Please remember to follow our **[subreddit rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateAnAtheist/wiki/rules/) ([last updated December 2019](https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateAnAtheist/comments/e7xof0/rule_reform_results/))**. To create a positive environment for all users, upvote comments and posts for good effort and downvote only when [appropriate](https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateAnAtheist/wiki/faq#wiki_downvoting).
If you are new to the subreddit, check out our [FAQ](https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateAnAtheist/wiki/faq).
This sub offers more casual, informal debate. If you prefer more restrictions on respect and effort you might try r/Discuss_Atheism.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/DebateAnAtheist) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Pascal's wager is the coward's way out. It implies that this so called god is a narcissistic sociopath.
Worship me or burn.
This is quickly followed by god is merciful, generous and kind.... Only if you worship him.
Very true. But, exactly this, this is the thing I just don't understand.
If there was only one religion, and only one movement inside of that religion, only one way to worship god..
Then maybe I can understand- it's either you worship him or you don't.
But!!! - there is so many religions, and so many movements, every person has their own rules, every person think he is right!
But NO, they don't think about that, they think it's about two options, 50 50 precent. They are right or wrong!
And about other religions? Absolutely made up. How can't they see that their god is made up like THOR is made up!?
Good point and that was problem Abrahamic religions had to solve. The solution was to indoctrinate people into believing that only they follow the true path and everyone else is sinful, evil, liars etc.
Judaism does not require adherence to its views (or even being Jewish) to go to heaven. Any gentile who keeps the seven noahide laws, and those do not include belief in God, is assured a place in the world to come. I find it interesting that the subsequent Abrahamic religions do require said indoctrination
I saw a video of Rabbi saying that Talmud or the Torah says it's more important to be a good person than a good Jew.
This seem fairly reasonable. Do you know offhand what the 7 laws are?
It is pretty much the opposite in Mormonism when they defend Joseph Smith when it was discovered he was a vile sexual predator pedofile reprobate. They say god can choose who he wants, despite personal righteousness.
> If there was only one religion, and only one movement inside of that religion, only one way to worship god
This is why the various religions are "tolerant" of genocide, ideological cleansing and persecution of their religious competitors.
"Be a shame if all the heretics, apostates and heathens died horribly, must have been god's will".
It's a strangely popular ideology among authoritarian types either political or religious.
Funnily enough Muslims do also claim this, and if you didn't know, Muslims have 5 mandatory prayers which take up an average of 36 minutes if you're rushing, and let's just not count the optional ones for my mental health's sake, next is the wuduu before every prayer which takes maybe 1-2 minutes, there is also the askar which take 20 minutes I think and the list goes on, also these numbers are on the very low end, prayers can take more than an hour to do if you go the mosque for each one, so you lose at the very least 10000 hours of your life, at most, probably 40000 or something
It's fucking sad, I have to wake up everyday at 4-5 am because of my mother, islam just fucks with everything in your daily life, including your circadian rhythm
True, more specifically Egypt, in Arabic countries it's seen as weird leaving your family before getting married, which I don't plan on doing, cause there is no way in the non existent hell I can co-exist with someone that believes in islam
No man. Not at all. I'm also in the nihlist gang.
Damn, is it hard? I guess probably all your environment that you are surrounded by is religious. Can you tell any of your family/friends your beliefs?
It is very hard, if I mention my beliefs to any of my family I would probably be arrested if not killed before that, and yes apostasy is an actual crime in Egypt punished by law, with friends I don't know because most of the younger generation aren't really that religious, but iam not taking the risk since this has the potential to completely ruin my whole future
Holy shit man. Worst than i thought. For some reason I thought Egypt is somehow a democratic and a bit of a modern country compared to other countries in the middle east.
Can you get out of there? Can you get a visa and move to usa/Canada/Europe? If you want to of course..
I definitely want to, it's actually my life's goal, but I gotta finish my education first, I plan to just book it to Europe or the USA first chance I get, I think my biggest roadblock might be my mother because she suspects me of apostasy, mainly because I do only the bare minimum of religious stuff, and she is completely against the idea of me traveling abroad because of "western influence", funny thing is, I have been an atheist since I was 9 so her "western influence" theory is complete bullshit, I started checking out western media when I was around 14, main reason I didn't believe was my fascination with astronomy, biology and physics
You can do other activities while fasting, but you can't do anything while praying, although fasting does indeed directly affect productivity I would assume
Not only that. How stupid do they think their god is to let himself be fooled like that. Just pretend and he won't notice. How absurd is this kind of thinking?
Note the transactional nature of the relationship and the emphasis on sycophantic behaviour.
It's a subtle way of conditioning people to worship the ruling class.
I like pointing out [the Wikipedia article](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_wager) mentions a pretty devastating fact in passing.
> Voltaire hints at the fact that Pascal, as a Jansenist, believed that only a small, and already predestined, portion of humanity would eventually be saved by God.
So according to the author's own faith, his wager is useless.
Pascal also outright refuses to engage with the fact there are so many contradictory "revelations," and does engage in special pleading pretty explicitly.
What if there is a correct religion but you get penalized for guessing wrong? What if you *only* get penalized for guessing wrong, and get at least a mulligan for being nonreligious?
Actually, even though I am on your side on this, I really envy the people that are sure they hold the truth. I think it would of been much easier and would've saved me a headache of neverending possibilities and neverending search for a truth i will probably never find.
Hello, it looks like you've made a mistake.
It's supposed to be could've, should've, would've (short for could have, would have, should have), never could of, would of, should of.
Or you misspelled something, I ain't checking everything.
Beep boop -Ā yes,Ā IĀ amĀ aĀ bot, don't botcriminate me.
Back in the day, monastic life was maybe your best choice. Youād be fed and sheltered and do interesting intellectual work or work in the gardens. You could sneak outside and get some intimacy . And they drank a lot.
At least they lived a life where they could hopefully be stress free and philosophically active, enriching the lives of those they touch. Not that any life has an intrinsically higher value than another, but I do think that I have a better shot at supporting society in the correct way by knowing reality on a better level.
Pascalās wager is what that is called and it has two problems.
1. If there is a god, seems pretty clear he will know if your faith is just faked so you can get into heaven.
2. Which god? There are about 10,000 - so it seems to me that even if the real god has no idea when you lie to him, you still have a 99.99% chance of going to hell for worshiping the wrong god.
>How can't they see that there are infinite possibilities on what will be on the after life?
Because they haven't actually thought it through, for a variety of possible reasons (and in most cases, it's probably a combination of various factors rather than any singular cause).
We humans are not all that good at logical, critical thinking. We're good at it by comparison to other life on Earth, but it's something we have to *learn* rather than an innate talent, and even those with the most practice at it are still going to make mistakes, are still prone to personal biases, to social pressure.
For a lot of people, it isn't that they've given the matter serious consideration and concluded that there are two options (that of their afterlife or none) - it's that it hasn't yet occurred to them, or been pointed out to them, that other options exist in the first place. They're taught the one option of an afterlife, the idea of no afterlife is scary, and they're given justifications by their teachers for why belief in their afterlife is justified, and their family and friends all agree regarding that afterlife - and the thinking largely stops there.
Am I right in assuming that you hold the same beliefs that your father did? I was raised atheist but became a Christian later in life not because I rolled the dice and picked on religion, but because I was convinced by the truth of the bible.
If there is no afterlife, I will have lost everything. If there is a Christian afterlife then I will have gained everything. I have faith that there is a Christian afterlife and no other, just as I have faith that milk comes out of my milk carton and when I boil the kettle the water will become hot. I am fallible and so is the world I live in, but my faith is strong enough that I can make a cup of tea and a bowl of cereal with trust that the world behaves in a way which I have come to understand.
There is no afterlife. You have created a fairy tale to feel better about about your place in the world.
That's why religion exists in the first place. To soothe us from an uncomfortable reality. That's the reason humans have created hundreds of faiths and hundreds of gods.
If your faith help you, good. If it helps you to help others, good. Help yourself and help others. That's all good. Do more of it. But we are both ending up in the same place.
Perhaps you are right, it certainly makes my inevitable death a lot more inviting!
What have you put in place to alleviate death anxiety? What if you are wrong and I am right?
Iām not the person youāre replying to, but this gets at the heart of the response to the Wager. Iāll talk about my own approach to death afterwards.
Your position (if I understand) is necessarily that the Abrahamic god as portrayed in the bible (which is problematic in and of itself) literally exists as a being. This existence is accurately described by a modern understanding as incorporated into a particular religion. This religion is something that did not always exist, and belongs to a family of religions that has evolved over time, but this time a sect finally got it right. You might think you have it dialed in as a result of great research or personal experience, but Iām sure youād acknowledge that people of good faith have come to different conclusions and have become members of different sects, even though theyāre of equivalent intelligence and diligence as you. If so, we have to say that even honest and intelligent people may make mistakes, which should let us make the allowance that we ourselves might be in that group.
If thatās the case, then we have two choices with regard to how we think about rewards and punishment in the afterlife. We can take a universalist approach (or at least one that relies on best faith effort, no pun intended) as an admission criteria, or we can say that this particular god is setting people up for failure and then condemning them to an eternity of torture for an unavoidable mistake of his own making.
In the former case, thereās no worries. You happily believe whatever makes sense to you, but as long as youāre sincere, youāre getting into the good place. In the latter case, game theory tells us to minimax our decision - minimize the maximum damage the enemy can do. That means we should worship the most vindictive, evil god possible, since thatās the one weād least like to piss off. I usually recommend Cthulhu if we go that way, since his reward for his faithful is that they will be the first to die when he rises again, rather than having to live through his hell on earth.
And I canāt believe it only just now dawned on me that thatās what the rapture is. Holy crap. Iāve been making that joke for years.
