Posted by Tal on May 01, 1999 at 20:41:43:
In Reply to: Re: When you die ... posted by Ev on May 01, 1999 at 11:33:40:
> There is one point of your post that I must differ with though. In regards to how the believer and the athiest act to look for or not look for the boat that would be their salvation I feel that you've misstated the believer's position. Unless the believer is a "fatalist"...and there are some...he/she understands that God uses "means" to accomplish things in the believer's life. While they may believe that God could accomplish the task by "divine fiat" they also understand that that's probably not going to be the case.
Precisely so. The boat analogy doesn't lend itself to my point. Consider instead this case: a man is living inside a room. There are 100 doors. 99 lead to death, one to the outside world. The theist, whether he is a fatalist or not, believes he knows which door is the right one. So 99 times out of 100, he will die. This was my point--that the believer is essentially swimming in the wrong direction (i.e. the chances that he is swimming *away* from the boat are far better than that he is swimming towards it), not that he has no wish to swim at all. So whether a believer believes in God's using means or not, it is the peculiar and irrational beliefs he has with regards to God that in all likelihood prevent his happiness, not the fact that he believes in itself.
He doesn't suffer by wanting to be saved by the ship, he suffers when he starts swimming in the wrong direction under the conviction he knows where he's going.