Originally Posted by decalog10

If God exists then why would your die into nothing? I'm not sure I understand.And why would you be subject to some sort of punishment in the after life?
Why do I have to believe that I'm pleasing God?
I thought my concept of God was very specific and addressed the problem of uncertain reality, my only other alternative being atheism, which to me makes no sense at all, an ultimate pointlessness.
How is our trust justified that life has value if there isnt some ultimate good that matches up to it? If it turns out that God is not Good and Religion turns out to be a horrendous fraud, then I guess I was wrong, Life had not value after all, just like the implications of atheism projected it wouldn't, but in the last resort I really lost nothing.
I hope I got most of your points.

Originally Posted by Mageth

If God exists (or does not exist), you may or may not "die into nothing". Simply posting "God exists" does not necessarily guarantee an afterlife.



There's no reason that an extant God must grant us an afterlife outside one's desire for an afterlife granted by God.

Do bacteria, cockroaches, fish, lizards, mice, dogs, gray whales, rhesus monkeys, lemurs and chimps get afterlifes if God exists?



Good question. I agree that one shouldn't. But the fast is that a lot of people believe in God at least in part through a notion of "justice" - to those people, reparations and punishments for wrongs committed in this life require balancing, and therefore it must happen in an afterlife, as it does not always happen here. (Again, I don't buy this notion of the necessity of cosmic justice).

An argument that someone with that belief in the need for justice would present to you is that (Godwin's Law being applied) with your notion of God and an instant afterlife without punishment, Hitler et al would be there with you. (I personally don't think that's a very good argument, but it definitely has an emotional element, eh?)



Again, I'm not saying that you do have to believe that. I'm just pointing out that common notions of God tend to include the notion that one has to do the right thing by God, or God will not be pleased.

If one can't rule in our out the existence of God, one can't totally rule in or out all of the various notions of God. You're arguing for "choosing to believe" in some more-or-less generic God (yet attributing certain things to him, such as granting an afterlife, and a pleasant afterlife, at that). But you seem to concede that there's no rational/evidential way to determine if there is a god. Well then, it follows that there's no way to determine the characteristics of God. One can't rule in or rule out any sort of God.

God (if such an entity exists) may be of any sort or disposition. So if one is going to "choose to believe" that God exists, then one has to "choose to believe" in a certain notion of God. Maybe you're right, and God is passively benevolent and doesn't care what you believe, don't believe, do or don't do. But it may be that you've "chosen to believe" in the wrong notion of God, and God wants you to believe in the right notion of God, or choose to believe for a reason that displeases God. God may be one of those sorts of Gods that many believe in that you have to do certain things, get baptized, believe in Jesus and his resurrectoin, speak in tongues, bow toward Mecca 5 times a day, etc. etc, and you don't do the right things to please him after you choose to believe. And so on.



The way I see it, you're just stuck on the notion that only eternal things have value (value to who, BTW?). To me, that makes no sense at all. To me, life is more valuable because it is temporal, because that's all I get.

To be honest, I don't really grok this whole "trust justified" requirement of yours - what is it I'm supposed to be trusting? Who is it that is valuing life? My life has value because I give it value. I value my temporal life, even more so because I believe it's all I get.



But with your loose definition of God, in which you apparently get a nice afterlife no matter what, and you don't really have to do anything to please God, you gain nothing by believing in God outside belief in God, and some sort of perceived comfort - comfort to meet a need that arises from one's desire or emotion, and if one doesn't have that particular need, believing in God is not necessary to meet that need!

Further, as to:



I'll note that the above "implication" is due to your own interpretation of things, and your apparent belief that only eternal things have value (or at least that life can have value only if eternal). Again, who gives value to my life? Me, of course. I'm an atheist, and my life has value to me even though I recognize that I will die and be no more (as far as I know). Even if it turns out that my life is eternal, it will still be me that values my life. But believing life is eternal would not add one bit of value to my life; it would simply make it (much) longer. If anything, it would make this temporal life seem less valuable in comparison.

