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What do theists lose by not believing in a god?
"Why don’t you just be an atheist? If there is a god, and it is moral and loving and worthy of respect, then it won’t mind if people have rational doubts about it and rational reasons for not believing in it. This god won’t punish people for exercising their critical thinking skills and are skeptical of the claims of other, fallible humans. Thus, you wouldn’t lose anything.
And if there is a god who punishes people for rational doubt, why would you want to spend an eternity with it anyway? Such a capricious, egotistical, and nasty god wouldn’t be much fun. If you can’t trust it to be as moral as you are, you can’t trust it to keep its promises and make heaven nice or even let you stay for long. Not spending eternity with such a being doesn’t sound like much of a loss."
-Austin Cline
Romans 8:1...doesn't sound like a very moral god to me. It'd be too bad if that god actually exists.
Harper...I suppose I can understand how you interpreted it that way. A better way to ask the question would have been "IF theists were to no longer believe in a god, what would they have to lose?"
I also don't recall mentioning anything about the Abrahamic god, so I'm not really following your objection to that.
9 Answers
- Anonymous7 years ago
There are some real-world consequences for renouncing one's faith (i.e. things that most people would consider a "loss"). For instance, the unbeliever may become estranged from family who disapprove of the person's choice. In extreme cases, the person may be physically harmed by those who are fanatic in their faith delusions.
At the very least, friends at their place of worship may no longer consider them friends (which is probably not much of a loss since any friend that drops you because you no longer share a common faith delusion probably wasn't a real friend in the first place).
So, those are the big ones, I think. The loss of social connections within their family and faith community is a big deal for many believers, and it's probably why so few of them leave.
- Anonymous7 years ago
My epistemology is not a game of wagering or pragmatism. It is about what I believe is true.
It would be just as irrelevant for me to ask you what you'd have to lose by becoming a theist, because I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you're not an atheist due to any benefits, but because you actually believe there is no god.
- harpertaraLv 77 years ago
Your question makes no sense. Theists are those who DO believe in a deity or deities. But not necessarily the Abrahamic version of same. Please get your facts straight. No everyone who disbelieves in the Abrahamic version of deity is atheist. Not all theists believe in the Abrahamic concept of 'god'.
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- 7 years ago
They lose all hope that their consciousness will exist after their body shuts down. Essentially, that is what this is all about - an immense fear that their last breath will also be the moment of their last thought.
Source(s): Atheist - ACTS 4:12Lv 47 years ago
Lose eternal life with God for one thing. Facing God's total and endless wrath on sin which is coming soon is another thing.
