heaven

A collection of 56 posts

heaven

Quotes of the Day on Heaven

The Heaven posts have inspired some interesting comments. Here are a couple from the first article: From fellow Patheoser, Bob Seidensticker: Here's a version of heaven that's a lot more sane than Yahweh's version. Everyone gets in--yes, even Hitler. But when you get in,

heaven

If I Invented Heaven - The Construction Phase

Previously, I talked about how the notion of heaven was so problematic in even its purpose that I struggled to coherently establish the basis upon which heaven would be designed. Of course, I neglected to mention that, without the physical brain and body, the disembodied mind really is a bit

heaven

If I Invented Heaven - Getting it off the Ground

I've been thinking a fair bit about mortality recently, for one reason or another. This often results in considering heaven. It is patently obvious that the Christian idea of heaven is nonsense, so let's get that out of the picture straight away. Here are my previous

consequentialism

Problem of Evil: Heaven as Compensation or Moral Justification

The difference matters.

Descartes

What Is a Soul and What Does It Do?

Soul this and soul that. The idea of a soul permeates popular culture, from soul music, to feeling things in your soul, to having soul, to this and, indeed, that. Theologically, souls are a really important part of many theists' theological frameworks. But what is a soul? And what

belief

Resurrection did not happen, say quarter of Christians

I meant to write about this the other day, when it came out, but have been so busy that you have probably read this in numerous places elsewhere, and here at Patheos. A BBC survey has looked at Christians' beliefs concerning the Resurrection, and there are some pretty interesting

heaven

Heaven Is Not a Moral Justification

I hear this a lot. Too much. Whether it concern babies dying early, or any other type of suffering, pain, evil or natural evil, heaven is used as a moral justification. This is wrong, and here is for why. Theists have it tough. They have to explain away the problem

free will

Free Will Does Not Logically Necessitate Evil

The Free Will Theodicy is a defensive tactic used by apologists to at least partly rebut the problem of Evil issue: why is there so much suffering in the world given an OmniGod? The theodicy states that the corollary of giving humans the wonderful gift of free will is that

creation

Why Did God Create Material Beings At All?

The problem of evil is ubiquitous in philosophy of religion: Here is a decent version of the argument: 1. There exist instances of intense suffering which an omnipotent, omniscient being could have prevented without thereby losing some greater good or permitting some evil equally bad or worse. 2. An omniscient,

God's characteristics

Heaven, Hell, and Philosophical Zombies

In the a google hangout  from a few years back, with Counter Apologist and Reasonable Doubts' Justin Schieber on the Evidential Problem of Evil, we were talking about the great argument against hell. I will set this argument out again, as I have done previously, before getting on to

God's characteristics

God Loves Infant Death - How Most Souls in Heaven are Automatons

Some time ago I posted a piece called God Loves Abortion, to which Andy Schueler added a nice piece on conception and the creation of the soul and personhood from a biological perspective. The other day on my Free Will, Heaven and the Problem of Evil video, Honest_John_Law

God's characteristics

God's Unforgiveable Sin

This is another short and sweet one from my friend, Julian Haydon. See what you think. GOD'S UNFORGIVABLE SIN 1. Before the Creation, there was only God. 2. There was no sin, sorrow or suffering — temporal or eternal — for man or animals. 3. God created the world and

God's characteristics

God's Love

This short piece is another one from my friend Julian Haydon. Again, concise and pointed. GOD'S LOVE God: all-knowing; all powerful and all good. A loving Father, just, forgiving and merciful. Before the Creation God broke his endless rest and created mankind from innocent nothingness. We were thereby

God's characteristics

The Whole Christian Story in 101 Words

My friend Julian Haydon has these words of summary. What think you? THE WHOLE CHRISTIAN STORY (In 101 Words) This sorrow-filled life, thrust upon us without consent or knowledge of its final peril, is but a trial. One day, Jesus will decide based on what we believed about him, whether

atheism

Heaven & Hell Stop You From Genuinely Morally Evaluating

Morality is a tricky subject that remains unsolved as a philosophical puzzle. One issue that is pertinent for Christians is how heaven and hell play, psychologically speaking, with any moral evaluation, and thus with any moral action. Indeed, there was a chapter I once read somewhere (but I cannot remember

Counter Apologist

My Interview of Counter Apologist

Counter Apologist is a blogger with a lot of sensible stuff to say, and has contributed a deconversion account that was expanded for my recent book of deconversion accounts, Beyond an Absence of Faith. Counter Apologist has recently contributed a chapter to my upcoming book on the Kalam Cosmological Argument,

Biblical Exegesis

Robert Price on Hell: Why So Late in Telling Us?

This is a point that I have made many times before, and it was good to read it in Robert Price's excellent little pocket battleship of a book, Blaming Jesus for Jehovah. Here he is on p. 69-70: What difference does any of this make? There are two

atheism

Classical theism: God's characteristics shown as incoherent

The classical theistic components of God, his characteristics of being all-loving, all-powerful and all-knowing don't work very well together. This has been something which I have sought to elucidate over the years, so I thought I would compile a synopsis of where we are at with the idea of OmniGod,

heaven

Problem of Evil: Suffering Necessary for Good

The Problem of Evil (why is there so much suffering in the world given an OmniGod?) is sometimes answered by theists that suffering has to exist so that people have a working knowledge of what bad or evil is in order to know what good is, or indeed that pleasure cannot exist without pain.

Free Will and Determinism

Answers by an Honest Christian

My friend Julian Haydon questions this: ANSWERS BY AN HONEST CHRISTIAN    Did anything exist before the Creation? …Only God, who has always existed and always will.   There was no evil, no sorrow, no disease, no pain, no suffering before the Creation? …Right, only God existed.   Did God know what would

counter-apologetics

Free Will, the Problem of Evil and Heaven and Christian commenters

I don't know why, but Christians seem to be posting a few comments just now on some old videos of mine. The comments irritate me because they are not so well thought out. This 'sombodysdad' in particular... People seem to think they are all that and

atheism

New counter-apologetics podcast segments available

I, as you may well know, contribute to the Skepticule podcast by recording a counter-apologetics segment for them, Pearced Off. My segment is always followed by an interesting discussion of ideas brought up by the 'panel' of Pauls. Here are the latest offerings: Skepticule 53 - Heaven not

heaven

Schoolgirl found hanged after saying she 'wanted to be with daddy in heaven'

What a sad story showing the dangers of a misguided belief system. From the Mirror: A 12-year-old girl was found hanged in her bedroom with a note saying she wanted to be with her dad in heaven.

Featured ATP

How can we mere mortals state what God SHOULD do?

This is essentially the point, I believe, which has come out of, or driven, much of the conversation over the last few days between labreuer, Andy Schueler and myself on another thread. We popped down many rabbit holes, including free will, slavery, epistemology, history, the problem of evil and oug

God's characteristics

Heaven, hell, and philosophical zombies

In the recent google hangout with Counter Apologist and Reasonable Doubts' Justin Schieber, we were talking about the great argument against hell. I will set this argument out again, as I have done previously, before getting on to my main point. This is an argument brought up by Ray Bradley in a deb