Further, I value the lives of those I love even though I don't believe they will live eternally. If anything, it makes me value each moment with them more because I don't believe we'll have an eternity together. Each moment in a temporal life is precious. In an eternal life, what value does a moment actually have?

Originally Posted by Mageth

If God exists (or does not exist), you may or may not "die into nothing". Simply posting "God exists" does not necessarily guarantee an afterlife.



There's no reason that an extant God must grant us an afterlife outside one's desire for an afterlife granted by God.

Do bacteria, cockroaches, fish, lizards, mice, dogs, gray whales, rhesus monkeys, lemurs and chimps get afterlifes if God exists?



Good question. I agree that one shouldn't. But the fast is that a lot of people believe in God at least in part through a notion of "justice" - to those people, reparations and punishments for wrongs committed in this life require balancing, and therefore it must happen in an afterlife, as it does not always happen here. (Again, I don't buy this notion of the necessity of cosmic justice).

An argument that someone with that belief in the need for justice would present to you is that (Godwin's Law being applied) with your notion of God and an instant afterlife without punishment, Hitler et al would be there with you. (I personally don't think that's a very good argument, but it definitely has an emotional element, eh?)



Again, I'm not saying that you do have to believe that. I'm just pointing out that common notions of God tend to include the notion that one has to do the right thing by God, or God will not be pleased.

If one can't rule in our out the existence of God, one can't totally rule in or out all of the various notions of God. You're arguing for "choosing to believe" in some more-or-less generic God (yet attributing certain things to him, such as granting an afterlife, and a pleasant afterlife, at that). But you seem to concede that there's no rational/evidential way to determine if there is a god. Well then, it follows that there's no way to determine the characteristics of God. One can't rule in or rule out any sort of God.

God (if such an entity exists) may be of any sort or disposition. So if one is going to "choose to believe" that God exists, then one has to "choose to believe" in a certain notion of God. Maybe you're right, and God is passively benevolent and doesn't care what you believe, don't believe, do or don't do. But it may be that you've "chosen to believe" in the wrong notion of God, and God wants you to believe in the right notion of God, or choose to believe for a reason that displeases God. God may be one of those sorts of Gods that many believe in that you have to do certain things, get baptized, believe in Jesus and his resurrectoin, speak in tongues, bow toward Mecca 5 times a day, etc. etc, and you don't do the right things to please him after you choose to believe. And so on.



The way I see it, you're just stuck on the notion that only eternal things have value (value to who, BTW?). To me, that makes no sense at all. To me, life is more valuable because it is temporal, because that's all I get.

To be honest, I don't really grok this whole "trust justified" requirement of yours - what is it I'm supposed to be trusting? Who is it that is valuing life? My life has value because I give it value. I value my temporal life, even more so because I believe it's all I get.



But with your loose definition of God, in which you apparently get a nice afterlife no matter what, and you don't really have to do anything to please God, you gain nothing by believing in God outside belief in God, and some sort of perceived comfort - comfort to meet a need that arises from one's desire or emotion, and if one doesn't have that particular need, believing in God is not necessary to meet that need!

Further, as to:



I'll note that the above "implication" is due to your own interpretation of things, and your apparent belief that only eternal things have value (or at least that life can have value only if eternal). Again, who gives value to my life? Me, of course. I'm an atheist, and my life has value to me even though I recognize that I will die and be no more (as far as I know). Even if it turns out that my life is eternal, it will still be me that values my life. But believing life is eternal would not add one bit of value to my life; it would simply make it (much) longer. If anything, it would make this temporal life seem less valuable in comparison.

Further, I value the lives of those I love even though I don't believe they will live eternally. If anything, it makes me value each moment with them more because I don't believe we'll have an eternity together. Each moment in a temporal life is precious. In an eternal life, what value does a moment actually have?

Originally Posted by FatherMithras

Than you're wrong. You can disagree all you want. But than you're the same as people who think I have to prove them wrong about Santa, the easter bunny, gravity pixies, etc.



For the sake of argument I will once again agree.



