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

Great Debates
1

I hope the title is not misleading…

I had a conversation with a friend who believes in God without question… anyway, I still class myself as someone who is “unsure” - I was brought up with Christian values… told Bible stories in school etc…

Also, living in England - I was educated in evolution and science - as FACT.

I’m rational thinking (most of the time) - have a healthy fascination with unexplained phenomenom etc…

When asked if I believe in God - - I can never really answer…
I’ve been visiting the board for years before I joined - and really enjoyed theological debates - it’s always the Atheists, non-theists and agnostics that seem to have the most rational and acceptable answers (to my way of thinking)

Now, to get back to my point (yes there is one, bear with me) this friend told me it was a simple thing to answer - if you thought about it like a grid…
On the top you put God Exists, God Does not exist… down the side you have Belive in God, Do Not Believe in God… in the middle is the outcome of your death e.g

                    God
                   |Exists   |Does Not|
              ----------------------------
   I Believe*|Heaven |Nothing  |
             -----------------------------

Non-believer|Hell |Nothing |
-----------------------------
*obviously if you believe but are a sinner - you go to Hell!

Therefore my friends logic was that the safest way was for me to believe in God…

This is where I think her argument falls down.

If I don’t believe in God, and it turns out a God exists - - why should I go to Hell ?
I was brought up with Christian values (as I said) which means where I can I help others, I’m friendly - I do good deeds - I’m generally a very good person. I also drink, enjoy pornography and listen to Eminem - - and I have had sex before marriage… as far as I know none of this has ever hurt anyone (except me - maybe hangovers are teh proof of God )

so, my way of thinking is that I shouldn’t worry - - if a God really does exist I will be judged as someone worthy of heaven… but then I’m kind of acknowledging that I believe in God…

I don’t want to discuss my belief as such - just the idea that if you don’t believe in God you cannot go to heaven (in the event that there turns out to be one)

2

Pascal’s Wager.

3

Ah, Pascal’s Wager.

There are several flaws with Pascal. The most severe of which is “How do you know that you are worshipping the right one?” After all, if you are serving the wrong divinity, wouldn’t that make you worse off?

Zev Steinhardt

4

Pascal’s wager.

Note that we cannot assess the probability that God is a cruel joker who sends believers to Hell for being gullible dolts while rewarding his favoured savvy atheists with eternal paradise.

5

Sometimes I wish that the SDMB would be equipped with a game-show buzzer to prevent such simulposts!

6

AARRGH! - knew I should have previewed! :smack:

the grid read like this - if you can’t decipher

I believe in God
If God exists :- Woohoo! I go to heaven (assuming I’ve not sinned)
If God doesn’t:- D’oh! Worms it is
God, yeah right - pull the other one
If God exists :- Tut, tut - to Hell with you boy!
If God doesn’t:- Nevermind - the worms still love you… munch munch

notice I’v etried to be lighthearted about this - - it’s my way!

7

Doesn’t really matter, we’ve heard this one before. :wink:

8

Well, let’s see.

If you don’t believe in God, you go to hell.

Who says? That sounds like a man made rule to me–proscribing your behavior into a knowable entity. I can’t chapter and verse the Bible as can others, but I don’t think that eternal flames are a given to those who don’t believe. Jesus says at one point that no-one gets to the Father except thru Him (Jesus).

Frankly, this is one of my biggest sticking points with Christianity as a whole. I cannot believe that God–omniscent, all powerful God-has condemned Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists and Jews for not investing themselves in his Son. I don’t buy if for a minute. There are many Christians who would say that I am no Christian b/c I don’t believe that statement…

I am not much help here, I suppose.

9

And AGAIN I wished I’d previewed…

glad to see SentientMeat has posted - I was just reading your thread The Universe Has Always Existed

It’s very interesting - if i get to the bottom in time I may post on it…

10

Other deep flaws with Pascal’s Wager:

How do you deliberately make youself believe something, possibly against yourself?

