Jackson

I'll just jump right in:

What is gained by being an atheist? If you are right, you end up the same place everyone else does, and you have not gained anything.
If you are wrong you have lost everything, and have wasted what life you had trying to prove a false idea. And you have eternity to think about your choices.

In looking at religions, specifically Christianity and Islam.
If you are right in your beliefs you have gained an immeasurable thing and a great eternal life.
If you are wrong, you have lost nothing, but the time you spent in devotion to your beliefs. And since you have no eternity, you won't have to dwell on your stupidity.

Simply looking at the reward vs losses between the two, a clear winner is found. Either way religion wins because, well if your right you get something good, if your wrong you get the same thing the atheist gets for being right. And an atheist gets screwed either way.

This is not my main reason for being a Christian, just what I consider to be a logical reason to not be an atheist.(You’ll probably disagree here) I don’t expect to convert any of you, but to just let you know that you have more guts than many Christians, because well for our troubles we get rewarded, for yours you just get screwed. I’m not gutsy (or stupid, depending on how you look at it) enough to gamble like that in anything.

(You can now disregard the rest of what I will say.)

I won't give you all my reasons for being a Christian, because you have probably heard them all before and basically don't care to hear them again(I will assume). You won't care about my experiences with God because obviously they weren't yours.

I will also go on to say that I believe God cannot and will not ever be scientifically proven for obvious reasons. Creationism will also never be scientifically proven, since God will never be proven.

Does this matter? I don't think so. Knowing you have someone to trust, does matter.(again I'm sure you'll love that part)

God is basically taken by faith. Blind faith? No, but faith nonetheless. There is "evidence" for God. If there wasn't, this board would serve no purpose.(I'm sure you'll want me to expound here).

You will probably think that I another ignorant Christian, so be it.

I will stop now (many of you will be glad), I hope you at least followed the first part of what I said. And most likely this will be the only post I will ever have on this board.

edit: for those with reading problems.
I have not said any specific hell or heaven, I didn't even use either word. I basically am comparing atheism to ALL religion with an afterlife, forget Christianity. You all are stuck on Christianity.:banghead:

Calzaer

You make it sound like it's a 50/50 choice. Either nothing happens when we die, or hell (specifically YOUR hell, not the Hindu hell or the Islamic hell or the Babylonian hell) exists.

Surely you know better than that. Even if I say "Given: Afterlife exists", you still have a long way to go in order to prove it's YOUR version of the afterlife that exists.

[edit]

Promises, promises.

Eudaimonist

My intellectual integrity. My "soul", if you will.

What would it profit a man to gain eternal life, yet lose his soul? Ponder that one.

BioBeing

Why do you want to know? Are you looking to free yourself from the lies you have surrounded yourself with?

sandlewood

What you are describing is Pascal's Wager. In the old forum we used to have a link to this at the top of the page because it was so commonly argued. While it sounds like a good bet on the surface, there are reasons why it is not. If you follow the link it is explained better than I could do.

What if you are wrong and one of the other religions is right? You will end up in some other religions hell. Are you just subject to believing whichever religion promises you the best reward if you believe and the worst torture if you don’t? If you believe Christianity only because it has the best reward or the worst hell, then won’t God know that? Will he let you into Heaven if you only believe for that reason? And if you do believe for that reason, then are you really searching for the truth? As Eudaimonist pointed out, intellectual integrity is something to be valued.
I think I agree with you there, but probably for a different reason. I don’t think God is usually defined very well, so you don’t even know what it is you’re supposed to be proving. When a god is defined as best as possible, it is usually defined to be something that cannot be detected. It is by definition that it cannot be proven.
That this board has a purpose doesn’t mean that there is evidence for a god. As George H. Smith said, atheism is important because theism is important. (Hope I got that right). This board exists because atheists need a place to find and talk to other atheists, because we seem to be immersed in a sea of theists and theism.

xeren

Jackson, think of it this way:

If it turns out there is an afterlife, presumably one in which your soul lives on for eternity, then this 70-80 years we live on earth is a very small time, compared to the eternity we have afterwards, so it's not such a big deal to spend 70 years praying, going to church, etc.

But if there is no afterlife, then the 70-80 years we live on this earth is all we have; it, for all purposes, is our eternity. Now i think wasting all the time you have praying to some imaginary god and going to church and trying to secure your spot in an imaginary heaven is the worst way to spend the only 70 years you have.

My point is, it is not "safer" to bet on an afterlife over no afterlife because if you are wrong in either case, you made the biggest mistake of your existence. The first being that you realize you have to go to hell for your entire existence, and the second being that you realize you just wasted your entire existence.

-xeren

Thomas Metcalf

Originally posted by Jackson :

What is gained by not believing in the Shy God? If you are right, you end up in the same place everyone else does, and you have not gained anything. If you are wrong, you've lost everything. (Note: The Shy God is the God who hates it when people believe in gods and sends those people to Hell. He sends atheists to Heaven.)

One thing I gain by accepting atheism is keeping my belief box free of false beliefs. You don't think that's a good thing?

Actually, your experiences don't provide any good reason to believe in Christianity.

No, there isn't. Everything Christians think is evidence for God actually isn't.

I don't recommend that. It'll make it look as if you gave up. I guess you're kind of giving up before you even start, though.

TerryTryon

Hypothetically, I was born into a religion in which queerness is a great sin and all homoerotic thoughts must be repressed. I decide that if I devote my life to this religion that when I die, I will have lost nothing if oblivion awaits me, but if the religion is true I will have gained everything. Hypothetically, once again, I am queer and I attempt to repress my true sexuality. I marry, have children and go through all the right moves dictated by my religion, but my mind is in a constant turmoil, because despite my best efforts, every cute face, rounded butt, or nice set of pecs I see sends me into a frenzy of lust, for which I repent, repress, and rage against myself. This turmoil expresses itself in unprovoked rage against my wife and kids and they become bitter towards me, never knowing why I have been so cruel towards them, and when I die, I have lived my own life as a total lie, have destroyed the lives of my wife and offspring, and have sown the seeds of rage and hypocrisy for generations to come.

Once again, hypothetically, I am born into a religion that claims that all that is worth knowing is revealed in a collection of holy writings, and that any intellectual activity outside those writings must be in accordance with their teachings. I (hypothetically) have potentially the greatest mind in the history of man, but I spend all my mental powers doing numerology and other lint sorting activities with the sacred book. And when I die, the world has lost an untold wealth of technological breakthroughs that would have meant the improvement of countless lives.

For my third hypothesis, I am born into a religion that teaches that infidels must be converted or destroyed. I devote my life in pursuit of those not born into my religion, persuading some, forcing others, and still others I kill in the most painful manner imaginable, and when I die I leave everything I have touched corrupted and ready to spread that corruption. Generations will suffer from my folly.

Pascal’s wager assumes that what you have faith in is morally uplifting, or at least morally neutral. But faith cannot guarantee morality. If it could, then religious strife would be impossible. What is moral or immoral depends on the actual truth of the situation for which moral judgement is required. That requires inquiry and testing, and a desire to follow the evidence wherever it leads, no matter how difficult or painful.

If you eschew faith, when you die, even though nothing of your mind or ego remains, you may leave a legacy of peace, happiness, and progress. But if, on the off chance the brand of faith you reject among the millions possible, hits the jackpot and whatever god there may be torments you, you may still have escaped having lived a worthless, corrupt, unfulfilled life.

happyboy

i totally agree, terry. being gay + being christian = a lifetime of guilt and self-hate.

a lot of christian idiots think that homosexuals can change, if only they're willing. well, if i could take a pill that would make me straight, i probably would, if only to stop hating myself. but i can't change what i am, no matter what christians with no grasp on reality like to think.

it strikes me as so damn odd that a God that supposedly preaches infinite love and mercy would willingly instill such self-hate and self-loathing in so many people.

gotta love that God......

happyboy, proud of his sexuality, despite his christian upbringing

Theli

Haven't you thought of the possibility that your god (or any other) might punish you for believing in him?
I mean, he obviously have went to alot of trouble to hide himself, and here you run around sqealing that he exists.
And as you said, you have taken this all on faith, so there is no reason for us to even consider your claims, is there?