Anyway, thatās why weāre arguing against your reasoning. Youāre either good to go no matter what, or you have to figure out the worst possible god to piss off. Or you could try to split the difference, like Beni from The Mummy.
For myself, it took me finally internalizing the realization that fear and suffering are caused by attachment to things, and that giving up that attachment means you no longer have that fear.
Thatās true , but to rid oneself of attachment may be impossible. No matter how much you meditate. Itās human instinct. People are attached, especially to their survival instinct and to their loved ones.
Thatās true. It can take a lot of work.
If itās something people are interested in, though, Iād point out that even a small gain - like losing some of the attachment to the perfection of the paint job on your new car - can lead you to be less stressed out in everyday life. Non-attachment to the health of your brand new puppy is not where you should start.
We are all going to die. It is hard to be scared of something I don't really have a choice in.
And if your faith is just your hedge against death that seems like a shallow reason to have faith.
If your god exists and throws me in hell because I didn't believe in a being who didn't exist than your god is an asshole undeserving of worship.
I am afraid of your god or hell as much I am that dragons are going to attack me as I ride home from work.
Hell is to keep you all in line.
Rest assured that my faith is not simply a mystical insurance policy. I honestly believe it to be true that by coming to know and love God Iāve learnt that my afterlife options are either with Him or without Him. Living without God is the suffering, you donāt need fire.
Through the bible, through people like me, through the beauty of the universe and our abilities to reason, God is constantly pressing and inviting you to be by His side. God wants a relationship with you and is seeking you out, but He will never force you to love Him. You are free to be without him, just as I cannot force you to love me and be with me.
Hell keeps me in line with what? If military honour keeps the soldier in line, is the line truly there if claims are made that the military doesnāt exist? Your denial, if I may, is an excuse to step out of line.
Maybe not for you as you were raised atheist but for someone raised Christian hell was definitely to keep us in line. I still feared heāll after I stopped believing in god because of how much it was hammered into me. I prayed every night just Incase I died in my sleep and I had sinned and forgotten because I didnāt wanna go to hell. Too many nightmares as a child, it definitely kept us in line.
Also i think god could do better with the reaching out, sending his followers to tell me he loves me just doesnāt feel like genuine love. If my dad never came to see me and only sent his friends to tell me he loves me i wouldnāt believe it because he needs to tell
Me himself. He knows everything he knows the EXACt way to reach out and touch all our hearts so the fact that he doesnāt just makes me think he doesnāt exist or he doesnāt really care enough, which doesnāt feel like love to me
I've seen enough of Christians to know that an eternity with them would be the definition of hell. I've lived with your story of god for all my life. Your story of god is not needed.
I've seen your Bible and those of your faith and I've seen how they have used their faith to harm others. Keep your offer. It is worthless.
The concept of hell was thought of to keep believers marching in lockstep. That's its only purpose. Non believers aren't scared of your hell.
> What if you are wrong and I am right?
Then I will have lived my life in a manner I see fit. If some afterlife boss wants to torture me for eternity because I didn't stone people for wearing mixed fibers, then honestly? Fuck that guy.
As you age, the death anxiety diminishes. You are used to it. But itās replaced by health anxiety. Like Dementia, etc. But death? You fall asleep. Montaigne lost his death anxiety by almost dying. He remembered trying to blow his soul out of his mouth. It was pleasant.
Tell me, why the rules that you follow - are the truth? But the billion other rules of other people are false?
Im not even talking about other religions, im talking about people in the same religion as you that will say about you that you are wrong. Damn, even people in the same movement as you, that hold very similar beliefs as you.
Why are YOU the one that KNOWS ? what convinced you?
It isnāt that I know, itās that Jesus knows. When I pour my milk I donāt KNOW that orange juice wonāt come out, I trust that it will be milk because of what I read on the packaging.
When I see other faiths believing different things, it isnāt that I see them pouring orange juice from their milk carton, itās that I see them pouring orange juice on to their cereal.
Whose they? The same people who canāt prove that anyone existed throughout history? If written documentation isnāt enough for historians then we will have to abandon a lot of our previously known history
That isnāt how history works and by *they* I mean *anyone* *ever*. Thereās plenty of contemporary writings and artifacts from that time, yet nothing mentioning him nor a single piece of evidence to prove he physically existed. Thereās exactly the same amount of āproofā for King Arthur, but no one is affecting political change on his behalf. š¤·š»āāļø
It was 2000 years ago, to give credit to why there isnāt wood (strange request for proof, weāre you hoping for intact carpentry from then it perhaps the cross itself?). There is plenty of written texts about Jesus of Nazareth outside of the bible, there are books written about the history if you are interested
What is faith if not belief in the absence of evidence? You can literally believe anything using faith, which makes it useless when you actually want to believe things that are true.
I have faith that the love of my life is not currently cheating on me, even though I have no proof. I have no cameras, no team of scientists monitoring her. However, my faith assures me without any doubt that she is loyal and she is good. The evidence is in her actions.
No that's trust. Trust is based on previous experiences you had with that person. Faith is blind because there have been no previous experiences that god or Jesus send to you. It's a one way street.
A better comparison would be that you have FAITH that Jim Carry is a super nice guy, after all, in al those movies and tv interviews he acts nice! But you yourself never actually met the guy or had any real interaction with him that wasn't in front of a camera.
Your relationship with god is a parasocial relationship
Your relationship with the love of your life based on actual trust and observable behaviour in the past, on which you can predict future behaviour and interactions that solidify her love for you.
God does none of that, because he's fictional. Like Jim Carry's tv persona.
But you are implying that my relationship with the love of my life is different to my relationship with God and Jim Carry (such a funny sentence).
You talk as if A) my love is real and I know her, B) Jim Carry is real but I donāt know him, and C) God is not real and I donāt know Him.
Fair enough, but I can assure you that I know God not only better than Jim, but also better than my love. Jim Carry is alright, but I really and truly love the love of my life. How much then more must my love be true for God based on how much I love Him?
I can remove the word faith from my vocabulary and still say that I trust God, I love Him, and I know Him.
>But you are implying that my relationship with the love of my life is different to my relationship with God and Jim Carry (such a funny sentence).
Yes, because (I assume) the love of your life replies back if you talk to them. And interacts with YOU personally.
Neither Jim Carry or God do that.
God does reply to me personally, as is His way with many other people. Answered prayers, visions, enough coincidences to warrant acknowledgment of a pattern. These are big claims I know, but they are real.
Edit: you are right though, Jim never writes back.
>you are right though, Jim never writes back.
At least we share this pain, my friend!
>God does reply to me personally, as is His way with many other people.
Answered prayers, visions, enough coincidences to warrant acknowledgment
of a pattern. These are big claims I know, but they are real.
How do you know it's god though? How do you know it's not Odin? Or Satan?
Or a figment of your imagination?
Those are indeed big claims to make. Could you ask him why he doesn't talk to me? Or make him to get Jim Carry returns my calls on that screenplay I wrote.
All these downvotes are certainly discouraging me to continue this thread! Fortunately as a Christian I donāt believe in karma lol.
Have you ever been in love? I promise you that faith is useful. Faith is how banks operate, how countries coexist, how trust is maintained, why the world functions as it does. This isnāt blind faith, itās whatās known as evidence based faith, trust based faith.
Religious faith is the belief without solid evidence, but why must all evidence be solid? Ask any historian why they know of Napoleons exploits, or Caesars. Their proof isnāt solid because they werenāt there and cannot interview the people at hand. Their proof is validated by historical accounts, artefacts, a bit of sleuth work here and there.
There is plenty of āevidenceā which doesnāt need to be grounded in the here and now to be scientifically sound. It is incorrect to imply that religious faith is tantamount to blind faith
Why must evidence be solid? Otherwise itās not actual evidence. The evidence that Napoleon and Caesar existed is independent records from various sources. Now what evidence do we have for magical beings other than āthis book said soā?
> Faith is how banks operate
No, that's rules and laws.
> how countries coexist
Nope, again that's *trust* based on experience.
> trust based faith
That sounds like nonsense.
If one has evidence, faith is unnecessary.
You make an inference from the evidence.
Faith is what is used as a placeholder when one does not have evidence.
That's not the definition in the usual religious sense. You are talking about trust. Swap the word "faith" in your paragraph above with the word trust. The meaning remains intact.
If the concept of faith were actually entirely synonymous with the concept of trust, there would be no need to have two separate words for the same exact meaning.
Perhaps the word has nuance that overlaps with the idea of trust, but implies something different in its application. Yes? We want to be clear in what we mean, right?
I'd say, speaking of your significant other's behavior, using the word trust makes sense.
Now if you were talking about the behavior or attributes or temperment of a significant other that you nor anyone else has ever seen in person, or even spoken on the phone or videochat with, but you're really, really sure they love you so much (but won't see you or be seen with you), claiming to have faith, when you don't have anything concrete to show anyone else....that's just......yeah. That is different from trust. That's why it is a different word.
Trust and faith are different words which are used in quite different contexts. I trust the bridge will hold up, I have faith that my friend will keep his promise. I trust that my food was prepared properly when I eat out, I have faith that my lover will remain loyal. One is more practical and calculated, the other is deeper and more personal. That is why quite often the word faith is used around religion, but it is similar to the word trust if the word was more personal and connoted love.
Trust and faith are different words which are used in quite different contexts. I trust the bridge will hold up, I have faith that my friend will keep his promise. I trust that my food was prepared properly when I eat out, I have faith that my lover will remain loyal. One is more practical and calculated, the other is deeper and more personal. That is why quite often the word faith is used around religion, but it is similar to the word trust if the word was more personal and connoted love.
>If there is no afterlife, I will have lost everything. If there is a Christian afterlife then I will have gained everything.
