Absolutely zero. I already have a religion I’m happy in and I’ll take my chances at ending up in crazyfundamentalisthell.
I got your point but this is not my “theory” , I didn’t come up with it. I hear it alot and wondered if there was any truth to it.
I know that at least concerning the 200 + last minute converts I talked about… for them I guess they were insecure although I don’t neccescarily think an atheist is any more insecure than anyone else even if I don’t agree with their beliefs.
Most of the atheists I know have the same belief – that most religious people know, in their heart of hearts, that there is no God, but can’t deal with it. As evidence, it’s offered that most religous folks don’t actually ACT like there’s an all-seeing, omnipotent being taking notes all the time. In either case, I think speculating on other people’s firmness of belief is in that category of things which we have no present ability to know.
The second statement above, though, I am very, very suspicious of. I can think of very few people who would both be present at the deaths of 200 people, and be free enough of professional ethics to be willing to try deathbed conversions on that many. This would get you booted from most professions that deal with the dying, unless he’s a priest. “Hardcore Athiests” don’t generally invite priests to their deathbed.
Further, every account I’ve ever heard of of deathbed conversions (most famously, Darwin and Thomas Jefferson) have proven to be modern “inventions.” I won’t say that it doesn’t happen, but most atheists, myself included, get rather insulted about the “There are no atheists in foxholes” bit – as though our beliefs couldn’t possibly be as strong as those of the religious.
First, I’ll answer the OP: No. I have a very firm foundation on which I base my working hypothesis that there is no god, and none of the assumptions or reasoning comprising that foundation is contingent on my own mortality or lack thereof.
Now, about this whole “belief” thing. It’s a tricky subject. It turns out that there is a social origin to most belief in the supernatural and/or god. People experience the hightened energy of the community while participating in rituals, and attribute that energy to an agency outside themselves, i.e. god, instead of to society.
People who do not believe in a god or gods are those who either have not experienced the effect of such rituals, or those who have experienced the same effect from a ritual (which may even take the form of a speech or a discussion) during which the idea of atheism is espoused.
There is a tendency of human societies to construct meaning systems, which is just a fancy way of saying “how the world works.” There is also a prevalent perception that there is An Answer, one way of understanding the Universe that is correct. So naturally, when people find a meaning system that works for them, they assume that it is The Answer, and anyone who doesn’t believe it is fooling themselves. Look around at various highly debated issues and you’ll see that this holds for many topics other than religion. You’ll also see, however, that people will use religion-based arguments on those secular topics. This is because religion is a moral order. It provides us with a sense of right and wrong, good and bad. What many people miss is that religion is only one way to have a moral order.
Personally, while I believe that we lowly humans can understand the Universe, I don’t believe that there is only one way to do so. What you get as An Answer depends on how you ask The Question.
You also forget another flaw : you’ve something to lose by “betting” on god, since religions generally put some obligations to the believers. At the very least, you’re wasting the time needed to state that you accept Jesus as your savior, or to be baptized, or something like that. More likely, you’ll lose many hours in a church, or praying, you’ll refrain fromcertain pleasurable actions, etc…
So, you have something to lose. And you don’t know the odd of “winning”, since there’s no way to know the likehood of a god existing (let alone, as you mentionned, of a specific god). Basically, it’s similar to be asked to bet a small amount of money against a big one, but with absolutely no knowledge of the odd. You bet for instance one dollar, and I bet 1000. But you don’t know if you’ve 1/2 chance of winning, or 1/100 or 1/100 000 000.
And of course, maybe there’s a god, and he rewards the atheist and send to hell the believers, hence, you’re going to lose everything if you bet on the christian god.
Quite true. If you follow the logic of Pascal’s wager to the absolute limit then you must embrace not only the veracity of the polka-dotted unicorns existing as all-powerful gods but also the ISP, Apollo and me.
In fact to cover all of your bases *you would need to believe (or pretend to believe for what that’s * worth) that absolutely everything imaginable inside and outside the physical and metaphysical universes is a God. ** (As well as everything you *can’t * imagine.)
That doesn’t seem to lead to the conclusion that a Christian God, IPU, or anything else in the Universe is any more or less omnipotent than any other real or imagined entity.
Which in turn seems to imply that all entities are precisely equally likely to be omnipotent so long as we have no way of knowing for sure * that any certain thing either is or isn’t all-powerful*. After all, that’s the whole point of Pascal’s wager–that we can’t be sure so we must believe.
Ergo-- no God, no god, no IPU, no Magical Sky Pixie, no Apollo, no Zeus, no Allah, no nothing.
To answer the OP directly: there is absolutely zero chance that I would believe in Christ or any other of the infinite ideas and entities which did/do/will exist/not-exist “just in case”.
Now if any entity appears somewhere on Earth in a form that we can comprehend and holds a worldwide press conference announcing its existence and then goes on to sufficiently demonstrate its omnipotence to my satisfaction, then and only then will I choose to believe. But it sure as hell won’t be “just in case”.
Largely rehashing what has already been said:
[ul]
[li]You decide to start pretending to believe in God, and God exists, in which case he punishes you for not being true to yourself.[/li][li]You decide to start pretending to believe in God, and God doesn’t exist, in which case you gain nothing.[/li][li]You don’t change your stance, and God doesn’t exist, in which case you gain nothing.[/li][li]You don’t change your stance, and God exists, in which case he rewards you for being honest in your beliefs.[/li][/ul]
As far as I’m concerned, my list is just as valid as Pascal’s (and pasunejen’s).
