Do you think you're cool?

Answered here: http://briggs.id.au/jour/2011/01/qa-do-you-think-youre-cool/

I now answer questions through Q&A on my blog: http://briggs.id.au/jour/qanda/

URL: http://www.formspring.me/briggswill/q/155588351674576682

Imagine you are Atheist, and cannot believe in God no matter how much you want to, what would you live for?

Answered here: http://briggs.id.au/jour/2010/12/qa-imagine-you-are-atheist/

(I now answer questions through my blog at http://briggs.id.au/jour/qanda/ )

URL: http://www.formspring.me/briggswill/q/2003873277

What is your current reason for living?

This question is answered here: http://briggs.id.au/jour/2010/12/what-is-your-current-reason-for-living/

(I now field questions here: http://briggs.id.au/jour/qanda/ )

URL: http://www.formspring.me/briggswill/q/2001611591

Where has your formspring gone?

I've migrated Q&A to my new blog site at http://briggs.id.au/jour

Questions can be asked through the form at http://briggs.id.au/jour/qanda

When formspring (finally) release their API I may consider integrating the blog and formspring more closely, but in the mean time, please ask questions through the blog.

Thanks.

URL: http://www.formspring.me/briggswill/q/1995738623

In Heaven, those who endured bad things on Earth are comforted (http://ref.ly/Lk16.25) implying we'll remember what we'll be comforted for. Can you add your opinion to this?

Answered here: http://briggs.id.au/jour/2010/12/qa-in-heaven-those-who-endured/

(I now receive questions here: http://briggs.id.au/jour/qanda/ )

URL: http://www.formspring.me/briggswill/q/1995925874

I find that people always want more. Even when it comes to death, they want more. It's like money - people always want more. They think there should be more. But why? Why after you die people expect there will be more to come after death?

An interesting thought. And thinking about it I can see how some people's yearning for the afterlife is a variant of materialism.

But I generally tend to associate thoughts (or expectations) about the things after this life with the human passion not for "more things" but for "more knowledge" or "more understanding." In other words it wells up from the human trait of enquiry - to find pattern in chaos, meaning in mystery, to understand where things are not understood.

We have looked to the miniscule and the astronomic, the visible and the invisible - why would we stop that enquiry when it comes to the shape, purpose and finitude of human life?

In that sense I do not think it is wrong to want "more." While there is value in a sense of being content with "what is" - without the passion to look further, look beyond, a key driver of human activism for good grinds to a halt.

URL: http://www.formspring.me/briggswill/q/1105301142

When you say: "I don't doubt God's existence. when I do doubt, I am not being sensible." do you mean this as a purely personal position or do you think that anyone, eg atheists or other religions, are not being sensible when they doubt the Christian God

The answer you are quoting from was very much a personal reflection. It also was an answer that highlights the degree of internal lack of logic that that exists within me when I doubt.

If there is an other-than-me reflection in it at all it would be towards those that profess Christian belief but fail to live like it. To the extent of my failings, I consider myself in that number.

I'm not sure if I would use the phrase "not being sensible" to describe those who doubt the Christian God in a way that is entirely in accord with their worldview and philosophical framework.

I'm not sure that there is one phrase that would demarcate those of a Christian worldview from those of atheistic worldview. For instance, I know of some atheists who have come to faith through the path of logic (i.e. they have applied "sense" within their own framework and reframed their conclusions about God), others along the path of moral conviction, others along the path of grappling with some form of revelation that rendered their previous worldview untenable. "Becoming sensible" certainly would not adequately or consistently describe these transitions.

I know some current atheists / holders of other religion who are quite "sensible" (in the sense of coherent internal framework). And there are others who are less sensible - in that they espouse one thing and live like another.

In other words, it's a mixed bag all round, and I don't know if the internal sensibleness of a worldview is a useful tool for demarcating the debate.

URL: http://www.formspring.me/briggswill/q/1103512397