I no longer believe

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I simply do not agree. Peer pressure is not an excuse. Now, a bad environment can certainly cause an otherwise good person to do bad things, but this is something entirely different. To reject something good just because everybody else is doing it is inherently wrong.

So, if people who have never heard (and thus never actively rejected) the Gospel have a different standard for being accepted into Heaven, then wouldn't witnessing and other missionary work actually be immoral? After all, missionaries have a rather poor track record at gaining converts, and nothing they say (especially in, for instance, predominantly Muslim countries) will convince people to accept Christ. So, by spreading the message to people who will inevitably reject it (either because the missionary was unpersuasive, or because the endemic culture is so ingrained) you are condemning people to Hell who might otherwise have had a decent shot at salvation. That would have to be a worse sin than murder.

Traditions are not simply peer pressure. They are a world-view that children live and breath from an early age.

That's why cults prefer to indoctrinate the young. It has a powerful effect. That's why people the world over tend to believe the religion of their homeland regardless of any arguments about truth or accuracy.

@Orwell

The point being made in your post about the immorality of spreading the Gospel seems quite good. Tensu's statement has the theological implication that those who hear, must, face a simple choice. Anyone who looks at the response you have made cannot, reasonably think that the choice is as clear cut as that. Logically, the choice cannot be this simple. Therefor, neither can the judgement. It seems quite logically inconsistent to think that the rejection of a missionary, is a summary offense. Why would the judgement be in that moment? Otherwise, what is the point in raising everyone at the end to judgement? This is not to say that a legitimate rejection is not culpable.

I have met people, who made terrible faith decisions, such as rejecting the Church for all kinds of bad reasons. Some however, seem to have good ones. For example, if the only Christian you met was a crusading Tutonic Knight who burned down you village. A person, in those circumstances, does not naturally evaluate the merrits of the aggressor and would tend, to hold to their own beliefs.

So my question is, why expect to the illustration of judgement you have presented, to be any more simlistic than the presentation of the choice in Tensu's post?

@Tensu
Good post btw, I do not think you intended it to be the basis of a philosophical exegesis.

Like Einstein you "believe in the God of Spinoza. A God who the set the universe into motion but doesnt concern himself with human affairs."

thats very similar to my story

i was born and raised catholic and when i was 15 i decided to finally read the bible after all i have like at least nearly 10 and i was sick of being told this is how it is so i wanted to find out for my self

after reading the bible twice yes not once but twice i was horrified by the evils allegedly committed by God and his followers in not just the Old Testament but also the New Testament(i have included some of the passages that turned me away in the favoite biblical passages thread) it was the bible that turned me Agnostic Atheist i cant exactly claim Atheist without claiming to be Omnscient though i find it very doubtful God(s) exists whose to say? so im Agnostic but leaning more towards Atheist and im also a TransHumanist, we believe that God is NOT the way to a better humanity but through the ethical application of science and biotechology, i have been one almost as long as i've left christianity

That would only work if the only reason(s) I left the faith were emotional reasons.

Quote just one passage.

I intended my post to be more directed at the questioning on, where perseverance was in the Bible?, discussion on the previous pages. As to your own reasons, I cannot really make any specific statement. It is worth pointing out that you did mention the problem of evil, most people who have discussed this with me have tended to approach that subject from an emotional point of view.

MCalavera:

You equated faith with that feeling of consolation, and unbelief with its fading, so that from then on you were being merely "intellectually dishonest". So yes. That is an emotional reason - no one said it was your only reason. Our discussion was, I thought, on the general question of whether that feeling (grace really, and extremely common to converts) was actually belief, not on specific reasons to believe or not.

"...because the law brings wrath. And where there is no law there is no transgression." - Romans 4:15

"To be sure, sin was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not charged against anyone’s account where there is no law. " - Romans 5:13

Well, pooh.

I for one am NOT here for the "game". There are issues where you would think we could learn from serious discussion - even I from you if you took time off from your game [I appreciate Awesomely Glorious and his ability to both playful and serious sometimes simultaneously.

I have played the "You are so stupid" game myself - in one session earning from a valued member of the Inner Circle the most deeply felt rebuke I have ever received from another human.

Thing is - if JUST MAYBE the beliefs and fantasies you are attacking are not ABSOLUTELY ridiculous [compared that is, to truth] but only ridiculous TO YOU given the data available to you, you are putting yourself in the position of embarrassment I felt thde time I referred to a certain extinct language, only to have a member of the audiens [a very obnoxious one, which made it worse] tell the crowd the language is alive and well and he has worked with it.

Of course, if you are playing with Progressive Pilgrim who simultaneously shows you from scripture how ridiculous YOUR beliefs and fantasies are, then fair's fair. But I would rather not be in the game.

I will bear this in mind.

Actually, I think that more often the case is not whether data is available but whether or not a person subjectively considers the data to be acceptable.

good point.

Is the game really "you are so stupid" or "I am so smart"?

It sounds to me that that is the game the OP is playing, whatever team he plays for.

Well, for me it was always "you are so stupid" - I already KNEW I wsas smart and nobody but a stoop could doublt it. [Yes, Number 1 Son, I was that much of a young sophomoric punk].

Confrere perroquet - much of a muchness. Data your sensors and censors do not pull in are hardly available. I t is well known that learning to see, hear, usw. involves learning what to filter out.