Wayne Delia

1 Samuel 15:1-3

1Samuel also said unto Saul, The LORD sent me to anoint thee to be king over his people, over Israel: now therefore hearken thou unto the voice of the words of the LORD.

2Thus saith the LORD of hosts, I remember that which Amalek did to Israel, how he laid wait for him in the way, when he came up from Egypt.

3Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.

Ordering genocide ain't good. The odds that God is good is 0%.

God IS evil, if 1 Samuel 15:1-3 is accurate. God told Samuel to order King Saul to wipe out an entire nation of people, not for any fault of their own, but because God wasn't done holding a grudge against their ancestors from 350 to 400 years earlier.

It IS true. Do you figure Pascal just swept those passages like 1 Samuel 15:1-3 under the carpet?

It wouldn't be like saying that at all. You've got to tune some of the voices out of your head. All I'm saying is that since God ordered genocide of an entire nation, specifically targeting women, children, and infants, all of whom didn't deserve it, then God is evil. No water running uphill or any other hallucinations necessary.

Are you serious? God orders a complete genocide of an entire nation, and He's somehow got a 50/50 chance of being good? Again, genocide ain't good.

The point is, your analogies are terrible. You're all over the map.

WMD

Wayne Delia

Or, much more likely, it's an example that Jesus's so-called miracles weren't nearly as impressive as they're cracked up to be.

WMD

Wayne Delia

In short - "Always grovel to the toughest bully."

WMD

Wayne Delia

From Pascal's Wager: "Let us weigh the gain and the loss in wagering that God is... If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation that He is."

Can you point to where Pascal said there was a finite cost to believing? No, you can't. That's because he didn't say what you claim he said.

That "reduction to nothing" doesn't happen if the infinite gain cannot be shown to exist, and Pascal certainly did not bother doing that.

In fact, Pascal explicitly said that "if you lose, you lose nothing" - and if the Wager is lost, there is actually NO infinite gain. So, the amount spent in believing does not "reduce to zero."

WMD

rhutchin

You must read Pascal if you are to understand what he said. If you desire to know that which Pascal said, read and in reading, note the following parts of his argument.

Pascal said –

- I feel that I might not have been; for the Ego consists in my thoughts. Therefore I, who think, would not have been, if my mother had been killed before I had life. I am not, then, a necessary being. In the same way I am not eternal or infinite; but I see plainly that there exists in nature a necessary Being, eternal and infinite.

- For, in fact, what is man in nature? A Nothing in comparison with the Infinite, an All in comparison with the Nothing, a mean between nothing and everything. Since he is infinitely removed from comprehending the extremes, the end of things and their beginning are hopelessly hidden from him in an impenetrable secret; he is equally incapable of seeing the Nothing from which he was made, and the Infinite in which he is swallowed up.

- Unity joined to infinity adds nothing to it, no more than one foot to an infinite measure. The finite is annihilated in the presence of the infinite, and becomes a pure nothing. So our spirit before God, so our justice before divine justice. There is not so great a disproportion between our justice and that of God as between unity and infinity.

- We know then the existence and nature of the finite, because we also are finite and have extension. We know the existence of the infinite and are ignorant of its nature, because it has extension like us, but not limits like us. But we know neither the existence nor the nature of God, because He has neither extension nor limits.

- The end of this discourse.- Now, what harm will befall you in taking this side? You will be faithful, humble, grateful, generous, a sincere friend, truthful. Certainly you will not have those poisonous pleasures, glory and luxury; but will you not have others? I will tell you that you will thereby gain in this life, and that, at each step you take on this road, you will see so great certainty of gain, so much nothingness in what you risk, that you will at last recognise that you have wagered for something certain and infinite, for which you have given nothing.

OK, you do not understand what Pascal was saying. So?

rhutchin

Are you saying that it is not rational to grovel where the alternative is eternal torment? What is a little groveling against eternal torment?

rhutchin

I believe that I answered all of them.

rhutchin

Your argument seems to be that a God who is good must force men to be good, and do good, else man will do evil and bring evil on others and by allowing this evil, God shows that He is not good. I guess that is one way to look at it. The Bible takes the position that that God can be called good even while He allows man to do evil. Eventually, your argument will become: a good God would not send anyone to hell, so God should not judge evil (and by extension, not allow evil).

rhutchin

God certainly claims control over all that happens. It would seem to be a simple matter for people to ask God for good if they cared. If the people in Sodom and Gomorrah had cared for their unborn children, why did they provoke God to destroy them? If a man screws his child by not telling his child that God will judge them, why should God be obligated to tell the child the truth?

Are you arguing that it is rational to seek eternal torment? Ignore, for the moment, any other factors. What is rational about a person seeking eternal torment? What factor could you introduce to change that assessment?

rhutchin

Or, maybe you do not understand the concept of loss (as applied in the Wager).