What if God values honesty (“Welcome my child, yes, I know everything about your life and can completely understand why you never noticed my presence”) above selfish falsehood (“You personally saw no compelling evidence for my existence and yet you chose to say that you believed in me just because of that fool Pascal, just to save your own skin? Away with you!”)

11

If I had known it was a thing that had a name… e.g. Pascal’s Wager I would have searched on it first - presumably the debates are in the SDMBverse somewhere…

eleanorigby - I agree with you obviously it was a man made rule… but then isn’t everything?

what gets me is how do we decide when to believe that the word is from God - and of course all the other religions etc… if people claim to be the son of God nowadays - don’t we label them as mental ?

12

I dunno. Maybe this is a copout, but God is essentially unknowable for us, so who is to say what His word is, what His intent is? This speaks to the fact that there is so much pain and suffering in this world–why does He allow that ?(not hijacking, just trying to stress the point of his unknowableness, so to speak).

I had forgotten all about Pascal–his stance does seem a bit self serving and expedient. But didn’t God know Pascal, too? Why give us questioning, thinking, curious minds if not to use them?

Quite a conundrum.

13

before I start - is it OK to hi-jack your own thread?
What if it turns out that God popped out to the shops - and left a teenage kid in charge for a few millenia…

ooo… he’s going to be in trouble when Daddy gets home…

14

I’m with SentientMeat. Were I God, I would be looking for folks to spend the afterlife with–and snarky, irreverent skeptics are the folks I’d be looking for, not self-righteous scaredycats. The folks who denied my existence based on the available evidence would get much bigger rewards than the ones who believed in me out of purely selfish motives.

In that sense, Pascal’s Wager is a guaranteed loser.

Assuming I’m God.

Daniel

15

Exactly my thoughts when I read the OP. How could I, who doesn’t believe, suddenly say I do believe? Just saying it doesn’t make it so.

16

Hey Left Hand - just in case it turns out you are God - I choose to maybe not possibly believe in you although I may be wrong.

Can I come to your heaven please?

ooh, is there drink in your heaven, and sex…

what about porn?

What if God created the world - for porn - - it wasn’t long after Adam that there was some Eve action - - as for the Garden of Eden and apple eating stuff - - Nudity is not porn - - but forbidden nudity is up there…

17

It would seem that honesty is the best poilcy; perhaps not to go out of your way in convincing yourself of something that is not readily apparent, or that does not yield to proper scrutiny.
Deliberately deluding or misrepresenting yourself would seem likely only to compound the difficulty, unless of course God is some kind of madman who desires deluded, duplicitous disciples (in which case heaven wouldn’t look much better a prospect than hell and would probably be best avoided anyway).

18

If God is sufficiently unlikely/impossible, then the wager is a poor one. The very large payoff of heaven/hell would be outweighed by the very small chance. (That’s can be true even if heaven is infinitely good, but the maths is annoying.)

Relatedly, why pick the existance of god to wager about? There’s a small chance you go to heaven if and only if you crush a grape every morning. How can you justify not doing that ‘just in case’. But what if what you were doing conflicted with believing in god?

How do you ‘believe’? You’d have to intensively brainwash yoruself. Or, more interestingly, you could could become a missionary, saving other people though you didn’t belive yourself.

Terry Pratchett had a character who used a similar argument. After death he woke up in a circle of gods holding heavy sharp objects and saying “We’ll show you what we think of Mr Clever Dick in these parts!”

19

I think you could use PW as an exercise for teaching critical thought. Even young beginners should be able to spot at least two or three logical flaws with the argument.

20

It was late when I was explained it - I was tired - - and I didn’t want to get into a deep theological discussion that night - -
but, I saw the logic flaws almost straight away…

so I’m glad all agree…

not much of a debate really - Mods you can shove this MPSIMS, or IMHO if you want…

I think the most imoprtant thing is to be happy… so do whatever makes you it.