Even if Christians are right

[Lord of the Vine]

richardplunger

(they aren't, but pretending that they are) and I came before God one day in all his murdering, raping, slaving, genocidal, tyrannical, megalomaniacal glory, I would talk down to him because he deserves condemnation, not worship.

You're so dark and edgy, like the corner of a space puzzle.

[Lord of the Vine]

Arcoon Effox

IntuitiveMaelstromohmy

God gave us free will, otherwise Jesus, The Son of God, wouldn't' ve been stoned.

When was Jesus stoned, exactly?

Well, he WAS wandering out in the desert for 40 days listening to voices in his head. Dude must've been baked out his gourd.

[Tigress Dawn]

CuAnnan

Tigress Dawn

Pascal's wager is based on Christianity. The guy was a Christian apologetic, not a Universalist where he believed any god could be the right choice. He made the entire argument based on Christianity, not Odin or Susano-o. It was made to get people to convert to Christianity.

A wager on ANY god is NOT Pascal's Wager. As I said, do research on the man and context.

I'm not spoon feeding you over a tongue in cheek comment because you want to look smart based off a juvenile understanding of the subject. There's plenty of flaws in Pascal's Wager to pick apart without making up new pieces.

So your argument is "la la la, I'm not listening".

Pascal's wager does not work.

"Either the Christian God exists or no God exists" is not a logical axiom upon which to build a wager.
Whether or not Blaise Pascal was a Christian Apologist or not is ******** irrelevant.

I'm listening. Your understanding is simply incorrect. Just because a child tells me babies come from a cabbage patch doesn't mean I have to entertain it as a possibility. It means I correct them, as I am correcting you.

"Either the Christian God exists or no God exists" is not his argument.

It's if God (as in the Christian God) exists, it is in your best interest to believe in him because if you do the rewards will be great, but if you don't the consequences could be dire. In other words if you believe in another god besides Christian God the consequences could be dire.

That's it. That's all it is.

It does not say you could possibly place your bet on Odin.

Or Susano-o.

Or whatever other god you decide to pull out of your a**.

Him being a Christian is absolutely relevant because his entire ******** wager is based on the Christian religion.

The entire point of the wager was to point out that the Christian God was the most logical to believe in based on the risk:reward ratio. It's not about placing a bet on any old god you choose to imagine up. Whether that's logical to you or not is irrelevant.

So when I say I ascribe by Pascal's Wager, it simply means that of all the religions out there, I have put my money on Christianity because it is the most logical choice based on high chance of reward. It was a tongue in cheek remark to the OP's cynical "Christians are incorrect" post.

If you fail to understand at this point I can't help you. You'll simply have to google and do some research on it yourself.

[Kokujo]

Tigress Dawn

Pascal's Wager is originally centered around Christianity as that is the only religion that says you will suffer in the after life for not believing. Though, I think that's up for debate since hell is a very profitable scare tactic for churches

If you believe in a God, and God exists, then gain in the afterlife is significant.
If you don't believe in a God, and God exists, then there is much to lose in the afterlife.
If you believe and he doesn't exist, you have lost nothing.

Christianity is the only religion with something to lose, so logically you should bet on that. The others have only something to gain, but nothing to lose.

Although it's correct that Pascal's Wager is centred around the framework of Christianity, it's important to note that Pascal himself held Christian values and spent his whole life in a culture supporting such values, and coupled with a lack of any notable interest in other religious doctrine it's incredibly unlikely that him using Christianity as the basis for his wager was a choice weighed against the beliefs of any other distinct religious body.

So saying, the assertion that Christianity is the only religion that damns people to suffering in some form of afterlife is incorrect, and many other religions have their own versions of "Hell", some being eternal (such as in Islam's version of Hell) and others being temporary (such as Sheol in Judaism).

To say that Christianity is the only religion where you are weighing in the possibility of punishment for disbelief is thus unfounded, and in that case betting on the Christian God rather than Allah for instance serves no advantage in the context of Pascal's Wager, as by this logical process alone you cannot come to an option that won't earn you eternal suffering from one of the two.

