Get some perspective...

[CheeseRedux]

144,000.

That's one thing I've never been able to wrap my head around. Why is is that those who believe in a fixed numerical limit (no matter the actual number, really) to the available paradisiacal space are still looking for more converts? If it were me, I'd sure as hell keep quiet, not actively working to worsen my own odds.

[Commander McLane]

144,000.

That's one thing I've never been able to wrap my head around. Why is is that those who believe in a fixed numerical limit (no matter the actual number, really) to the available paradisiacal space are still looking for more converts? If it were me, I'd sure as hell keep quiet, not actively working to worsen my own odds.

You've overlooked an important fact: the 144,000 spaces are all long taken. When you start to work for your religion you're not yet in. First you have to kick out one of your predecessors by making more converts than he did. And you need a lot of zeal to achieve that goal, because you're competing with someone who—at his time—has already kicked someone else out. That is, in a nutshell, what's going on for instance with Jehova's Witnesses. Whoever is standing at the main station or in the mall, giving out Watchtowers to the bypassers, has still a lot to do to even come into consideration as one of the 144,000. And even if he has finally made it, he still must continue to collect religious bonus points, because as long as there are new believers his place will never be safe! Someone may overtake him any day.

[CheeseRedux]

You've overlooked an important fact

Or never bothered to look at all, as the case may be.
Seems rather unfair to the ones that went before. With the advent of mass media and the sheer weight of numbers in the world, it wouldn't surprise me if even the founder has been ousted by now.

[Commander McLane]

But then again, the madness has already started much, much earlier, when these fundamentalist american civil religion followers confused their silly ideologies with christian faith in the first place.

The 'madness', as you so aptly phrase it, started way before that... near 2k years ago.

On this point I disagree, because I don't confuse silly modern religious ideologies with christian faith. Only the latter started 2000 years ago, and only the former are madness. That's a clear-enough line of separation, isn't it?

(However, there is sort of a consensus not to debate religious convictions on forums. So feel free to drop the discussion. I just want to make clear that I happen to have one.)

[ClymAngus]

144,000.

That's one thing I've never been able to wrap my head around. Why is is that those who believe in a fixed numerical limit (no matter the actual number, really) to the available paradisiacal space are still looking for more converts? If it were me, I'd sure as hell keep quiet, not actively working to worsen my own odds.

You've overlooked an important fact: the 144,000 spaces are all long taken. When you start to work for your religion you're not yet in. First you have to kick out one of your predecessors by making more converts than he did. And you need a lot of zeal to achieve that goal, because you're competing with someone who—at his time—has already kicked someone else out. That is, in a nutshell, what's going on for instance with Jehova's Witnesses. Whoever is standing at the main station or in the mall, giving out Watchtowers to the bypassers, has still a lot to do to even come into consideration as one of the 144,000. And even if he has finally made it, he still must continue to collect religious bonus points, because as long as there are new believers his place will never be safe! Someone may overtake him any day.

That's a bitch isn't it? You spend your life being Mr Dudley Do Right and 500 years down the line your kicked off the staircase by some TV evangelist spod. Hang on; is god running some sort of twisted pyramid scheme here? It bloody sounds like it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramid_scheme

Hang on pyramid schemes are illegal. Cool! Anyone feel like taking the Christian faith to court?

[Cody]

Just to clarify, McLane… I was referring to the ‘distortion’ of the christian belief, not christianity itself.
(And I agree wholeheartedly with the 'consensus' that you mention).

[Commander McLane]

Hang on; is god running some sort of twisted pyramid scheme here? ... Anyone feel like taking the Christian faith to court?

What for? Neither of them runs this pyramid scheme. We were only talking about silly modern religious ideologies.

[ClymAngus]

No, your right. No money has changed hands only goods and/or services. As such it is not technically fraud as you can't prove that the service has not been provided. All be it a deferred service. There is insufficient evidence to prove fraud and all existing reports of fraud come through a third person, ie a medium.

The prosecution is plagued with "no shows" funnily enough so is the defence. It would be a legal travesty.

[Sarin]

That's a bitch isn't it? You spend your life being Mr Dudley Do Right and 500 years down the line your kicked off the staircase by some TV evangelist spod. Hang on; is god running some sort of twisted pyramid scheme here? It bloody sounds like it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramid_scheme

Hang on pyramid schemes are illegal. Cool! Anyone feel like taking the Christian faith to court?

To ressurect this thread a bit...it's pretty much why I have problems with every damn religion. They involve Heaven and Hell scheme, and that is inherently unfair, as some people just don't have a choice but to cross the line, or don't know about the line at all. So if you believe there's some justice at the end, it can't be like that, or God is a d*ck, and therefore not worth my worshipping.

I wish people wouldn't fall for some nonsense just because they WANT to believe in something.

[Cmd. Cheyd]

I suggest you expand your religious knowledge past the Judeo-Christian. There are a good number of religions that have no concept of Heaven / Hell. Most of the Neo-Pagan religions for example. Heck, even Judaism really doesn't have a Hell. That was a later invention of the Christians.

[Smivs]

... Hell. That was a later invention of the Christians.

There had to be somewhere worse than the Christian World, after all, otherwise there was no incentive to 'toe the line'

[Disembodied]

I think the Zoroastrian belief in an afterlife of eternal torture for the sinful predates the Christian one by several centuries. And the ancient Greeks – who didn't exactly have a barrel of laughs lined up in their afterlife for anybody – stipulated eternal punishment for some notable individuals like Tantalus and Sisyphus.

The problem with talking about any religion is that phrases like "the Christians" don't actually mean anything. There are no objective measures of religion: you can't give a blood-test to check for Christianity, for example. They are subjective definitions only: even within dogmatic organisations like the Catholic Church, they're constantly in flux – if only because the dogmatic ones concoct all manner of rules to try to cover every eventuality, which just guarantees eventual failure. You wouldn't have to go too far back from the current Pope to find one of his predecessors who would condemn him for his heretical beliefs on some point of doctrine or other.

You can't even appeal to certain basic principals, such as (keeping to Christianity) belief in the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, as being definitive. It's entirely possible for someone to regard the whole New Testament as purely symbolic, as simply a collection of myths with no basis in fact, and yet consider themselves, by their own measurement, to be a Christian. It's not like it's a copyrightable concept, despite what some (again, self-defined) Christians might want to think ...

[Micha]

Always liked this joke/urban legend/whatever:
http://www.pinetree.net/humor/thermodynamics.html

Especially this bit:

As for souls entering hell, let's look at the different religions that exist in the world today. Some of these religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, then you will go to hell. Since there are more than one of these religions and people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all people and souls go to hell.

I also like Terry Pratchett's proposal, something along the lines of, everybody gets what they believe in when they die (resurrection, eternal bliss/damnation, oblivion, whatever), irrespective of what kind of life they've led.
Fair? No. But then death isn't.

[Disembodied]

On a personal level, I find the whole idea of an "afterlife" a bit odd ... wondering what happens to me after I die is like wondering what happens to a piece of string after I reach the end of it. Or, to be a bit more poetical, what happens to a piece of music once it's finished playing.

[Smivs]

It's all pointless speculation. If anything happens we'll only know when we get there, and there probably won't be much we can do about it anyway.