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Quotes, Housekeeping and New DARF Chat

Quotes - 21 July 2008

To the DARF Community,

This time around we have a good selection of quotes for you. So good that it was quite hard to filter it down for the journal. But once again, we have persevered and come up with the not-so-weekly quotes of the week.

But before I get onto the quotes, I would like to remind you all that we really do appreciate receiving quotes of the week suggestions. So if you see a post which is worthy of a mention, feel free to drop a line and let us know.


From ~Jamaru-shin's thread "Extreme hypothetical situation X: You, an atheist, end up in the Christian heaven." [link]

What would you do? I mean, atheists dont believe in Heaven or Hell or anything, but I hear alot of them praise hell for some odd reason. But what if shortly after death, you end up in heaven? Would you request to get booted to hell? Would you stay? Would you vouch for God to erase you from existence to forget about the entire thing to embrace the ideal atheist "afterlife"? And lets make it a bit more enticing, this heaven is unlike the Biblical descriptions. For some reason, God lets you do WHATEVER it is for the rest of eternity, while no external harm is done to whatever it is you wanted to do for said eternity. He also hooks you up with a place that is so ideal, you cant even begin to describe how great it is in words. I mean, seriously, what would an atheist do if it happened that way? You die, nonbelieving or all out opposing God, but you end up in heaven. Good? Bad? I dunno, I always wanted to ask this question.


~SuperMaids says:

"Christians, or catholics rather, believe that nonexistance in it's most extreme form is the most perfect thing available, as their view of heaven (the beautious vision) renders people basically nonexistant. If tyou really look at it, there's no life at all in the catholic vision of heaven, npot even thoughts, they DO aspire to nonexistance. So to do all but pure land bhudists. Athiests in the main, don't believe in an afterlife, and don't want to die, but accept it as a fact, rather than aspiring to it. Most theologicgians and philosophers would argue that the forms of afterlife that DON'T just simplify down to nonexistance and the death of the personal ego/soul are so logically incoherent and childish, that they couldn't possibly exist."


^mrrste says:

"I don't see any kind of dilema here. Your an atheist because there is no evidence of a god to believe in him. If you go to heaven when you die and find out that he is real and that he does not care that you didn't beleive in him and he is letting you exist in bliss, what kind of person would not say "oh well, I was wrong, here is my proof, roll on bliss"?

You wouldn't be an atheist if you asked to go to hell after finding this out, who would be a retard.



In ~Butchers' thread "Epicurean Riddle"

I would love to get your take on this little problem from Epicurius. I don't know if it is a complete disproval of the existence of God as some would claim, but surely it presents at least a very interesting question on the nature of God and of evil. What do you think?


"Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?
Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing?
Then he is not omnibenevolent, he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing?
Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing?
Then why call him God?"

-Epicurius

~Peacefroggie says:

"Still the most coherent statement of the problem of evil in theology.

My answer is, there is no evil but for the perception of we limited beings. Think about it. A rock falls on another rock, is that evil? Of course not. A rock falls on a person, is that evil? How, if the first is not? The only difference is that a feeling being happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and its brief life and potential is extinguished in a burst of pain and regret.

Every person knows that they must suffer pain in life and that eventually their life must end, and yet we persist in believing that this is somehow wrong and incorrect, and we insist that God must save us from feeling this pain and anxiety. Why must God do this? It is our own prerogative, it is within our power, to resign ourselves to our fate, to accept who and what we are. We suffer pain because in our brief lives we lack perspective and fail to realize that all this is transitory, that what is created must change and pass away and be destroyed.

Fear of death and pain, greed to draw more than we need out of our time here on earth, these blinders cause humanity to turn upon itself and drive that lack of vision and perspective which we call evil. Yet we all have the spiritual resources within and without with which we can see that death is not to be feared, that pain is passing and tenuous, that we are more than this mortal shell; God has provided us all with what we need to transcend that which we too simply call evil, it is all there, it is done already. So why do we sit here like greedy children demanding more of God, when everything we need is right in front of us?"


~digital-clockwork says:

"I don't believe that one can only either be omni-benevolent or malevolent. Where is the middle ground?

It is possible that God permits evil in order that we can exercise our free-will. Without a choice between what is good and what is evil we do not have free-will because the obvious best choice has already been determined for us.

The formulation is as follows... IF God gave free-will to us then a necessary condition of that free will is a world where evil can exist."


~SuperMaids says:

"This is the most conscice formulation of one of the oldest problems to face religious believers, strange to see it's also one of the oldest. I don't think the problem of evil can be used as an argument against god, but it can be used as an argument against worshiping god (because he's so immoral from our perspective, that he doesn't appear to be worthy of worship) or following his commands (there's no way to know what he wants us to do or doesn't if his coneption of good and evil is that different, so no way to know what he commands, so best to live life as though he doesn't exist).

I think the firbrand, he's malevolent but we should still worship him because he can kick our asses back to the stone age response is the most plausible "


In =elphabamonkey's thread "Why does God allow innocent people to suffer?"

for the athiest and agnostics.


[link]



~SwissArmyBlade says:

"Wow, that was a terrible argument.

For better reading, I would suggest The Problem of Pain by CS Lewis (mentioned in the article, but completely ignored) and God at War by Gregory Boyd.

I don't know how you expect to appeal to Atheists and Agnostics with articles that slander and insult their intelligence in the first paragraph."


~Scarrl says:

"Unfortunately much of the logic on that page is horribly backwards. They're justifying an assumed conclusion rather than seeking a conclusion themselves.

If you don't see the flaw in this, look at it this way. If it were an assumed fact that carrots are purple (in the manner of assuming truth in the bible) then you can make up any justification you want for our not seeing them as such, and declare victory- because we all know carrots have to be purple, right?

But all this argument will do is solidify the beliefs of those who already believe for other reasons, and irritate those who do not.

I'd recommend something not from a christian advocacy group next time."

~SuperMaids says in response to ~Scarrl's post:

"Or something from your own head, and not some website "



That's the quotes for this week. And remember, if you see a post you would like to be featured in the next quotes, then feel free to let us know via note.



A little housekeeping

Just a reminder, this forum values thoughtful, respectful and stimulating debate. That does not mean copy-pasting or linking to external sites for any other reason than to support an argument of your own. It also does not mean posting incendiary comments about other deviants or highlighting to the entire community the content of private messages without the express consent of those who authored them. What it means is that you should look to use your own words to put forward your own arguments and should do the same in response to others.

I didn't think I would have to explain it so acutely like that, and I know that it isn't something which applies to the vast majority of you. But that said, there is STILL certain DARF members who do not seem interested in playing by the rules.



New DARF Chat Room

Now to get away from some of that negative housekeeping.

We are very proud to announce a new feature of the DA Religious Forum. We now have a chat room which can be found here. [link]

Feel free to have a look. For the time being it will be pretty quiet due to the fact that this is quite a small community on Deviant Art. However, very shortly we will be arranging designated chat times so that organised discussions and debate will be able to take place in the chat room.

The chat feature will add a new and hopefully very fun element to DARF. We hope that you all enjoy it!


Thanks and all the best until next time,

~Butchers

DA Religious Forum Staff

~Butchers Club Founder, Administrator
*SwordOfScotland Club Founder
*Gibah Administrator


DA Religious Forum Club Disclaimer
A. It is not the intention of the DA Religious Forum Club to convert to, endorse, nor condemn any belief system. This is merely an electronic location to convene and discuss every belief system, or non-belief.
B. The DA Religious Forum Club endorses the accepted Rules of Engagement [link] , as posted in the DA Political Forum Club, and believes all posters should be civil in their discussion.