Alf

Errr.. I just proved that the premises are faulty. Pascal makes the wager based upon the premises that the god in question is the christian god. Removing that premises and the wager is worthless - which I have already shown.

Given that neither you nor Pascal ever bothered to establish that that premise is true,
I do not have to prove that the premise is faulty. This is called "shifting the burden of proof" and is a logical fallacy. All I have to do is to point out that without this premise the wager is worthless and I have already done that - nothing left to show.

If you want to prove that the premise is correct, that is up to you. I agree that you have an easier job than without the wager. You don't have to prove that the christian god exist, you just have to prove that it is either true that the christian god exist or there is no god. I.e. you have to prove that all the 29999 gods or so that people have believed in and the millions upon millions of gods that no person has yet believed in but which could possibily be believed in is impossible. Good luck in your attempt.

Alf

Alf

The problem is that belief doesn't really provide any escape from the torment either.

Given that there is a god and that this god send any who does not believe in him to eternal torment then even believing in some god will not allow you to escape that torment unless you happened to believe in the same god that actually exist.

So it is not that you are saved if you do and damned if you don't. It is more a case of damned if you do and damned if you don't situation and that is exactly why Pascal was wrong.

The tiny small case that you happen to stumble upon a belief that allowed you to escape that eternal torment is so small that it can be safely ignored, it is irrelevant. True, of a million people each one believing in a different god one of them might be saved but it doesn't help you much to know that there is one guy out there who got saved when you are yourself roasting next to the atheist.

The next question to ask then is how could a benevolent god be so cruel as to make the rules of the game this way - essentially rig the game so we all end up in a lose/lose situation? The conclusion must be that if God exist he is a cruel sadistic bastard and not worthy of worship anyway and given that he is so cruel he most likely will send those who believe in him in hell along with those who do not believe in him and so even that one believer who did happen to stumble upon the right belief end up roasting together with those who believed in the wrong god and those who did not believe in any god.

Either way the christian god is impossible in any of these scenarios as he is assumed to be benevolent and so would never rig the game in such a cruel manner.

Alf

rhutchin

The change occurs when one takes that which he accepts as possibly true and makes a decision based on that possibility. For example, I accept the possibility that the leprechaun exists and that he has placed a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. I travel to the end of the rainbow in the hope of finding the pot of gold. By traveling to the end of the rainbow, I have converted my acceptance of the possibility that leprechauns exist into a belief (however weak) that the leprechaun is real enough to justify my believing that he has placed a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Without “belief,� one would never let that which he accepts influence a decision that he makes. You may accept the possibility that leprechauns exist, but you would never travel to the end of a rainbow to see if he hid a pot of gold there because you do not believe that leprechauns exist.

If you accept that God Z exists then you could use that as the basis for nonbelief since you could then believe that such nonbelief can result in escape from eternal torment.

If you do not accept that God Z exists (or are completely ignorant of the possible existence of God Z), then you would not pursue nonbelief because it does not offer an escape from eternal torment. You would rationally pursue a course of action that offers you the potential to escape eternal torment.

If one accepts the possibility that god Z exists then one’s decision not to believe as a means to escape eternal torment must incorporate a belief that God Z can exist. If the person does not believe that God Z could exist, there is no basis for nonbelief since there is no reason to think that nonbelief can offer an escape from eternal torment.

I did this in my response to your other msg so I won’t repeat it here.

What you have done is to split nonbelief and create two situations.

1. Pure nonbelief (no God Z option)
2. Modified Unbelief (with the God Z option).

My unbelief argument is based on (1). Your modified unbelief option is actually a belief system since one must not only accept the possibility of a God Z, but one must believe that God Z could exist in order to pursue unbelief as a means to escape eternal torment.

The standard definition of nonbelief is that it is lack of belief in any god as a means to escape eternal torment. I just assumed that definition to be correct. Your modifier nonbelief incorporates a God Z option and leaves the pure nonbelief system intact. Modified nonbelief necessarily incorporates a belief in god Z and is not really a nonbelief system.

Yes, it does. It one does not believe that God Z exists, then there is no rational basis to pursue nonbelief as a means to escape eternal torment. The goal is to escape eternal torment and the course of action one takes to do this must necessarily incorporate a belief that the course of action can accomplish its intended purpose. One will take that course of action that he believes will do what he wants and not take a course of action that he does not believe will do so.

rhutchin

You did not prove that the premises were faulty. All you argued was for the possibility that the premises could be faulty.

When you remove the premise that Pascal’s God (and by extention, any god or belief system claimed to accomplish the same purpose) you have removed the whole basis for the argument – No god; no eternal torment; no decision. This means that you can prove that God does not exist and if God does not exist there is no eternal torment for one to want to avoid. If, however, it turns out that you cannot prove that God does not exist, then you cannot remove the premise (that God might exist) from the Wager and the Wager stands on its merits.

enemigo

No we haven't.

Your 3 & 3a are incorrect. How many times do I have to tell you that "belief" in God Z does NOT provide a means to escape eternal torment? Nonbelief does.

