Faith. That old refuge for the believer. The answer to a crisis of faith, it always seems, is more faith. But why? This type of thinking can be highly damaging. See an example here of a US Church which encourages its congregation to only pray when they are ill, and not seek any medical attention. Two children already died, and another will probably be left partially blind due to her parents not treating their daughter's horrific eye condition.
It has become central to the religious mind-set. So much so, that some believers these days openly admit that they do not even want to have evidence of God's existence. Sometimes when we talk about this on Twitter, we'll get the "You know that will never be possible" line from a Christian!
I just cannot comprehend that. How you could actually not wish to see evidence that could realise your beliefs as true? Probably because having more faith is seen as a bonus in their social groups. But it seems dishonest to me. It's not as if in the case of evidence coming to hand, that they wouldn't jump on it and proclaim their belief to be true. We get certain believers seeing the face of Jesus on a slice of toast for goodness' sake! And the constant influx of poor people being taken advantage of at the end of their lives at places like Lourdes.
On the false hope of a regression to the mean, um, I should say, a "miracle".
I suppose it's just another way of kidding oneself.
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The dynamics of Heaven and Hell really are one of the absurd aspects of religious belief, (along with the "soul" and at what point this enters humans, but conveniently not other animals).
By my reckoning, if they existed Heaven and Hell must be real physical places. The alternative of course would be "spiritual" places (or I believe the preferred answer of the apologist, "meta-physical"). However I can see no reason to believe this. What does meta-physical even mean? There are no examples of meta-physical states of existence I can think of. I am concluding that this is just load of bullshit made up to rationalise another impossible stone-age idea.
If heaven/hell are spiritual. In the absence of other pertinent experiences, I'm going to assume this is effectively like a dream. Which means it is not real by any serious yardstick. The only reason dreams feel so real and that we may be able to feel pain in them, is that when having them we are actually still connected to our own bodies. The mind/brain link is the only thing that can be shown to trigger pain responses, beyond the obvious possible physical interactions. So if we're dead, you won't be able to feel pleasure or pain. It will be a bit like watching a video, I'd imagine.
If heaven/hell are physical. My first question is, where are they? Up in the clouds? Down in the mantle? I don't think so. No sign yet of these necessarily huge realms inhabited by blessed or cursed souls. Of course, to be physical, our consciousness must be transferred to another body as ours is still in he morgue. This is dualism - currently impossible.
Of course the get-out clause would always be "Satan makes you feel pain" (or God for that matter if he thinks you deserve to be punished, what a great dude). But this goes back to the old canard of Special-Pleading. When we are sent to hell, you can't get away from the notion that this is a GOD being infinitely more evil than Hitler was - we are receiving an infinite punishment for a finite crime. I can't think of anything MORE unjust. And yet God is supposed to uphold the ultimate paradox of being perfectly just and perfectly merciful. Which is a logical impossibility, by the way.
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Other nonsensical aspects of Heaven/Hell:
Timescales - "Eternity". Why didn't they just say "a really long time"? Eternity - really? The universe will end in another few billion years! That would cause a bit of upheaval I think, quite a big influx! In fact I think eternity might just mean "eternity for us" - i.e. the same time as own lifespans, that would be my own interpretation. How come "eternity" is literal? Other things from the Bible are taken as figurative. Remember, this "eternity" comes from the same people who think the world is 6000-10000 years old, and that 2000 years out of this total still counts as "soon" when applied to Judgement day, or the Rapture, or Jesus' return, whatever the hell they say it is. Yeah, 20% of the age of the earth, that's real soon.
The "evil" Devil and "good" God - The Devil is always made out to be the evil guy, but in terms of Heaven/Hell, he's just doing what he knows - doing his job. The Devil punishes "bad" people, which is apparently what they "deserve". Why is that so evil?
God is the high-and-mighty judge sending us that way to begin with. He is the one ignoring the unavoidable protests from those good people in Heaven who must surely be objecting to those good non-believers who are being turned away. Just think about it. If I were a good person in Heaven, the first thing I'd do is offer to exchange places with some non-believer who was better than me (not hard to find). If that wasn't allowed, we would protest about it surely? And that would lead to dissent and tension in Heaven. Sounds great, no?
And what about believers who were let into Heaven despite their foul deeds? We'd be positively clamouring to get them swapped out for those more worthy, especially those who didn't quite make the cut. And all this has been going on for 2000 years. To me, heaven sounds like a noisy prison inhabited by either powerless people who can't influence God and can't breakout, or brainwashed fools who don't care to. Either way, it's not somewhere I want to go.
Now tell me God is REALLY the good one.
Additional: 17 Dec 2013
The following has also occurred to me, which I thought was relevant to this topic. In an attempt to try and refute the Argument from Evil, theists will often bring up the notion that God must allow some evil people to exist in the world, to provide a contrast for good to be defined against. I usually try and argue this point, stating that God should be able to, if he were omnipotent, only allow people to exist who are always good, and then somehow "fix the game" to make it appear as though we still have virtuous good (good done freely, when evil was also an option). After all, the illusion of free will can seem remarkably similar to the real thing. However, I find that this intejection is always rapidly disregarded for some reason. But can it be? It seems to me that the example of Heaven clearly shows that God is able in principle to create a self-contained zone or domain where evil is alleged not to exist at all. It appears to me as if God would be able to create an evil-free world if he so wished - as long as there existed elsewhere a good-free world to compensate. However, it is not at all obvious to me that these two locations need to be merged or even accessible from each other.
Therefore I do not accept the refutation that some evil must be allowed in this world. As an aside, this argument leads me to another thought on the absurdity of Heaven, that being the free-will of its inhabitants. If you think about it, all Heaven does is pass on the problem of evil by one step. Most theists would probably admit that many of the people in Heaven are not perfect and still had character flaws when they entered. Now either you lose free will when entering (cosmic dictatorship, anyone?) or we must allow for the possibility that friction between these different personalities could emerge. This could then lead to evil deeds being done. Given the eternity promised for Heaven dwellers, this is not a possibility that can be dismissed lightly. So it seems to me that Heaven must either be a drone colony for God worshippers, or little different from this world, just a step on. Does Heaven have another Heaven after it where the less evil inhabitants are sent. Are wrongdoers sent to Hell, or back to Earth? Do we have an infite regress of Heavens ?! Does God explode in a puff of logic ? (Credit to the late, great Douglas Adams). These are questions that theists should be able to answer, yet usually cannot.
This is the same God, by the way, who is supposed to be "immaterial...as a spirit" and at the same time in whose "image we are made". Arrogant poppycock. Last time I checked, I looked less like Kasper the naughty ghost and more like a regular white dude. "On the first day, man created God" as us atheists say. Bloody Hyperactive Agency Detection Device.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperactive_agency_detection_device
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