If you're unsure - God exists is the safe answer [continued]

Great Debates
1

I like your thinking. But I ask you this: is there really a necessary connection between ‘believing in God’ (or not) and the concept of the existence of an ‘afterlife’ - heaven, hell, or something else (or not)? Could the idea of God and the idea of afterlife be unrelated?

Here are some permutations:

I believe in God, and in an afterlife
I believe in God, but not in an afterlife
I do not believe in God, but I do believe in an afterlife
I do not believe in God, nor do I believe in an afterlife

An additional question for you: what is an afterlife?

I think most people see it as at least a new kind of ‘space’ where one is aware of themselves and their surroundings, and continues to have experiences ‘there.’

Other ideas, such as reincarnation (coming back to life as a newborn person or other creature), or a return of one’s soul ‘back’ to ‘where souls come from’ (a kind of clearing house for possible for later re-issue) – do not seem to require continued awareness of who you are now.

Last question: what is a soul?

For me, everyone and every living thing (and maybe non-living things) seem to have a soul. Although I do not have a good definition for ‘soul,’ I do feel that souls exist. Something does seem to exit the body when someone dies, does it not?

Possible conclusion: God, though ‘real,’ is kind of an illusion, in that It is really just our individual and/or collective awareness of the existence of souls – our own, and those of others – both living, and in our memories.

Maybe God and Afterlife are just constructs of ‘soul-awareness,’ and not Things unto Themselves.

What do you think of all that? And the rest?

2

Do you believe in zombies? Even if there is only a small chance that zombies will arise, shouldn’t you take precautions against them? It doesn’t ake up much time or effort, and can mean the difference between surviving the zombie apocalypse or beciming one of them…

3

These posts were originally added to this thread from 2004.

4

I don’t worry about believers, it’s no skin off my ass if they want to believe, and almost all of them are already 99% of the way to atheism already. They don’t believe in Thor, or Zeus, or Mars, or Aphrodite. They don’t believe in Anubis, or Vishnu, or Shiva, or Quetzacoatal. There are 1000 gods they don’t believe in, and I don’t believe in those thousand either, plus I don’t believe in one more, or maybe three more depending on how hopped up they are on that whole trinity deal.

We’re not talking about a great deal of difference here, are we? Three gods out of a thousand. It is to laugh.

Now, the DH rule, there’s something significant to argue about.

5

It does not. What evidence you have that it does?

6

The answer to what? This is where these safety bet answers to religion fall down. What do you expect to get from believing in a god or gods? If it is just emotional comfort, well that is fine for you if that works. But I can get the same comfort somewhere else.

But if you think believing in a god will help in an after life, then you need a lot more information than we have at present. Let us assume for argument that there is both a god and an after life. Then there are these possible scenarios:

  1. Belief in god does not matter to what happens in the afterlife
  2. Belief in any god is beneficial for the afterlife
  3. Belief in the right god is beneficial to the after life and belief in the wrong god is neutral.
  4. Belief in the right god is beneficial, belief in the wrong is detrimental.

So the safety bet would only really help in one scenario, and can be harmful in one scenario. If you need to sacrifice something in this life (time, money, happiness) because of your belief, you are worse of in all but one scenario.

7

Why should anyone care if you feel there is a soul? What if I feel Jessica Alba is sending me coded messages based on what shoes she’s wearing? That doesn’t make it true.

If you can’t even define a soul, you have no business arguing for its existence.

Also, nothing exits the body (except, on occasion, poop) when you die. Your brain creates your consciousness and when it can no longer function properly, your consciousness turns off. Like when the music stops when you smash the stereo.

8

And you are missing the scenario that God exists and belief in him is detrimental to the afterlife: “I gave you brain, and you chose to spend time bothering me with prayer rather than doing anything useful; off to Hell!”

9

Where does the light go when you break a lightbulb?

10

Hi Mr. Pascal! I would like to play poker with you!

11

One vaguely possible scenario is that we’re entities in a simulation that’s trying to breed strong AIs. The weak AIs are the ones that latch onto the religions seeded within the simulation; the strong ones are the ones that only derive conclusions from evidence and logic, the ones that reject faith. After “death,” the weak AIs are deleted; the strong ones are saved for future simulations.

12

I’ve always thought that atheists approach Pascal rebuttals all wrong. They always go with the “Which God?” angle or the “Who says belief is beneficial?” angle.

The correct, proper, and should-be-popular rebuttal is that what is safe and what is dangerous is irrelevant to the proposition of a god. Even if I granted that the Christian god was the only possible one, and I granted that belief is beneficial, you’re still left with the gaping hole that even if belief were safer, it’s no evidence that it’s accurate.

Pascalians (I like that made-up word) like to treat the supernatural as if it were picking a shampoo brand, as if their final decision had any ramifications on the reality of the situation. It doesn’t. If you see smoke coming under your bedroom door, and you ask “Is my house on fire?”, it makes no sense to answer that by weighing the benefits of believing the fire department is on the way.

13

I agree with Terry Pratchett’s take on Pascalians: the risk involved in believing in god(s) because it is safe is finding out in the afterlife that the god(s) really hate a smartass. :smiley:

14

Hogfather:

15

That’s the one. Thanks. :slight_smile:

16

Pascal wouldn’t disagree with you on that. In fact, Pascal, at various points came out and said that there’s no way to use reason to determine the existence of the supernatural. As he put it:

Pascal’s wager isn’t about whether or not God exists. He’d say that it’s impossible to prove rationally the existence of God. Pascal’s wager is about whether or not it’s rational to choose to believe in God, whether God actually exists or not (which, as he’d say, there’s no way to know by use of reason.)

17

So, believing in God out of cowardice… yeah, that’ll impress the omniscient.

18

I believe in a God that sends all non-atheists to Hell. The only way to get into heaven is to not believe. Bet you wish you’d made the “unsafe” decision now, don’t you?

19

But doesn’t believing in this god in the first place put you in a no-win situation? :smiley:

20

But according to them, it does. If the fire department could read your mind, and would refuse to save you if you didn’t trust them, that would be a closer analogy for the Christian God.