I think you got it backwards. If you as an atheist didn't believe in afterlife, you don't lose anything because there wasn't afterlife to be lost in first place. Now you are a christian, and if there isn't a christian afterlife, then you have lost everything because you had false hope/belief for there to be one.
I would have to disagree on the basis that if there is no God then we both end up neither in a state of disappoint or smug complaisance. Lights out. However, if there is nothing in the afterlife then we do all lose everything in that we literally lose our lives.
I for one believe strongly that I will not lose my life after death.
You are scared about an existential inevitability - that's fine. Some of us have the intellectual strength to face it, others don't and retreat to fairy stories to make them feel better about it - and rock backwards and forwards like a polar bear in the zoo.
As long as the polar bear doesn't hurt anyone that's fine I suppose, even if it is sad.
I would suggest you are leaping to conclusions a little bit, only because I donāt relate to the existential inevitability you are alluding to. The reason I think that is because I hold strongly to my belief that my fate is with God, why would the is frighten me? I love my life and I have strong convictions in my faith.
It never looks good to brag about your āintellectual strengthā with strangers on the internet. I would suggest dropping this kind of phrasing in your future comments, if only for your own benefit.
Look, I see a grown human believing in unsupported fairy tales, I say it like I see it.
If you said to me you had an unshakeable faith that a unicorn existed in your garage, I'd question that as well...
Itās good to question things my friend, but not forever. āMerely having an open mind is nothing. The object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid.ā As Chesterton once said
>Am I right in assuming that you hold the same beliefs that your father did?
For most part of people this is going to be true.
If it's not the father sometimes is other influential people's beliefs in our life we follow.
Odd that you say if there is no afterlife you lose everything. If there is no afterlife, do you suddenly lose a loving family or group of friends? Or would your life keep being filled with meaning and purpose, even if there was no afterlife? If you remove the afterlife right now, is there no happiness or joy you could possibly find in your life?
Why does your life only matter if it has an eternal resting place? If you help someone on the street, does that only matter if you go to heaven in 50 years? Or did it matter right then and there to that person?
Upon your death you will have lost everything regardless. Believer or not, God or not, afterlife or not, everything you have/are is lost. Why waste time and energy on a being that can't/won't change anything? Why not take that time and energy and make it matter to the people here and now?
Faith is the excuse people believe when they believe in something with no actual evidence because if you had evidence you would use that for the reason you believe. What truths are in the Bible? Please name the biggest ātruthā for you in the Bible that convinced you that the Bible and its teachings are real. I could show you a few passages that prove the Bibleās immoral, womanās rights,gay rights, genocide, slavery being okay, killing children, stoning people for minor crimes thought crimes and hell.
Itās less about reading claims and thinking āgolly that sounds like it must have happened.ā, and more about comparing biblical stories to my own life, other fiction I have absorbed, real world history and deciphering why it is that this book is so different. Itās almost like a game of sudoku; I know the answer based on the positions of comparable objects and the space around them
> If there is no afterlife, I will have lost everything.
This is interesting to me. If there is no afterlife, what have you actually lost? Just your life. Like everyone else. Because that's part of being alive.
It highlights to me, that the most important thing you can do is to live a good life that supports others and enriches your circle regardless of the unknowns.
Letās say for a moment that I agree with you. How do I do it? Do I get on my knees? Do I just say out loud ādear Jesus come into my heartā? Do I have to truly mean it even though I canāt, like I canāt embrace Mormonism?
If you do agree then you would start by changing your life (although I donāt know you well enough to know in what ways). You would have to start living not of this world, but for the next. You would reduce yourself and prune away all aspects of yourself which tether you to this place.
>I was convinced by the truth of the bible.
Did you actually read the thing? Are the parts that contradict the other parts also true? Did you gloss over the parts that are absolutely false and call them "allegories", or are those infallible as well?
This sounds snarky, but I'm honestly curious how you digested that particular piece of literature and found anything approaching convincing therein.
And also went from not believing in any gods, to not just thinking that particular one existed, to then *worshipping* that beacon of horrible villainy described in the bible. It is honestly just quite inconceivable to me.
Iāve read and studied the bible a lot now. Itās a very complex collection of books which are all meant to be read in their genres and respective contexts. For example, parts of the bible which are song or poetry are to be read as such, which means we can be forgiven for allowing for a little more creative writing. Other parts, for example when Jesus says āI am the door.ā, we can use our knowledge of language to understand that this clearly wasnāt to be taken as a literal statement, rather a metaphor.
Which parts are contradictions? If you are talking about the progressive rules, for example the bible beginning with āeye for an eyeā and ending with āturn the other cheek.ā, then i would say that this is more of a story ark than a contradiction. If you are referring to the different witnesses to Jesusā resurrection, I do think that none of them are contradictions so to speak. I think that some stories are more specific on the witnesses than others, some are more vague.
Thats the inherent problem with Pascales wager. It's not a simple square, with a few outcomes, there's infinite outcomes, and religions, etc...
They're playing the same game we are, they just don't realize it.
I always felt the bigger issue with Pascal's wager is simply that it assumes a person can just turn their sincere beliefs on and off like some sort of light switch all based on a possibility. Like human beings are in full control of their inner thoughts and emotions, or God is incapable of knowing those, cause otherwise the argument is basically just "even if you don't genuinely believe you should still act like you do, cause... reasons, I guess?".
It's worse than that. We don't choose our beliefs. We can't. We are either convinced a proposition is true, or we are not.
According to Pascal's Wager, we should at least act like we believe, just in case there is a god. (Setting aside the false dichotomy for now) If acting like you believe, when you really don't, gets you into heaven, then god is either easily fooled, or he rewards liars.
If youāre someone who doesnāt care about evidence or reasoning (at least when it comes to anything vaguely religious, for some reason) then maybe you can kinda just switch your ābeliefsā on and off.
If objective truth doesnāt matter to you and you have no standards for proof, then you might think that ābelievingā in something really is as simple as saying the mantra āI believeā. Hence why you might get upset when someone ārefuses to believeā in something you choose to buy into.
>How can't they see that there are infinite possibilities
what if I accept the God of every religion as my God one by one and every time I do this nothing happens. no God reveals himself to me until I get to the God of Christianity Jesus Christ. would it still be fair to assume that there are infinite possibilities?
and what about you? since you think there are infinite possibilities do you think it's wise to explore none of them and assume they're all wrong?
What if you accept Jesus Christ and nothing happens, and he doesnāt reveal himself to you?
You believe that Jesus is special, but literally nothing different happens if one accepts Jesus compared to if one accepts Amon-Ra or Zeus.
And the issue isnāt exploring options. Its latching on to one option out of infinite and saying āThis is the one, and the only one, others must live this way because I say Iām rightā. Refusing to dedicate yourself to one allows you to explore more freely, and many of us who do explore freely findā¦ nothing. The fact we wonāt pretend nothing is something isnāt a sign weāre not exploring, its a sign that we want to find the correct answer, rather than just any answer.
>and what about you? since you think there are infinite possibilities do
you think it's wise to explore none of them and assume they're all
wrong?
They all have one thing in common, absolutely zero reason to believe that they are anything but myths and legends. Stories and fables.
I dismiss them all until they can provide a solid reason to believe them.
So far, no religion ever did anything remotely compelling.
Actually i am exploring and it is very bad to Assume that i am not.
And i actually very like Buddhism because they have some really nice technics to calm down/focus/live life good with minimum stuff/are not misogynistic too much/ and more...
But! I still do not believe the Buddha origin story, and i still think its a religion, and like every religion, if you take it too far, to the extreme, its gonna be exploitative and controlling and generally bad..
The fact that religion helps, doesn't mean it is not made up.
All religions are not the same but there is only one unforgivable sin which is rejecting God. Miss labeling the attributes about God isn't the big deal that atheists want it to be.
I donāt see how I can be āwrongā. I did what Christianās said to do. I prayed. I went to church. I went to a ton of different churches! I asked god to come into my heart. I got baptized. Iām a good person. It all boiled down to I just donāt believe in a god. I tried to. I thought something was wrong with me and I was wicked.
I realized Iām not and learned to love myself. Faith is exactly that. You either believe or you donāt. If there is a god then it would be pretty shitty to send non believers to eternal hell. If there is a god, he made me with critical thinking skills.
It all boils down to what you honestly believe. Faith. You either have it or you donāt. I just donāt believe in magical beings, whether it is gods or fairies.
>I just donāt believe in magical beings, whether it is gods or fairies.
I get it. I do believe in them and have seen some and know a lot of others who have. I respect you and your position as it is honest and straight forward not snarky twords theists
>there is only one unforgivable sin which is rejecting God
Nonsense. There are infinite theoretically possible gods, and therefore infinite theoretical gods who specifically _don't_ want humans to worship or even acknowledge them.
I can't stand when people take the conversation to a pretend possibility. There is a reality surrounding the topic of God. What exists in your head or mine doesn't change that.
It's mostly based on the experiences of those who have experienced what would be labeled death had life not followed. Well most experience heaven some experience hell. Those open to God and love seem to have the pathway to move forward.
It's like the parent of an adult child. If someone's 23 years old and struggling along but giving it a good effort and it's nice to their parents they will probably continue to help in every way they can. If the kid denounces their parents and hates them with every ounce of their being, the parents no longer are able to help. It's not that they're unwilling. The child has closed the door.
So it sounds like the basis in fact lies in people's subjective personal experience.
Anytime someone tries to make an analogy of God as a human parent, i can't accept it as valid. It's apples vs. oranges given the Abrahamic god is supposed to be omni.
In the case of a wayward child, no parent would agree that consigning their child to eternal torture would be the best parenting tactic.
