You base all that risk based on what goat herders wrote 2000 years ago?
Really?

Actually the chance is around 1 in at least a million.

There have been millions of deities invented by humans. What makes the Muslim deity any more realistic than any of the others.

(March 14, 2016 at 7:23 pm)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote:

Quote:But the thing is, there has been no corroborated documented historical **claim** from Mr. Unicorn or Mr. Alien, so the risk is practically zero for all practical purposes.

And there's a 'corroborated documented historical claim' from the God of Abraham?

Boru

There appears to be a group of historical documents that different groups of people have **claimed** to be from this god. 
Hence my increased ballpark risk evaluation for this god (say, at 20%? .. not more than 50) compared to the risk from the Unicorn (±0.1%?)

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(March 14, 2016 at 7:30 pm)The Valkyrie Wrote: Actually the chance is around 1 in at least a million.

There have been millions of deities invented by humans.  What makes the Muslim deity any more realistic than any of the others.

Totally agree ... there has been tons of deities claiming to be gods ...
but I haven't seen claims of fierce warnings from other deities .. so **if** it turned out to be true, I'm screwed

again .. I'm not saying belief is necessarily right ... am just evaluating the risks involved

(March 14, 2016 at 6:31 pm)truth_seeker Wrote:

(March 14, 2016 at 6:19 pm)KevinM1 Wrote: Why do you think there's a 50-50 chance?

Seriously, where's your evidence that this particular god creature exists?  Note: your holy tome is the claim.  It needs to be backed up with evidence.  Please provide it.

You are absolutely right   Its only a claim. And that's exactly why I've been looking up evidence against/or for god, and I always reach a dead end. Its all just a big fat plausibility, hence my 50-50 conclusion.

If there was no risk of all that hereafter quagmire happening, then I would've completely dismissed the god claim

I was exactly in the same spot as you, I was a muslim searching for evidence. Found none, until the "scientific miracles" of the Qur'an came. Debunked all of them, happy atheist now.

Verses from the Qur'an itself isn't evidence. If you're interested in these so called "scientific miracles" and you're about to search em' up (a waste of time) I'll give you a headstart: All the knowledge is taken from the ancient Egyptians, ancient Greeks, the Sumerians, Babylonians etc. Hopefully you'll make your mind up and spend your time on other things that might benefit you, goodluck. Also I'll tell you that religious people take things from their "holy books", and they twist the meaning of it/make their own interpretation of it and claim "hurr durr God said this 6900 years before modern science did hurr durr". I saw someone do that to the recently discovered gravitational waves, it was utterly ridiculous.

Quote:There appears to be a group of historical documents that different groups of people have **claimed** to be from this god.
Hence my increased ballpark risk evaluation for this god (say, at 20%? .. not more than 50) compared to the risk from the Unicorn (±0.1%?)

But that's just it - a 'claim' that a particular document is of divine origin has no more weight than the 'claim' that Rufus saw a unicorn or that Matilda was abducted by aliens with laser printers where their genitals should be. And it doesn't lend weight to Rufus' claim that 100 of his friends have never known him to lie - Rufus could be mistaken, or he might have been hallucinating.

And the fact that a group of nomadic semi-savages have decided - long, loooong - after the fact that this Gospel or this Sura is the Divine word of the Almighty doesn't sway me in the least. Especially when there's evidence to the contrary.

Boru

All deities were invented by man.  All threats of judgment and hell, etc., were invented by priests to scare the sheeple into submission.

(March 14, 2016 at 7:54 pm)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote:

Quote:There appears to be a group of historical documents that different groups of people have **claimed** to be from this god.  
Hence my increased ballpark risk evaluation for this god (say, at 20%? .. not more than 50) compared to the risk from the Unicorn (±0.1%?)

But that's just it - a 'claim' that a particular document is of divine origin has no more weight than the 'claim' that Rufus saw a unicorn or that Matilda was abducted by aliens with laser printers where their genitals should be.  And it doesn't lend weight to Rufus' claim that 100 of his friends have never known him to lie - Rufus could be mistaken, or he might have been hallucinating.  

And the fact that a group of nomadic semi-savages have decided  - long, loooong - after the fact that this Gospel or this Sura is the Divine word of the Almighty doesn't sway me in the least.  Especially when there's evidence to the contrary.

Boru

I really couldn't agree more with what you're saying   .. you are absolutely right

The point that I'm talking about is a slightly different angle ...
my point is the **cost** of the risk ...

perhaps Mr. Unicorn is a chill cool giant up there somewhere ... I never got any sets of corroborated claims that he has some sort of a punishment plan ... >> Conclusion: cost/risk of ignoring it is practically zero

but for this god .. there seems to be corroborated claims that he has a fierce punishment plan ready ... >> Conclusion: cost/risk of ignoring it seems pretty high .. this guy's plan includes eternal punishment (and reward, for that matter) ..

What you're not getting is that the risk you mentioned is part of the claim itself. Moreover, there aren't scores of corroborated claims, just one claim - what's laid out in that particular book - repeated. Again, repetition doesn't add weight to the claim. That's the classic appeal to popularity fallacy, one that theists like to rely on ("Oh yeah? If we're wrong, then why are there so many people who believe in god?")

You keep talking about the percentage of risk based on the severity of it should it happen, which is also ridiculous. Probability isn't tied to severity. Probability is tied to observational evidence, of which you have none.

So, instead of trying to force emotional pleas and superstition-driven fear into contortions in order to seem rational, really step back and think about it. You're falling into the utter illogic of Pascal's Wager.

The thing with Pascal's Wager is that if you die and find yourself face-to-face with Odin he may be really pissed that you didn't die with your sword in your hand.

Then what are you going to do?

(March 14, 2016 at 9:35 pm)Minimalist Wrote: The thing with Pascal's Wager is that if you die and find yourself face-to-face with Odin he may be really pissed that you didn't die with your sword in your hand.

Then what are you going to do?

There's absolutely no excuse for that.

Everyone should die with a sword or axe in their hand, in honour of the ALLFather.