[CuAnnan]

Tigress Dawn

"Either the Christian God exists or no God exists" is not his argument.

Pascal's Wager Text

If there is a God, He is infinitely incomprehensible, since, having neither parts nor limits, He has no affinity to us. We are then incapable of knowing either what He is or if He is....

Yes. It is.

Tigress Dawn

In other words if you believe in another god besides Christian God the consequences could be dire.

Yes. But the wager equally holds true for "if the Gods of Egypt exist, and you believe in the Christian god, the consequences could be dire".
And you going "la la la, I'm not listening because God" isn't helping your argument.

Tigress Dawn

Him being a Christian is absolutely relevant because his entire ******** wager is based on the Christian religion.

And works equally well for all other religions.

Tigress Dawn

The entire point of the wager was to point out that the Christian God was the most logical to believe in based on the risk:reward ratio.

ONLY if you pretend the other gods can't exist and only the Christian God or no God.
Because the risk reward is IDENTICAL for all deities.

Tigress Dawn

So when I say I ascribe by Pascal's Wager, it simply means that of all the religions out there, I have put my money on Christianity because it is the most logical choice based on high chance of reward.

Only if you ignore all other religions.

Tigress Dawn

If you fail to understand my incoherent s**t smearing on a pink wall and calling it philosophy at this point I can't help you. You'll simply have to do lots of taking Christianity to be true and plugging your ears to actual logic

I fixed that for you.

[Texadar]

I would just run god over with a Iron chariot and ascend to Godhood and turn everyone into Bats,

[CuAnnan]

Texadar

I would just run god over with a Iron chariot and ascend to Godhood and turn everyone into Bats,

Because, like the other pretender gods, he's weak to Iron.
That's why we keep horseshoes above our door, to keep the fake god of Christianity at bay.

[Lord of the Vine]

Tigress Dawn

You're confused, which is fine. Here's a better way to explain why you're wrong.

I believe not that many people are familiar with the Hipster Theory of General Relativity, so let me lay it out for you. For this theory, we need the following variables:

B = Band
N = Notoriety

The more obscure a band is (N < 1, where 1 represents exposure), the better its music is, according to General Hipster Theory. When N = 0, the band creates the best music. However, when N = 0, the conclusion is that the band does not exist, meaning that the greatest band ever, for hipsters, is non-existent.

This is based, of course, on the music itself, so the theory looks like this:

M = (BN^2)^ -1

Or, Music equals the inverse of the band multiplied by their notoriety squared.

Same logic applies to God, when you think about it. And THAT is what the Wager is about.

[Tigress Dawn]

Kokujo

Tigress Dawn

Pascal's Wager is originally centered around Christianity as that is the only religion that says you will suffer in the after life for not believing. Though, I think that's up for debate since hell is a very profitable scare tactic for churches

If you believe in a God, and God exists, then gain in the afterlife is significant.
If you don't believe in a God, and God exists, then there is much to lose in the afterlife.
If you believe and he doesn't exist, you have lost nothing.

Christianity is the only religion with something to lose, so logically you should bet on that. The others have only something to gain, but nothing to lose.

Although it's correct that Pascal's Wager is centred around the framework of Christianity, it's important to note that Pascal himself held Christian values and spent his whole life in a culture supporting such values, and coupled with a lack of any notable interest in other religious doctrine it's incredibly unlikely that him using Christianity as the basis for his wager was a choice weighed against the beliefs of any other distinct religious body.

So saying, the assertion that Christianity is the only religion that damns people to suffering in some form of afterlife is incorrect, and many other religions have their own versions of "Hell", some being eternal (such as in Islam's version of Hell) and others being temporary (such as Sheol in Judaism).

