Dude you must have really enjoyed your Philosophy of Religion college course.

It doesn't matter whether we dismiss Christianity or any other religion, that's not the real issue.

The bottom line is no one knows why there's something rather than nothing. No one knows where the Singularity that caused the Big Bang that created our known Universe originated.

What's very, very, very interesting - is that we cannot imagine a state of pure nothingness.

This is the bottom line. You can dismiss any particular religion or deity, but you can't explain where time & space & singularities originate from.

Thus, the possibility for higher-beings and gods.

I have never really understood that conclusion. Just because we can't explain it that doesn't mean we should put extra focus on the higher-beings possibility. The mere thought of a higher being is the result of a human brain thinking, and so is Batman and the easter bunny.

Everything that we can think of is a possibility, and there is nothing to suggest that a higher being creating the world is more likely than anything else that we can think of. Not to mention that essentially what you'd do when trying to explain the world's creation by a god is explaining something unexplainable with an unexplainable explanation. It makes no sense.

I like this post. Except the singularity and big bang part - I still contend most cosmologists are a little too presumptuous.

Wow, you're really insanely obsessed with Christianity, aren't you? You talk about it waay more than any christian person here does.

You need to get out of your head the idea that we aren't some monkeys in a circus or puppets that are being controlled by the environment. You need to realize that people ARE ABLE to to make their own mind and create their own personalities DESPITE their environment and circumstances. Humans aren't the shallow, naive and weak pussies as you make them to be. They don't necessarily bow to the situation they find themselves in, spread their ass cheeks and say ''well, it's not my fault i turned out like this'. Some people are actually able to take credit and responsibility for their actions and say ' i did/caused this myself, and i made this out of myself BECAUSE of myself'. Now, of course, you ACTUALLY being the type of people you describe in your threads, you can't possibly understand that concept, because you've probably been taught to think like that by your society. (aka Sweden, where everybody pretends everybody is super nice and good, and the minute something goes wrong, you start blaming the environment, childhood, family and other bullshit aspects, because you know, the individual can't possibly have any responsibility)

You use the same arguments to defend convicts as well (rapists, murderers, thieves etc), the good old ''they were influenced by the events in their lives, so they had no control of what those events could lead them into doing'' Bullshit. You can find the examples where the kids from richest families, nicest parents and who had every tool possible for succses in the world still turned out to be complete failures and fuck ups life. And you can also find examples where people from the dirtiest slums of India managed to become successful and respected lawyers, engineers, programmers etc...

Your society, environment, and circumstances of your life do not even remotely defiy your free will. If you really want something, you're gonna get it despite the challenges you face. We can control on how we turn out to be because of the free will. We can choose not to bow to the difficulties and situations.

To specifically answer to the OP, the result 2 is the correct one. The kid entering the heaven will be unaffected by that decision. A pathway to heaven is mostly a personal struggle, traditional religious practicing isn't necessary for it. That depends of course on how you define that. If you say following the specific morals of a religion, i'd probably agree with, but lots of morals aren't exclusive to one religion, so it wouldn't really matter if you pray to Krishna, Allah or Christ, as long as you practice the right morals. I believe that's how you 'get into heaven'. I believe heaven is a metaphor for peace in afterlife with God, and that can be only achieved with what i've described above IMO. So whether that God is called Krishna, Allah or Christ is irrelevant as long as you're in 'heaven'. And that's what religious practice is, IMO

Until the source of consciousness is localized, then I'm afraid you're mistaken. And this is due to your own (clearly) inherent adherence to the empirical method.

It is taken as a mere product of the mechanistic function of our brain's hardwiring that this singular experience of consciousness has come about. This directly implies that the same experience can be had by a programmed, virtual brain in a hypothetical computer. This proof is what you require.

If on the other hand it cannot be proven, then the postulate that consciousness is a product of an entity external (read seperate) to the body must at the very least be considered.

