Believer vs. Atheist

Great Debates
1

OK, I may seem to be on a religious fixation right now but I am just searching for answers (like Cane in Kung-Fu). Again, I am thinking logical here
What is the benefit of not believing in God?
I did a small chart with the pros and cons displaying the benefits of being an atheist and a believer. The better odds falls in the believers favor.

 Believer	          non believer

Heaven plus negative
no heaven no benefit no benefit

So, what do you lose by believing in God compared to what you could lose. Everybody dies so wouldn’t you want to hedge your bets when there was a chance to rather then just hope your right?
Is there some kind of a gain an atheist gets other then the satisfaction of knowing that when they die they blink out of existence?
I’m not trying to be sarcastic or anything (at least not right now) I truly am curious. I apologize if I am rehashing old hash that has been hashed to death.

2

What if I believe in the wrong God? And the real God punishes those that believe incorrectly more than those that don’t believe? Then I would be worse off by believing than not believing.

This is just one example of the problems with Pascal’s wager…

3

[QUOTE=Jokershadow]
OK, I may seem to be on a religious fixation right now but I am just searching for answers (like Cane in Kung-Fu). Again, I am thinking logical here
What is the benefit of not believing in God?
I did a small chart with the pros and cons displaying the benefits of being an atheist and a believer. The better odds falls in the believers favor.

 Believer	          non believer

Heaven plus negative
no heaven no benefit no benefit

So, what do you lose by believing in God compared to what you could lose. Everybody dies so wouldn’t you want to hedge your bets when there was a chance to rather then just hope your right?
Is there some kind of a gain an atheist gets other then the satisfaction of knowing that when they die they blink out of existence?
I’m not trying to be sarcastic or anything (at least not right now) I truly am curious. I apologize if I am rehashing old hash that has been hashed to death.
[/QUOTE]

Because if you believe in god to hedge your bets you’re shallow, pathetic and cowardly?

Also you’re a few hundred years too late .

4

What if the railroad train is a figment and you could save time by walking through it?
Isn’t it worth a shot?

5

Pascal’s wager (which is what you seem to be describing) collapses the minute you realize that there is more than one possible god to believe in. If you add “Worship unicorns” as a column to your chart, you’ll rapidly find that it has the same answers as the atheist column, with additional downsides like “wastes a lot of time” and “makes you look kind of like an idiot”.

To the average atheist, all believers look like unicorn worshippers.

(Plus, choosing raligion just to ‘hedge your bets’ seems like a pretty scuzzy reason to choose a religion, and you’d have to have a really stupid god to fall for it. Add a “Choose religion to hedge your bets and piss off god by doing so” column to your chart, and see how that works out.)

6

My biggest problem with Pascal’s wager is that it expects that somehow people choose to believe what they believe, when in reality people just believe what seems true to them. I don’t care what type of cost/benefit chart you throw in my face, I can’t somehow force myself believe something that sounds like an illogical myth, and only the latest in very long line of illogical myths.

And as others have mentioned, what if I choose the wrong illogical myth?

7

You save all the money, time & effort you would have wasted on meaningless ceremony & useless actions that you can put to better use.

There is nothing religion offers that can’t be gained in a way that doesn’t require superstitious belief.

8

[QUOTE=Jokershadow]
What is the benefit of not believing in God?
[/QUOTE]

Being right.

(In our humble opinions, of course. Just as religious people are right in their own humble opinions.)

9

[QUOTE=Jokershadow]
OK, I may seem to be on a religious fixation right now but I am just searching for answers (like Cane in Kung-Fu). Again, I am thinking logical here
What is the benefit of not believing in God?
I did a small chart with the pros and cons displaying the benefits of being an atheist and a believer. The better odds falls in the believers favor.

 Believer	          non believer

Heaven plus negative
no heaven no benefit no benefit

So, what do you lose by believing in God compared to what you could lose. Everybody dies so wouldn’t you want to hedge your bets when there was a chance to rather then just hope your right?
Is there some kind of a gain an atheist gets other then the satisfaction of knowing that when they die they blink out of existence?
I’m not trying to be sarcastic or anything (at least not right now) I truly am curious. I apologize if I am rehashing old hash that has been hashed to death.
[/QUOTE]

Pascal’s Wager is a virtual teaching example for logical fallacy. The Wager has been dissected many times here but I’ll try to give a short summary of what’s wrong with it.

  1. Your assumptions are unsupported and incomplete. You say that believers will be rewarded with Heaven if God exists, but you have no basis for making that assumption. You assume that non-believers will be punished (or at least miss out on the reward) if God exists. You have no basis for making that assumption. How do you know God doesn’t reward non-believers and punish believers?

