Freethought & Rationalism Archive

rhutchin · 01-31-2006, 05:24 PM

Quote:

rhutchin
Only until one chooses which god to serve. Once that choice has been made, one would have as much assurance of escaping eternal torment as that god is claimed to provide. Those who have made no choice either live in fear or denial.

Ubercat
So you are absolutely convinced that eternal damnation is a fact. If by some chance it's not YOUR god doing it, then it must be some other god. But by golly! Someone is gonna burn us when we die. Period.

More and more, I find myself wondering what kind of life you must have led up to this point, what your childhood was like, how you interact with the people who know you, your family and church etc. You are hands down, the most peculiar person I have encountered on the board so far. No offense intended.

I am absolutely convinced that the Bible tells us about eternal torment and no one can prove there will be no eternal torment.

No offense taken.

rhutchin · 01-31-2006, 05:26 PM

Quote:

rhutchin
You are a man of greater faith than I had supposed earlier. You must be a very religious man.

Wayne Delia
Because faith in a religious concept is a good thing to have, yet "faith" in the observations of the known universe based on confidence, reliability, and repeatability is a tool of Satan? You are a man of much less understanding than I had supposed earlier, and even then, I didn't give you much credit for understanding things terribly well. Thus, you, too, must be a very religious man.

It would appear that we are both very religious differing only in the object of our faith.

rhutchin · 01-31-2006, 05:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mageth

...the problem he speaks of is...well...uncertain.

Uncertain - I like that.

Ubercat · 01-31-2006, 05:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rhutchin

I am absolutely convinced that the Bible tells us about eternal torment and no one can prove there will be no eternal torment.

No offense taken.

I agree with you 100%!! But you're going quite a bit beyond this in your beliefs aren't you?

-Ubercat

rhutchin · 01-31-2006, 05:42 PM

Quote:

rhutchin
The losses you describe are finite and only could be exposed if God does not exist.

Wayne Delia
Exactly. Thus, when Pascal says "If you lose [the Wager], you lose nothing," he is wrong. What is lost are the finite costs. You have just conceded the point.

To one person the loss of a penny when one has billions of dollars is nothing. To others, like you, the loss of a penny would be a great loss. It just shows that people see events from different perspectives.

Quote:

rhutchin
If God does exist, then the losses are as nothing compared to the infinite gain.

Wayne Delia
Not so. Not in any way anyone has demonstrated; in fact, there are verses in the Bible which would seem to imply that a "hedged bet" belief in God entirely to avoid eternal punishment for a selfish, greedy, "self-interest" could just as easily get you headed for hell in a rocket sled.

I agree. However, it is still true that if God does exist, then the losses are as nothing compared to the infinite gain.

Quote:

rhutchin
The problem is that one does not know the outcome until they die and then it is too late to do anything.

Wayne Delia
You're wrong again: in the event that there is no God and no afterlife, there would be nothing "known" at the time of death at all, since death involves the cessation of all biological processes which support cognition, much less support life itself.

It is as you say, “…in the event that…�?

Quote:

rhutchin
Following your logic, a person would not save money for retirement or buy life insurance because of the lost income that they cannot spend today.

Wayne Delia
That doesn't follow the logic at all. We can observe people retiring from their jobs, calculate the cost of living as a retiree, and investigate the change in the sources of income as the retiree no longer makes money from employment, but starts collecting income from a pension or Social Security. All these things are very real, tangible, reliable, and repeatable - and the outcomes are quite easily calculated. No such evidence is available for your God, or the associated empty death threats. That's why you're so baaaaad at paraphrasing other people's arguments.

Still, some people die before they retire. In fact, all people eventually die. What we see is people planning for a future that is not guaranteed to them nor one that they necessarily will be able to control. People plan for uncertainty. For some reason, you don’t seem to think that this is advisable, or maybe for emotional reasons, you just don’t think it advisable to plan for the uncertainty that follows death.

rhutchin · 01-31-2006, 05:43 PM

Quote:

rhutchin
I am absolutely convinced that the Bible tells us about eternal torment and no one can prove there will be no eternal torment.

Ubercat
I agree with you 100%!! But you're going quite a bit beyond this in your beliefs aren't you?

I have other beliefs. Don't we all.

rhutchin · 01-31-2006, 05:48 PM

Quote:

rhutchin
I would say that faith is belief in the absence of proof. One must have some level of evidence to exercise faith. If sufficient evidence is not available to prove a truth of something, then one exercises faith to believe that the something is true.

Wayne Delia
The problem you're avoiding now is that when it comes to religious beliefs, faith is supposedly a good thing - in fact, based on the lack of evidence, faith is a necessary thing. But when it comes to the refutation of skeptics, who cannot prove their assertions with 100% certainty, then their "faith" becomes a bad thing....

Having faith is not bad. That which is bad is the refusal of skeptics to admit their faith. They believe in that which they refuse to concede cannot be proved and refuse to admit how religious they really are.

MRM · 01-31-2006, 06:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rhutchin

I am absolutely convinced that the Bible tells us about eternal torment and no one can prove there will be no eternal torment.

No offense taken.

With your logic you must become a pagan. Worship as many gods as possible in order to avoid as many hells as possible.

Wayne Delia · 01-31-2006, 06:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rhutchin

Unfortunately, it is only the very religious who maintain that the Wager has been shown to be untenable a thousand times over.

Unfortunately, it is only the deepest hereticals who maintain that "unfortunately, it is only the very religious who maintain that the Wager has been shown to be untenable a thousand times over." Thus, you are a heretic.

Quote:

It is only by faith that one can believe this.

"Your faith bad. My faith good. Take my faith, please." That only works on the really gullible, and it's to your disadvantage we're not that gullible.

WMD

Dlx2 · 01-31-2006, 06:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rhutchin

Maybe you could identify some infinite issues that are really relevant. It sounds like your mathematical skills far exceed those of Pascal (and I suspect you have the journal articles to back it up), so maybe you could explain where Pascal failed in addressing infinity. Granted, the Pensees appear to be notes that Pascal made in preparation of writing a book so depth may be lacking but you can still take what he said about infinity in those notes and work from that.

Consider.

You have a set R representing all real numbers between 0 and 1. This set is infinite, despite the fact that there are finite bounds on this set.

Now, replace "0" with birth, and "1" with death.

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