Since this consciousness is singular, it can discretely be summized. I.e. I have mine and you have yours. It may be postulated that:

a) These seperated consciouss entities are manifest from a primordial consciousness which has all the properties of the individual entities' consciousness, but it is expanded infinitely

The above is explained thoroughly in Vedanta. Erwin Schrodinger agrees:

"Consciousness is never experienced in the plural, only in the singular. Not only has none of us ever experienced more than one consciousness, but there is also no trace of circumstantial evidence of this ever happening anywhere in the world. If I say that there cannot be more than one consciousness in the same mind, this seems a blunt tautology — we are quite unable to imagine the contrary..."

b) There exists some primordial living entity from whom we have manifested these qualities of personhood. This is thoroughly explained in texts such as the Bhagavad Gita.

"When I read the Bhagavad-Gita and reflect about how God created this universe everything else seems so superfluous." ~ Albert Einstein

If you think these are unreasonable, then I will start arguing that you are conditioned as much as the Christians you are crusading against in the first place.

This thread and poster for that matter reminds me of this video i watched recently:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzSMC5rWvos&feature=share

While I disagree with much of what you say, I wholeheartedly agree with your reasoning process.

Moreover, I actually enjoyed reading your philosophical reasoning. This is very rare - especially on VGChartz. What makes this more intruiging is that you are a mere whipper snapper.

Have you ever considered mind expanding substances?

*Oh all of you shut up*

I'm totally serious. You sound ready for it.

I'm going to focus on this part since the rest has already been discussed in one of my previous threads. (Though for those who are interested, here it is: http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/thread.php?id=144832&page=1 )

I used to have the very same (or at the very least extremely similar) views during my last days as a Christian. Namely that it doesn't really matter what you believe: As long as you are a good person you will enter heaven. And well, to this very day I don't care about what people believe in as long as they are good persons. This thread was simply made to discuss what I consider a major flaw in Christianity regarding free will. Some agree, others disagree. That is what makes discussion possible.

If you agree that the "second result" in the OP indeed indicates that whatever religious practicing or lack of religious practicing you choose to follow doesn't matter as long as you try your best to be a good person, there there is nothing more to discuss. We'd simply agree.

Result 3 - Whether the kid eventually enters heaven or hell is affected by the choices he made in his life.

This means that regardless of the "obstacles" that are put before you in life or the environment you are put in, you are still in full control of the choices you make. Yes, being in a Christian based family will be a better foundation than a Godless based family. But either way, the kid will have to develop his own personal relationship with God and bear testimony of Jesus Christ who died for our sins.

I myself, grew up in a non-church family and God, let alone Jesus, was never mentioned. As I got older, 14-15 years, my friends spoke of this, but I easily rejected it and declared myself Atheist. I then got tired of the "ignorance" in Christians and tried to use today's intelligence against a 2000 year old book. I EASILY found contradictions in the Bible and began using them against my friends. I then felt I could take on preachers. Boy, was I wrong. I got nailed. My ego was crushed and I still denied the Bible, due to my over inflated ego. Then, I read some of the simpler stuff in the Bible that I could not believe. Such as, "Ask and you shall recieve", "God puts the law in your heart", and "You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart". These phrases led me to start finding the truth and quit stretching for answers that give me comfort for my own way of life, that I saw fit.  During this journey, it felt like I was on a teeter totter going back and forth in the belief of God. But, then on May 19th 1999, I was able to bear testimony that there is a God. Jesus truly came into my heart and the Spirit was there to comfort me. It was truly a once in a lifetime experience. I now understand what it means to "bear testimony" that there is a God. Just like a handfull of witnesses that can bear testimony of a crime that they saw. Nobody was there to witness it, but them. Just as I am the only one to witness God on that moment when Jesus entered into my heart. I don't expect you to understand this testimony, it's not a choice, nor psychological. It was a true event that happened to me. (and billions of other people too). If you truly want to know if there is a God, here is a good website for some atheist to start from - http://www.everystudent.com/features/isthere.html

As for me, I do not choose to believe in God, but I like to say I have a knowledge in God, due to my testimony of God. 

The whole problem with this whole 'debate' is that there is ZERO proper context to put hell, earth and heaven in. Not to mention God, the individual soul and the purpose of it all.

In fact, in the 'Theology' of the OP, there really is no inherent explanation of the purpose of anything at all. No wonder he's a full-on atheist.

If the best theology I came up with sounded like yours then I sure as hell would be an atheist too.