JPD

rhutchin I would give up if I were you - the more you post the less sense your posts make. You've had the inadequacy of Pascal's wager described explicitly - now whether you cannot or will not admit that it falls down when faced with the possibility of an infinite number of Gods to exist is the question. Is it that

(a) You will not admit that an infinite number of Gods could exist?
(b) You will not admit that the potential existence of an infinite number of Gods is something that the wager cannot cope with?

...not to mention the problem that Johnny Skeptic routinely states - people cannot just CHOOSE - and choice is something you gve the impression that you like the sound of. Apart from when you're looking at people whose sexual activities make you want to have them killed.

djrafikie

Listen very carefully rhutchin.

You said that you do not advocate ramming religion down anyones thoat,
then you said you advocate for a society ruled by god.

you cannot have it both ways, one of these statements is a lie. Trying to justify that by suggesting some form of mass immigration from biblical states to non biblical is clealry ridiculous, as the very poor and those with job commitments could not.
You failed to understand the point being made, spectacularly.

djrafikie

oh, by the way rhutchin, as far as i know jesus blasted most of the things you are saying out of the water when he said he was setting aside the old laws, for one rule, the rule of love.

I guess you don't believe in him, or that he said that, which he did, on many occasions, very very clearly.
As you said, trying to mislead people about the content of the bible is blasphemy.
Be warned, I actually double checked this with a minister, and he says this is absolutely 100% correct, and was part of his gift to man, that through love we will all be forgiven.
I explained why I asked, he said he would pray for you to find wisdom to put away your hatefulness and find christ.
Lets all see if prayer really works.............

djrafikie

just in case this was'nt clear enough rhutchin, you have to PRACTISE this love yourself, thats how through love we will all be forgiven works.
No "I get to kill people under OT rules and go to heaven"
not "I think killing people is good"
but "I love these people and forgive, i do not advocate harming them, I turn the other cheek when i am harmed and for jesus, i love all"

get the general idea?

The Evil One

he likes the sound of choice because he feels comfortable with people being condemned to hell for a choice they have made. If he admitted it was not a choice he would have to deal with the possiblity of people being condemned to hell for something that they never chose. Which would be problematic for him.

he also likes to bring things down to personal choice because it reduces epistemology to personal preference and, clearly, no one's personal preferences are any better than anyone else's, so beleiving in God is just as good as not beleiving in God.

Johnny Skeptic

If God exists, and has free will, he is free to do wrong things, which he does in abundance as judged by his own rules. Decent people do not have to endorse God's detestable actions, nor should they. In fact, decent people do not have a choice whether or not to oppose a God who frequently breaks his own rules. They must oppose him or abandon their principles and morals. Decent people are not able to abandon their principles and morals. You have somehow been able to abandon your principles and morals in God's case. How were you able to accomplish this? You would never endorse killing babies and innocent animals if anyone other than God did it.

seebs

I've seen that angle attempted; it's been a dismal failure thus far. Most crucially, there's simply nothing in the book establishing that non-marital sex is sinful; there's condemnations of adultery and rape, and there's OT law about men having sex with unmarried women having to marry them thereafter, but that's it.

There is no solid case there. I've seen people who can do an okay job of arguing that gay sex is probably immoral, but arguing that it's "clear" appears to be a dead end.

Not my job; it's the job of the person advancing the claim to prove a case, and so far, no one's come close.

Angra Mainyu

Biblegod doesn’t exist, so I’m not going to whine or cry.

However, I don’t see your point. If He existed, of course people would cry before that omnipotent monster. His standards wouldn’t be higher, but evil. Purely for example:

First, He’d punish people for things that are beyond their will (such as belief or sexual orientation).

Second, He’d punish people for doing good and rejecting a religion that worships an evil God (if He existed) and calls for the killing of people on grounds like sexuality.

Third, He created Hell, where people are tortured forever. Even if we were talking about real criminals, there’d be no excuse for the creator of Hell.

The punishments I advocate aren’t based on religion – I don’t call for the punishments of murderers because non-God tells me so.

In other words, even if you argue that atheism is a religion, atheism doesn’t advocate for any punishments, unlike your religion. The punishments I’d advocate would be based on my views, yes, but would not on my “religious” views, such as “belief” in the nonexistence of Biblegod.

To make it even clearer, from the nonexistence of God, no system of punishments follows.

If your argument is that I advocate for punishments based on my views, well I’m not a politician or an activist, so I don’t think I could take credit for much advocacy, but still, in general I would agree that I support punishments based on my views. That wasn't an issue, though.


But what that hypothetical society would do isn’t the point. You previously argued that “
If society were seeking to be ruled by God, it would investigate the Bible thoroughly to determine exactly what it said. There would not be Calvinists or universalists etc. There would be Bible believers and blasphemers. Calvinist doctrines (relating to salvation) have never suffered when compared to the teachings of the Bible.”

