(September 21, 2009 at 3:23 pm)Overmars Wrote: ‘Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones.’ This quote by Marcus Aurelius seals the discussion about Pascal's wager.
Aurelius says "live a good life" (why?). Then he says if the gods are just, they won't care how devout you have been. In other words they won't care how good you have been. How could it be that the just gods wouldn't require you to be good? And how could it be that the just gods would ignore the vices you lived by?
And if there are no gods, then you will be destroyed and all evidence of your "noble life" will be destroyed. What if believers said that God did those things with everyone, would atheists be happy? Is it the fact that God is said to discriminate between good and evil that incites atheists to deny God?
