(September 14, 2011 at 3:30 pm)ElDinero Wrote:(September 14, 2011 at 3:19 pm)salty Wrote: 3. Never heard of Pascal's Wager until now. My belief is simple: what do you lose by following the teachings of Christ? I assert: you lose nothing, instead you gain everything.
And as has already been asserted: If you believe that, then you absolutely must follow EVERY set of religious teachings, which is of course impossible.
It was demonstrated to you how absurd it was. Substitute the word Christ for Allah, Krishna or the Flying Spaghetti Monster and you cannot help but see how flimsy an argument this is. The fact that you are a Christian and therefore you 'know' that your God is the right one does not make this point any less valid. More absence of logic, salty. If you had been raised in a Muslim country you would absolutely undoubtedly be saying the same thing about Mohammad or Allah.
El Dinero & Rhythm
Yes, that statement can be applied to any religion that is being taught, you're correct. Yes, that's absurd when it's applied to every religious group because no one can follow everything.
What I have been trying to clarify is this: I am affirming that I believe Christianity is the only path, again we're in the "Christianity" section of the forum, meaning there are only two choices (follow or don't follow). Therefore under the rule of only speaking about Christianity the challenge: What do you have to lose by following the teachings of Jesus Christ [according to the Bible] is nothing, and what you have to gain is everything.
You'll notice that Aleia and I were fighting about my God and the Bible. I was stating that according to the Bible I win on both accounts, this is my firm conviction. The goal of this statement was not to convince anyone to come to Christ, but to simply state that my ability to love, befriend, enjoy and live life has happened with double pleasure since I have been living with Christ, therefore if nothing were to happen, as many atheists believe, then I would be in the same situation as everyone else, but if I am correct about my oneness with Christ, then I will have gained something beautiful and eternal. Again my final point was: No one knows what happens when you die. Since we are affirming that my beliefs are aligned to the Bible, as a Christian I assume the result will follow what has been stated in Revelation and all over the Bible about the end. Otherwise, there will be nothing.
If your goal is to say that "something" of another religion may happen, then you aren't arguing the atheist viewpoint. If your goal is to be convinced that my God is the one true god, then why would you single out this statement I made to Aleia as a basis for me to convince you, when I'm speaking of Biblical things?
If you are trying to decide if Jesus is a good example of how a person should behave while on earth, I am telling you that you have nothing to lose by following his lead.
El Dinero, that is all I can do for the moment. I have a meeting. I will continue this tomorrow. Be patient with me, we'll come to an understanding, even if it's a disagreement.
"And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him." Hebrews 11:6