This is correct:

3a. Nonbelief in God Z provides a means to escape eternal torment.


Further, if God Z exists, then because he punishes belief, that means that belief is uncertain and possibly wrong, and therefore:

A. If belief is uncertain and possibly wrong, then it is too risky to be a viable option.
B. belief is uncertain and possibly wrong.
=> C. belief is too risky to be a viable option.

steamer

God and the Easter Bunny are only known to exist as ideas in the minds of men. Whether they exist elsewhere is unknown. Can you explain your irrational position of not "choosing to believe" in the Easter Bunny to avoid Easter Bunny hell? If you cannot then you have no grounds to argue that the wager is valid.

Your god and the Easter bunny have the same quality of "realness" to me. That is they are both mental constructs without a corresponding being which exists outside of mens minds. If you cannot convince me that you have the power to "choose to believe" that the Easter bunny exists outside of men's minds then the argument is flawed in that it demands an impossibility. If you can do this, then explain your irrationality of avoiding Easter bunny hell when it costs you nothing to believe it but eternal Easter bunny torment for failure to do so.

Johnny Skeptic

The texts say that the Devil believes that God exists, so the existance of God is not the main issue here. The main issue is that SUBSEQUENT to a person believing that the God of the Bible exists, what must a person do in order to go to heaven? The New Testament clearly says in a number of places that a person cannot go to heaven unless he loves and obeys God. Actually, a believer must love God with ALL of his heart, soul, and mind. God has made this impossible for skeptics. Consider the following scriptures:

Exodus 4:11 And the Lord said unto him, Who hath made man's mouth? or who maketh the dumb, or deaf, or the seeing, or the blind? have not I the Lord?

Revelation 14: 9 And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand,

10 The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb:

11 And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name.

Revelation 9:1 And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth: and to him was given the key of the bottomless pit.

2 And he opened the bottomless pit; and there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit.

3 And there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth: and unto them was given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power.

4 And it was commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree; but only those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads.

5 And to them it was given that they should not kill them, but that they should be tormented five months: and their torment was as the torment of a scorpion, when he striketh a man.

6 And in those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them.

Rhutchin, how can you possibly love a God like that with all of your heart, soul, and mind? If a human made a person blind or deaf, he would be put in prison, and with your blessing I might add. The only reason that you tolerate such behavior from God is that you believe that he will provide you with a comfortable eternal life, but that is merely an idle and uncorroborated speculation. Such is the case with the followers of all religions. You only have the Bible's writers word for it that God promised believers a comfortable life. You wouldn't have any interest at all in defending the Bible if all of the evidence were the same with the single expection that God is evil instead of good and will send everyone to hell. You are defending eternal comfort, not the Bible.

At best, the God of the Bible is bi-polar or amoral, and he is inconsistent. Proof of his inconsistency is that on some occassions, he demonstrated his supernatural powers for the express purpose of encouraging people to follow him, but most of the time he refused to do that.

Agnostic Theist

OK

Yours or mine? I'm going to say God created everything, including time. But I'm thinking more in terms of actualising possible worlds (not possibilia, mind) than fashioning some rock.

I'm going to go with C. Nebraska

Amaleq13

As has been explained to you repeatedly, this argument is flawed from the outset because it incorporates an irrational shift of the burden to proving a negative. It also, based on some of your other posts, incorporates the irrational requirement of "absolute certainty".

1. One cannot prove that God exists so there is no rational basis to fear being subjected to eternal torment.

Since we have no good reason to believe God exists, there is no basis for assuming even the smallest likelihood that it could happen and, therefore, there is no actual risk.

Since there is no good reason to think eternal torment exists as an actual consequence, there is nothing from which one needs to escape.

Your argument is fatally flawed and presents absolutely no challenge to atheism.

Agnostic Theist

Actually, if you're going to argue from this point, you have a burden to show that there is no possible world in which people go to hell. I take into account your claim that one needn't prove a negative, but frankly that line was chucked out years ago.

All your opponent needs to do is infer that

'This atheist affirms that there is no good reason to believe in the existence of hell or some other abode of eternal torment'

This doesn't follow. A better premise would be

1. One cannot prove God does not exist so it is rational not to fear the prospect of eternal torment, given that the prospect hinges entirely on the existence of God.

Again, this doesn't follow. The possibility of eternal torment is not overshadowed by the claim that God has not been proven. I think, however, you are confusng two concepts.

1. That we might go to Hell

2. That the Judeo-Christian God probably exists

In the case of the first inference, there's not much we can do except try to do what we believe is right. Even then we could be fucked.

In the case of the second inference, there is a burden on the believer to provide support for the assertion that their God probably or certainly does exist.

Hence, you have the right idea in mind, by attacking the probability of God's existence (which is implicitly assumed in the Wager, albeit without sound justification) but your error is in jumping to the conclusion that it is irrational to fear hell, or deny the possibility of hell.

There is no good reason for me to believe I will be hit by a bus tomorrow, but damned if I sprint blindly across the road.

I'd say it presents little or nothing in support of Judeo-Christian theism, and that your attempted rebuttal is attempting to be stronger than necessary.