wade-w

Not true. Buddhism is a religion, and has no god(s).

Starboy

I find it fascinating that the religious seem to think that they can defend their beliefs with logic. You are yet another example of that phenomenon. And not very good at logic or philosophy I might add.

Starboy

Wayne Delia

If this is "Fill in the blank," I'd have to guess "to assert that the Bible is inerrant." That's what you did in your first post.

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Does anybody know if this is the same Pascal that set up Pascal's triangle? Its a long stretch, but he is the only other Pascal I have ever heard of. Just wondering.

Yes. As a theologian, Blaise Pascal was an excellent mathematician. (That's "damning with faint praise." He was not a very good theologian.) His Triangle is useful for quickly finding the coefficients of polynomials and for probabilities/combinations.

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Hey now, I hope you are not saying that hey Roman Catholic God is different from the Souther Baptist God or the South African Presbyterian God.

Radically different. For example, according to Catholics, you can't get to heaven unless you participate in the sacraments of the Roman Catholic Church. You may have a different opinion, but you don't have an objective means of demonstrating that your opinion is more valid than theirs.

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Yes, these denominations and people may differ but it is the denominations and people that differ, not the god.

The denominations and people make widely different claims about what God's intentions are. How does one objectively tell which opinions are valid and which are not?

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your correct, which is why I said Pascal's Wager is not a good reason for converting Christianity (any religion for that matter)

But you did say you were impressed with the logic of Pascal's Wager. It is a sound argument (a logical syllogism) based on assuming the truth of the premises, but the premises are clearly incomplete (no other non-Christian gods are considered) and incorrect (no costs are associated with a lifetime of belief in the case of no God.)

WMD

Wayne Delia

You are clearly wrong in your interpretation of humans "made in the image of God." God is described as omnipotent, but humans obviously are not omnipotent. God has an unlimited array of options that are simply not available to humans, so any comparison of God to human parents is way off the mark. Further, God imposes punishments and condemnations of eternal torture in hell on people, but if any humans laid down the same judgement, they'd be vilified as among the worst criminals in history. That aspect of allegorical "parental punishment" is also a very, very poor analogy.

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No, what I am suggesting is that you become a teenager for a while, and while being a teenager, do everything that a teenager does (school, work, friends, whatever). While doing this, live a perfect life, do a few miracles, and claim to be God. Then, allow yourself to be killed by these teenagers (give your life). So that you could die and then raise from the dead about 3 days later. Then, rejoin the adult world. This way, teenagers all over the world could believe in you and ask for forgiveness for thier "normal" teenage behavior and join the adult world when the die. (obviously I'm not suggesting this really, but the illustration just jumped at me)

Quite an illuminating illustration. Doesn't it seem the least bit ridiculous to you? The first question begged, I suppose, is why is all this necessary? Why is it required that I give my life? So that I can be raised from the dead and offer salvation only to those who believe in me, and condemn for eternity all those who don't? That's just plain insecurity. What you were actually suggesting is that my children will behave in a few years in a manner that deserves the punishment described in the Bible, but you don't know the Bible well enough to understand what punishments are being recommended. Suppose my future teenage son, Joe, becomes rebellious, lazy, and perhaps has a few beers. Do you know what the punishment recommended by the Bible actually is?

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God does not send people to hell becuase they disobey Him, if this were the case, then everybody would be going to hell. He sends people to hell because they do not accept the gift of Jesus' sacrifice.

I'm sure you didn't mean to phrase it this way, because it's plainly wrong. The mythical first human couple, Adam and Eve, were banished from the Garden of Eden and condemned by God precisely because they disobeyed Him. Not only that, but God likewise condemned all of humanity - all of Adam and Eve's alleged descendants - because of Adam and Eve's disobedience. That's the guilt that the church tries to sell would-be converts: convince them they have a problem, even if they've done nothing wrong, and by a happy convenience the church offers a solution to the mess - believe in Jesus, support the church, and everything will be fine. If that were not the case, then you'd be in the embarrassing position to explain exactly what, for example, my two beautiful children have ever done in their lives to deserve condemnation to hell for eternity as punishment. Apart from the incident with the pudding, the living room sofa, and the subsequent cover-up attempt, they've really been quite well-behaved. But they do lack a belief in Jesus as the son of God. So, if they were to die now, would they go to hell, and if so, why?

WMD

Wayne Delia

It's also not a "perfectly logical" argument as you characterized it. The syllogism (the logical form) is sound, but it requires the assumption that the premises are correct and complete. Clearly, the premises are neither correct (there is a significant cost in devoting one's life to fervent belief in the case that no gods exist) nor complete (no gods other than the Christian, Roman Catholic God are considered.) You've also mischaracterized Pascal's Wager, in that it deals with the assumed best case / worst case scenarios of Choices A and B, in terms of finite or infinite pleasurable or painful results.

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Yes I do. Well I know that you know the basic beliefs. But Jesus said that way that you tell a "real" christian from a "fake" one is that, the real ones will "love me and obey my commands" and that you can separate the two by looking at their fruit.

