{"id":3048,"date":"2012-07-20T10:35:01","date_gmt":"2012-07-20T15:35:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/?p=3048"},"modified":"2017-12-22T17:58:12","modified_gmt":"2017-12-22T22:58:12","slug":"the-goal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/?p=3048","title":{"rendered":"The Goal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I was watching a short-lived British sci-fi show yesterday and there was a conversation between a religious leader and an atheist. The religious leader asked what the atheist is hopeful toward. What does he have to look forward to? The atheist jokingly said, \u201cDinner.\u201d Obviously, he was joking because if he were really serious, he would have said, \u201cdessert.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Seriously though, religious believers ask this type of question all the time. If we don\u2019t believe in some perfect eternal paradise, then what is the point of living? Why should we do anything? I explored this line of reasoning in my last Huffington Post article titled, \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/staks-rosch\/lifes-a-movie-enjoy-the-show_b_1649905.html\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Life&#8217;s a Movie; Enjoy The Show<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But I do find it interesting that religious believers can\u2019t wait for their eternal paradise and yet they waste time here on Earth with us evil sinners. If they really believed this crap, why bother locking their doors at night or looking both ways when they cross the street. Obviously, they can\u2019t kill themselves because that would be a one way ticket to eternal torture. But they can just live their lives with caution to the wind. God obviously doesn\u2019t punish people for being stupid.<\/p>\n<p>I also find it odd that religious believers haven\u2019t really thought through their goal. What happens after they achieve their goal? Great, they win the game of life and are rewarded with eternal paradise, 72 virgins, or whatever. Then what? After a while that is sure to get pretty boring. I mean how long can you really enjoy paradise? I don\u2019t personally think I could enjoy paradise for a minute knowing that so many people I love and care about will be tortured for all eternity in Hell. Eternity is a pretty long time, after all.<\/p>\n<h6 class=\"zemanta-related-title\" style=\"font-size: 1em;\">Related articles<\/h6>\n<ul class=\"zemanta-article-ul zemanta-article-ul-image\" style=\"margin-left: 0px; display: inline-block; list-style-type: none;\">\n<li class=\"zemanta-article-ul-li-image zemanta-article-ul-li\" style=\"display: inline-block; vertical-align: top; text-align: left; font-size: 12px; width: 80px; height: 240px; margin: 10px 40px 20px 0px;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/?p=2972\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"padding: 0px; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; border: 0px none; display: block; box-shadow: 1px 1px 3px #999999;\" src=\"http:\/\/i.zemanta.com\/93170180_80_80.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a><a style=\"display: block; width: 80px; height: 90px; overflow: hidden; text-decoration: none; line-height: 14pt;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/?p=2972\" target=\"_blank\">The Moral Goal<\/a>\n<div style=\"clear: both; margin: 10px 0px;\">\n<hr style=\"margin: 0px;\" \/>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li class=\"zemanta-article-ul-li-image zemanta-article-ul-li\" style=\"display: inline-block; vertical-align: top; text-align: left; font-size: 12px; width: 80px; height: 240px; margin: 10px 40px 20px 0px;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.examiner.com\/article\/church-mandate-christian-leader-wants-to-tax-atheists?cid=rss\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"padding: 0px; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; border: 0px none; display: block; box-shadow: 1px 1px 3px #999999;\" src=\"http:\/\/i.zemanta.com\/99462687_80_80.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a><a style=\"display: block; width: 80px; height: 90px; overflow: hidden; text-decoration: none; line-height: 14pt;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.examiner.com\/article\/church-mandate-christian-leader-wants-to-tax-atheists?cid=rss\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Church Mandate: Christian leader wants to tax atheists<\/a>\n<div style=\"clear: both; margin: 10px 0px;\">\n<hr style=\"margin: 0px;\" \/>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div class=\"zemanta-pixie\" style=\"margin-top: 10px; height: 15px;\"><a class=\"zemanta-pixie-a\" title=\"Enhanced by Zemanta\" href=\"http:\/\/www.zemanta.com\/?px\" rel=\"nofollow\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"zemanta-pixie-img\" style=\"float: right;\" src=\"http:\/\/img.zemanta.com\/zemified_e.png?x-id=f1cf9124-beb8-4353-94ab-a2d2b9fd53b9\" alt=\"Enhanced by Zemanta\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<div class=\"linkwithin_hook\" id=\"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/?p=3048\"><\/div><script>\n<!-- \/\/LinkWithinCodeStart\nvar linkwithin_site_id = 317364;\nvar linkwithin_div_class = \"linkwithin_hook\";\n\/\/LinkWithinCodeEnd -->\n<\/script>\n<script src=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/widget.js\"><\/script>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/\"><img src=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/pixel.png\" alt=\"Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...\" style=\"border: 0\" \/><\/a><!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I was watching a short-lived British sci-fi show yesterday and there was a conversation between a religious leader and an atheist. The religious leader asked what the atheist is hopeful toward. What does he have to look forward to? The atheist jokingly said, \u201cDinner.\u201d Obviously, he was joking because if he were really serious, he [&hellip;]<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n<script>\n<!-- \/\/LinkWithinCodeStart\nvar linkwithin_site_id = 317364;\nvar linkwithin_div_class = \"linkwithin_hook\";\n\/\/LinkWithinCodeEnd -->\n<\/script>\n<script src=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/widget.js\"><\/script>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/\"><img src=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/pixel.png\" alt=\"Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...\" style=\"border: 0\" \/><\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1039,254,468,2071,702],"tags":[2215,37,653,2216,1164,2226,2214,1325],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3048"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3048"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3048\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3050,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3048\/revisions\/3050"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3048"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3048"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3048"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}