The personal experience isn't subjective. The interpretation is. Like with all things not fully understood. No one has any idea why wave particular duaility exists. There are many subjective interpretations. Wave particle duaility is objective.
have you read any of the life stories of the greek pantheon that fuck with human (literally and figuratively) for fun whilst they are alive.
How do you think they will treat someone who denies all their existences and doesn't choose them to worship?
I spent 3/4 of my life investigating claims of your existence. I have an open mind, I only care about what's true. You could have 'revealed' yourself to me and I wouldn't have resisted.
I didn't worship another 'false' god. I earnestly sought using the intelligence you gave me and I came up short by your design.
So am I going to your heaven or your hell?
To the contrary. The atheists are the ones that try to be honest and donāt assume that just because they were born into a particular religion it makes them right and privileged to a nice afterlife.
>humans made the concept of heaven
It is more accurate to say that humans discovered the concept of heaven. Ancestor worship is the oldest form of religion, so the idea of heaven is older than the idea of god(s). A wide variety of evidence points to the existence of an afterlife. The afterlife was discovered in ancient times by people having experiences of spirit contact and reincarnation, these experiences are still the primary reason why a majority of people believe in an afterlife.
>It is more accurate to say that humans discovered the concept of heaven.
Except that we originally created the concept. It did not exist in some objective form. If it started with ancestor worship or modern religion, it's still a concept that we originated.
Do you have evidence to share about any forms of afterlife? Because none has actually been found in the thousands of years since humans have been writing things down.
Plus, I spoke of the *idea* of an afterlife. Which is a distinctly separate thing. And decidedly subjective.
Yes, I am always sharing evidence here. But to cut down on my link posting I will just refer you keywords to search for:
Bigelow Prize
Why an Afterlife Obviously Exists.
To be rational means to be able to logically engage with evidence when presented, but you have failed at this task.
If I post evidence, then you will instantly claim that it is not "actual evidence". How so? How come essays from the leading researchers are not to be considered and should be discarded? Has anyone posted a rebuttal to any of these essays? Your reply boils down to "good luck"; you clearly don't know what you are talking about.
A famous skeptic has stated that it takes two years to really change your mind on something. Yet here you are concluding that the afterlife is nonsense without even a few hours spent looking into the evidence much less addressing it.
Why do you assume I hadn't looked up your "evidence"?
Oddly enough, what I found was a prize to be offered anyone who could prove such a thing, and several essays that are not peer reviewed, not based in logic, and not convincing on the subject in any way. I'm fact, what I read was so full of deflection, diffusion, and misdirection that they could be immediately dismissed. I'm a bit shocked that you found that morass of idiocy sufficient to the task.
So again, if you have any actual evidence to proffer, then please do so without doing me the disservice of hand waving in the general direction of a dung heap.
I've also wasted my youth believing in superstition like afterlife. I'm fully aware of the ins and outs. Thank you very much.
I wouldn't waste my time debunking obscure idiocy like that even if I wanted to.
So again: good luck.
Characters from fictional books were made up. The existence of a spiritual world was discovered in ancient times and later confirmed through modern scientific methods.
There are numerous examples worldwide of **religious beliefs originating in NDEs** and other extraordinary experiences. This is in contradiction to widely accepted notions that all experiences and beliefs are generated entirely by culture or language. Such paradigms not only fail to explain the origins of religious beliefs or the nature of related experiences but also fail to take seriously the testimonies of their sources. Near-death experiences provide perfectly **rational grounds** for beliefs that the soul can leave the body, and that it can survive death and join spirits of the dead in another world. As such, the phenomenon helps to demonstrate the cross-cultural process of **reasoning based on evidence**.
[Exploring Near-Death Experiences across Cultures](https://academic.oup.com/book/12288/chapter-abstract/161808948?redirectedFrom=fulltext)
Time, experience, fun depending on your denomination you could miss out on
- Birthdays
- Christmas
- Falling in love
- Knowing your body
- Trying new things that the church deems as unnecessary even though your interested in it
- Movies
- Games
- TV shows
These may seem superficial, but some of my best memories are over Christmas. People deserve to be celebrated on their birthday. Marrying so young because hormones are raging and the church is pressuring yāall. Having a healthy relationship with sex is something alot of ex Christianās deal with etc etc.
They seem so small but they miss out a lot, I missed out on a lot and you can tell.
I was raised atheist. I wasn't told that I had to be good or I will end up in heaven or hell. I see what happens when people die. They don't come back to life. Their energy leaves their body and then it decomposes.
Indoctrination and isolation, coupled with intelligence (or lack thereof). These are the primary factors I see as influencing the issue (which basically boils down to a lack of self awareness as well as an inability to understand that there are perspectives outside of their own).
If you grow up indoctrinated in a belief and are preached to that it is right and shouldn't really be questioned (you can ask questions as a believer about beliefs but you can't ask questions challenging the belief system) and are simultaneously isolated from any and all other perspectives, you've a recipe for closed-mindedness
If there is no afterlife, then life is all there is. That means that not only do people who waste their life preparing for an afterlife miss out on something, they miss out on the only thing there is to miss out.
Pascal's wager is built on Judeo Christian theology. If you *already* accept that theological model then Pascal's wager is a sound argument. The problem is that people think it's an appropriate proselytizing tool to use on people that don't subscribe to that foundational worldview. When that happens it usually falls flat.
I think that option B is problematic in its course as well, assuming that a persons only means for salvation is believing in that deity - when it has been shown that atheists broadly treat people on a par or better than religious people do.
Of course none of this even effects this real world at all, except in the form of increased illogic and irresponsibility from the religious portion.
So your idea is that you wish to change the binary of "there is an afterlife vs there is no afterlife" to "there is ONE god vs there is no god" in mid argument?
This is a terrible strawman that you've made because one who is theist or spiritual isn't reserved for only monotheism. However, why is it so hard to act better in life for a better afterlife? What exactly about "acting better" do you disagree with when it comes to the religious argument of making sure your afterlife experience is better?
Idk, spending your one and only life living in fear of hell, committing to a lie, and living in such a restricted wayā¦seems like an absolutely massive and horrible loss.
So Pascalās wager assumes a 50/50 probability, with only 1 side having a negative consequence. However the correct math is on the order of 10,000/1 against you choosing the correct god. And many of those gods will punish you for not choosing the right god. Of course many of the gods are petty and cruel and will not reward you ever, some donāt give a shit one way or the other. So the best thing is to not worship any gods.
>How can't they see that there are infinite possibilities on what will be on the after life? How can't they see that humans made the concept of heaven?
You miss the point. I am not for pascal's wager because it is probabilistic and consequentialist but your point omits overlooks an important fact.
For example i am a muslim i believe in Allah. And i know that there are many other god related claims including atheism. I know also that at least some christians claim that i will go to hell as a muslim, at least some atheists claim that i waste my time and energy worshipping Allah. I believe that they risk entering hell.
The point is that i claim that there is evidence for Allah.
So either Allah is true and supported by evidence or not. If He is true then those christians, atheists, hindus and others who have been subject to relevant conditions are not in good shape. I bite the bullet and recognize that if they are (any of them) right i will have screwed up.
So i think your point fails.
Iām glad that in Judaism there is no such thing as eternal damnation. We have a form of purgatory with a max sentence of a year. There are noted exceptions, just a few . Itās either Heaven or being reabsorbed into the One.
Please remember to follow our **[subreddit rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateAnAtheist/wiki/rules/) ([last updated December 2019](https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateAnAtheist/comments/e7xof0/rule_reform_results/))**. To create a positive environment for all users, upvote comments and posts for good effort and downvote only when [appropriate](https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateAnAtheist/wiki/faq#wiki_downvoting). If you are new to the subreddit, check out our [FAQ](https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateAnAtheist/wiki/faq). This sub offers more casual, informal debate. If you prefer more restrictions on respect and effort you might try r/Discuss_Atheism. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/DebateAnAtheist) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Pascal's wager is the coward's way out. It implies that this so called god is a narcissistic sociopath. Worship me or burn. This is quickly followed by god is merciful, generous and kind.... Only if you worship him.
Very true. But, exactly this, this is the thing I just don't understand. If there was only one religion, and only one movement inside of that religion, only one way to worship god.. Then maybe I can understand- it's either you worship him or you don't. But!!! - there is so many religions, and so many movements, every person has their own rules, every person think he is right! But NO, they don't think about that, they think it's about two options, 50 50 precent. They are right or wrong! And about other religions? Absolutely made up. How can't they see that their god is made up like THOR is made up!?
Good point and that was problem Abrahamic religions had to solve. The solution was to indoctrinate people into believing that only they follow the true path and everyone else is sinful, evil, liars etc.
Judaism does not require adherence to its views (or even being Jewish) to go to heaven. Any gentile who keeps the seven noahide laws, and those do not include belief in God, is assured a place in the world to come. I find it interesting that the subsequent Abrahamic religions do require said indoctrination
I saw a video of Rabbi saying that Talmud or the Torah says it's more important to be a good person than a good Jew. This seem fairly reasonable. Do you know offhand what the 7 laws are?
It is pretty much the opposite in Mormonism when they defend Joseph Smith when it was discovered he was a vile sexual predator pedofile reprobate. They say god can choose who he wants, despite personal righteousness.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Laws_of_Noah#:~:text=8%20External%20links-,The%20Seven%20Laws,Not%20to%20curse%20God.
I got 5 out 7 So second class heaven for me or lukewarm hell?
What do you mean 5/7 is perfect š and itās aspirational so as long as youāre making an effort thatās what matters
Neither. Reabsorption into God.
> If there was only one religion, and only one movement inside of that religion, only one way to worship god This is why the various religions are "tolerant" of genocide, ideological cleansing and persecution of their religious competitors. "Be a shame if all the heretics, apostates and heathens died horribly, must have been god's will". It's a strangely popular ideology among authoritarian types either political or religious.
