Wayne Delia

And I put them back in. Run away, scared little bunny rabbit, run!!! What you're doing here is dumping an unsubstantiated, fabricated, dishonest claim about my position, and when it comes time for you to put up or shut up, you snip it as if it never existed. You ought to be ashamed of yourself. If Jesus existed, I'm sure He'd be ashamed of you.

Sure, because there's no evidence at all that there's any perceivable future after death at all. But that has nothing to do with preparing for a very real set of circumstances which is trivially observed to occur among people who retire, but who are not yet dead. That's the situation which you claimed I said should not be prepared for, which is completely dishonest. You cannot bring yourself to admit it, because your pride is too much for you to overcome, so you choose to snip it, hoping others will forget about it as easily as you are willing to forget it.

What would Jesus say, if He actually existed, when it's time for you to make an account of your sins? "rhutchin, this is inexcusable. You broke the Ninth Commandment, you refused to apologize or repent for doing that, you misrepresented Jesus in trying to defend yourself, you posted a list of Bible criteria for a True Christian which disqualified yourself, and now you're dishonestly representing the position of your debate opponent for the hell of it. Depart from me, I never knew you!"

To which rhutchin could respond, "Jesus, stop bloviating."

WMD

rhutchin

The Wager assumes that eternal torment may well be superstition. However, whether eternal torment is real or superstition is uncertain; a person can prove neither position. Using very simple logic, the Wager asks two basic questions--

1. If eternal torment is a superstition and a person believes it is real, what does it cost him?
2. If eternal torment is real and a person believes it is a superstitution, what does it cost him?

Making decisions based on emotion is irrational.

Wayne Delia

I noticed that others have already pointed out that you're being quite hypocritical in not being too terribly concerned with proving your own premises to be true. Do you really think it's not a problem, that the principles you are complaining about in others somehow don't apply to you?

Your assertions are unprovable by your own admission, and bold in the sense that you seem to think that people who don't think the same way you do are going to get sent to an eternity in a completely unsubstantiated eternal torment. That is a clear case of the pot calling the kettle black (i.e. the "tu quoque" logical fallacy) you're using.

WMD

rhutchin

Ahhh, but there is evidence -- the experiences of many men over many years that have been collected for easy reference in the Bible. People plan for a retirement that is not guaranteed nor certain. Should they not plan for a death that is certain?

JPD

Well its as "bold" as saying that God does exist - there's no difference.

MRM

He made the assumption that you can only win if you believe in a god and you have nothing to loose and that it's therefore reasonable to believe in a god - but allready this assumption is wrong. That's only one reason why this wager is flawed.
If there is no god you are afraid about hell for no reason -> than you loose joy in your life

If there is one he maybe don't want you to believe in him.

If you believe ( or better pretend to believe ) only because of this wager, than dishonesty is maybe harder punished than honest disbelieve. ( for example in some ancient germanic tribes perjury was a worse crime than even murder - what is if there is a god who thinks so ? )


Second reasons is you can not choose to believe. If I gave you 10000 $ and all you have to do is honestly believe that the sky is purple - do you really think that would work ? Of course not !

Jack the Bodiless

Whereabouts in the Bible are the experiences of these "many men" who have suffered eternal torment, and somehow returned to talk about it, recorded?

You DO know that this notion is a late addition to the religion, right? (No judgement of the dead in Judaism).

JPD

How many times do we have to tell you that a record of the beliefs of others recorded in text form does not actually constitute evidence by itself? I'm sorry but you cannot knowingly reliably plan anything on that basis.

Wayne Delia

Actually, it's either believe in the Roman Catholic God, or no god at all.

That conclusion is reached by people too ignorant or illogical to realize that there are many, many other options which have not been addressed. If a single option is added: 1A - Believe in the Islamic God, Allah - then "the conclusion to believe in the [Roman Catholic] God" results in eternal damnation in the Islamic hell, which is glossed over and swept under the carpet by Pascal. If I had happened to pay any money for the Wager, I'd demand my money back.

Many arguments have been made in favor of the "Do not believe in God option." You've ignored them all, and you're still trying to pretend no such arguments have been presented. That's intellectually dishonest.

Yes, that's accurate. Other Gods with other agendas work directly against the assumed reward. You have been unable to understand that concept.

Sure it is, as I've demonstrated in this post earlier. Add in the 1A option of "Believe in the Islamic God, Allah," then your conclusion - to believe in the Roman Catholic God - contains a huge possible penalty of getting condemned to the Moslem hell if it turns out Allah was the correct god to worship. Pascal doesn't mention that possible penalty, because he left out a veritable shitload of other God options, and that's the flaw in Pascal's Wager you cannot see.

You're making a mistake in describing that conclusion as "correctly determined." Rather, the conclusion is hasty, unsupported by evidence, and flat-out wrong by ignoring the threats of eternal torment from any other competing god of a different religion.

It doesn't even work within Christianity. For example, the Jehovah's Witnesses and the Roman Catholics are equally convinced that the other group will end up in hell.

WMD

rhutchin

My premise -- that eternal torment is real -- does not need to be proven because there is no cost to a person in believing this if it turns out to be superstition.

The opposing premise -- that eternal torment is superstition -- needs to be proven for one to rationally take this position because the cost of believing that eternal torment is superstition when it is real is enormous. Absent proof, one would not rationally choose to believe that eternal torment were superstition. Of course, if a person were prone to emotional outbursts, they might well irrationally choose to believe that eternal torment were superstition.