**What are the chances that you would accept Christ just in case? **
Absolutely zero. I actually know this for a fact, since I’ve faced certain death (at least at the time I thought it was certain, but obviously I was mistaken 
), and never considered altering my beliefs because of that.
Actually, if I were to give up my long-held beliefs just because of a stressful situation like that, I would be damned disappointed in myself.
phouka, thank you for saying what I came on-line to say and saying it more gently than I was.
START, I sometimes think that people lose sight the big picture when they go about getting as many people as they can to become Christians, especially the ones who do so by threatening hellfire and eternal damnation. Jesus had something to say on the subject; it’s recorded in Matthew 23:15: “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as you are.”
If I ask this in GD, I’ve got a pretty good idea of what sort of response I’d get. Instead, I’d like to ask you, personally, Christian to Christian. What’s your personal opinion of using fear to make converts to Christ? A few years ago, my preacher and I both saw the same cartoon of a fellow lying on the ground while another guy holds a sword at his throat. The guy on the ground is saying, “So, tell me about this Jesus Christ fellow.” What would you think of someone who converted to Christianity only out of fear of punishment?
Respectfully,
CJ
Believe in their " Under One Very Specific God" …not a chance.
But if God is indeed all forgiving, he will certainly forgive my skepticism or my choosing to worship him in another form or my outright disbelief. An all forgiving God doesn’t seem likely to be letting millions of Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, etc. rot in hell because they didn’t accept Jesus Christ as their Savior.
Oh, 200+ deathbed conversions is a little unbelievable. Unless he is the pastor in a hospital (or a doctor or a end of life counselor - in which case I have a problem with his ethics.), I have a problem believing anyone has been near 200+ dying people. And that so many of the dying people he was near would be atheists (a rather slim portion of the population as professed - he’d have to have been near thousands of dying people).
If those 200+ people were raised as christians and then “strayed”. I might believe it. It is not hard to see how people would revert to what they were taught as children when they are on their deathbed.
Otherwise I can’t see it.
(not raised in any religion and not seeing any reason to take up any belief on my deathbed)
That question’s been asked numerous time. In fact, Judas asks it everytime Jesus Christ Superstar is performed:
“Every time I look at you
I don’t understand
Why you let the things you did
Get so out of hand
You’d have managed better
If you’d had it planned
Now why’d you choose such a backward time
And such a strange land?
If you’d come today
You could have reached the whole nation
Israel in 4 BC had no mass communication…”
Ooops, hit Send too soon.
No, I would not accept. I found out a long time ago that all organized religion is nothing more than a giant scam.
I feel like there is the seed of a follow up question to that posed by the OP – namely, “What are the chances that you would lie to a pushy person about accepting religion in the hopes that once he hears your affirmative answer, he will leave your deathbed and you can return to your own business of dying quietly in peace?”
In my mind, I can hear some of these converts … “Err, yes, of course, why not, ah, I think there’s a pagan in the next deathbed over, perhaps you could have a look in on him as well, I wouldn’t want to keep you, no really, I insist. KTHXBYE.”
I am neither an atheist nor a Christian (or an even moderately orthodox form of any other Believer).
Among atheists and agnostics (on the verge of dying or otherwise), you would find many who are atheists or agnostics precisely because of their honest internal commitment to truth, to wanting to know the truth. They are not Believers or Theists precisely because they are not going to believe something they have no compelling reason to think is true, especially not in the face of a massive situational case of Gee It Would Be Nice If.
You would also, IMHO, find many who are atheists or agnostics in defensive reaction to Theisms of various sorts that they have rejected vehemently, and whose (often intense and angry) rejection and repudiation of one or more Theistic Belief system is an inverse Belief System itself — i.e., they hate the religion or its theology enough for it to be important to them that it be Wrong, and the need for it to be wrong, not the commitment to truth, fuels their atheism. Usually atheism, come to think of it, I’ve seldom met agnostics who are like this.
On the verge of dying and knowing it, I’d think it would be extremely rare for atheists and agnostics of the former type to suddenly “accept Jesus just in case”. More of the other kind might, though (I’ve also seen them undergo midlife flips when they have children or go through other major changes).
That’s a common stereotype, but that’s not how the New Testament writers approached religious conversion. The Apostle Paul, for example, engaged in spirited debate with the heathens on Mars Hill (Acts 17). Matthew appealed to Old Testament prophecies, and elsewhere, the NT writers also appealed to logic and evidence.
Now, I know full well that various skeptics here will say, “But their logic was wrong!” or “There were no prophecies fulfilled!” and so forth. I believe these people are in error, but that’s beside the point. The point is that the NT writers did not consider religious conversion to be a process that does not employ evidence or logic. One might disagree with their conclusions (misguidedly, IMO), but they most certainly did preach that conversion should be predicted on logic, rather than blind acceptance of someone’s claims.
No, because “all-forgiving” doesn’t mean “will forgive all sins regardless of circumstances.” All sins can be forgiven, but there are certain conditions (e.g. repentance, belief) that must first be fulfilled.
And if the condition is “belief in this one aspect of God” it isn’t a condition I’m willing to fulfill, because then we get into the “but is this the right God” problem in the Wager.