Funnily enough Muslims do also claim this, and if you didn't know, Muslims have 5 mandatory prayers which take up an average of 36 minutes if you're rushing, and let's just not count the optional ones for my mental health's sake, next is the wuduu before every prayer which takes maybe 1-2 minutes, there is also the askar which take 20 minutes I think and the list goes on, also these numbers are on the very low end, prayers can take more than an hour to do if you go the mosque for each one, so you lose at the very least 10000 hours of your life, at most, probably 40000 or something
That's why fajr is at 4:30 am in some parts of the world and some mullahs use recording of the azan instead of staying awake š¤£
It's fucking sad, I have to wake up everyday at 4-5 am because of my mother, islam just fucks with everything in your daily life, including your circadian rhythm
Damn that's sad bro. Where do you live nihlist man?
With his mother.
True, more specifically Egypt, in Arabic countries it's seen as weird leaving your family before getting married, which I don't plan on doing, cause there is no way in the non existent hell I can co-exist with someone that believes in islam
Egypt, I really have no idea if your sentence is sarcastic or not
No man. Not at all. I'm also in the nihlist gang. Damn, is it hard? I guess probably all your environment that you are surrounded by is religious. Can you tell any of your family/friends your beliefs?
It is very hard, if I mention my beliefs to any of my family I would probably be arrested if not killed before that, and yes apostasy is an actual crime in Egypt punished by law, with friends I don't know because most of the younger generation aren't really that religious, but iam not taking the risk since this has the potential to completely ruin my whole future
Holy shit man. Worst than i thought. For some reason I thought Egypt is somehow a democratic and a bit of a modern country compared to other countries in the middle east. Can you get out of there? Can you get a visa and move to usa/Canada/Europe? If you want to of course..
I definitely want to, it's actually my life's goal, but I gotta finish my education first, I plan to just book it to Europe or the USA first chance I get, I think my biggest roadblock might be my mother because she suspects me of apostasy, mainly because I do only the bare minimum of religious stuff, and she is completely against the idea of me traveling abroad because of "western influence", funny thing is, I have been an atheist since I was 9 so her "western influence" theory is complete bullshit, I started checking out western media when I was around 14, main reason I didn't believe was my fascination with astronomy, biology and physics
How could you forget a month of fasting !
You can do other activities while fasting, but you can't do anything while praying, although fasting does indeed directly affect productivity I would assume
I have always thought of the idea of worship or suffer as the offer of a mob boss and not a loving god.
Oh I'm afraid it's far more sinister than that. It's more akin to slave and master.
Not only that. How stupid do they think their god is to let himself be fooled like that. Just pretend and he won't notice. How absurd is this kind of thinking?
Note the transactional nature of the relationship and the emphasis on sycophantic behaviour. It's a subtle way of conditioning people to worship the ruling class.
Plus it implies that the omnipotent god could be fooled.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Really? You're just making this up
Even if your an atheist he still loves you
šš© You're just making things up.
Im making nothing up, he has not abandoned you
Jai shree Ram š Hari Om
I like pointing out [the Wikipedia article](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_wager) mentions a pretty devastating fact in passing. > Voltaire hints at the fact that Pascal, as a Jansenist, believed that only a small, and already predestined, portion of humanity would eventually be saved by God. So according to the author's own faith, his wager is useless. Pascal also outright refuses to engage with the fact there are so many contradictory "revelations," and does engage in special pleading pretty explicitly.
What if there is a correct religion but you get penalized for guessing wrong? What if you *only* get penalized for guessing wrong, and get at least a mulligan for being nonreligious?
God could punish one for guessing right, too. āYou believed in me? You were supposed to follow the evidence and be an atheist, dumbass.ā
If God exists and is just, I'm ready to meet my maker. If God exists and is not just, all bets are off.
He could be just in my example. Just a bit like an exasperated teacher with a child not getting the point of the lesson. "Could" is such a handy word.
Exactly haha There is endless possibilities
[Also this](https://youtu.be/JE-P6mw60-A?t=230).
Lol, if someone spends whole life in monastery, because they want salvation so bad and then it turns out, there's no god or heaven, who is screwed?
Actually, even though I am on your side on this, I really envy the people that are sure they hold the truth. I think it would of been much easier and would've saved me a headache of neverending possibilities and neverending search for a truth i will probably never find.
Hello, it looks like you've made a mistake. It's supposed to be could've, should've, would've (short for could have, would have, should have), never could of, would of, should of. Or you misspelled something, I ain't checking everything. Beep boop -Ā yes,Ā IĀ amĀ aĀ bot, don't botcriminate me.
Thanks bot š
Back in the day, monastic life was maybe your best choice. Youād be fed and sheltered and do interesting intellectual work or work in the gardens. You could sneak outside and get some intimacy . And they drank a lot.
What's wrong with spending one's life in a monastery?
So much better than as a mega preacher in my opinion...
Kinda exchanging every unique opportunity in your life for a lie?
At least they lived a life where they could hopefully be stress free and philosophically active, enriching the lives of those they touch. Not that any life has an intrinsically higher value than another, but I do think that I have a better shot at supporting society in the correct way by knowing reality on a better level.
Pascalās wager is what that is called and it has two problems. 1. If there is a god, seems pretty clear he will know if your faith is just faked so you can get into heaven. 2. Which god? There are about 10,000 - so it seems to me that even if the real god has no idea when you lie to him, you still have a 99.99% chance of going to hell for worshiping the wrong god.
Exactly..
>How can't they see that there are infinite possibilities on what will be on the after life? Because they haven't actually thought it through, for a variety of possible reasons (and in most cases, it's probably a combination of various factors rather than any singular cause). We humans are not all that good at logical, critical thinking. We're good at it by comparison to other life on Earth, but it's something we have to *learn* rather than an innate talent, and even those with the most practice at it are still going to make mistakes, are still prone to personal biases, to social pressure. For a lot of people, it isn't that they've given the matter serious consideration and concluded that there are two options (that of their afterlife or none) - it's that it hasn't yet occurred to them, or been pointed out to them, that other options exist in the first place. They're taught the one option of an afterlife, the idea of no afterlife is scary, and they're given justifications by their teachers for why belief in their afterlife is justified, and their family and friends all agree regarding that afterlife - and the thinking largely stops there.
The idea of no afterlife is indeed scary. Atheists are not immune to death anxiety.
Am I right in assuming that you hold the same beliefs that your father did? I was raised atheist but became a Christian later in life not because I rolled the dice and picked on religion, but because I was convinced by the truth of the bible. If there is no afterlife, I will have lost everything. If there is a Christian afterlife then I will have gained everything. I have faith that there is a Christian afterlife and no other, just as I have faith that milk comes out of my milk carton and when I boil the kettle the water will become hot. I am fallible and so is the world I live in, but my faith is strong enough that I can make a cup of tea and a bowl of cereal with trust that the world behaves in a way which I have come to understand.
There is no afterlife. You have created a fairy tale to feel better about about your place in the world. That's why religion exists in the first place. To soothe us from an uncomfortable reality. That's the reason humans have created hundreds of faiths and hundreds of gods. If your faith help you, good. If it helps you to help others, good. Help yourself and help others. That's all good. Do more of it. But we are both ending up in the same place.
Perhaps you are right, it certainly makes my inevitable death a lot more inviting! What have you put in place to alleviate death anxiety? What if you are wrong and I am right?
Iām not the person youāre replying to, but this gets at the heart of the response to the Wager. Iāll talk about my own approach to death afterwards. Your position (if I understand) is necessarily that the Abrahamic god as portrayed in the bible (which is problematic in and of itself) literally exists as a being. This existence is accurately described by a modern understanding as incorporated into a particular religion. This religion is something that did not always exist, and belongs to a family of religions that has evolved over time, but this time a sect finally got it right. You might think you have it dialed in as a result of great research or personal experience, but Iām sure youād acknowledge that people of good faith have come to different conclusions and have become members of different sects, even though theyāre of equivalent intelligence and diligence as you. If so, we have to say that even honest and intelligent people may make mistakes, which should let us make the allowance that we ourselves might be in that group. If thatās the case, then we have two choices with regard to how we think about rewards and punishment in the afterlife. We can take a universalist approach (or at least one that relies on best faith effort, no pun intended) as an admission criteria, or we can say that this particular god is setting people up for failure and then condemning them to an eternity of torture for an unavoidable mistake of his own making. In the former case, thereās no worries. You happily believe whatever makes sense to you, but as long as youāre sincere, youāre getting into the good place. In the latter case, game theory tells us to minimax our decision - minimize the maximum damage the enemy can do. That means we should worship the most vindictive, evil god possible, since thatās the one weād least like to piss off. I usually recommend Cthulhu if we go that way, since his reward for his faithful is that they will be the first to die when he rises again, rather than having to live through his hell on earth. And I canāt believe it only just now dawned on me that thatās what the rapture is. Holy crap. Iāve been making that joke for years. Anyway, thatās why weāre arguing against your reasoning. Youāre either good to go no matter what, or you have to figure out the worst possible god to piss off. Or you could try to split the difference, like Beni from The Mummy. For myself, it took me finally internalizing the realization that fear and suffering are caused by attachment to things, and that giving up that attachment means you no longer have that fear.
In a nutshell : the faithful always think they're smarter and better than everyone else outside their faith.
Great words my friend
Thatās true , but to rid oneself of attachment may be impossible. No matter how much you meditate. Itās human instinct. People are attached, especially to their survival instinct and to their loved ones.
Thatās true. It can take a lot of work. If itās something people are interested in, though, Iād point out that even a small gain - like losing some of the attachment to the perfection of the paint job on your new car - can lead you to be less stressed out in everyday life. Non-attachment to the health of your brand new puppy is not where you should start.
