When do you become master of your own fate? I ask this question because I find it interesting that the meanist life, the poorest existence, is attributed to God's will, but as human beings become more affluent,as their living stadndard and style begain to ascend the material scale, God descends the scale of respondibility at a commensurate speed.

I don't understand your question.

Are you saying that we ought to give God more credit for our affluence? Or less credit.

Or give god More credit or Less credit for our misery.

Please explain, I can't answer a question I don't understand.

Is god responsible for the good and the bad, or is god the cause of the good and the bad? What are you saying?

Can god's wish and workings be altered by our earthly toils? Do we, as humans, aside from our free will, have the power to alter god's will and his intention what our lifes will be?

What are you saying?

If god is responsible, is he also accountable? Can we judge him?

What are you saying?

i don't understand what your question is trying to elicit.

Marx said that religion is the opiate of the masses. The promise of the afterlife gives the downtrodden and poor meaning in their lives. It gives them hope.

Rich people don't need as much hope. Their needs are met. However, there are rich people who are still religious and attribute their wealth to divine intervention.

But as to your question: hope is useless without action, so the hope that the poor retain for heaven might be translated into a hope for a better earthly life.

Taking responsibility for a religious person might be prayer but also, action to get what he/she needs and desires. People who are truly poverty stricken often do not see a way out of their poverty and would see action as futile.

I see this on a nonreligious level, as well: people get so locked into blaming their parents or others that they can't move forward. They refuse (not can't) to understand that at some point, we have to get over what was done to us and take responsibility for our lives at that point.

My 85 year old mother still broods about things that happened 80 years ago; she is not "master" of her fate.

It's a simple question sir. When do you become master of your own fate? when do you make your life perfect on your on.

Hello Gwendolyn; Thank you for your responce;although I don't agree with Marx about religion being a OPIATE OF THE MASSES the promise of afterlife is throught salvation, salvation is entirely a work of GOD.

Well the poor and downtrodden are in more need of a "savior" and "a guide" so they are targeted more to keep the pews full.

exactly.. and who is there to give them promise? some form of religion... taking advantage of the down on there luck, with promises of a great afterlife...

Salvation is entirely the work of mythological religions that require the all men are in dire need of salvation.

The very notion is a religious notion to begin with.

There is no reason for anyone outside of those religious mythologies to even remotely accept this notion of a need for "salvation".

The religion introduces the "fear element" (i.e. a dire need for salvation), and then it pretends to hold the only key to removing that "fear element".

Outside of those mythological religions the "fear element" doesn't exist.

You must first convince me that God is "out to get me" before you can convince me that I need to do something in order to pacify this angry threatening God.

Without the threat of God's wrath, the concept of "salvation" is moot. So you first need to convince me that God is wrathful.

My first response to that is that a "wrathful God" is no "god" at all by rather it's a demon.

So from my point of view you'd just be trying to convince me that I need to appease a demon. May as well try to convince me of the boogieman as far as I'm concerned.

There are not threats from God. Death is in the cycle of life. You are born, you live/grow, you "die". God offers eternal life after death of this mortal life. It's not a threat of death sentence, only a promise of ever lasting life if you obey as he asks, it's a reward. There is no "punishment" or anything of such, only reward if you wish to accept such a gift.

That is what is said at the beginning and then when they feel they have you "the gift" starts to bite a bit. You have to hate your human self as part of being in god's favor. You have to "share" the word in order to be in god's favor, in other words, harass others into believing that god is watching you be your evil self and doesn't approve.

Why would you have to hate your human self? Know ye not that your body is the temple of god. And why would their be harassment to others? None believers aren't lesser of human beings, they aren't "stupid". they aren't anything of such. They just have made an incorrect decision, we all do through our lives. Outside of "religion" if someone is making a wrong decision in your opinion, would you not tell them? Would you not try to convince them of their mistake(s)? And if not, why wouldn't you try to help someone when you see them doing something you think is going to blow up in their face?

Thank you Dragoness; the bible says"for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." I feel the rich is just as in much need as the poor we all need a savior.

You're talking about Cowboyainity. I was talking about Christianity.