  2. You assume that the only two choices are believe in God or don’t believe in God but those aren’t relaly the only two choices. For on thing, you haven’t stipulated which God. Yahweh? Zeus? Odin? The Reverend Moon? Choose wrong and you might be in deep shit. Also, what if there is more than one God. What if it’s necessary to believe in exactly 4 gods to get to Heaven? or 5, or 38 or 97 billion?

There are literally an infinite number of possible theological paradigms you could believe in, all with exactly the same evidence, all with exactly the same possible risk/reward potential. There is no safe choice.

  1. Perhaps the greatest flaw of the Wager is that it assumes belief is a choice. If one does not believe in gods then one does not believe in gods. That can’t be changed by volition alone. One can’t simply choose to believe in God any more than one can chose to believe in the Easter Bunny. One is either persuaded or one is not. Pascal’s wager provides no actual argument for God’s existence, only a very poorly thought out argument for belief being lower risk than non-belief.
10

[QUOTE=Revtim]
… that it expects that somehow people choose to believe what they believe, when in reality people just believe what seems true to them.
[/QUOTE]
My history teacher taught that nobody actually choses what to believe.
Their “personal” beliefs are based entirely where they are born.
There is no “rational choice” until decades after they are awash in one religion.

11

OK, what about Santa Claus?

Either Santa Claus exists, or he does not. And you can chose to either believe in Santa Claus, nor not believe in Santa Claus.

If Santa Claus exists, and you believe in him, you get presents.
If Santa Claus exists, and you don’t believe in him, you get a lump of coal.
If Santa Claus does not exist and you believe in him, you get nothing.
If Santa Claus does not exist and you don’t believe in him, you get nothing.

The way to hit the positive payout in the matrix above is to believe in Santa Claus. Therefore, it is illogical not to believe in Santa Claus.

Can you see anything wrong with my logic? Can you explain why my logic is flawed for the Santa Claus case, but if I substituted Jesus for Santa Claus it would suddently make sense?

12

[QUOTE=micro-dust]
My history teacher taught that nobody actually choses what to believe.
Their “personal” beliefs are based entirely where they are born.
There is no “rational choice” until decades after they are awash in one religion.
[/QUOTE]
With all due respect to your teacher, this is clearly incorrect unless you are in a place/era where the area of your birth has a single, monolithic culture. True through most of history, but nowadays you can have next-door neighbors all with different religions from you.

(And I was rejecting the religion of my parents by no later than the age of eight. Incidentally.)

13

[QUOTE=Revtim]
My biggest problem with Pascal’s wager is that it expects that somehow people choose to believe what they believe, when in reality people just believe what seems true to them. I don’t care what type of cost/benefit chart you throw in my face, I can’t somehow force myself believe something that sounds like an illogical myth, and only the latest in very long line of illogical myths.

And as others have mentioned, what if I choose the wrong illogical myth?
[/QUOTE]

My minster (a lovely Unitarian agnostic) spoke recently about “this is the church where you get to choose what you believe.” She said, in her experience, no one really gets to choose what they believe. What you believe is what you are led to believe by the events on your life and how you perceive those events.

Being Unitarian, this is a little different than micro-dusts view. UUs don’t awash their kids in any belief - yet Unitarian kids grow up and become Methodist ministers, Jewish rabbis, atheists, humanists, Buddhists and Wiccans. They may perceive this as making a choice - and yes, they get to make some choices (Methodist or UCC?) but they don’t really choose the fundamentals of their spiritual belief - those fundamentals choose them.

14

[QUOTE=micro-dust]
My history teacher taught that nobody actually choses what to believe.
Their “personal” beliefs are based entirely where they are born.
There is no “rational choice” until decades after they are awash in one religion.
[/QUOTE]

Based entirely on where they are born? Are you sure you got that right?

Children ususally take on their parents’ beliefs, and adults tend to believe the same as those around them, sure. But there’s far more in play than just geography.

15

[QUOTE=micro-dust]
What if the railroad train is a figment and you could save time by walking through it?
Isn’t it worth a shot?
[/QUOTE]
Exactly. I wish (well, not really, but you know what I mean) that just one of the “You can’t prove it’s not true!” people would put their balls where their mouths are, decide that traffic doesn’t exist and just walk across the highway.

16

[QUOTE=Priceguy]
Exactly. I wish (well, not really, but you know what I mean) that just one of the “You can’t prove it’s not true!” people would put their balls where their mouths are, decide that traffic doesn’t exist and just walk across the highway.
[/QUOTE]
I’m confused - is the disbeliever in traffic the theist, or the atheist here? Both groups live according to their beliefs, so both groups are “putting their balls where their mouths are”.

