I recently think a lot about the every man for himself "if you arent for jesus you are for the devil" mentality of christianity. The whole thing is about individual salvation. In the end we dont care about our fellow humans, IN THE END, because in the end we make **** sure WE arent going to hell. SO if our fellow man causes us to question and doubt we cast him off into the world of fear, demonification and dread.... I think its psychologically impossible for a chrisitan to truly love and care for anyone that is not a christian, in the end, in the back of their minds, they realize "this person is probably going to hell, and if I follow him too much, it could lead me to hell too!"

it seems that we care about individual salvation only in chrisitanity. its about individual salvation, a personal relationship with jesus. how much can we truly love someone if they dont love our lord and savior? even if we try, even if we say we do love them, it is impossible to undo the fact that we are fundamentally opposed to everything they live for and base their thoughts and actions upon.

We could do so much more for each other in this world but we waste time trying to spread a system of beliefs.

we view men as hopeless sinners and view the world as fallen.

this keeps us from realizstically trying to help or fix anytihng

In the back of our minds we know the world is gonna end and god is gonna fix everything for those who beleive, so it is impossible to ever make a TRUE effort to help our fellow man or try and end problems like world hunger, homelessness and disease.

Chrisitanity doesnt take this reality seriously. its about expecting things not seen, awaiting a kingdom. this world is dreamlike, and believers spend their prayers in a drunken trance of joy, able to forget all the sufferings of the world and do relatively minor help on missions. Missions are great. house building, food drives, feeding etc. But in order to seriously think about helping people on a real global scale, belief in jesus keeps thoughts clouded as to what people in the here and now really need.

I understand that if hell was real then everyone needs salvation from hell, becuase as every chrisitan knows, its up to them to save people... because gods not gonna do it!

bringing up another point. Leave the people that dont know alone! Of course a god that would create hell doesnt deserve any presumptions or presuppositions of fairness or kind ness, our flawed fallen human natures ASSUME that if someone hasnt heard the gospel, god gives them some kind of fair chance to get into heaven. again, given a god that thinks hell is ok regardless of humans making the wrong choice, there is no real reason to assume god would be fair to people that havnt heard the gospel.

but if the stakes are this high, it seems we should leave people that havnt heard alone, let them live and die in their flawed jesus less existance and let them get into heaven free. As someone who has heard the gospel and is plagued by worries about my future ****ation and the salvation of family memvbers and other strugglin humans that reject jesus, I can tell you. Id rather be an ignorant but happy muslim, aftican traditional religionist, or hindu!

and a word about the strugglin humans. Life is hard for everyone! Chrisitans tend to forget subconsciously that everyone is trying and they really think it is ok for people, even those that reject jesus after fully understanding the bible, to go through the struggles and ups and downs of life, alongside them, and then to be tossed into hell becuase they made the wrong choice

oh well they say.

it was their choice!

even when I feel like jesus is real my logic tells me it has to be brainwahsing. because on the big picture, it just doesnt feel right!

Hello de mighty shadow!

I can't really respond for Christians myself except tosay I've met quite a few of them and they ar enot all united on some of these issues but per your topic "Does faith in an after-life stop us froim progressing in reality?" That 's a great question.

I think it can "cut" both ways...that is, there are probably people who beloieve in no after-life who believe solely in material prosperity or maybe in so-called revolutionary ideologies and you can look at their lioves and come to your own conclusions about how much progress they have made in "reality".

There are also people who because they place so much importance on the next life...decide this life is unimportant or irrelevant and may not really therefore "progress". Then therea re also those who have spiritual values who believe in helping their fellow man and have reduced some of the pain and suffering and I would call that progress... So it all depends I think...

- Art

__________________
"it benefits us to be thoughtful, not of the glory of our minds, but rather, above all else, of the glory of God."
- Johannes Kepler

As Sam Harris asked in "The End of Faith," is it remotely possible that, without an unwavering faith in God and a joyous afterlife, those 19 terrorists could possibly have blown up the WTC causing their own mortal destruction? Or could any of the other suicide bombers, who act out of pure faith and belief in the hereafter, carry out their horrific intentions?

I would also point to many faiths or sects in which many of the simplest and most enjoyable pleasures of the world (the only world we are certain of) must be avoided in order to ensure the much better (but unproven) "next life."

Obviously, for the unbeliever, this is a real tragedy. I believe that this is the only life any of us will ever have. What a perfect shame to waste it!

__________________
evangelicalhumanist: Greek "eu"=good and "angelos"=messenger. Spreading the good news of Humanism.

Hi ,allow me to share my views.

Belief in life hereafter definitely has impact on us but it doesnot mean that it stops us from making progress in life. If this was the case, then all those muslims of the medival times wouldnot have made such progress in science, mathematics, medicines and astronomy and they all had firm faith in life hereafter and God.

What makes a difference is the approach and views of a believer in life hereafter and a non-believer in it. Both will never have same view points on wordly matters, both will have different approach and both will definitely have different mind set since belief plays a significent role in shaping up your mind.

Just as you cannot compare orange with apple although both are fruits but both have different taste ,color,skin and shape , in the similar way you cannot compare a non-believer in life after death with a believer in it although both are human beings but both will have different view points, mind sets and approach.

I hope you guys r geting my point.

See u in hell

Only God can save a persons soul. It is not up to us to do it. You just trust in God yourself. Find out the answers you need to find out. Nobody else can save your soul, either. That is between you and God alone. The only thing I myself can do, even when I have millions of questions, is to trust in God. For me trusting in God is easy, because God has always been the one who has always been there for me, so I can do nothing else but trust in Him. If I didn't have faith in God, I'd be a lost soul, like a tumble weed blowing in the breeze...