Atheist version of Pascal's wager

[GrandizerII]

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?

Wow ...

[GrandizerII]

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.

Sounds fair ...

[robvalue]

The field of apologetics and trying to explain away biblical problems began before the bible was even finished, it seems.

[GrandizerII]

The field of apologetics and trying to explain away biblical problems began before the bible was even finished, it seems.

Later Bible writings may have actually helped to "explain" some of the doctrinal and theological difficulties already encountered by the earliest Christians. Part of the reason why I ignored Huggy's quote of Revelation ...

[athrock]

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

Addressed by this link:

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

Yay for link debate ...

Well, I've looked it over, and I see the objections he has to what he dismisses as "apologetic rationalizations". He begins this section with the really open-minded, let's-withhold-all-judgment-until-all-the-facts-are-in statement: "To anyone not already indoctrinated into Christianity reading the above passages it is crystal clear that according to the Bible Jesus was supposed to return in the first century of the Christian Era. That has not happened."

This is based upon the author's confidence that HE is more qualified to interpret the true meaning of scripture than are all of the countless scripture and Greek scholars and theologians who have studied these passages over the past 2,000 years. He then goes on to attempt a rebuttal to every "apologetic rationalization". IOW, "I know this is wrong; now, I'm going to show you why." Which is not quite the same as saying, "Here are the explanations...do they have any merit?"

Now, we COULD spend days re-hashing what he wrote and the proper meaning of Greek words. For detail, consider this:

http://christianity.stackexchange.com/qu...y-in-matth

Personally, I think that the word "generation" may be translated differently as you will see in some of the answers given at that site.

[GrandizerII]

Addressed by this link:

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

Yay for link debate ...

Well, I've looked it over, and I see the objections he has to what he dismisses as "apologetic rationalizations". He begins this section with the really open-minded, let's-withhold-all-judgment-until-all-the-facts-are-in statement: "To anyone not already indoctrinated into Christianity reading the above passages it is crystal clear that according to the Bible Jesus was supposed to return in the first century of the Christian Era. That has not happened."

This is based upon the author's confidence that HE is more qualified to interpret the true meaning of scripture than are all of the countless scripture and Greek scholars and theologians who have studied these passages over the past 2,000 years. He then goes on to attempt a rebuttal to every "apologetic rationalization". IOW, "I know this is wrong; now, I'm going to show you why." Which is not quite the same as saying, "Here are the explanations...do they have any merit?"

Now, we COULD spend days re-hashing what he wrote and the proper meaning of Greek words. For detail, consider this:

http://christianity.stackexchange.com/qu...y-in-matth

Personally, I think that the word "generation" may be translated differently as you will see in some of the answers given at that site.

It's not just his view. The view of mainstream scholarship today is that Jesus was an apocalyptic preacher who did make such a promise.

But either way, we disagree on the premises, so whatever conclusion each side reaches is going to be based on the premises set forth. You believe that there's no way Jesus could have made a false prophecy, so he must have been misunderstood. I say he was a normal human being who said a lot of wrong things and made lots of mistakes.

[Nihilist Virus]

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.

You don't understand this thread.

I get that you don't agree with my interpretation of what Jesus said. But are you really going to tell me there's a 100% chance you're right? In terms of eternity, you have everything to lose and nothing to gain by hoarding material wealth.

[RobbyPants]

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.

You're missing the point.

None of us particularly care about the "high ideals" of Christianity. Not only are they without basis, but they're unsustainable. If we all go around quitting our jobs to minister, living off of fruit on the edges of farms... there'd be no farmers.

The point is that Pascal's Wager is fundamentally flawed for several reasons. One of them, focused on this thread, is that the Christian expects their mathematical analysis of the possibility of infinite consequences for an action to convince the skeptic, yet they ignore the exact same line of reasoning when levied against them.

The point isn't to get all Christians to become proselytizing hobos; it's to get them to realize that anyone can come up with any "possible claim" and then say that the "logical" conclusion is to assume the claim is true. The infinite number of possible infinity-claims renders the outcome any such analysis to be completely indeterminant... which is exactly what you'd expect from a nonfalsifiable claim.