17

[QUOTE=Priceguy]
Exactly. I wish (well, not really, but you know what I mean) that just one of the “You can’t prove it’s not true!” people would put their balls where their mouths are, decide that traffic doesn’t exist and just walk across the highway.
[/QUOTE]

A Christian and an atheist are standing in a room with a giant swinging pendulum. The Christian tests the atheist’s belief by telling him to put his face an inch from the top of the pendulum’s swing. If the atheist flinches, then he doesn’t really trust in science, therefore he believes in God deep down. The atheist makes a counter-offer. He tells the Christian to put his face a foot closer than the top of the swing, and pray to God to stop the pendulum.

ETA: If I could put my balls where my mouth is, I’d never leave the house.

18

[QUOTE=Jokershadow]
What is the benefit of not believing in God?
[/quote]
As said, being right. Better judgement, since you aren’t basing your decisions on a fantasy. Less hatred, towards yourself and others. Less paranoia. Better morality; for that matter, being moral at all; basing your behavior on what God wants isn’t moral. Believing in God makes the world a worse place, and makes people worse people, as a rule; disbelieving eliminates one more cause of evil and stupidity in the world. Those are benefits.

And as pointed out by others, you are assuming that you are picking the one true god, and that he appreciates people playing these kind of games. Reminds me of this :

[QUOTE=Hogfather]
This is very similar to the suggestion put forward by the Quirmian philosopher Ventre, who said, ‘Possibly the gods exist, and possibly they do not. So why not believe in them in any case? If it’s all true you’ll go to a lovely place when you die, and if it isn’t then you’ve lost nothing, right?’ When he died he woke up in a circle of gods holding nasty-looking sticks and one of them said, ‘We’re going to show you what we think of Mr. Clever Dick in these parts…’
[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=tdn]
A Christian and an atheist are standing in a room with a giant swinging pendulum. The Christian tests the atheist’s belief by telling him to put his face an inch from the top of the pendulum’s swing. If the atheist flinches, then he doesn’t really trust in science, therefore he believes in God deep down. The atheist makes a counter-offer. He tells the Christian to put his face a foot closer than the top of the swing, and pray to God to stop the pendulum.
[/QUOTE]
I’ve heard of versions of that pendulum trick being done as demonstrations in science classes. And there are religious people who, if not that specific pray-before-the-pendulum bit, really do rely on faith to save them. The difference is, the science teachers are back next semester, while the believers tend to end up hurt or dead.

19

[QUOTE=begbert2]
Both groups live according to their beliefs
[/QUOTE]

What beliefs?

20

[QUOTE=Lemur866]
OK, what about Santa Claus?

Either Santa Claus exists, or he does not. And you can chose to either believe in Santa Claus, nor not believe in Santa Claus.

If Santa Claus exists, and you believe in him, you get presents.
If Santa Claus exists, and you don’t believe in him, you get a lump of coal.
If Santa Claus does not exist and you believe in him, you get nothing.
If Santa Claus does not exist and you don’t believe in him, you get nothing.
<snip>
[/QUOTE]

Have you seen energy prices lately? I’ll take the lump of coal.

Seriously, though, as regards the OP: I personally am teetering on the fence between agnostic and atheist - the older I get, the more I realize that I am a non-believer. I’m not waiting for a sign, or hedging my bets - I agree that the whole concept of “hedging one’s bets” seems to represent the height of douchebaggery.

I am sure there is no afterlife, there is no “god” in the traditional sense, and the tenets of organized religion are simply the invented myths of mankind evolved and refined over millennia. My beliefs pose me no benefits, aside from the peace of mind that I am not ruled by superstition and fear, and that I have a balanced and clear-eyed view of the world around me and the people in it.

I know that my worldview is mine alone, and not distorted by the lens of some ancient ideology first codified by men (and only by men) thousands of years ago - an ideology gradually reinterpreted by men (and only men), oftentimes with the ulterior motive of bending human will to their own goals (see the King James Bible, excised biblical apocrypha, etc.).

This worldview informs my morality - namely that we are all humans who make our own messes, and create our own solutions, and that to truly enjoy a meaningful life, we must ensure that our existence pains not those we share the world with, and leaves this earth a better place for those who come after. At the same time understanding that we have no birthright to this tempestuous rock we happen to live on, and that it can (and someday will) expel us, and all of the history and culture and myth and superstition in the world will do nothing to prevent that.

So my purpose is not to worship a god who tells me who to love and who to hate, what is virtuous and what is sinful - my purpose is to do whatever I can to make the world a better place for all who live in it, and to teach my children how to do so, whatever they wind up believing when they grow up. Am I living up to that purpose? No - it’s a struggle, just as the pious struggle to attain a state of “virtue” according to their respective religion. Is my purpose worth striving toward? Absolutely, and without question.