To say that Christianity is the only religion where you are weighing in the possibility of punishment for disbelief is thus unfounded, and in that case betting on the Christian God rather than Allah for instance serves no advantage in the context of Pascal's Wager, as by this logical process alone you cannot come to an option that won't earn you eternal suffering from one of the two.

Yes, but if you read any other texts, Christianity is the only one with eternal damnation. Even Islam lets you off the hook if you do not understand the religion or were never taught about it. Islam believe that if you are taught about Allah and Islam and choose to reject it as truth, you are condemned, but if it is presented in an incomplete or untruthful manner and you reject it then you are not to blame. Christianity is not so lenient (in general), you must believe in Jesus to be saved, the default is hell. It is why so many Christians go on missionaries to save people, because they believe if they don't the unsaved will burn in hell.

There wasn't a culture that was conducive to learning about other religions during the 1600's, and doing so would likely get you burned as a heretic by the Catholic church at that time. Still, there were always "pagans" to convert. So yes, you are right in that he probably wasn't comparing other religious when he made his theory.

That said, even if there were no other religion to compare to, the wager still works in context. If you don't believe in the Christian god you risk eternal damnation. If you believe in no god you still risk eternal damnation. If you do believe in the Christian god you only have something to gain, and nothing to lose.

[Miragen]

'Did you try and be a saint for fear of what a vengeful God would do to you if you weren't, or did you live as you pleased by denying the chance of a reward of you efforts in the end?'

All you do is live in fear of what may happen AFTER your life is over, you dedicate your whole life to an assumption, a feeling, a thought.. a fear.
Why do you bow down to someone, why do you follow the path that is presented to you, why do you willingly limit your own freedom?

And even if the stories are true, and the only meaning our life has is proving ourselves to the great man up in the sky to see if we are worthy or if we will be condemned to eternal suffering.
Proving yourself to someone who is supposed to be all forgiving, someone who created you, and now you are as child having to prove the value of your existance to your own parents..

That is if you choose that path, or you can make the most of your life, do the things that make you happy, do things because you feel its the right thing to do, not because you were told it's the right thing, help people out of the kindness of your heart, not because of a page in a book.

I personally do not believe in a God if that wasn't clear yet, but if he would be there I refuse to bow down to such a judgemental being, I rather spend eternity in hell knowing I lived my life the way I wanted to, being able to hold my head up high as my flesh burns in the depths of hell than to keep my head bowed down towards the golden paved roads under the control of a vengefull God.

[Arcoon Effox]

Tigress Dawn

...if you read any other texts, Christianity is the only one with eternal damnation.

The only one, huh? Okay, let's see a comprehensive list of every religion's "bad post-death place", then, so we can confirm that none of them involve eternal punishment.

...and before you bother telling me to do it or whatever, the Burden of Proof is on you, since you're the claimant.

Get crack-a-lackin'. There's a lot of religions in the world.

[icicle weapon]

The Christian God is viewed as omniscient.
So he'd probably smite you.



God aside though, would you even have the guts to go up to a known murdered/rapist and talk s**t to him? I mean, that sounds like a really, really, really stupid and dangerous idea.

[Oh stop]

Mayor of Murderwood

Arcoon Effox

IntuitiveMaelstromohmy

God gave us free will, otherwise Jesus, The Son of God, wouldn't' ve been stoned.

When was Jesus stoned, exactly?

Well, he WAS wandering out in the desert for 40 days listening to voices in his head. Dude must've been baked out his gourd.

i'm pretty sure he was being tempted by the devil.

[black_wing_angel]

richardplunger

(they aren't, but pretending that they are) and I came before God one day in all his murdering, raping, slaving, genocidal, tyrannical, megalomaniacal glory, I would talk down to him because he deserves condemnation, not worship.

You really think he'd be bothered by your blasphemy? More important people have done it. And in the end, he laughs last, while you burn to vapor in the Lake of Fire.

So who cares?

[Corona Licorice]

Do they even have a sin for challenging god to a duel? sweatdrop

They probably do, someone please find if there is it'd be so hilarious if there was heart