TerryTryon

I was not commenting on my own sexuality or any particular religion. I was merely stating (1) if a world exists in which gayness is innate, and (2) there exists a faith system that preaches that it is not, then the potential for the application of Pascal's Wager to cause great mischief is almost certain.

However, if you followed some of my posts on the Evolution/Creationist forum when I was a couple of years younger and dumber, I wasted a great deal of verbiage and venom debating the possible survival advantages of gayness. so it's no secret that I am as militant in my queerness as in my atheism. Indeed, both positions spring from the same imperative: follow the evidence no matter how discomforting or unpopular.

I do indeed suspect strongly that the first hypothetical situation in my above post applies to our world, as well as the other two, but I swear that even at my weirdest self degradation in christianity, I have never maintained that the Bible contains the sum of all useful human knowledge or felt the need to murder non-christians.

Gee! I am so transparent.

Jamie_L

There are tons of religions out there. Believing in one only gives you a slightly better chance of being right than believing in none of them. Thus, the theists' "odds" of getting things right aren't all that better than the atheist.

Furthermore, you can't really "believe" in something you don't believe in. That is, after examining the evidence and realizing that belief in God makes no sense to me, I can't then say "Well, my chances of eternal life are improved if I am Christian, so I'll start believing in God today."

I've made an honest conclusion based on the information available and the brain I have to interpret it. If God exists, all these things come from God. If God does exist, and he values intellectually dishonest adherence to religion over intellectually honest conclusions made based on his info and his creation, then we're all in deep s*&t. Such a God is really not benevolent at all, and might be prone to jerking us around in all kinds of ways.

Which leads me back to Smith's Wager:
1. If God is benevolent, he won't punish us for honest mistakes. Don't worry.
2. If God is malevolent, he may treat us arbitrarily, and any attempts to appease him are likely pointless. We can't do anything about it. Don't waste time worrying.
3. If God doesn't care, then it doesn't matter what we do. Don't worry.
4. If God doesn't exist, then it doesn't matter. Don't worry.

Don't worry. Be happy.

Jamie

scumble

Yes, the same arguments over and over again. It's like spending all your money on the lottery and living in poverty for the rest of your life.

If you aren't bound by self imposed rules of thought, it's possible to understand reality better. Of course, faith is going to convince the believer that reality is whatever they want it to be, and anything that contradicts is shrugged off.

motorhead

First, on your "experiences" with God, what would say about people of Islam and Judaism claiming to have the same type of experiences with God that you've probably had? Further, what would you say when Muslims and religious Jews claim that through these experiences, they are convinced their religion is the one and only true religion?

Second, if God cannot be proven at all, which is basically what you're stating, then what is there to believe in? It's all speculation that some supernatural entity exists with certain characteristics and a message for mankind. People of the different Biblical religions cannot even agree on what the Biblical God is like and what it's message is for mankind.

Why would this proposed God expect his creation to believe in it when it gives no evidence that it exists? It seems to me that if some kind of God does exist, it has given no evidence of its existence and is not interested in humans. By the way, what are the obvious reasons that God will never be scientifically proven? I have no idea what the reasons are, hence they are not obvious to me at all.

I don't believe that any god exists because there is no evidence that any god exists. It's the same reason I don't believe in the actual existence of many other fanciful things dreamed up by the human mind throughout history. There is no evidence that any god exists and makes any kind of demand on myself or any other human being. All the holy books were written by human beings, not any god. That has been well proven.

fishbulb

Belief is not volitional. It is a consequence, not a choice. You may choose to claim you believe something or to act as though you believe. You may even try to convince yourself that something is true, even though you don't presently believe it. But you cannot decide to believe something in the same way that you can decide to buy a particular brand of toothpaste. But that is what Pascal's wager invites us to do: treat belief in God as a wise investment in a quality product.

If you don't believe me, try not believing in God--not forever, just for a day--and see how successful you are at truly believing he doesn't exist. Or, if that's too difficult, try believing you ate a plate full of worms and sea fungus for breakfast last Tuesday.


You assume that my time is valueless. Since this life is the only one I can be sure exists, what I do with my time here is extremely important. Perhaps it just a minor inconvenience to spend an hour a week prostrating myself in worship before an invisible god who, as far as I can tell, does absolutely nothing for me, but there may well be other costs to belief as well. In the worst of cases, it may lead to my untimely demise as I blow myself up in order to send a few enemies of the faith to hell.

Not to mention that, to me, truth and honesty have intrinsic values. I can never know for sure if what I believe is true is, in fact, true, but I want to be able to draw my conclusions based on as fair and critical an assesment of the available evidence as I can.

There is a difference between believing in God and being right about God. What if every religion is wrong, and they all make God mad?

What if it happens to be the case that God does exist but he's got a major ironic streak in him? What if he purposefully hid all evidence of his existence in order to see which of his children would use their brains and conclude that he didn't exist, and which would forsake the gifts he gave them and believe in stories and superstition? What if atheists get to go to heaven because God respects skepticism, and everyone else gets to go to hell because he abhors faith?

Answerer

The arguments that you use reminds me of my friends. And what I told them is that they simplified the situation too much. It is reasonable to claim if christinity is right, all christians will go to Heaven, while all the muslims and infidels will surely go to Hell. But don't forget the same thing applied if Islam is true while christinity is not. Even then, Christinity and Islam are not the only religions, the same bad thing will happen to you if any religions other than Christinity is true. So, please don't think of yourself as being immune to hell, its a false and baseless assumption.

Besides not all religions condemn infidels, for your information.

Jobar

clop clop clop clop Clop Clop CLOP CLOP

PRAISE WORSHIP FAITH JESUS BIBLE JEHOVAH BELIEVE SINNERS HELL

CLOPCLOPClopClopclopclop

^An Amish drive-by preacher.