bother with worship and servitude if the threats were removed. Alas it's also a question that isn't really going to generate honest answers. I contend that without the threat theists wouldn't bother. It's typically seen in common theist statements and a common opinion that as an atheist believes in no godly threats that he should bizarrely be going around killing everyone for the sake of it.
Exactly! Here the theists are telling us that they are "good" just because they love their god (no fear of torture or anything), but atheists can't possibly be good just because they love humanity. What a crock of lemur droppings.
SnakeLord, furr-real. Interesting. How would they know? How so? You are assuming that all theists who worship God, does so for fear of going to hell. Why is that? For what exactly? Jan.
SnakeLord, I'd be surprised if you get answers at all. The question is nonsense at worst, and relevant to fanatics at best. Why would you contend such a thing? really? Jan.
************* M*W: How could you be sure it was actually "god" making the announcement? How would you hear the announcement? Radio? TV? Internet? Town Criers? Coming from the clouds so everyone could hear it at the same time? Telepathically?
Relax, it was just a question. However, an explanation is below. Because it would be consistent with human nature. What is it you think would happen in a system with no form of punishment? Oh wait, theists are different to other humans.. right?
Who's being ignorant? The burden of proof lies on the person who is trying to prove something. So atheists have no burden on them. By the way, don't call me ignorant until you learn how to spell ignorant!!
mind virus? The idea that "God" and "Faith" are viruses of the mind has provoked some hostile criticism, including John Bowker's 1992-3 Gresham College lectures,[1] in which he suggests that Dawkins' "account of religious motivation ... is ... far removed from evidence and data" and that, even if the God-meme approach were valid, "it does not give rise to one set of consequences ... Out of the many behaviours it produces, why are we required to isolate only those that might be regarded as diseased?" Alister McGrath, a Christian theologian, has also commented critically on Dawkins' analysis, suggesting that "memes have no place in serious scientific reflection",[2] that there is strong evidence that such ideas are not spread by random processes, but by deliberate intentional actions[3] that "evolution" of ideas is more Lamarckian than Darwinian,[4] and that there is no evidence (and certainly none in the essay) that epidemiological models usefully explain the spread of religious ideas.[5] McGrath also cites a metareview of 100 studies and argues that "If religion is reported as having a positive effect on human well-being by 79% of recent studies in the field, how can it conceivably be regarded as analogous to a virus?"[6] Physician heal thyself
