Yes actually. What college did you say you went to?
Supercollider? I hardly even know her!
tagos, you might want to read the thread, it is there. Full disclosure, of course no one else has to state their education I notice, to have an opinion.
Having read the responses now and still not understanding much of what the first post was trying to say, other than supporting athiesm, am I correct now in saying what it said was because faith does not use the scientific method it is flawed, and when the scientific method is used on faith, it does not find any god? That is what I understand from the replies and thanks for the definitions.
I do understand big words have to be used to describe complex things like physics and say surgery and parts of the brain, but I don’t see the need for a discussion on God or faith or the scientific method to need words most would not follow. That is the difference. If we were discussing string theory they are quite right to need to use. And if I want to join I ought to look up all those processes first then, correct. But here it is just a simple is it here or not discussion which even little children can have faith in or not, right?
I can understand this view if I have it right. All that really does is say the scientific method points to no god OR to a non interfering one that lets things play out with free will. I will agree to that. Well that is not so different than scripture says, I would say. I just go with the second one and you go with the first. If I turn out right I benefit for a long time. If I am wrong nothing happens. If you are wrong bad things happen, but if you are right, there still is no prize, and you won’t know till it is too late. Therefore logically, I will go with my second option.
Ah, Pascals’s Wager. Haven’t seen that old thing used a while, nearly 20 minutes now.
You choice isn’t between ‘no god’ and ‘a god’, there are lots of gods to choose from. Which god will you go with? See, it’s important. There are 1000s of them, and most of them have bad consequences for worshiping the wrong one. If you choose the wrong one out of all of them, and you really have no way of knowing ahead of time, then you lose exactly the same way as if you had chosen ‘no god’. If any of the 1000s of gods are real, that is. So how do you choose? Which one is the right one? At least if you choose ‘no god’ you can sleep in on Sunday.
Good thinking.
Of course someone already thought the same thought.
His name was Pascal.
Pascal wagered that it was safer to believe in God than to reject His existence.
Hence what you described is called “Pascal’s Wager”.
There, you have learned a new Big Word.
Scripture says a lot of things, many of which contradict other scripture, and that’s just within a single religion.
Ah, good ol’ Pascal’s Wager… How do you know you’re reading the right scripture? Logically, you should be covering all possibilities and conform to all scripture in order to get the prize.
Has anyone mentioned Pascal’s Wager yet?
Thanks for verifying that other intelligent and educated people share my view. As for the number of gods, I answered that earlier, and besides, if there were a thousand envelopes and one contained a billion buck voucher, I am at least in the drawing and will pick one, you want to just burn all the envelopes and say the game is silly, no one should participate because no one will know the right one. Some people will in fact have picked the right one. I plan to try.
By the way there are faiths saying that any old god will do, the Masons are into that, the big secret so rest of us don’t try and correct them, any altar is fine and they seem not to care at all, and that is a big group. I suppose Unitarians are as well, although I have never figured out just what they do think. But point is all do not believe as you suggest who have faith.
There are a million envelopes-you are told by someone who provides no evidence that one contains a billion bucks, the rest contain a one way ticket to an eternity of torture. Still want to pick one?
You conveniently leave out that not picking one also leads to the torture. Yes I would pick one, how am I better off not to? Remember you can read all these doctrines and eliminate many of them because way to silly or too recent. It would be like clues on each envelope and then you decide on one.
I think it would be more precise to say that the envelopes contain a map you can follow to get the billion-dollar voucher. And the problem is, each envelope gives different directions, but almost all of them say you will be tortured if you don’t follow the directions. Some are generally similar - go out the door, turn right on Main Street, etc. - but differ on the details, and some of them flat-out contradict each other and are totally irreconcilable. And you don’t know for sure if the voucher is real in the first place. So if you read one, you’ve got a tiny chance of getting the right directions to the voucher, if it’s out there. And if you open a couple of the envelopes, you may start thinking ‘The people who wrote these have no idea where this voucher is, if it’s even real. And they say I’m going to get get tortured if I don’t do what they say? How am I supposed to figure it out?’
Around that point, you get suspicious that it’s all bullshit.
The ways of Heregash are not the ways of Man, who is incapable of understanding either His Terrible Wonderfulness or his Wonderful Terror, so do not dare to question His logic. He does not have to explain Himself to the likes of you, but if you willingly submit yourself to Him and follow Him, he will not throw you into the Flaming Fountain of Froggithka.
Hey, this Envelope Game is hard, isn’t it?
If you can get a map of hell and how to get there, I’ve a few candidates for who I’ll be sending one to.
You said:
I read:
You left out the part where you have to spend your whole life following the directions.
Maybe the real god wants people to be atheists. Maybe he tosses religious people into hell for foolishly believing something with no evidence. A god like that is just as likely to exist as a god that wants people to worship it.
Don’t worry Ivan, that is the default selection. Everyone leaves out what happens if you choose to follow none of the maps. If you did decide all was bullshit, then I would design my own trip. There is pretty good evidence that Noah had no church group, or even a false one, but he was saved. If he had others like him, they would be on the arc too, so yes scripture clearly says one can find his own way to God. That possibility is often left out and it is real.
Tossing out the rejects that refuse to use the brain he gave them?
I like it.
All evidence so far says that nothing happens.
That’s a big assumption - that the voucher exists.