Who are happier -- Christians or Atheists?

Quote: Nareed

Apparently you inhabit a world where a man regards it as an intolerable imposition to spend any time with his wife, and must therefore make himself do it. And a place where parents begrudge every morsel of food an each second of time spent on their children, and again must make themselves feed and care for their children anyway. One wonders why people even marry or produce children at all, if this is the case.

I thought we had already established that at least for me the sacrifices of one in love do not feel like sacrifices at all. They actually bring great joy and happiness. Love inspires sacrifice not as torture but as the greatest way to show that love and a source of extreme happiness. When a tired mother goes to bed after bringing the fifth glass of water to a child who can't sleep she peacefully dreams of loving that dear child and can't wait to get up again to hug her and let her know it is going to be okay.

Now you peering through the windows might think, "boy what an intolerable imposition and she must begrudge those children", but that is because you do not love them.

Quote: Nareed

What would it profit a man to gain God's love if he shall lose his soul?

It's things like this why I'm so happy God is a mere fantasy. If he were real we would be bound by morality to fight him to the ultimate conclusion.

The quote is: "What would it profit a man to gain the whole world if he shall lose his soul?" (Mark 8:36; Matt 16:26; Luke 9:25)

Quote: FrGamble

The quote is: "What would it profit a man to gain the whole world if he shall lose his soul?" (Mark 8:36; Matt 16:26; Luke 9:25)

I think my version is accurate.

Quote: FrGamble

What do you want someone who just loves you when it is convenient or when it benefits him? It makes zero sense to me to love someone who really only wants to keep me on the side.

I certainly don't want a man who will have no use for me, no regard for me, no desire to be around me, no need of me at all, and no value for me whatsoever. Not someone who will be enslaved to me by duty, giving me "love" as a sacrifice. And who will no doubt kick and torture our pets when I'm not looking, because feeding the dog is a sacrifice.

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The whole movie is about a man who goes through great sacrifices to pursue and obtain his freedom.

You seem to regard making any effort at all as a sacrifice.

I suppose Andy could have just waited for the universe to miraculously provide him with liberty. But being a rational man, he took charge of his situation and did what his values required. You see, life requires action. Action requires effort and thought.

A sacrifice would require that Andy give up his plans, and turn himself and Red in to get Norton off the hook.

Quote:

At one point he is willing to be thrown off a building to help his fellow prisoners and get themselves a beer. When the beer comes he doesn't even want one. He does this sacrificial act just to feel normal again.

He sacrificed nothing.

Sacrifice is the exchange of a value for a non-value. Giving up my time to God rather than to my spouse or to myself, for example.

Quote: Nareed

It's things like this why I'm so happy God is a mere fantasy. If he were real we would be bound by morality to fight him to the ultimate conclusion.

I was just thinking this very thing. How boring
it would be if the Christian god were real. That
we are here just to be in his morality play. To
be punished or rewarded, like 5 year old children.

Instead, we are part of a universe that isn't old,
it's timeless. A universe that's always been here
and always will be here. What animates us, what
we call the soul, is timeless also and has been
here forever. We just can't see that because were
stuck in time.

This is far more exciting and reassuring than thinking
you have to rely on the whim of some fickle god
to decide your destiny.

Quote: Nareed

You seem to regard making any effort at all as a sacrifice.

Sacrifice is very specific.

sac·ri·fice
noun \ˈsa-krə-ˌfīs, also -fəs or -ˌfīz\

: the act of giving up something that you want to keep in order to get or do something else or to help someone

I said before, I do not understand what Jesus
sacrificed. He knew he was god, he knew what
he was here for, he knew he would die on the
cross. What did he give up that made it a sacrifice?
He wasn't even dying young, 33 was middle
aged in his time, when the life expectancy war
45. His way of dying wasn't even unique, the
Romans killed over 100K people the same way,
it was very common.

So tell me, where is the big sacrifice Jesus made.
The guy who throws himself on a grenade to save
his comrades does far more, he didn't know he was
immortal like Jesus did..

I'm kind of taken aback at the comments about Jesus' sacrifice made by Evenbob. Just logically or philosophically they don't make much sense.

If Bill Gates gave you a million dollars would you complain that this gift is nothing because he has plenty to spare? Would we complain that his gift is worthless because he didn't give us everything? Of course not, I imagine we would be extremely grateful for his sacrificial gift, even if to him it was something he could afford. To us a million dollars is a huge gift and extremely helpful, it would strike me as strange and ungrateful to call his gift nothing.

The problem for Evenbob gets even worse when we look at this issue theologically, which always get him into trouble. The Scriptures do not bear his interpretation out. Read again the passion narratives of Jesus found in the Gospel and you will see Christ in the garden sweating blood praying that this cup of suffering will pass Him by, "but not my will but yours be done." There is an added element of Christ's sacrifice we see happening. What does a perfect God have no experience of - suffering, death, and the cause of these things, sin. Yet God became one of us and took on our sin and therefore our suffering and death. These are unknowns, what is it like for God to die? Even your hero Nietzsche worries about this phenomenon and in that famous quote, if read in its fullness, actually laments it.

Think of the extraordinary nature of what is taking place, God out of His free and unconditional love for us, descends from Heaven to become one of us. To share in our lives, to know confusion, doubt, pain, suffering, and eventually death. He had no need to do this. He gave everything up for us and because of the Resurrection you like to say He knew everything would be fine and that He was just going through the motions. This is not a biblically sound theology.

Quote: Nareed

I certainly don't want a man who will have no use for me, no regard for me, no desire to be around me, no need of me at all, and no value for me whatsoever. Not someone who will be enslaved to me by duty, giving me "love" as a sacrifice. And who will no doubt kick and torture our pets when I'm not looking, because feeding the dog is a sacrifice.

No one, least of all me is saying anything remotely close to what you are saying here. What about someone who sees the value of being around you as more important than anything else? One who is willing to forgo what has become non-valuable in the bright and blinding light that is you. Others not being in love with you may look at this man as enslaved because when you are sick or in need he sacrifices what once gave him pleasure like playing golf, so that he can be with you. Let them think that, who cares? They know not love and its power to transform things once valuable into meaninglessness chaff compared to the one whom he loves.

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You seem to regard making any effort at all as a sacrifice.

I suppose Andy could have just waited for the universe to miraculously provide him with liberty. But being a rational man, he took charge of his situation and did what his values required. You see, life requires action. Action requires effort and thought.

A sacrifice would require that Andy give up his plans, and turn himself and Red in to get Norton off the hook.

Get busy living or get busy dying. Action also requires a decision. To decide is to cut off or kill other options, to sacrifice the other choices one could have made. In making his escape he is sacrificing his one room Hilton and comfort because he has made a decision. It does requires great effort, thought, and risk. This is one of the hallmarks of sacrifice. You seem to regard sacrifice as easy and just the natural choice that does not require effort or thought. Sacrifice is not normal it is extraordinary and that is part of what makes it so heroic and special and the subject of every great story or movie.

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He sacrificed nothing.

Sacrifice is the exchange of a value for a non-value. Giving up my time to God rather than to my spouse or to myself, for example.

Sacrifice is the exchange of a value for a competing value. It would be no sacrifice for you to stop watching hockey, but it would be a great sacrifice for you to stop cooking. What if for some reason the salvation of the world depended on you never cooking again, would you do it? If you did we would make a movie about you and extol your sacrifice for others.

Quote: FrGamble

To share in our lives, to know confusion, doubt, pain, suffering, and eventually death. He had no need to do this. He gave everything up for us.

God, all seeing, all knowing, all everything,
gave up everything for us. He died.

What the heck are you talking about. You
think god can die? Jesus was god, knew
he was god, died like 100,000 others on
the cross, and this is somehow a special
event.

I don't think so..

Quote: Evenbob

God, all seeing, all knowing, all everything,
gave up everything for us. He died.

Well said. What a great mystery of love!