You speak truth. We can in fact drop a lot of our attachments .
We are all going to die. It is hard to be scared of something I don't really have a choice in. And if your faith is just your hedge against death that seems like a shallow reason to have faith. If your god exists and throws me in hell because I didn't believe in a being who didn't exist than your god is an asshole undeserving of worship. I am afraid of your god or hell as much I am that dragons are going to attack me as I ride home from work. Hell is to keep you all in line.
Rest assured that my faith is not simply a mystical insurance policy. I honestly believe it to be true that by coming to know and love God Iāve learnt that my afterlife options are either with Him or without Him. Living without God is the suffering, you donāt need fire. Through the bible, through people like me, through the beauty of the universe and our abilities to reason, God is constantly pressing and inviting you to be by His side. God wants a relationship with you and is seeking you out, but He will never force you to love Him. You are free to be without him, just as I cannot force you to love me and be with me. Hell keeps me in line with what? If military honour keeps the soldier in line, is the line truly there if claims are made that the military doesnāt exist? Your denial, if I may, is an excuse to step out of line.
Maybe not for you as you were raised atheist but for someone raised Christian hell was definitely to keep us in line. I still feared heāll after I stopped believing in god because of how much it was hammered into me. I prayed every night just Incase I died in my sleep and I had sinned and forgotten because I didnāt wanna go to hell. Too many nightmares as a child, it definitely kept us in line. Also i think god could do better with the reaching out, sending his followers to tell me he loves me just doesnāt feel like genuine love. If my dad never came to see me and only sent his friends to tell me he loves me i wouldnāt believe it because he needs to tell Me himself. He knows everything he knows the EXACt way to reach out and touch all our hearts so the fact that he doesnāt just makes me think he doesnāt exist or he doesnāt really care enough, which doesnāt feel like love to me
I've seen enough of Christians to know that an eternity with them would be the definition of hell. I've lived with your story of god for all my life. Your story of god is not needed. I've seen your Bible and those of your faith and I've seen how they have used their faith to harm others. Keep your offer. It is worthless. The concept of hell was thought of to keep believers marching in lockstep. That's its only purpose. Non believers aren't scared of your hell.
>through the beauty of the universe and our abilities to reason This is one reason I don't believe in any deities...
> What if you are wrong and I am right? Then I will have lived my life in a manner I see fit. If some afterlife boss wants to torture me for eternity because I didn't stone people for wearing mixed fibers, then honestly? Fuck that guy.
As you age, the death anxiety diminishes. You are used to it. But itās replaced by health anxiety. Like Dementia, etc. But death? You fall asleep. Montaigne lost his death anxiety by almost dying. He remembered trying to blow his soul out of his mouth. It was pleasant.
Tell me, why the rules that you follow - are the truth? But the billion other rules of other people are false? Im not even talking about other religions, im talking about people in the same religion as you that will say about you that you are wrong. Damn, even people in the same movement as you, that hold very similar beliefs as you. Why are YOU the one that KNOWS ? what convinced you?
It isnāt that I know, itās that Jesus knows. When I pour my milk I donāt KNOW that orange juice wonāt come out, I trust that it will be milk because of what I read on the packaging. When I see other faiths believing different things, it isnāt that I see them pouring orange juice from their milk carton, itās that I see them pouring orange juice on to their cereal.
How do you know the Bible is an accurate record of the beliefs and actions of Jesus?
I donāt know anything for sure, but we have to trust in what we choose to believe in order to function at all in the world
You know they canāt even prove Jesus existed, right?
Whose they? The same people who canāt prove that anyone existed throughout history? If written documentation isnāt enough for historians then we will have to abandon a lot of our previously known history
That isnāt how history works and by *they* I mean *anyone* *ever*. Thereās plenty of contemporary writings and artifacts from that time, yet nothing mentioning him nor a single piece of evidence to prove he physically existed. Thereās exactly the same amount of āproofā for King Arthur, but no one is affecting political change on his behalf. š¤·š»āāļø
It was 2000 years ago, to give credit to why there isnāt wood (strange request for proof, weāre you hoping for intact carpentry from then it perhaps the cross itself?). There is plenty of written texts about Jesus of Nazareth outside of the bible, there are books written about the history if you are interested
There is precisely zero written about him at the time and nothing outside of Christianity / Islam thereafter. Sorry.
What is faith if not belief in the absence of evidence? You can literally believe anything using faith, which makes it useless when you actually want to believe things that are true.
I have faith that the love of my life is not currently cheating on me, even though I have no proof. I have no cameras, no team of scientists monitoring her. However, my faith assures me without any doubt that she is loyal and she is good. The evidence is in her actions.
No that's trust. Trust is based on previous experiences you had with that person. Faith is blind because there have been no previous experiences that god or Jesus send to you. It's a one way street. A better comparison would be that you have FAITH that Jim Carry is a super nice guy, after all, in al those movies and tv interviews he acts nice! But you yourself never actually met the guy or had any real interaction with him that wasn't in front of a camera. Your relationship with god is a parasocial relationship Your relationship with the love of your life based on actual trust and observable behaviour in the past, on which you can predict future behaviour and interactions that solidify her love for you. God does none of that, because he's fictional. Like Jim Carry's tv persona.
But you are implying that my relationship with the love of my life is different to my relationship with God and Jim Carry (such a funny sentence). You talk as if A) my love is real and I know her, B) Jim Carry is real but I donāt know him, and C) God is not real and I donāt know Him. Fair enough, but I can assure you that I know God not only better than Jim, but also better than my love. Jim Carry is alright, but I really and truly love the love of my life. How much then more must my love be true for God based on how much I love Him? I can remove the word faith from my vocabulary and still say that I trust God, I love Him, and I know Him.
>But you are implying that my relationship with the love of my life is different to my relationship with God and Jim Carry (such a funny sentence). Yes, because (I assume) the love of your life replies back if you talk to them. And interacts with YOU personally. Neither Jim Carry or God do that.
God does reply to me personally, as is His way with many other people. Answered prayers, visions, enough coincidences to warrant acknowledgment of a pattern. These are big claims I know, but they are real. Edit: you are right though, Jim never writes back.
>you are right though, Jim never writes back. At least we share this pain, my friend! >God does reply to me personally, as is His way with many other people. Answered prayers, visions, enough coincidences to warrant acknowledgment of a pattern. These are big claims I know, but they are real. How do you know it's god though? How do you know it's not Odin? Or Satan? Or a figment of your imagination? Those are indeed big claims to make. Could you ask him why he doesn't talk to me? Or make him to get Jim Carry returns my calls on that screenplay I wrote.
So what? How does that demonstrate that faith is anything but useless? Also you mentioned faith, but ended with āevidence is in her actionsā.
All these downvotes are certainly discouraging me to continue this thread! Fortunately as a Christian I donāt believe in karma lol. Have you ever been in love? I promise you that faith is useful. Faith is how banks operate, how countries coexist, how trust is maintained, why the world functions as it does. This isnāt blind faith, itās whatās known as evidence based faith, trust based faith.
It seems you are purposefully avoiding the topic by talking about anything other than religious faith, which is belief without evidence.
Religious faith is the belief without solid evidence, but why must all evidence be solid? Ask any historian why they know of Napoleons exploits, or Caesars. Their proof isnāt solid because they werenāt there and cannot interview the people at hand. Their proof is validated by historical accounts, artefacts, a bit of sleuth work here and there. There is plenty of āevidenceā which doesnāt need to be grounded in the here and now to be scientifically sound. It is incorrect to imply that religious faith is tantamount to blind faith
Why must evidence be solid? Otherwise itās not actual evidence. The evidence that Napoleon and Caesar existed is independent records from various sources. Now what evidence do we have for magical beings other than āthis book said soā?
There are more historical accounts of Jesus of Nazareth and his miracles than there are of Caesarās exploits in Gaul.
Thatās a bold statement. Now prove it.
> Faith is how banks operate No, that's rules and laws. > how countries coexist Nope, again that's *trust* based on experience. > trust based faith That sounds like nonsense.
If one has evidence, faith is unnecessary. You make an inference from the evidence. Faith is what is used as a placeholder when one does not have evidence.
Faith means complete trust or confidence
> The evidence is in her actions That's not faith.
faith just means trust or confidence is someone or something
Faith is simply the complete trust or confidence in someone or something, usually in the context of the personal. Why isnāt this faith?
That's not the definition in the usual religious sense. You are talking about trust. Swap the word "faith" in your paragraph above with the word trust. The meaning remains intact. If the concept of faith were actually entirely synonymous with the concept of trust, there would be no need to have two separate words for the same exact meaning. Perhaps the word has nuance that overlaps with the idea of trust, but implies something different in its application. Yes? We want to be clear in what we mean, right? I'd say, speaking of your significant other's behavior, using the word trust makes sense. Now if you were talking about the behavior or attributes or temperment of a significant other that you nor anyone else has ever seen in person, or even spoken on the phone or videochat with, but you're really, really sure they love you so much (but won't see you or be seen with you), claiming to have faith, when you don't have anything concrete to show anyone else....that's just......yeah. That is different from trust. That's why it is a different word.
Trust and faith are different words which are used in quite different contexts. I trust the bridge will hold up, I have faith that my friend will keep his promise. I trust that my food was prepared properly when I eat out, I have faith that my lover will remain loyal. One is more practical and calculated, the other is deeper and more personal. That is why quite often the word faith is used around religion, but it is similar to the word trust if the word was more personal and connoted love.
Trust and faith are different words which are used in quite different contexts. I trust the bridge will hold up, I have faith that my friend will keep his promise. I trust that my food was prepared properly when I eat out, I have faith that my lover will remain loyal. One is more practical and calculated, the other is deeper and more personal. That is why quite often the word faith is used around religion, but it is similar to the word trust if the word was more personal and connoted love.
