God and punishment

[Stevil]

400 atheists in an airplane, plane stalls. Will all 400 refuse a desperate plea to God?

I am going to the point that I want to make clear that:

1) God can not be described.

God is a man made concept. A mythilogical focus point for people to associate with and want to please. A tool to control people and to get their behaviours aligned with the way the authors, editors, commissionor's want.

2) Man is more a being of emotion then of reason and logic.

Our decisions and actions are often driven by our physical being, there is no abstract soul and objective morality outside of this physicality.

3) The Quran, the Bible and other religious scriptures have one thing in common, FEAR.

The authors realised that without sufficient buy-in e.g. consequences, people would not take on board the moralities being prescribed

4) Concept of threatening man is simple yet brilliant --> works well for the common man.

This concept has been around long before religion. I think actual brilliance is the ability to influence without threats, to lead by example and to have people want to follow, to lookup to and admire one's leadership. With this in mind, the Gods as described in the Bible and the Qur'an both fail.

5) If scriptures were full of passages of love and mercy and reason, common man would not listen.

I know next to nothing about the Qu'ran, and I know only a little of the bible, but from what I gather the bible does not show much examples of love at all other than the rediculous assertion that "God is love", yet it is full of death, torture, unrelenting subservience, cruel tests, examples of how one should unquestionly obey and behave.

6) This does not mean that God wants to torture us all.

God is a man made concept, God has no wants. God does not exist.

If God really liked torturing us, then He would not warn us.

God does not have a penis, god is not a he.

Qur'an - [15:89] - "and clearly tell the unbelievers: "I am most certainly a plain warner."

Warning heard, warning ignored.

[fester30]

Suppose God exists, does He have a character?

I take the liberty to present my take on these questions.

Even if we suppose a god exists, the question of such a being having character can only be answered in a speculative manner. A worthless speculation, at that.

Do the Bible or the Qur'an describe God?

Probably not. (If you were asking "which one", the answer is probably neither)

Yes, I'm still working with the supposition that there are such things as gods. The thing is... For people to have accurately described such a being WAY before anything even resembling the Scientific Method... Well, it's very unlikely.

okay, so the Quran nor the Bible describe God.

My next question: Is man a being of reason and logic or emotion?



@Fester, tell your uncle that death has been appointed for each soul before it's birth.
It's a part of destiny, no matter our actions.

Qur'an - [ 16:61 ] -  "Were Allah to take people to task for their wrong-doing, He would not have spared even a single living creature on the face of the earth. But He grants them respite until an appointed term. And when that term arrives, they have no power to delay it by a single moment, nor to hasten it."

For one thing, I argued that the Bible does describe God.  For another, I'm not going to lie to my uncle about souls and such.

[xSilverPhinx]

@ iSok

On your plane example, it really is rather pointless speculation. People are driven to survive, and make choices in order to achieve that. One of those choices might be wish for a god to save you and actually take action to survive or give in, accepting through wishful thinking survival in the "next" life. The next choice would be, which god are you going to believe in and pray to (and thus negotiate your survival with) to save your life? The one that you already believe in? That your parent's believe in? The one permeates your native culture?

But not all people go that way though, not everyone tries to control a situation through a god, even if despairing.