If I believed in heaven of a type worth being in (I add that caveat but the heaven generally believed in by those in the judeo-christian tradition does not appeal to me at all) I think the urge to suicide would be irresistible.

In the presence of such belief, continuing to live your temporal life is just a very odd form of masochism.

Maybe that's why certain Muslims are so cool with suicide, and Westerners see it as suckitude.

Well, I'd like to think that I've have sufficient self restraint to only take with me those who wish to go.

I'd like to know what your ruffled panties have do to with yule?

But I love the photo. ha ha ha.

This is much more to my thinking then that of a God and heaven up in the clouds and a devil out to tempt everyone to sin. Thanks for putting it into words for me. When I try to explain it I end up rambling a bit and can't really clarify it as well as you just did.

Let's hear it for strong nuclear force!

Oh. I thought he was talking about midichlorians.

Midichlorians! Now that's blasphemy!

Yes, that second definition is so broad as to include literally everything, so,maybe not too useful by itself. Let's add a moral dimension to it just for fun. (The force that holds us together also nudges us towards evolving into more compassionate beings.)

Of course, I'm now guilty of inventing a God to my own specifications, rather than trying to discover what is actually true. So it goes.

No -I don't think it does. I don't think it has any moral anything about it. I feel that you can influence though. And this probably goes back to my Wiccan days - the good you put out comes back to you moreso as does the bad.

It's the selfish motivation factor I guess - don't do back stuff or worse bad stuff will happen to do. Therefore, when bad things happen one may indeed ask - what did I do to deserve this?

But that's just me and my thought process. YMMV.

In a way, that is the secret behind The Secret. The problem is that if carried to its conclusion it removes any need for compassion at any level. For if bad things happen, the person brought it on themselves.

The poor deserve to be poor because they must have done something bad. The sick deserve to be sick. And the rich must be incredibly good people.

We ridicule this idea when Jerry Falwell says it and personifies that force in the form of a vengeful god. And yet I hear a lot of people espouse the same fundamental idea, just emphasising the good half instead of the punishment half. But they're both still there.


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And now I'm sliding into debating. I knew GD was baiting me. I'll try to stop.