If God exists, (which I think is most unlikely,) perhaps the Bible is a big ethics test. If you believe the all-loving creator of the universe would kill babies in the Flood, and send all sorts of people to Hell, you lose. If you deny this god you win. Maybe it’s an intelligence test also? If, confronted by the evidence of evolution, you reject it and believe in Creationism, maybe God will decide you’re too stupid to go to heaven.
And if your friend objects to this, just ask him how he knows what God wants.
It’s my belief that God is actually a mediocre grad student at a diploma mill. He got in because he invented the female breast, but hasn’t done much since.
I have a few difficulties in understanding the story of the OP.
How on earth can you make yourself believe in what you don’t think is possible (= in your case the existence of God) from one minute to the other.
How on earth can someone who said to believe in God can say he does this because it is for him the “safest” solution, without exposing himself to be a self-centered hypocrite of the first order.
How on earth can anyone declare to know what really happens when you are dead. For those who believe in God: to know what God shall decide about anyone. For those who do not believe in God: to know that there is just nothing at all.
I remember once as a dinner party we had quite a heated argument about which was the fundamental flaw in the argument. Then we realised that if there were enough fundamental flaws for one each we should perhaps just lay it aside
Unless, of course, you believe in the wrong god. Then you go to hell with all the atheists, and you’ve wasted your life pandering to the imagined whims of a false deity.
It kind of depends on how sure you think you can be that, out of the thousands of gods out there in the human pantheon (and presumably a multitude more that aren’t), you’ve picked the right one. Then that you can meet the wickets to get into paradise above and beyond picking the right big guy in the sky.
The best course of action is to live a life that is righteous by your own lights. Then, when you’re on your death bed, you can look back across it and be satisfied. And if you happen to have a difference of opinion with a God about how you live your life… well, God’s just being a prick about it to send you to hell.
This is the point - - the whole thing came up because I was unsure how to answer the question - do I believe in God - - although I did point out that this thread is not about wether I do or do not believe in God - just that the logic seemed wrong to me - regardless of belief. - and has been proven so…
I don’t intend to do that… I knew my title was misleading… maybe I should have put a “?” at the end…
Since we are all sinners, you don’t go to heaven for your works. You go to heaven for accepting Christ as your Lord and Savior. You go to heaven for accepting his gift of life. Don’t accept his gift? No Heaven for you!
Just because you don’t believe in God, doesn’t mean you can’t keep an open mind and look at the argument from the other perspective. The more you do it, the more it becomes plausible, then possible, then probably, then true. It is possible to change your own mind about certain things. Faith is the operative term here. You have to believe, despite lack of evidence. So I think that Pascal might have been onto something. And when someone becomes more willing to accept Jesus’ gift, he will have a whole family of Christians to help him to make the conversion complete. He won’t be doing it alone. Obviously, it’s up to each person to make the decision about whether or not he wants to change his own belief about God. I’m sure most on this discussion group would rather die than do to themselves what they would feel is nothing more than brainwashing. I’m not advocating it. I’m just saying that it’s possible.
And God doesn’t like self-righteous smug christians (but he does forgive them for being that way). They (we’ve) done a lot of damage. The very belief that christians are self-righteous is one of the major reasons many people push themselves away from God. They don’t want to be associated with that kind of person. So, while I may appear self-righteous, I don’t mean to. I don’t want to be responsible for other people going to Hell. I only mean to enlighten and be a good example, even if I fail occasionally.
There is, of course, the Tentacle Factor to consider.
You believe in God
1a) God exists - Go to heaven
1b) God doesn’t exist - Nothing
You do not believe in God
2a) God exists - Go to hell. Go directly to hell. Do not pass GO. Do not collect $200 dollars.
2b) God doesn’t exist - Nothing
God does exist, but you’ve been praying to the wrong God.
3a) Be eaten LAST
Unless, of course, some other deity is the One True God. At which point, declaring yourself a minion of a false idol (I.E. accepting Christ) puts you on the fast track to damnation (or equivalent).
Pascal’s Wager is a false dichotomy. The division between Atheism and Theism might be acceptable… but you’d have to understand that the Theism half is fractured into thousands of contradictory and exclusive paths.
Considering that over 50% of Humanity today believes in God as the one true god, link, and the belief and worship of my God is the oldest* and longest lasting religion being practiced today**, I feel quite safe in choosing Him as my god. The fact remains, that my God is the most highly worshiped god in history.
Boy! For one, only the most famous Bible verse of them all: John 3:16. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish but will have everlasting life.” Now I admit that this verse isn’t the most convincing one. But there are more, as evidenced by your example eleanorigby.
*I know other religions are said to have come before him.
**with the fewest significant changes. AFAIK paganism and other naturalistic religions like Wicca have changed drastically from their roots.
Only if the claim is that “belief and worship of this God” includes uninterruptedly ALL of the history of the Israelites plus Christianity. And even then the likes of Indra would be about the same age.
** Well, except for one stupendous turning point around the 1st and 2nd centuries AD (birth of Christianity; suppression of the Temple Priesthood in Judaism), with a lot of adjustments ever since. I mean, there are Zoroastrian/Mazdeists and Hindus who would claim a better continuity to how things were before 30AD.
Oh, and re: the OP, yes, Pascal’s Wager by itself is flawed as the actual foundation for a real choice about belief/nonbelief in God, if we presume the commonly-accepted conception of the Christian God (sees our heart, knows if we mean it or are just trying to pull a fast one).
The PW is actually a derivative of the so-called “Prisoner’s Dilemma” that is used as a basic example of decision matrices in Game Theory (Blaise Pascal being a forerunner of probability theory), using an extreme case in which potential loss/benefit is + or - infinity and the determinant variable is truly not subject to objective proof.
Its use in apologetics is not to be an actual proof, nor a fundation for conversion, but a basis for getting the other party to give an open-minded, open-hearted hearing to the message.