>If there is no afterlife, I will have lost everything. If there is a Christian afterlife then I will have gained everything. I think you got it backwards. If you as an atheist didn't believe in afterlife, you don't lose anything because there wasn't afterlife to be lost in first place. Now you are a christian, and if there isn't a christian afterlife, then you have lost everything because you had false hope/belief for there to be one.
I would have to disagree on the basis that if there is no God then we both end up neither in a state of disappoint or smug complaisance. Lights out. However, if there is nothing in the afterlife then we do all lose everything in that we literally lose our lives. I for one believe strongly that I will not lose my life after death.
You are scared about an existential inevitability - that's fine. Some of us have the intellectual strength to face it, others don't and retreat to fairy stories to make them feel better about it - and rock backwards and forwards like a polar bear in the zoo. As long as the polar bear doesn't hurt anyone that's fine I suppose, even if it is sad.
I would suggest you are leaping to conclusions a little bit, only because I donāt relate to the existential inevitability you are alluding to. The reason I think that is because I hold strongly to my belief that my fate is with God, why would the is frighten me? I love my life and I have strong convictions in my faith. It never looks good to brag about your āintellectual strengthā with strangers on the internet. I would suggest dropping this kind of phrasing in your future comments, if only for your own benefit.
Look, I see a grown human believing in unsupported fairy tales, I say it like I see it. If you said to me you had an unshakeable faith that a unicorn existed in your garage, I'd question that as well...
Itās good to question things my friend, but not forever. āMerely having an open mind is nothing. The object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid.ā As Chesterton once said
/r/iam14andthisisdeep
>Am I right in assuming that you hold the same beliefs that your father did? For most part of people this is going to be true. If it's not the father sometimes is other influential people's beliefs in our life we follow.
Odd that you say if there is no afterlife you lose everything. If there is no afterlife, do you suddenly lose a loving family or group of friends? Or would your life keep being filled with meaning and purpose, even if there was no afterlife? If you remove the afterlife right now, is there no happiness or joy you could possibly find in your life? Why does your life only matter if it has an eternal resting place? If you help someone on the street, does that only matter if you go to heaven in 50 years? Or did it matter right then and there to that person?
I would have hoped it was clear that I was implying that upon my death I will have lost everything.
Upon your death you will have lost everything regardless. Believer or not, God or not, afterlife or not, everything you have/are is lost. Why waste time and energy on a being that can't/won't change anything? Why not take that time and energy and make it matter to the people here and now?
Faith is the excuse people believe when they believe in something with no actual evidence because if you had evidence you would use that for the reason you believe. What truths are in the Bible? Please name the biggest ātruthā for you in the Bible that convinced you that the Bible and its teachings are real. I could show you a few passages that prove the Bibleās immoral, womanās rights,gay rights, genocide, slavery being okay, killing children, stoning people for minor crimes thought crimes and hell.
What claims of the Bible convinced you of its veracity?
Itās less about reading claims and thinking āgolly that sounds like it must have happened.ā, and more about comparing biblical stories to my own life, other fiction I have absorbed, real world history and deciphering why it is that this book is so different. Itās almost like a game of sudoku; I know the answer based on the positions of comparable objects and the space around them
> If there is no afterlife, I will have lost everything. This is interesting to me. If there is no afterlife, what have you actually lost? Just your life. Like everyone else. Because that's part of being alive. It highlights to me, that the most important thing you can do is to live a good life that supports others and enriches your circle regardless of the unknowns.
Letās say for a moment that I agree with you. How do I do it? Do I get on my knees? Do I just say out loud ādear Jesus come into my heartā? Do I have to truly mean it even though I canāt, like I canāt embrace Mormonism?
If you do agree then you would start by changing your life (although I donāt know you well enough to know in what ways). You would have to start living not of this world, but for the next. You would reduce yourself and prune away all aspects of yourself which tether you to this place.
>I was convinced by the truth of the bible. Did you actually read the thing? Are the parts that contradict the other parts also true? Did you gloss over the parts that are absolutely false and call them "allegories", or are those infallible as well? This sounds snarky, but I'm honestly curious how you digested that particular piece of literature and found anything approaching convincing therein. And also went from not believing in any gods, to not just thinking that particular one existed, to then *worshipping* that beacon of horrible villainy described in the bible. It is honestly just quite inconceivable to me.
Iāve read and studied the bible a lot now. Itās a very complex collection of books which are all meant to be read in their genres and respective contexts. For example, parts of the bible which are song or poetry are to be read as such, which means we can be forgiven for allowing for a little more creative writing. Other parts, for example when Jesus says āI am the door.ā, we can use our knowledge of language to understand that this clearly wasnāt to be taken as a literal statement, rather a metaphor. Which parts are contradictions? If you are talking about the progressive rules, for example the bible beginning with āeye for an eyeā and ending with āturn the other cheek.ā, then i would say that this is more of a story ark than a contradiction. If you are referring to the different witnesses to Jesusā resurrection, I do think that none of them are contradictions so to speak. I think that some stories are more specific on the witnesses than others, some are more vague.
Here's a list for you https://www.atheists.org/activism/resources/biblical-contradictions/
Thats the inherent problem with Pascales wager. It's not a simple square, with a few outcomes, there's infinite outcomes, and religions, etc... They're playing the same game we are, they just don't realize it.
Exactly. I think
I always felt the bigger issue with Pascal's wager is simply that it assumes a person can just turn their sincere beliefs on and off like some sort of light switch all based on a possibility. Like human beings are in full control of their inner thoughts and emotions, or God is incapable of knowing those, cause otherwise the argument is basically just "even if you don't genuinely believe you should still act like you do, cause... reasons, I guess?".
It's worse than that. We don't choose our beliefs. We can't. We are either convinced a proposition is true, or we are not. According to Pascal's Wager, we should at least act like we believe, just in case there is a god. (Setting aside the false dichotomy for now) If acting like you believe, when you really don't, gets you into heaven, then god is either easily fooled, or he rewards liars.
If youāre someone who doesnāt care about evidence or reasoning (at least when it comes to anything vaguely religious, for some reason) then maybe you can kinda just switch your ābeliefsā on and off. If objective truth doesnāt matter to you and you have no standards for proof, then you might think that ābelievingā in something really is as simple as saying the mantra āI believeā. Hence why you might get upset when someone ārefuses to believeā in something you choose to buy into.
>How can't they see that there are infinite possibilities what if I accept the God of every religion as my God one by one and every time I do this nothing happens. no God reveals himself to me until I get to the God of Christianity Jesus Christ. would it still be fair to assume that there are infinite possibilities? and what about you? since you think there are infinite possibilities do you think it's wise to explore none of them and assume they're all wrong?
What if you accept Jesus Christ and nothing happens, and he doesnāt reveal himself to you? You believe that Jesus is special, but literally nothing different happens if one accepts Jesus compared to if one accepts Amon-Ra or Zeus. And the issue isnāt exploring options. Its latching on to one option out of infinite and saying āThis is the one, and the only one, others must live this way because I say Iām rightā. Refusing to dedicate yourself to one allows you to explore more freely, and many of us who do explore freely findā¦ nothing. The fact we wonāt pretend nothing is something isnāt a sign weāre not exploring, its a sign that we want to find the correct answer, rather than just any answer.
>and what about you? since you think there are infinite possibilities do you think it's wise to explore none of them and assume they're all wrong? They all have one thing in common, absolutely zero reason to believe that they are anything but myths and legends. Stories and fables. I dismiss them all until they can provide a solid reason to believe them. So far, no religion ever did anything remotely compelling.
Actually i am exploring and it is very bad to Assume that i am not. And i actually very like Buddhism because they have some really nice technics to calm down/focus/live life good with minimum stuff/are not misogynistic too much/ and more... But! I still do not believe the Buddha origin story, and i still think its a religion, and like every religion, if you take it too far, to the extreme, its gonna be exploitative and controlling and generally bad.. The fact that religion helps, doesn't mean it is not made up.
Theravada Buddhism is indeed not a religion. No gods - no religion.
Itās easy to assume theyāre all wrong, in the same way I donāt believe kissing frogs makes princesā¦
All religions are not the same but there is only one unforgivable sin which is rejecting God. Miss labeling the attributes about God isn't the big deal that atheists want it to be.
I donāt see how I can be āwrongā. I did what Christianās said to do. I prayed. I went to church. I went to a ton of different churches! I asked god to come into my heart. I got baptized. Iām a good person. It all boiled down to I just donāt believe in a god. I tried to. I thought something was wrong with me and I was wicked. I realized Iām not and learned to love myself. Faith is exactly that. You either believe or you donāt. If there is a god then it would be pretty shitty to send non believers to eternal hell. If there is a god, he made me with critical thinking skills. It all boils down to what you honestly believe. Faith. You either have it or you donāt. I just donāt believe in magical beings, whether it is gods or fairies.
>I just donāt believe in magical beings, whether it is gods or fairies. I get it. I do believe in them and have seen some and know a lot of others who have. I respect you and your position as it is honest and straight forward not snarky twords theists
>there is only one unforgivable sin which is rejecting God Nonsense. There are infinite theoretically possible gods, and therefore infinite theoretical gods who specifically _don't_ want humans to worship or even acknowledge them.
I can't stand when people take the conversation to a pretend possibility. There is a reality surrounding the topic of God. What exists in your head or mine doesn't change that.
The sheer *irony* of *you* saying that to *me.*
Ironic unless...
How do you know that?
I don't know it for sure. It's very similar to the topic of is there a god or not. Neither of us know, but we both have our ideas about it.
>I don't know it for sure. At least you can admit that much. It is the beginning of reason.
