might as well...

This is the most preposterous proposition. Consider “Ben’s Wager”

“It is better to believe in a 4-eyed purple headed monster who will give you a massage in the afterlife because you won’t lose anything if you don’t.”

And don’t reply with “There’s more evidence for God than there is for a purple-headed monster” because there just isn’t. The fact that lots of people believe in God, doesn’t mean there is a God.

I think that believing in God just in case there is a heaven is wrong from a religious perspective and a non-religious one. I don’t think any religions would condone a believer who only believes so they can goto heaven just in case there is one. That’s just corrupted faith.

Ok Pascal, you can believe God exists just in case he might and you can also believe in the purple-headed monster. I, personally would rather go through life accepting the harsher truth than to blindly live a lie just because it makes me happy.

Ben whether u choose to accept it or not THERE SIMPLY IS MORE EVIDENCE FOR GOD than that of a four headed monster. I find ur proposition that there is the same amount of evidence for a God and the same amount of evidence for a four eyed purple headed monster slightly absurd, in fact i find it preposterous…slightly more preposterous then that of Pascal’s Wager. Though I do agree with u in what u have to say about this wager.

According to the Christian Doctrine, Myra Hindley (serial rapist/murderer/paedophile) is going to heaven and I’m not. Try that for fair.

i think it could hold up in the real world, just not the modern one. my personal belief in god (accidental, not through a religious upbringing) changed when i realised that a lot of the stuff in the bible is entirely irrelevant to modern existence (eg. the old donkey seller = 3 shags a week thing). religion shouldn’t have to change.

admittedly thats a sweeping generalisation and there are many religious beliefs which can be applied to modern life (for example, those of buddhism). this post is mainly based on more judeo-christian beliefs.

anyone who reads the guardian, p16 of the weekend supplement. very interesting article on women in modern islam.

o muslim representative, you said that “THERE SIMPLY IS MORE EVIDENCE FOR GOD than that of a four headed monster”. surely, going by the philosophy that two heads are better than one, a four-headed monster would be a fairly good culprit for creating the universe. just a thought.

oh ben… you say that ‘According to the Christian Doctrine, Myra Hindley (serial rapist/murderer/paedophile) is going to heaven and I’m not. Try that for fair.’ well also according to the christian doctrine all have sinned… and you can not for one moment disagree that you have not gone against the the bibles definition of sin. An illustration: take two pieces of white printing paper… on one put one black line in the middle, now take the second and scrible all over it. Now both can not be used for printing since the are both ruined. In the same way a small amount of sin still makes a person imperfect. So there is no unfair about the christian doctrine… also you are judging it on human values!

I don’t see how that makes it any fairer. All your saying is, Christian doctrine says we have all sinned. My point is that I will most probably go through my life comitting what lawfully and morally most people would consider MINOR sins. Myra Hindley on the other hand has comitted some of the most HEINOUS acts of crime that any human can possibly commit. I’m afraid that saying “parking on a double yellow” is equal to “paedophilia” just won’t do. If that is the case in christian doctrine then that’s even more preposterous than what i’m stipulating here.

Considering then that I and many others like me who do not believe will basically live good lives but just won’t accept God, how can it be fair that we shall not goto heaven yet Myra Hindley, who has supposedly repented, will. It just doesn’t seem fair.

Possibly the biggest sin of all would be denying God???

You call that a sin? I don’t think much of your God if not believing in him is a sin since HE KNEW that there would be people that would not believe in him and therefore HE is the cause of sin. That is not the actions of a loving God!

He’s put us in a world where it is not possible to know whether he exists and therefore it is inevitable that SOME people will not believe in God. How can you possibly say that is a sin? I’m not doing it out of malice, I just don’t have the psychological capability to accept the existence of God. It’s ok for you to sit there and say “just ask God into your life” because you’ve had “God in your life” from day one of your birth. It is MUCH more difficult for a non-believer who has been brought up with no God to then accept God. Is that fair? Is that loving? No, it’s bloody not.

It’s bad enough to create a world in which God knows people will sin and be evil but to then say that not believing in him is a sin! Well that just takes the biscuit! Just another reason not to worship the sick and perverted God of Christianity.

[This message has been edited by ben (edited 14 December 2001).]

well we’ve got pascals wager…all we need now is his pager! yeah yeah…it was a poor joke i know!

Pascal’s Wager can be presented in many different forms, usually something like this:

“If you believe, and God exists, you gain everything. If you disbelieve, and God exists, you lose everything.”

Alternatively :


"It makes more sense to believe in God than to not believe. If you believe, and God exists, you will be rewarded in the afterlife. If you do not believe, and He exists, you will be punished for your disbelief. If He does not exist, you have lost nothing either way. "

well it seems to me that pascals wager is flawed in the fact that God is not stupid. Won’t He know that you’re just trying to get a free ride into Heaven? How can you sincerely believe in a God simply out of convenience?
Can you get away with just sort of generally believing in a Supreme Being, without specifically believing in one particular Deity?

Pascal’s Wager is hopelessly flawed. It sounds good at first, but poke it with the spike of reason and it quickly deflates, letting out all the hot air.

well i just want to see your thoughts guys also.

Oh for goodness sake! STOP STEALING YOUR POSTS FROM OTHER WEBSITES! This one is from:

http://www.abarnett.demon.co.uk/atheism/wager.html

Just get your own ideas and stop passing others off as your own! You are disgracing this website and I will remove you if you continue.

“Possibly the biggest sin of all would be denying God???”

but why? if god is so into his “agape” unslefish love, then the only reason he should want to be worshipped is so that as part of worship, humans act morally. so if you act morally ANYWAY, whilst “denying” God, and he’s so unselfish that he doesn’t need to be loved, where’s the sin in denying him?

i can’t think of anything more selfish than some omnipotent being who put a load of hopelessly flawed humans on earth purely to worship him …

Totally true. Why would God care if I don’t call him/her/whatever God. If I name God the Force, would it matter. Isn’t the Force able to look inside my very essence and follow my reasoning and know that my logic has led me to the conclusion in which I have decided to live my life?
I honestly believe alot of people walk around this planet looking at others wondering what will happen on judgement day. The Force cares less if we believe or not. What matters is what we do. You want to talk about Absolute right and wrong? Touching little kids in their privates is absolutly wrong. There is no argument, or reasoning around that. That is sin. That should be punished. You do good in society, you should get rewarded and go to “heaven”.
But people try to make me feel guilty by saying that I won’t go to “heaven” because I don’t believe in Christ. So Pascal’s Wager, while a bunch of b.s., is speaking truth. Guilty people like myself, might reason that they have nothing to lose by having faith. I didn’t reason that. My believe in the Force comes from some crazy thought process I went through a few years ago while I was high off marijuana. :sunglasses: