(August 12, 2021 at 11:37 am)Klorophyll Wrote: Sorry to bother you with what-if games. It's just that there is a potential risk of infinite loss if one plays this game dishonestly. Is it rational not to worry about the possibility of an infinite loss?
If by infinite loss you mean living in damnation for eternity if we are wrong about god, then consider this. One doesn't have to be just right that god exists; that's short sighted. You also have to pick the "right" god. And how does one determine that? If I grew up on Pakistan I would most likely be Sunni Muslim, mostly because the culture there reinforces it so strongly. If I grew up in China I would likely practice Taoism or folk religion. If you grew up in Mississippi I can almost guarantee you would be Baptist. Whatever you are exposed to early in life is most likely what you will believe. If you do decide to challenge your cultural beliefs and explore other religious modalities, you come to realize there is no objective evidence to support one over another. It just comes down to what people want to believe or whatever beliefs they can accept as close enough to truth. I have yet to find any religion deserving of that.
Quote:God's existence is a sufficient condition for the existence of an afterlife, as I repeatedly explained in this forum. It's not really difficult to understand why: a basic property of God is justice. A consequence of justice is that all people should be accountable for their acts, and hence there has to be another life where such a thing happens - this is really a trivial corollary of the assumption that God exists.
First you have to definitively establish the existence of god. If that were to be accomplished, there are lot of things I would be willing to consider possible. Although, again, you would still have some work cut out for you. Different gods have different expectations of human beings. So you would still have to objectively identify god and its nature/expectations. Good luck with that. Thousands of religions on earth and none of them can agree on that.
Quote:And since we have very compelling arguments for God's existence...
Since when?
Quote:Exactly. Do you have some way to rule out the existence of my invisible dragon? Until you do, just acknowledge this simple rule of thumb: any assertion you can't rule out is possible, any assertion.
You realize you just changed positions, right? If you can't rule out the invisible dragon, then you can't rule out any version of "god" or just about any subjective claim someone makes. The position atheists typically take is that no, we can't rule it out but without significant objective evidence, we see no reason to accept it. If you don't take that position then you also have to believe in Jesus, Yahweh, Zeus, Ahura Mazda and thousands of others. Otherwise you aren't being logically consistent. If that's fine with you then go ahead. It's not fine with everyone, though.
Why is it so?
~Julius Sumner Miller
~Julius Sumner Miller