OK, I'll call your bluff. Exactly where in the Gospels does Jesus make this claim? I'll give you a hint: the reference to "you will know them by their fruit" is in Matthew 7, but it does not refer to identifying real Christians vs. fake Christians, rather it refers to identifying false prophets, and evidently false prophets will go to hell unless their prophecies come true. Should that also be applied to those who do not meet your highly subjective and vague standards?

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I try to do my best to obey His commands and live a "good christian life." And, IMHO, i think I am on the right track for this.

So do the people who think they're "Real Christians," and that you're not, simply by virtue of you not being a member of their particular sect or denomination. For two extreme examples, the Jehovah's Witnesses and the Roman Catholics are at extreme ends of the spectrum, each group utterly convinced the other group is destined for hell. Also, there has been nearly continuous violence in Northern Ireland for many, many years over the fundamental differences between the Protestants and the Catholics. Each group thinks they "are on the right track," and that the same Christian God is on their side.

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The people who use christianity as their fire-insurance policy just hear a "good" sermon, walk the isle, then proclaim themselves christians but have no change in their life.

Isn't that the thrust of Pascal's Wager? Essentially, "Fake It 'Till You Make It."

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They keep on being "worldy." But when anybody askes them, yes they are christians and yes they are going to heaven thank you very much. I see this happen waaay to often.

Got news for you. We are all "worldly", with the exception of a few "Captain Video's Space Cadets." You need to state and demonstrate the exact problems associated with being "worldly", other than it takes attention and money away from the church.

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I would call the fallacy of Tu Quoque on them (im doing a presentation on that on friday).

Yipes! It's already Thursday! You've only got one day to find out exactly what the "Tu Quoque" logical fallacy actually is, before you do a presentation on it.[/QUOTE] I would not accept their charge because I would not believe that they were christians in the first place. [/QUOTE]Groan. Well, at least you're close. You are trying to refute a claim that you aren't a "Real Christian" from another group, by pointing out that they are guilty of the same charge, in your opinion. If that was your line of reasoning, then YOU are committing the "Tu Quoque" fallacy! Whether the group making the charge is actually made up of "Real Christians" or not is completely irrelevant to whether you are a "Real Christian."

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(Jehovah's Witnesses are definetly NOT christians because they don't believe in the divinity of Jesus, among other things).

Dang. I guess it's a shame that you defined a "Real Christian" as nothing more than someone who loved Jesus and obeyed His commands. That has nothing at all to do with recognizing Jesus's divinity. According to those standards, many Jehovah's Witnesses actually qualify. Meanwhile, in the broadest sense, the adjective "Christian" applies to anyone who follows the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. But a small group of people in the Church of England, classified as "Christian Atheists," follow the teachings of Jesus while not believing that He was the son of God or that any Gods necessarily existed. You've been told that already.

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But if a legitamet different group of christians (lets just use catholics as an example) told me that I was not a chrstian, my response would depend on their reason.

The reason is trivial: it's because you're not a part of their group, which they think is "on the right track," because if it wasn't, they wouldn't be a part of it.

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Not one. All of them have their faults. But, you can't always say that one group is "wrong" while another is "right," many of the differences are just differences in style or preference.

If, among the 20,000 or so sects of Christianity, none of them are right, then what's the use of Christianity in total?

WMD

Wayne Delia

Absolutely true. I had a wonderful professor at college (cough, mumble, 25 years ago) who, in a course on Logic and Rhetoric, insisted that it was not good enough simply to make scattershot accusations of logical fallacies; one must also indicate how and why the particular logical fallacy applies. For example, his rule of thumb was that if you want to tell someone they're begging the question, it always helps your case if you identify the exact question they are begging.

WMD, BS Math/Comp.Sci, Double Major in Chem. Eng., Clarkson College of Technology, 1979, MBA, Management Information Systems, CCT 1980 - seems like a lifetime ago.

xxthe_leewitxx

*cough cough* that's because it WAS. (My lifetime, at least. )

kidding.... just kidding!!!

Gurdur

No doubt spent mostly on Karres ?
Give my regards to Goth.

BrazenPenguin

Yeah, thats true. But buddhism does have some kind of "supreme beings." If a person is good enough, and climbs up the scale to the top of relms of being, that person can become a Buddha, which is the most enlightened of the phases and is as high as a person can get.

Rational BAC

Well I think that BrazenPenquin is doing awfully well on this forum considering he is just a high school student.

Hang in there BP. I am seriously impressed.

And just to set the record straight----I do believe that the Bible is errant. Certainly in the OT--just a fairy tale. Less so in the NT--------------but still and all not the divine word of God put down on paper meticulously by divinely inspired men.

The NT Bible is just Man's attempt to make some kind of record of supernatural events that occured some 2000 years ago. God could have made a perfect recording of those events had He so chosen. He obviously chose not to.

So you make do with what you got.
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And PS-------I also like Pascal's wager. Has to be modified slightly to work though.

You have to "bet" on all the religions--and on atheism and agnosticism too. Can't lose that way and it costs nothing to "bet"------ (as long as you do not believe in a fire and brimstone hell. Which I don't)