Death is so tempting because it answers several important questions/See you in hell
I cannot consider myself an aggressive male in any sense, but if there's 1 fight you can count on me picking on it would be with christians. It came as quite an amusement, therefore, when, on a peaceful friday night, I found myself incapable of subverting a friend's inner shield of faith. I tried everything in my bible to bring down his--everything from proof of existence (they usually stumble here but this devout fellow knows his stuff very well) to enquiring about our purpose of life to, when it was certain conventional moves achieved no progress, the point (or lack thereof) of eternal happiness in heaven. It came as a further amusement that I had my bunkmate, a fellow agnostic and astronomy-lover, to help me out-- to no avail.
The christian position is unassailable for 3 simple reasons. First, they have the bible. There's no use going against it and if you can't rid its contents or provenance of their validity half the battle is lost. Second, for what arguments they cannot satisfactorily counter, they can simply create backdoor routes with things such as "God is a superior being, and we cannot deem ourselves capable of understanding his actions, his motives". Last but not least--and this is a prime sticking point for me-- they will always have the last laugh. The situation is simple: if heaven and hell exists, non-believers are the losers*, and if they dont exist, nobody wins or loses. In short, the result can only be a draw or a loss for non-believers, no matter how well your other arguments are, no matter how strong you are in your disbelief.
With all that being said, I've got to say no one emerged the victor or the loser on that particular night. Does it matter to him that Im still not convinced? Does it matter to me that my arguments were defeated? I remain the agnostic that I am, he remains the christian that he is. The main thrust of the debate-- whether god exists or not-- is a question which cannot be fully answered till the very end, and even then we cannot be sure we would know everything, or anything at all.
PS. Humbled by what strong faith (or rather, what strong arguments) my friend had, I returned to my bunk with my bunkmate where he commented encouragingly that, should the christian be right, we would be seeing each other in hell. Well come then, it is not as if I havent been in 1 already.
*Even I admit that eternal bliss is preferred to eternal suffering. My mate provided some very good avenues for thought here. He suggested that, while the two are at extreme ends at the start, they would converge to 1 single point as time goes by-- numbness. He also commented that eternal happiness is possible only if 1 has no memories at all (go figure that out yourself). If 1 is to experience bliss in heaven (or anywhere else) eternally they would have to be brainwashed eternally. As my friend puts it, if god really does exist, the first and only request Im going to ask from him is to destroy my self completely.
The christian position is unassailable for 3 simple reasons. First, they have the bible. There's no use going against it and if you can't rid its contents or provenance of their validity half the battle is lost. Second, for what arguments they cannot satisfactorily counter, they can simply create backdoor routes with things such as "God is a superior being, and we cannot deem ourselves capable of understanding his actions, his motives". Last but not least--and this is a prime sticking point for me-- they will always have the last laugh. The situation is simple: if heaven and hell exists, non-believers are the losers*, and if they dont exist, nobody wins or loses. In short, the result can only be a draw or a loss for non-believers, no matter how well your other arguments are, no matter how strong you are in your disbelief.
With all that being said, I've got to say no one emerged the victor or the loser on that particular night. Does it matter to him that Im still not convinced? Does it matter to me that my arguments were defeated? I remain the agnostic that I am, he remains the christian that he is. The main thrust of the debate-- whether god exists or not-- is a question which cannot be fully answered till the very end, and even then we cannot be sure we would know everything, or anything at all.
PS. Humbled by what strong faith (or rather, what strong arguments) my friend had, I returned to my bunk with my bunkmate where he commented encouragingly that, should the christian be right, we would be seeing each other in hell. Well come then, it is not as if I havent been in 1 already.
*Even I admit that eternal bliss is preferred to eternal suffering. My mate provided some very good avenues for thought here. He suggested that, while the two are at extreme ends at the start, they would converge to 1 single point as time goes by-- numbness. He also commented that eternal happiness is possible only if 1 has no memories at all (go figure that out yourself). If 1 is to experience bliss in heaven (or anywhere else) eternally they would have to be brainwashed eternally. As my friend puts it, if god really does exist, the first and only request Im going to ask from him is to destroy my self completely.