How do you perceive God - how do you feel about Divine Judgement?

[Littiz]

I'm not religious.
I know little of religions.
But as I said in another thread, what's the point in acting good, if you do so in fear of a possible punishment??

I'm not saying that all religions imply this. Maybe none does.
But many people I know DO act this way.
They seem only interested in their affairs, then they find something wrong done in the last week, so they have something to confess in Sunday with the priest.
And they're CLEAN again.

Surely many people follow their own religion in a deeper and involving way, I'm not blaming anyone.
Yet, there's something wrong at the origin IMHO..

[Nightmare]

Well, as most of you know, I'm an atheist. So you can pretty much guess my opinion on this.

[fable]

My own opinion, for what little it's truly worth: I don't see "judgement" entering anywhere into a post-mortem picture. Judgement implies a scale of values, and deific judgement would imply a perfect scale of such values. However, there are quite a number of religions that presume to offer such a scale, and they all differ. At best, only one is right, and all the rest are wrong. Alternatively, they are all wrong.

(This is not a reflection upon these religions. I hope it's understood that I'm considering only this presented scale of values, not a religion itself, and that I'm using simple logic to outline a condition: If A claims to be right and all others wrong, and B claims to be right and all others wrong, than either A is right, or B is right, or both are wrong. I'm not the most logical of people by a longshot, but even I can perceive this.)

Are we to conclude that some god or goddess or pantheon waits for each soul, sees if they joined up to the right religion; and then hear, "You were a dutiful son, raised your children with love, made difficult decisions to best of your knowledge; but alas chose the wrong religion, and so, will go to eternal torment"...?

Or should we conclude that joining the right religion isn't the core guiding fact defining one's placement after death (although several religions insist it is), but how one lived one's life? I don't see why or how people can be judged by lives spent in a world where there many holy books and holy men and women preaching contradictory solutions to the same problems, and where daily dilemnas of life prompt internal voices that again pull in different directions. Nor do I find the holy books in question without internal inconsistencies, sometimes on a massive scale in so far as guiding conduct is offered to humanity, both by example and direction.

(Please note that my questions above are not meant to be addressed to anybody. They are merely hypothetical. In fact, I'd rather they not be answered, since that will take us away from stating our series of opinions on this issue.)

If there is such a thing as deific judgement, perhaps each is judged by the deity to which he or she holds. Alduous Huxley speculated that the soul, after death, can either accept its own obliteration in the entirety-which-is-god, or flee back to another form of life. I find that too pessimistic; maybe, as I've suggested before, flaws which form the self are simply burnt out after death, for as long as that takes.

I honestly don't know. Haven't a clue. Interested in finding out, though, someday.

[RandomThug]

I too am horribly curios about finding out, you first though.

thug

[fable]

Quote:

Originally posted by RandomThug I too am horribly curios about finding out, you first though.

LOL! I suspect that'll be the case, given my age, unless someone gets the spelling police after you, first.

[HighLordDave]

Quote:

Originally posted by RandomThug I too am horribly curios about finding out, you first though.

Yeah, fable, after you die, I'm going to contact you through my Ouija board and you let me know how the judgement thing works. If it's an "anything goes" afterlife, I'll be bummed out about being a good person here on Earth. If there's hell to pay for each small transgression check up and see if I can buy my way out of sin.

[Eerhardt]

Quote:

Originally posted by fable Are we to conclude that some god or goddess or pantheon waits for each soul, sees if they joined up to the right religion; and then hear, "You were a dutiful son, raised your children with love, made difficult decisions to best of your knowledge; but alas chose the wrong religion, and so, will go to eternal torment"...? Or should we conclude that joining the right religion isn't the core guiding fact defining one's placement after death (although several religions insist it is), but how one lived one's life? I don't see why or how people can be judged by lives spent in a world where there many holy books and holy men and women preaching contradictory solutions to the same problems, and where daily dilemnas of life prompt internal voices that again pull in different directions. Nor do I find the holy books in question without internal inconsistencies, sometimes on a massive scale in so far as guiding conduct is offered to humanity, both by example and direction.

I'll just give my POV on judgement for adhering to the "right religion" first:

Quote:

Originally posted by Eerhardt …people raised by parents who don't believe in God can not be punished by God for not believing in Him/Her. I don't even think God will punish you for willfully rejecting to believe in Him/Her when you try to live your life in spirit of his will. Of course, this is where opinions will differ, even within Christianity itself (e.g. fundamentalists may believe you go to Hell for not believing in God) E.

Of course, as Fable already indicated, what is living your life in "spirit of God's will", when so many religions claim different solutions? I think some values are preached by all religions and that you should at least try and live by these. One of these, I believe, is "do not onto others, that you would not have others do onto you". I know it sounds cliché, but aren't a lot of things we hold true? I think a lot of the Ten Commandments make sense, even out of the religious context.

[Littiz]

Quote:

"do not onto others, that you would not have others do onto you"

Indeed, this should be ENOUGH of a rule.
To this one I agree firmly. (provided that each one has always
the right to fight abuses, though)