On whose authority?
This is circular.
How do you know? Because the Bible said so
How do you know the Bible is true? Because God said so
How does you know God exists? Because the Bible said so
Looks like my last response got lost in the catfight, never mind.
We don’t know God exists for certain. We do know that the Gospels are very reliable historically. So in a sense you have to make a choice. Do you believe in the Gospels or not?
This is where Pascal comes in. He teaches us to look at the outcomes of our choice.
Since we’re all going to die in a couple decades and be gone forever, the rational choice is to believe because of the outcomes.
It’s much better to believe in the Gospels and be wrong than to reject the Gospels and be wrong.
Ok, so a reiteration of the initial argument.
Just doesn’t seem worth it due mostly to the sheer improbability of being dragging into the choice in the first place.
There’s negligible reason to believe in the Gospel tales. The traditional wisdom is fine, the rolling themes are good metaphors, the specifics are entertaining.
But as Pascal says, we are on the ship of life. We are embarked. We have to choose. Indifference is the same as atheism.
Regardless, I think we can agree on time. 100 years is much closer to 0 than it is to infinity.
Freespirit,
I’m not going to attack your arguments directly, as that’s just boring and you already lost.
So let’s have fun!
How about this: what if Jesus was the devil?
Interesting question eh?
So if god is death and Jesus is the devil, what do we have?
We only have logic. Those are the only clothes we have to dress ourselves with in this crazy existence.
Logic? You don’t have any evidence to claim that Jesus was the devil.
If He was the devil, we’d both be screwed.
See? That’s what separates you from a philosopher.
Come back when you’ve learned more.
lol.
But there is no evidence that Jesus is the devil. There’s plenty of evidence that He was divine.
What if the Gospels are true, and Jesus is the son of God?
You would probably have eternal misery because you knowingly rejected Him over and over again.
Go read Pascal then come back.
Freespirit, you are young in a perjoritive sense.
You are delusional in the defined sense…
Let’s look at the actual facts then:
This world is shit on a stick.
You claim the messiah came here over 2000 years ago.
That’s a logical contradiction.
That’s because the world didn’t obey His teachings.
Freespirit wrote: That’s because they didn’t obey his teachings.
Ecmandu replies: that’s not a true messiah then
According to you 
Who are some of your favorite philosophers? I used to like Nietzsche and Schopenhauer before I converted.
Socrates, because he taught Plato, plato taught Aristotle: that entire tradition is my favorite, all the way through to Plotinus…
Little did they know back then, they discovered the way to describe a secular existence that needed no god to explain anything.
True messiahs are not karma dictators (you must embody what I embody)
How do you know Socrates actually existed?
All we have is stuff that was a written down by people about him.
I see where you’re trying to go with this.
Plato is an extremely reliable source. Ancient Greece (and Rome) kept meticulous records. There’s simply more evidence for Socrates than there is for Jesus.
Why don’t I ask you this?
How can you prove that you weren’t just born 4 seconds ago?
More lol.
How do you know there’s more evidence for Socrates than there is for Jesus considering your knowledge of the time period is limited, at best?
Philosophers don’t run from the hard questions.
I have no way of proving/disproving that I wasn’t born just 4 seconds ago.
You?
You run from hard questions.
I can show you my birth certificate that shows I was born in 1983, but, I suppose we can’t prove anything with 100% certainty.