I rephrased the OP’s question for Dio already and it wasn’t a nonsense question and I never said I wasn’t happy with an answer that was given; I said I was unhappy with Dio avoiding it. I even said you gave a fine answer earlier (to a question you now claim can’t be given logically and comprehensively.
Look, if we were discussing the housing bubble and the mortgage crisis, and someone said “How do we know that invisible aliens weren’t using mind control to make people take out bad mortgages” how would you react? This is about that loony.
True, the Talmud explicitly states that moral non-Jews will receive an afterlife (how to define moral is another story onto itself). And, indeed, that would be relevant to a potential convert who wishes to convert solely for the sake of pascal’s wager.
The point here wasn’t to make be become Jewish due to pascal’s wager (nor was it my intention to make people mormons, for that matter). This is merely a theoretical argument: is the wager sound, or is it not sound.
Not sound.
Frankly, I don’t think any sensible person agrees with Pascal’s Wager…except for fundie Christians, who by definition are not sensible people.
There is no evidence that any god would rather you believe in it. The risk of eternal damnation is exactly the same for any and all possible beliefs.
How is it a dance? Do you think there is a difference between “love” and the feeling of love? Do you also think that there is a difference bteween sadness and feeling sad? Your question makes no sense.
I said it was theoretically possible. Since it’s purely a physiological event it would present differently in the brain than “fake love” (whatever that is - I guess just lying about it).
I’m not sure what your point is. If you’re trying to say that me just saying I love my family is evidence that I love my family, I would have to disagree. It’s no evidence at all.
I answered the question several times.
Just one more example of it not being sound. Who in his right mind would believe in a god who doesn’t let you eat lobster just to be treated like everyone else? But the plurality of possible gods is the real problem.
If one argues that the only god you should believe in is the one who would treat you worst if you don’t believe in him, then it just becomes extortion.
The feeling is part of it yes…but that’s not the point. What I mean is, you cannot prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that what you feel is actually what you feel. We only have your testimony to rely on, and even your subjective opinion of what you feel could be suspect, especially if you have severe mental issues.
How can we be in disagreement if you just now repeated exactly what I said???
In their defense, even fundamentalists don’t accept God for that reason. They might think it makes a compelling explanation to others and some of them are not shy about pitching religion as fire insurance, but I doubt anybody has ever become a believer (much less a fundamentalist) because of this. Certainly Pascal didn’t. He was trying to create a logical argument for what he already believed.
I know you really think you’re on to something here, but you’re really not. If the output of any particular branch of science were equivalent to testimony, there’d be no output of any branch of science, since any single scientist can (and will) testify any which way they please. You seem to think that you’ve tripped Diogenes up because of the method of delivery of the information, rather than the content of the information.
Yes, we have to receive information by having it told to us by a person (e.g. the author of a paper, or authors of a paper speaking in one voice). That does not mean that the content of that paper is equivalent to testimony, and that consumers of science are making judgments based on testimony.
I know you’re pursuing this doggedly, but it doesn’t mean what you think it means.
The feeling is all of it. The word is a name for the feeling and nothing else.
I’m not sure that’s true. I think it should be theoretically possible on an electrochemical level.
Testimony alone is not evidence. That’s correct.
You can’t have “subjective opinions of what you feel.” Feelings are not opinions. What you feel is what you feel.
At this point, the disagreement comes out to how we choose to define the word “evidence.” Some people like it to mean only compelling evidence, others use the definition that it includes anything.
But the point is this: abele derer is using one definition for the stuff he agrees with, and the other definition for the rest. He accepts non-compelling personal revelation as evidence when it is in favor of Yahweh, but rejects my testimony of personal revelation about my 1000 gods who are OK with atheism. You can’t have a reasonable conversation if you keep switching definitions. Pick one and stick with it.
This is true for the entire field of religious apologetics. Apologists come up with all kinds of rationalizations for belief in a god, but no believer has ever used one of their rationalizations as the real reason they choose to believe.
Hallelujah!
Damn.
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The plurality of Gods is not a problem at all, as Iv’e mentioned above.
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“Who in his right mind would believe i a god who doesn’t let you eat lobster just to be like everyone else.” Jews will get a better afterlife, presumably. But even if not, are you that selfish? If the King of Universe asks you one small favor – “please don’t eat lobster” – why would you even want to eat lobster? Do you not consider it a privelege to be a “Nation of priests, a Holy Nation, the Nation who testifies to God’s existence”?
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Call Pascal’s wager “extortion.” Call it barbaric. Call it, as Iv’e heard it called, “a shameful mockery of the value of life on earth.” But that won’t make it go away. Pascal’s wager is alive and kicking.
It just makes it unsound, ludicrous, and pointless. And let’s not forget that you yourself have had to make radical changes to the concept, and even with those changes, you’re still evaluating it inconsistently to try and make it return the result you want.
[quote=“CurtC, post:273, topic:562323”]
But the point is this: abele derer is using one definition for the stuff he agrees with, and the other definition for the rest. He accepts non-compelling personal revelation as evidence when it is in favor of Yahweh, but rejects my testimony of personal revelation about my 1000 gods who are OK with atheism. You can’t have a reasonable conversation if you keep switching definitions. Pick one and stick with it.
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No I am not. I am not sure if someone who, during a pascal’s wager debate, says that God told him that only atheists will go to heaven whether that is ZERO evidence or only a miniscule amount (you have argued the latter, and you may be right).
I don’t have to take a position, however. Why? Because even if is to be considered a small amount of evidence, it is surely smaller than the evidence that at least some other religions have. Therefore, Pascal’s Wager forces me to follow the religions which have more evidence.
Sounds more like jumping through hoops than a favor. Seems like he wants well trained servants to praise him through eternity and if that is what he wants why didn’t he just create them?
Furthemore, CurtC, I never argued that only Biblical religions have evidence. Almost every religion that has ever existed has at least a small amount of evidence.
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Don’t know why. But that doesn’t change the facts. He said it [that He wants us to obstain from lobster], and that’s all.
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I happen to know why. But it will get us off the topic of the pascal’s wager debate.