Why can’t you say: “Be good and kind, because good, kind people tend to attract other good, kind people.” More succinctly: “Treat others as you would like them to treat you.” You can be nice for selfish reasons.
Of course, there is a lot in the New Testament where the Apostles say much the same thing, but just because it is in The Bible, (or any other Holy Book) does not make it wrong.
Indeed, Jesus would have attracted more followers if he was a cook instead of a carpenter.
Get yer red hots right here folks!
In terms of the majority of today’s religious believers, I agree. Of course the irony is that Moses, Jesus, Mohamed, Buddha, etc. were all about the right and ethical rather than the strong prevailing. Today’s believers have just perverted and / or ignored those messages.
ETA: I consider myself a deist, but that has more to do with (meta)physics rather than morality and ethics.
Well…they could be good for something. Let’s say I commit a crime and the feds bring me in for questioning. I could just point to my replicant-doppelganger and say, “I didn’t do it, he did. Prove otherwise.”
But, I agree that it [probably*] wouldn’t be you who regains consciousness in your re-assembled brain. I wouldn’t bank on it any more than I’d risk taking a trip on a Star Trek transporter. It’s like the Roach Motel: people check in, but they don’t check out!
The person checking out of the transporter may think he’s you, and he even has all your memories up to the point of entering the transporter, but that guy committed suicide. He gave birth to his adult identical twin. Man, I wouldn’t want to experience those labor pains.
(*) I say probably only to allow for the slight possibility that it may be possible to become self-aware in a distant re-created brain. If quantum mechanics has taught us anything, it’s that our universe acts in mysterious ways.
He has an alibi that he was umpteen quintillion light years away at the time.
There will be a self aware creature that thinks that it is you, that has a continuity of existence from the time it stepped into the teleporter to the time it stepped out. You are him.
One of the best things, IMHO, of being an atheist is not worrying about souls or other metaphysical objects that wouldn’t get transported.
Now we just need a transporter.
Here’s something I don’t like about being atheist: getting lumped in with agnostics, in various statistics and reports. You know, Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, Atheist/Agnostic.
I think this is like having the following categories:
If forced to take the closest option I’m going to have to take 5, but it’s bizarre and offensive to thereby have to say that I think the winged alligator is a possibility.
It’s more, “I don’t think there is a winged alligator in my attic, but I can’t say for absolutely sure.”
Great. Now I have to avoid deciding on whether there’s a winged alligator in my attic too. You wingedalligatorists are all the same.
Look, you might as well believe in the winged alligator. After all, if it doesn’t exist, no harm. But if it does, believing in it might save your life by making you more cautious in areas where winged alligators could possibly exist. So it’s only logical to believe in winged alligators.
The athiest response to winged alligators is, “You have evidence? Solid, falsifiable evidence? No? Then why are you wasting my time?”
Pascal’s wager was from a quaint time when there was only one god to choose from, at least in Western thought (and it would have been unusual to consider any other context).
I mean, you should be happy that it makes your numbers look bigger.
A poll that says “34% of America is atheist or agnostic” commands more clout, in perception, than “19% is agnostic and 15% is atheist.”
But yeah, I get what you mean, it would be frustrating.
How exactly would you maintain continuity of existence during transport? Seems to me that you exist as a conscious being before transport (uninterrupted from the time you gain consciousness, at ~5 months, till the transporter disassembles your particles), and someone who looks, thinks, and remembers being you exists after transport (from the moment your brain particles are reassembled going forward). But, your continuity of consciousness is broken during transport while your particles are disassembled.
Would you get into that type of transporter? I wouldn’t. I would cease to exist the moment my particles were disassembled.
Think of it this way: there’s nothing special or privileged about the particles that make up your brain, correct? So, it’s theoretically possible to replicate your brain exactly many times over, correct? So, let’s say you (original you) remain intact and 10 copies of you are created. Would original you think you are any of your copies? No. You can’t be conscious in more than one place at a time. You are equal but separate. You and all of your copies believe they are you, and you all have a right to believe that. You are the same to all outside observers, but not to any one of you. You are all just incredibly exact identical twins. Your twins simply inherited your memories.
How do you maintain continuity of existence when you sleep? Or when you are sedated for surgery? Or if you have your heart and brain function stopped then started again?
I assume that if I died and through sheer randomness a version of me existed somewhere that ‘woke up’ with all my memories intact up to the moment before I died, that version would assume it was teleported to the new place and for all intents and purposes would b e ‘me’. Continuity of existence would be maintained. The ‘me’ that died would experience nothing at all, so I’m not sure it’s any different than being in a transporter or having your body shut down for surgery.
Your brain remains intact while you sleep, or are sedated. At least mine does. Sleeping and general anesthesia makes you unconscious, not non-conscious. The matrix upon which your consciousness emerged remains intact from the moment you’re born till they day you become brain dead.
See the start of post 108, but I like your imagery better. 
Pascal was well aware of other gods from antiquity, but saying one believed in them was a life limiting move. Or even that they were valid possibilities.
The problem with this is that atheism and agnosticism are not mutually exclusive positions. Most atheists I know are agnostic atheists. We lack belief in any god (atheist) but don’t claim knowledge that no gods exist (agnostic.) I know that people use agnostic as a form of wishy-washy atheism, since the theists are less upset at someone saying they don’t know as opposed to saying they lack belief.
That also assumes agnosticism is about our current state of knowledge as opposed to possible knowledge. We can’t possibly know that no gods exist, but we can know that some god exists. But currently we don’t know either.
Same way I maintain continuity of existence when I sleep.
If it was reliable, and I wanted to get where it was going, sure.
If it were the only way to avoid certain death, would you?
I would be conscious in 11 places at once.
The moment of the copying, our existences will begin to diverge, but each one of them will be me.
Sure, without telepathy, I can’t experience them all at once, but that doesn’t mean that each one of them isn’t experiencing being me.
So, let’s say that the multiverse is true, and that every tiny fraction of a second, the universe splits. Which universe are you in? Does the other universe not contain a you?
Without invoking some sort of supernatural soul or other metaphysical object that cannot be copied, they are not identical twins with my memories, they are me.
Each one of them will have their own new perspective, and only be able to experience their one, but they would all be having that experience.
So, you are at the dentist’s office having some teeth pulled. You fall unconscious in one room, and wake up in another. How do you know you weren’t teleported there? (Other than lack of technology to do so, of course) Would you feel any differently if you had been?
Yes, they are all me to everyone except me. It would make no difference to me whether I commit suicide with or without exact copies of myself in existence. They will all lead happy lives being me, but I’ll be dead. My wife (if I still had one) wouldn’t mind, she’d have 10 versions of me to nag. 
I posed a similar question on these boards 18 years ago here. It doesn’t get interesting until about mid-way through the thread. My beliefs remain essentially the same now as then.
Really? How about people who have all bodily functions stopped for surgery? No heart or brain activity at all. How about people who have been drowned in ice water, had all bodily functions stopped, then were revived? People have been rescusitated after 6 hours or more of ‘drowning’ in cold water and not showing any signs of heart or brain activity.
Again, in all those scenarios, the brain remains intact. Consciousness may be temporarily dormant, but the matrix upon which it emerged and resides remains continuously intact and able to fire consciousness back up when able to do so.