In Christianity Adam and Eve "fell from grace" and are in dire need of repentance. It's absolutely a THREAT of death for having disobeyed God. It's all about a concept of "sin" (disobedience of God), and a need to repent of "sin".

The fairytale that you speak of assumes that death is a natural part of life and that some God can merely save us from this natural process if we ask to be saved from it.

But that's not how the Biblical Story goes.

So I wasn't speaking to your own personal made-up religious fairytales. I was speaking to the religions based on the biblical stories of the jealous God of Abraham who threatens everyone who doesn't repent with spiritual death, or even worse.

Many people actually believe that these stories are basically saying that if you don't gain salvation you'll suffer eternal damnation. The gospels have Jesus himself speaking of wailing and the gnashing of teeth to those who fail to obtain salvation.

It's definitely a threat. No doubt about it.



Besides, without a threat, there would be nothing to be "saved" from.

Spiritual death would not be a threat if you truly believe that you came into existence when you were born. After all, if you didn't exist before you were born, and you cease to exist after your body dies, then you haven't lost a thing.

God threatens not... In this you write truth. Religions are not so truthful. Religion (especially the one you profess) is replete with thunders and lightnings, fire and brimstone, hell and damnation, floods, big hungry fish, punishment by plagues, punishment by pestulance, punishment by all manner of terrible catastrophic disasters... I would warrant that the book you quote contains more 'punishment' for non-followers than it does reasons for joy.

In modern terms it is a propaganda device for spiritual control of macro-group dynamics.

Well, we clearly know that the Bible contains false statements. For example, the Bible also says that no good can come from a heathen, or non-believer.

We know that's false. Thus everything in this collection of myths should be highly questioned.

Besides we have ample proof that these fables are indeed necessarily false and cannot be the word of any supposedly 'all-wise' God.

Absolutely, I agree completely.

This is one clear reason why we can know with absolute certainty that the biblical cannon of fables cannot be the verbatim word of God.

At best there may be some spiritual wisdom mixed in among many man-made superstitions, and outright propaganda. But it's clearly not the verbatim word of any "God".

OP, in your beliefs, salvation is a work of god, but that is only your opinion. I do not need to be saved, and if I did, only I could save myself. If salvation were ENTIRELY the work of god, then humans wouldn't have to do anything, but within the Christian religion, they do; they must accept Jesus as savior. Does god turn away anyone who does that, or does the merely act of acceptance guarantee a person a spot in heaven? If the latter is true, then salvation becomes a "work" on the part of the professor.


Abracadabra wrote:

Hallelujah, brother!

Cowboy wrote:

I once lived next to a psychopath. He tried to assault a woman in the neighborhood but she ran into her house. He became angry at me for a variety of reasons, including his perception that I refused to wave at him when I was driving; he said I put my hands over my eyes so I wouldn't see him.

One night, he lost all control and stood on his porch yelling, "I'm going to get you! That's not a threat, that's a promise!"

It seems that his perception of a threat and the perception of a threat by god is the same. If the Christian god says to me, "If you do not accept Jesus as your savior, I will throw you into a lake of fire," then I perceive that as a threat. He is saying, "Obey me or you will suffer," and that, my friend, is a threat.

If I were truly given the option of freewill, I would not have to choose between accepting Jesus or the lake of fire. I could say,"Hmmm . . . I choose not to accept Jesus AND I choose not to be sent to a lake of fire." Anything less than that is NOT freewill.

Of course, Jesus is not god and there is no lake of fire except in volcanoes.

Problem solved.

One day the entire earth will be consumed by a 'lake' of fire... Perhaps 4 billion years from now.

One hopes mankind will have matured enough to have moved on by then.

Absolutely.

Not only that but even the biblical fables have Jesus himself saying that he came for the sinners and not for the righteous. So if you're a righteous person, you know what you don't need any salvation.

Moreover, if there are other places in the biblical fables that contradict the idea that righteous people exist, that only flies in the face of Jesus' very own words. So all that shows is that the fables are once again inconsistent and totally undependable.

Four billion years is a very long time. Unimaginable by human standards to be sure. If humanity still exists 400 billion years from now that will indeed be a miracle. I think it will be amazing if we make it to our one millionth birthday. We're not even toddlers yet in terms of cosmic time. We're still infants crying in a crib.