Did it take?
It is true in the vast vast majority of actual circumstances.
I need to mention a couple of points.
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Some people are stuck on the fact that, if God exists, he would rather us be atheists than pagans or false-god-worshipers. I have yet to see a shred of evidence for this proposition. The only evidence provided are verses in the Bible where God bashes idolatry. There are two flaws in this argument. First, just because God does not like idolatry doesn’t mean that he dislikes it more than atheism. Maimonides held the reverse. Second, citing biblical verses only shows that THE BIBLICAL GOD dislikes the worship of other gods. It does not mean that non-biblical gods dislike the worship of other gods. Therefore, one can’t say “I won’t worship Jesus because that would upset Zeus.” We have no evidence of Zeus’ preferences. If anything, we only have evidence of the biblical God’s preferences (assuming that He exists.)
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Czarcasm: There is no evidence that my neighbor will try to kill me, and, if he does want to kill me, how is that so bad? Eternal damnation, or eternal reward are much more compelling than merely being killed.
I have no idea how the passage should be rendered or parsed in Hebrew, but, in English, taking the passage literally says only that a wicked man will deny that God exists, but says nothing about any random person who denies that God exists. It may well be that all wicked men deny God, but that 99% of good men also deny God. The statement does not read “The man who says ‘There is no God’ is wicked,” only saying that a wicked man will say ‘There is no God.’"
abele derer
I heard there’s a god that will torture for double forever if you believe in any god. So logic says not to believe in any god, right?
Well from a Christian point of view is their not some things about accepting Christ? The main goal of pascals wager is to avoid hell and get into heaven or the equivalent. It doesn’t matter what he dislikes more just whether it achieves that goal and I would would think neither would.
I am not convinced eternal damnation or reward is more compelling. I know I am alive and I know if I am killed I will not be alive anymore. I will lose the life I know I do have. I have no evidence for this eternal hereafter nor of a deity that will care about it nor how it decides.
Not really, in my opinion. I’d still take the money. Anything that occurs with a chance of 1 in 10^100 is not worth considering.
If the First Commandment doesn’t even register as evidence with you, this is completely pointless.
Infinite punishment is equally possible for any choice.
Yes, the God of the Torah dislikes idolatry (although He may dislike atheism even more!). But how do you know that the Zues, if he exists, dislikes idolatry?
That’s false. There is evidence of a deity and of a hereafter. You may claim that the evidence may be weak, or fallible, or unconvincing, but you can’t claim there is “no” evidence.
Pascal was talking about the Judeochristian deity, so Zeus is irrelevant. He was a Christian writing a piece of Christian apologetics. He was not writing about gods in the abstract. Here is a translation of that chapter from his writings. Here is the full work. If you want to make up your own version of Pascal’s wager, go for it - but don’t say it’s what Pascal was talking about. It isn’t.
First, please give your definition of “evidence”.
Second, bring it on.
There is as much evidence that God exists as there is that Harry Potter exists.
you’re missing the point. if we’re discussing pascal’s wager, which we were supposed to be doing, it’s very easily susceptible to this type of “deny the premise” attack.
if i simply do not believe that:
if (there is a god) and (i believe in him) then (i will receive infinite reward)
the whole argument has nothing to rest on. it becomes an attempt to convince me of this premise, which, with all this discussion of “evidence”, seems to be where this discussion has moved. the wager assumes you will take that as granted.
however, this premise is just as suspect as the conclusion at which the wager means to arrive, so the wager begs the question. done. it doesn’t work.
Then please provide “evidence” that I claim I don’t have. I said “I have no evidence for this eternal hereafter nor of a deity that will care about it nor how it decides.”
My copy of Psalms 14 ends at verse 7, so assuming that he really meant Psalms 14:1, the usual translation uses “fool” instead of “wicked man.” But the next line is the real kicker: “They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good.” So according to the Bible, someone who doesn’t believe in God not only does bad things, he is incapable of doing good things.
Oh, and tomndebb, your interpretation that the wording is saying that people who are bad don’t believe, not that people who don’t believe are bad, doesn’t fly. It seems to be worded that way, but no one thinks for an instant that that’s what is meant. Not even you, I suspect.
You’re missing the point. If we accept the idea that Pascal’s Wager is valid, then believing in the God of Christianity covers you for that one deity. However, I just made up 1000 deities who would all rather you believe no god exists than believe in some other god, and they will punish/reward you infinitely for your choice.
There is just as much evidence for every one of my 1000 deities that I just made up, as there is for the God of Christianity. Therefore you are making the wrong bet if you choose Yahweh, according to Pascal. You would stand a 1000 times better chance of coming out on the good side of the deal if you believed in one of my gods.
You want me to send you a conversion packet?
Well…
The stereotypical concept of God involves him creating the Universe and Life…the stereotypical concept of Harry Potter at best involves him getting some heavy petting action using the cloak of invisibility…
I can actually observe the universe and life, while I have zero observational evidence that Harry Potter is getting some action.
A very minor point to be sure, but still.
All the posts have had the same thesis: there is no evidence for religion, not a shred of evidence for religion. Then, you asked me to “bring it on.”
I am stunned at the close-mindedness! Are we living on the same planet? Do you honestly believe that there isn’t a shred of evidence, for example, for Mormonism?! Of course there is evidence for Mormonism. It is the word of one man: Joseph Smith. Is one man’s word evidence? Of course it is! If I say “I had eggs for breakfast,” you would surely at least suspect that I had eggs for breakfast. So of course it is evidence.
The issue, however, is that for something as uncommon as miracles people feel entitled to demand stronger evidence than one man’s testimony. And I don’t blame them. But, honestly, how can you claim that there is not a shred of evidence for religion? I am sorry for losing my cool, but I am simply stunned at what I have been reading.
Curt C: There mere fact that you claimed that there are 1,000 gods (that hate idolatry more than atheism) doesn’t mean that you have 1,000 times more EVIDENCE than does Christianity. Are you serious?