Atheist version of Pascal's wager

[Huggy Bear]

Not according to a critical analysis of the text. It even says it in the Bible ...

Ok, I'll do a simple analysis for you.

Luke 9
27 But I tell you of a truth, there be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the kingdom of God.
28 And it came to pass about an eight days after these sayings, he took Peter and John and James, and went up into a mountain to pray.

As you can see it clearly says that some (which is an unspecified amount) standing there would not die until they see the KINGDOM OF GOD... it says nothing about his return.

Revelation 21
1 And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea.
2 And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.
3 And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God.

[Angrboda]

-deleted-

[GrandizerII]

Not according to a critical analysis of the text. It even says it in the Bible ...

Ok, I'll do a simple analysis for you.

Luke 9
27 But I tell you of a truth, there be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the kingdom of God.
28 And it came to pass about an eight days after these sayings, he took Peter and John and James, and went up into a mountain to pray.

As you can see it clearly says that some (which is an unspecified amount) standing there would not die until they see the KINGDOM OF GOD... it says nothing about his return.

Revelation was written way after the Synoptic Gospels, so I consider the quote from Revelation a red herring for the purpose of this discussion.

As for Luke, yep, the author of Luke spiritualized the coming of the kingdom of God (as can be seen in Luke 17 especially) because it was starting to become obvious by the time of writing that Jesus was probably not going to come physically in their time.

But when you read verses like this:

Matthew 16:27
“Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”

Then a reasonable explanation would be that the earliest Christians did expect Jesus to come back soon. But when they realized he wasn't, they started to rationalize why Jesus hadn't come back as promised.

[athrock]

But if you already believe in Christianity, then you have to answer to the atheist version of your own wager.  You should sell all that you own and give to the poor, then wander the world doing good works and preaching the gospel.  There is clearly a 100% chance you'll get into heaven if you do this (provided your heart is right and all that jazz), but there is NOT a 100% chance that Jesus will accept you into heaven if you sit on your wealth while children starve to death.  Jesus did say that many will do good works, thinking they're Christian, but yet will still be cast into hell.  So if you live like a king in your Western world, occasionally going to church and giving a manageable tithe, there's no guarantee you will get into heaven.

Ah, the old "put your money where your mouth is approach". Very nice. I'm sure most Christians will just dismiss this or will come up with justifications why they're allowed to hoard material wealth, but his is good. The goal isn't to prove yourself 100% right; just that there's the chance that you'd be right.

Well, either your bible/quran is the perfect word of god or it isn't.

If it is, you're not following it, bucko. Not even close. If you were, you'd be DEAD, in jail, or in ISIS.

If it isn't, it should be subjected to the same scrutiny as any other man made book. And it fails instantly as being obvious fiction. At absolute best it's primitive man's description "of god", using their extremely limited language and knowledge. I wish people would use this latter description for it, so they could at least be honest about why they ignore most of it.

My thoughts exactly.  I;m gonna go out on a limb here and state that whenever anybody talks about what they believe, with respect to those "great books"....theyre only referring to what they know of them.  Likely a small portion no matter who they are.  They don't believe in the rest of the shit they don't know about, or haven't yet considered.  Those chapters left to be memorized.  Or even those chapters ignored.

It's a point of commonality between atheists and theists, really.

And yet, when Christians point out the examples of St. Francis or Mother Teresa or countless MILLIONS of priests, monks and nuns who have done EXACTLY as you claim EVERYONE should do by selling all they have, giving to the poor and following him, your response is not to say, "Wow. Some of these Christians are serious about following Jesus...maybe I should look into His teachings more closely."

Instead, you look at those who fail to follow your interpretation of scripture as justification for continuing to do what you were never going to stop doing anyway.

Do you not see the flaw in your reasoning?

It's easy to mock those who struggle to live up to the high ideals of Christianity and then go your merry way.

It's not so easy to admit that there are some Christians who do accept the challenge of the faith, embrace it and live it to a high degree by giving to the poor, caring for the sick, sheltering the homeless and so forth.

[athrock]

Then a reasonable explanation would be that the earliest Christians did expect Jesus to come back soon. But when they realized he wasn't, they started to rationalize why Jesus hadn't come back as promised.

They did expect him to return soon. When that did not happen, they began to realize that they had misunderstood what He had promised (and will eventually fulfill).

[GrandizerII]

Then a reasonable explanation would be that the earliest Christians did expect Jesus to come back soon. But when they realized he wasn't, they started to rationalize why Jesus hadn't come back as promised.

They did expect him to return soon. When that did not happen, they began to realize that they had misunderstood what He had promised (and will eventually fulfill).

The Gospels state that Jesus himself said he would return during their time.

[athrock]

They did expect him to return soon. When that did not happen, they began to realize that they had misunderstood what He had promised (and will eventually fulfill).

The Gospels state that Jesus himself said he would return during their time.

http://www.gotquestions.org/not-taste-death.html

[GrandizerII]

The Gospels state that Jesus himself said he would return during their time.

http://www.gotquestions.org/not-taste-death.html

Addressed by this link:

https://blacknonbelievers.wordpress.com/...is-return/

Yay for link debate ...

[athrock]

http://www.gotquestions.org/not-taste-death.html

Addressed by this link:

https://blacknonbelievers.wordpress.com/...is-return/

Yay for link debate ...

I've printed it out for easier reading. Thanks for the link.

The issue is not whether the early Church believed that Jesus would return soon. They did. And they were wrong.

The question is whether they believed this simply due to their misunderstanding of Jesus' words or whether Jesus' prophecy failed.

The latter is the position of the link you provided, of course.

[Huggy Bear]

was written way after the Synoptic Gospels, so I consider the quote from Revelation a red herring for the purpose of this discussion.

So we're going to cherry pick what parts of the Bible are acceptable when it doesn't fit your agenda? Isn't that the same thing atheists accuse theist of?