So, you wouldn’t seem to leave the door open for a third possibility, apart from Bible believers and blasphemers.


That aside, and regarding what the Bible says, well, that is not clear. It depends on the translator and the translation…and the interpretation. When the meaning of a text is clear to all or nearly all readers, that is, when there’s general agreement (e.g., a book on geography, a newspaper), we can use the shortcut “the book/newspaper says X”, without encountering many objections.

However, it’s still a shortcut (the Bible is an inanimate object and doesn’t say anything; the interpreters do), and when it comes to analyzing a text such as the Bible, you’re not likely to find anything close to a general agreement, at least not with regard to many important issues, even though there’s of course general agreement on others (e.g., the Bible talks about a God).

In other words, what I’m saying is that with regard to many issues (homosexuality being one of them), the question is not what the Bible says, but what the Bible according to a certain interpreter or group of interpreters says.

So, if you say that the Bible establishes the death penalty for homosexuals, someone else could argue that you’re telling people that the Bible says something it doesn’t say (and that the condemnation was about specific cases), whereas you could tell the other person the same.

But all this is a bit beside the point, I think. What’s relevant is that your particular branch of Christianity calls for the killing of gay people and whom you’d call blasphemers - and if not, please answer the questions with a “yes” or “no”:

If you could, would you vote in favor of a law that established the death penalty for gay people?

If you could, would you vote in favor of a law that established the death penalty for those who claimed that the Bible doesn’t call for the killing of gay people?
All throughout this thread and many others, people have shown why the wager doesn’t work.

I cannot “decide” to believe as in “make a choice”. I can “decide” in the sense of “reaching a conclusion”.

The wager is impossible.

Of course, whether belief or non-belief is less risky depends on the consequences of those positions (which, btw, clearly isn’t the same as to say that it depends on what believers allege to be the consequences of those positions). For instance, if nonbelievers are stoned or decapitated, of course non-belief is riskier than belief. But that’s not the point.

In fact, the same could be said of any alternative: whether A or – A is less risky depends on the consequences of A and – A. That’s trivially true, but it doesn't make Pascal's wager any better.

I get that impression too.

Of course, one could easily argue that even if belief were a choice, eternal torture would be a heinous crimes on God’s part – not to mention the fact that those suffering the torture would beg for mercy for millennia, millions of years, etc. God would have none, despite the fact that they’d clearly choose not to be tortured.

Johnny Skeptic

If God exists, and has free will, he is free to do wrong things, which he does in abundance as judged by his own rules. Decent people do not have to endorse God's detestable actions, nor should they. In fact, decent people do not have a choice whether or not to oppose a God who frequently breaks his own rules. They must oppose him or abandon their principles and morals. Decent people are not able to abandon their principles and morals. You have somehow been able to abandon your principles and morals in God's case. How were you able to accomplish this? You would never endorse killing babies and innocent animals if anyone other than God did it.

If the God of the Bible exists, most skeptics would want to know about it. This has to be true. The first sentence in the Bible is "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth". I am not aware of any skeptic in the world who does not want to know for certain whether or not it is possible that at least one being exists who is able to create a universe. If the God of the Bible exists, he could easy resolve this issue by showing up and demonstrating that he can instantly create a planet. He couldn't possibly have anything to lose if he did, and mankind would surely have much to gain if he did. Doubt causes religious wars and hatred. If a being exists who has the power to send people to heaven and hell, I am not aware of any skeptic in the world who does not want to know about it. Just as any mentally competent person would want to know that microorganisms exist, and which are helpful and harmful, if eternal rewards and punishments exist, any mentally competent person would want to know about it, in fact, much more so than they would want to know about the existence of microorganisms. If the God of the Bible exists, he could easily prove to skeptics that heaven and hell exist. It is a question of the extent that he is willing go to in order to help ensure that as many people as possible go to heaven, and as few people as possible go to hell. Surely God has not done all that he can do in order to help ensure that as many people as possible go to heaven, and as few people as possible go to hell.

By the way, you do not have a clue which writings originally comprised the Bible, and whether or not God ever said anything about homosexuality and marriage. As noted scholar and author Dr. Elaine Pagels has aptly said, "The victors rewrote history, 'their way'". The victors were orthodox Christians who had enough power to persecute and kill people who disagreed with them, just like your buddy the murderous John Calvin did.

Are you aware that there were disputes over the New Testament Canon? Consider the following:

http://www.buckcash.com/opinions/tem..._Crimeline.htm

325 A.D. Constantine calls for Christendom's 250 bishops to attend First Nicean Council to settle disputes over nature of Christ and other church doctrine.

325 A.D. Nicean Creed Constantine institutes Nicean Creed to unify Christian Incarnation and Resurrection beliefs; Divine Trinity doctrine is approved to attract pluralistic pagans.

rhutchin

You are free to opine and to believe anything you desire.