OnceConvinced wrote:Drs made this statement in another thread:
From what I see, most people don't want to go to Heaven because they don't want to obey GOD.
Ok, lets make some assumptions here based on what Christians believe:
Heaven: Paradise. Eternal life. No sickness, sadness. All joy. You'll never run out of things to do. It will be FANTASTIC (and no you won't just be sitting around on clouds playing harps or worshiping at God's feet all the time). There is no slavery involved. You won't have your freewill violated. Eternal life is definitely not a curse here.
God: Merciful, loving, just. He loves us so much. Everything he does is for our own good. He's a fantastic guy.
SO:
If the God above was proven to be real. If he had certain laws that had to be followed and you had to obey those laws. If he could be shown not to be a genocidal maniac and that everything he did was for our own good, and if you could gaurantee you'd get to go to Heaven, would you obey him?
Also as a side question:
If you decide you don't want to obey God, does that also automatically mean you don't want to go to Heaven as Drs seems to believe?
Possibly. It would still depend on what his requirements were and what the alternatives are - in a nutshell, what you mean by merciful, loving, and just. If, like the churches I've been to, he required me to sacrifice my ability to love whomever I so choose, consume whatever substances I choose, etc. then no I would not worship him. I'd rather forfeit this heaven than suffer through any more depression or fracturing of my psyche here on earth because of the requirements of Christianity. Also, if the alternative to worshiping this god was to go to hell I would not worship him. As I told my Christian friend and coworker who carried me to church with her a couple of times, any god that would send people to a place of eternal torment is not worthy of worship. (She stopped inviting me to church after that conversation.) I think the vast majority of Christians I've met in my life time think that lots of impossible rules and sending people to hell is completely compatible with a loving, just, and merciful god.
If this god did not suffer from any of the things I mentioned, then I might consider worshiping him. However, if he was truly loving and truly just and truly merciful, in my opinion he would love me and allow me to go to heaven regardless just for trying to live my life the best I could and seeking truth and understanding wherever I could. I really don't see that god being too hung up on the whole worship thing.
Edit: As for your side question, which I quoted and then forgot to answer, I could never answer the question as a Christian of whether or not I really wanted to go to heaven. Keep in mind that I didn't believe in a hell of eternal torment. The whole concept of heaven made me uncomfortable. I suppose if I could still keep my free will and make the decision any time in the eternal future that I didn't want to be there anymore and could leave then it would be alright. It bothered me that the bible said there wasn't any marriage (or something like that) there because I wondered what status my parents and my spouse (if I ever get married) and other couples in my family would have. The concept of heaven really doesn't make sense to me and therefore I'm extremely wary of it. I really wish I had better answers to these questions than, "Well I guess it just depends."
