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Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Sound off 02-04-09

Since I kinda touched on this in my last post, I'll open this question to the floor:

If upon death you meet God, but a different god than you believed in before you died (say, Krishna or Amaterasu), what would you say or do? (Or, if you're atheist, what would you say or do upon meeting any god?)

This question assumes that the alternate god is displeased with your allegiance to the "wrong" god.

4 comments:

  1. I guess I must have a secret wish that there is a god so that I could argue with him after I die: "how does someone in Your position make me a skeptic, leave no evidence of Your existence, and then make blind faith the highest virtue? The deck was stacked against me." I guess that's what I'd say, right before I got tossed into the inferno.

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  2. Well, if I meet a God different from the one I believed in, I'd probably be in good luck! Since he (or she) would be different, I probably wouldn't have to worry about the eternal inferno.

    God would probably be quite understanding and forgiving, and let me join everybody else hanging out in the green, peaceful meadow we all now call heaven.

    Should it be that I meet the God that I did once believe in, well, there's only one thing to say -- Oh, shit!

    There's no arguing with a despot.

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  3. Oh, and one other thing, -- if assume that I were a believer in God and encountered a different God than I expected, I'm no different than being an atheist at that point.

    To a fundamentalist Christian, for example, everyone else who is non-Christian is in the same amount of jeopardy as the atheist. What's the difference?

    So then, what's the difference in me if I were to believe in the classical Christian God of fundamentalism, but meet a different God who is still angry that I didn't worship his correct identity? I'm no different than being an atheist at that point. Except that, I didn't waist so much precious time in vain worship.

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  4. Hi Uruk:

    I try to limit the number of Richard Dawkins quotes I make in order to avoid the stereotype of atheists being a different brand of fundie, running around with highlighted copies of "the God Delusion" instead of a red-lettered KJV.

    Having said that, Richard Dawkins once said "we're all atheists about most of the gods that have ever existed; some of us just go one God further." Zeus is every bit as vain, petty, and cruel as Yahweh. But no one bats an eyelash if you say you don't believe in Zeus. So, as you say, what's the difference?

    ~Eric

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