Argument has already broken into tatters. How do you know god is responsible for this? The more parsimonious explanation is that reality has to follow it's own rules, because it's an inherent property. Gravity can't just stop working because it's inherent. This fits all the evidence, and is more parsimonious.


I wish we did to. but the fact is, you do NOT address my claims with anything approaching validity. If I point out you ignore the burden of proof, make appeals to consequence, assume equality in pascal's wager, etc etc etc and never answer those assumptions with anything but MORE of the same, you haven't addressed the point to anyone's reasonable satisfaction. Due to your not doing so (for whatever reason, be it time constraints, or inability to do so) I bring it back up, because it remains relevant and continues to refute your premise.


I concur. you have most certainly tried. However, your efforts have failed, since you can't answer reasonable objections, answer the burden of proof, or support your claim with any validity.



The same as with the existence of the gravity pixy who grants meaning to life. You have not shown god existing automatically grants meaning to life, nor that its existence necessitates an afterlife, etc etc etc. And once again, the yes or no are NOT 50 50 odds. Burden of proof, once again refutes your argument.


Wrong. If god exists, he could theoretically leave evidence behind to prove it. He wouldn't have to, but COULD. and thus the positve COULD be proved. you can NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER prove a negative. So saying you can't prove the negative position is foolish and silly to even bring up in a discussion. It's like saying you can't disprove gravity pixies. the burden of proof is on your position, not mine.


No you haven't. You've special pleaded and claimed a series of assumptions without supporting them.

Why does a god existing give purpose to life? why does it entail an afterlife? A god could exist and not give us any more purpose than dirt. You have assumed a set of conclusions are true, without first supporting them. It's as if you're doing this

"If I'm right, C. Now, let's assume B, which supports C."

Me: Wait, you haven't supported B.

"C is the better conclusion. You have to trust in C because of B."

Me: but you HAE NOT SUPPORTED B.

"If C is true than B!"

It's frustrating.



APPEAL TO CONSEQUENCE IS A LOGICAL FALLACY AND IS NOT A VALID ARGUMENT.

You're making an argument that consists of "C is so much better than C2, that C must be right. I can't live with the idea of C2 being right, it just is awful."

It's like someone comes to me and says they were raped. And I reply with "No, you couldn't have been raped, because that's not emotionally fulfilling to either of us and is less acceptable than 'You had a great night'. Therefor, you didn't get raped, you had a fun, wonderful time."

One consequence is nice, and the other is sad. The consequence has nothing to do with the fact of what happened.


Me too. I could easily be wrong.


"Dying into God" makes a whole series of assumptions you haven't proved. It says that when you die, just because god exists, you get in on God goodness/afterlife. This hasn't been supported. Hell, if god can do whatever he wanted, he could make it so anyone who chooses to believe in him ceases to exist upon deat, and only nonbelievers get heaven. this is a possibility, yet you haven't even considered it, BECAUSE YOU ASSUME when you haven't supported.



You just lived a lie. If you lived with an organized religion, you wasted a great portion of your life on something with no evidence. It's no different than saying we should believe in magical creatures because it makes life better.


Nope. You can live a happy, hopeful life either way! I'm a very happy person. Even more so since I rejected the unsupported God assertion. Life is more precious and valuable knowing it ends. You continue to make assertions that are patently false, and unsupported. You fail to support almost anything you claim as evidence. Don't you see the problem?




Your mind is open? No, it isn't. An open mind doesn't assume their premises, make fallacious arguments, ignore rebuttals, selectively quote philosophy and ignore the same philosophy if it refutes you. An open mind doesn't assume its premises without support. You have failed to shown any indication of an open mind, with this part alone:



You've admitted here the ARGUMENT can't convince you. Because you've said that the end result is where your decision lies. Atheism can't offer you eternal happiness in the afterlife, and thus it's not something you'll accept, due to the CONSEQUENCE. Your statement of open mindedness is refuted with the quote right next to it.

The MOMENT, you show a god created universe better explains the observations we make, I'll switch. the moment you show anything I hate, loath and disagree with, is a better option, I'll change my position. I have an open mind. The consequences don't change my belief. Only the argument and the evidence.