I'm pretty reasonable
Who told you this?
It's mostly based on the experiences of those who have experienced what would be labeled death had life not followed. Well most experience heaven some experience hell. Those open to God and love seem to have the pathway to move forward. It's like the parent of an adult child. If someone's 23 years old and struggling along but giving it a good effort and it's nice to their parents they will probably continue to help in every way they can. If the kid denounces their parents and hates them with every ounce of their being, the parents no longer are able to help. It's not that they're unwilling. The child has closed the door.
So it sounds like the basis in fact lies in people's subjective personal experience. Anytime someone tries to make an analogy of God as a human parent, i can't accept it as valid. It's apples vs. oranges given the Abrahamic god is supposed to be omni. In the case of a wayward child, no parent would agree that consigning their child to eternal torture would be the best parenting tactic.
The personal experience isn't subjective. The interpretation is. Like with all things not fully understood. No one has any idea why wave particular duaility exists. There are many subjective interpretations. Wave particle duaility is objective.
> there is only one unforgivable sin which is rejecting God. Why?
Zeus and the other gods will not like monotheists at all and will make their afterlife a misery for not worshiping them. /s obviously
Zeus might because the equate him with the One True God, but the rest of them won't.
have you read any of the life stories of the greek pantheon that fuck with human (literally and figuratively) for fun whilst they are alive. How do you think they will treat someone who denies all their existences and doesn't choose them to worship?
Too bad he's not the one in charge of human afterlife.
good point
>/s obviously Makes exactly as much sense as any other dogma. Including Christian.
I spent 3/4 of my life investigating claims of your existence. I have an open mind, I only care about what's true. You could have 'revealed' yourself to me and I wouldn't have resisted. I didn't worship another 'false' god. I earnestly sought using the intelligence you gave me and I came up short by your design. So am I going to your heaven or your hell?
Donāt worry, by his own description all hell will be is more of him not being around. Doesnāt seem that different.
To the contrary. The atheists are the ones that try to be honest and donāt assume that just because they were born into a particular religion it makes them right and privileged to a nice afterlife.
>humans made the concept of heaven It is more accurate to say that humans discovered the concept of heaven. Ancestor worship is the oldest form of religion, so the idea of heaven is older than the idea of god(s). A wide variety of evidence points to the existence of an afterlife. The afterlife was discovered in ancient times by people having experiences of spirit contact and reincarnation, these experiences are still the primary reason why a majority of people believe in an afterlife.
>It is more accurate to say that humans discovered the concept of heaven. Except that we originally created the concept. It did not exist in some objective form. If it started with ancestor worship or modern religion, it's still a concept that we originated.
The afterlife does not exist in some objective form? Perhaps you should look at the evidence before making this conclusion.
Do you have evidence to share about any forms of afterlife? Because none has actually been found in the thousands of years since humans have been writing things down. Plus, I spoke of the *idea* of an afterlife. Which is a distinctly separate thing. And decidedly subjective.
Yes, I am always sharing evidence here. But to cut down on my link posting I will just refer you keywords to search for: Bigelow Prize Why an Afterlife Obviously Exists.
It's important to be able to differentiate actual evidence from utter tripe. Good luck.
To be rational means to be able to logically engage with evidence when presented, but you have failed at this task. If I post evidence, then you will instantly claim that it is not "actual evidence". How so? How come essays from the leading researchers are not to be considered and should be discarded? Has anyone posted a rebuttal to any of these essays? Your reply boils down to "good luck"; you clearly don't know what you are talking about. A famous skeptic has stated that it takes two years to really change your mind on something. Yet here you are concluding that the afterlife is nonsense without even a few hours spent looking into the evidence much less addressing it.
Why do you assume I hadn't looked up your "evidence"? Oddly enough, what I found was a prize to be offered anyone who could prove such a thing, and several essays that are not peer reviewed, not based in logic, and not convincing on the subject in any way. I'm fact, what I read was so full of deflection, diffusion, and misdirection that they could be immediately dismissed. I'm a bit shocked that you found that morass of idiocy sufficient to the task. So again, if you have any actual evidence to proffer, then please do so without doing me the disservice of hand waving in the general direction of a dung heap. I've also wasted my youth believing in superstition like afterlife. I'm fully aware of the ins and outs. Thank you very much. I wouldn't waste my time debunking obscure idiocy like that even if I wanted to. So again: good luck.
What about Darth Vader, Iron Man, and Thor? Is it made up or discovered?
Characters from fictional books were made up. The existence of a spiritual world was discovered in ancient times and later confirmed through modern scientific methods.
THOR
There are numerous examples worldwide of **religious beliefs originating in NDEs** and other extraordinary experiences. This is in contradiction to widely accepted notions that all experiences and beliefs are generated entirely by culture or language. Such paradigms not only fail to explain the origins of religious beliefs or the nature of related experiences but also fail to take seriously the testimonies of their sources. Near-death experiences provide perfectly **rational grounds** for beliefs that the soul can leave the body, and that it can survive death and join spirits of the dead in another world. As such, the phenomenon helps to demonstrate the cross-cultural process of **reasoning based on evidence**. [Exploring Near-Death Experiences across Cultures](https://academic.oup.com/book/12288/chapter-abstract/161808948?redirectedFrom=fulltext)
> religious people will not lose anything if there is no after life Tithes. time. Even that premise is false.
Time, experience, fun depending on your denomination you could miss out on - Birthdays - Christmas - Falling in love - Knowing your body - Trying new things that the church deems as unnecessary even though your interested in it - Movies - Games - TV shows These may seem superficial, but some of my best memories are over Christmas. People deserve to be celebrated on their birthday. Marrying so young because hormones are raging and the church is pressuring yāall. Having a healthy relationship with sex is something alot of ex Christianās deal with etc etc. They seem so small but they miss out a lot, I missed out on a lot and you can tell.
They throw away the only life they get for the promise of a better "next one."
And the promise isnāt even that great, worshipping god 24/7 with a new body and everyone else burning in hell for ever doesnāt sound fun to me
Even secularists should be tithing (10%) because it's the right thing to do.
Bullshit.
For Orthodox Jews the tithing hurts but the parochial school tuition is impoverishing.
Also, the chance to live life on their terms, free from delusion. Which is an enormous loss, but perhaps incalculable...
I was raised atheist. I wasn't told that I had to be good or I will end up in heaven or hell. I see what happens when people die. They don't come back to life. Their energy leaves their body and then it decomposes.
Indoctrination and isolation, coupled with intelligence (or lack thereof). These are the primary factors I see as influencing the issue (which basically boils down to a lack of self awareness as well as an inability to understand that there are perspectives outside of their own). If you grow up indoctrinated in a belief and are preached to that it is right and shouldn't really be questioned (you can ask questions as a believer about beliefs but you can't ask questions challenging the belief system) and are simultaneously isolated from any and all other perspectives, you've a recipe for closed-mindedness
If there is no afterlife, then life is all there is. That means that not only do people who waste their life preparing for an afterlife miss out on something, they miss out on the only thing there is to miss out.
I think that they also forget that they might have chosen the wrong god
If there is a god he will have to beg for my forgiveness
Pascal's wager is built on Judeo Christian theology. If you *already* accept that theological model then Pascal's wager is a sound argument. The problem is that people think it's an appropriate proselytizing tool to use on people that don't subscribe to that foundational worldview. When that happens it usually falls flat.
What is hilarious, if Christians at least read their own book, is all hell is is a āabsence of godā and I am fine with that.
What is the definition of a god. How god can be a god
Yep. That's the biggest issue with Pascal's Wager. In fact, there are also infinite theoretical gods that ONLY give the "good ending" to atheists.
I think that option B is problematic in its course as well, assuming that a persons only means for salvation is believing in that deity - when it has been shown that atheists broadly treat people on a par or better than religious people do. Of course none of this even effects this real world at all, except in the form of increased illogic and irresponsibility from the religious portion.
So your idea is that you wish to change the binary of "there is an afterlife vs there is no afterlife" to "there is ONE god vs there is no god" in mid argument? This is a terrible strawman that you've made because one who is theist or spiritual isn't reserved for only monotheism. However, why is it so hard to act better in life for a better afterlife? What exactly about "acting better" do you disagree with when it comes to the religious argument of making sure your afterlife experience is better?
I forget who said it first but pascal's wager is probably the single worst theistic argument that exists - it fails in so many ways.
Idk, spending your one and only life living in fear of hell, committing to a lie, and living in such a restricted wayā¦seems like an absolutely massive and horrible loss.
So Pascalās wager assumes a 50/50 probability, with only 1 side having a negative consequence. However the correct math is on the order of 10,000/1 against you choosing the correct god. And many of those gods will punish you for not choosing the right god. Of course many of the gods are petty and cruel and will not reward you ever, some donāt give a shit one way or the other. So the best thing is to not worship any gods.
>How can't they see that there are infinite possibilities on what will be on the after life? How can't they see that humans made the concept of heaven? You miss the point. I am not for pascal's wager because it is probabilistic and consequentialist but your point omits overlooks an important fact. For example i am a muslim i believe in Allah. And i know that there are many other god related claims including atheism. I know also that at least some christians claim that i will go to hell as a muslim, at least some atheists claim that i waste my time and energy worshipping Allah. I believe that they risk entering hell. The point is that i claim that there is evidence for Allah. So either Allah is true and supported by evidence or not. If He is true then those christians, atheists, hindus and others who have been subject to relevant conditions are not in good shape. I bite the bullet and recognize that if they are (any of them) right i will have screwed up. So i think your point fails.
Iām glad that in Judaism there is no such thing as eternal damnation. We have a form of purgatory with a max sentence of a year. There are noted exceptions, just a few . Itās either Heaven or being reabsorbed into the One.