“Michael Shermer, editor of Skeptic magazine, wryly comments that no one has ever met a dead guy who came back to report on the afterlife.”
But, there is a dead guy who came back to report on the afterlife. That’s the point here. The point is not that Christians insist that they believe on their position without evidence, the point is that atheists reject evidence which doesn’t fit their preconceived notions.
I was an agnostic. However, the question has to be, if scripture is correct, and the account of Christ dying and coming back to life is correct, then the choice is simply to believe. That’s it.
“I was an agnostic. However, the question has to be, if scripture is correct, and the account of Christ dying and coming back to life is correct, then the choice is simply to believe. That’s it.”
Yeah but what’s so great about eternal life? And what is so terrible about death followed by oblivion that one must be afraid of it? See the problem is if death were merely oblivion then eternal life does not seem quite so mean an alternative. According to scripture and many other religions there’s only two places you can end up. Eternal bliss or eternal torture. Let’s face it, fear is a motivator to faith. Fear of eternal torture if one does not surrender and believe. Do you want your spouse to marry you and love you because you will torture her if she does not? No! You would be a sick puppy if you hung that threat over her head! There’s something wrong with God if he has to threaten us with eternal torture to get our love and obedience. There can’t be anything wrong with God, he is perfect. Therefor there is either no God or we have him all wrong and he does not have a heaven or a hell prepared for us. When we die he just sends of back to the void of oblivion where we came from.
I think the biggest detriment to belif is the concept of hell. No loving God would send a person to an eternal torture chamber no matter what that person has done. The concept of hell has to go. And why eternal bliss? Why not live a good virtuous life as a reward in itself and let that be enough?? What’s wrong with that? And let the law, imperfect as it is take care of evil doers in this life? There does not have to be perfect justice in an afterlife where everyone gets what’s coming to them. The essence of virtue just might be accepting that many wrongs will never be redressed in this life or the next and neither will all virture be rewarded.