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Pascal's Wager and the Selfishness of a "Good God"
April 15, 2012 at 10:34 pm
Sorry guys, need to go on a bit of a tangent here...
One of my few close friends is a "born-again" Christian. Which many of you know to be by far the most pressing types of theists. They cannot help themselves from spreading their new found faith even if, me for example, tells him, "No. I'd rather not discuss this." Yet he keeps the attempts at conversion coming. He used what is commonly known as Pascals Wager on me. Which goes a little bit something like this:
Wouldn't you rather be wrong about God existing and done all of his work and be a good person, than to not done any of his good work and be wrong?
First of all, that argument is used on children to scare them. Not an intellectually sound 18 year old person. I don't want to claim myself as a genius, but I am very aware of the world around me. I tell him often that I am a good person. I try to live life with morals and to treat others as I wish to be treated. He replies with, "God is selfish. If you do any of those good deeds without saying you are doing them for Him, then they don't count." That blew me away. How could someone succumb to such idiocracy? It made me very upset to hear that no matter what, if somehow all of this very easily disputed ridiculous religion is true, that someone who believes the world is 10000 years old and everything else the bible says, will get into heaven over someone who lived a very moral and decent life, but didn't believe in the bible.
God gave us free will. So we have the freedom to not believe his word. Even though he has no word.
In the beginning man created god. Many men and women just choose to believe the opposite.
There is no such thing as a Christian child: only a child of Christian parents.
I am against religion because it teaches us to be satisfied with not understanding the world.
~Richard Dawkins~
Listen to Greydon Square. He will blow your mind.
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RE: Pascal's Wager and the Selfishness of a "Good God"
April 15, 2012 at 10:52 pm
Quote:One of my few close friends is a "born-again" Christian.
He prefers his new invisible friend over you. Time to tell him to go fuck himself until he grows up.
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RE: Pascal's Wager and the Selfishness of a "Good God"
April 15, 2012 at 10:59 pm
(This post was last modified: April 15, 2012 at 11:01 pm by Reforged.)
(April 15, 2012 at 10:52 pm)Minimalist Wrote: Quote:One of my few close friends is a "born-again" Christian.
He prefers his new invisible friend over you. Time to tell him to go fuck himself until he grows up.
Wow Minimalist. Wow. Don't sugar coat it or anything will ya?
Thats pretty insightful and I enjoyed reading it. :-)
Well done man. Welcome to the club, we have t-shirts and beer in the fridge. You can't have that beer... thats my beer. -.-
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RE: Pascal's Wager and the Selfishness of a "Good God"
April 15, 2012 at 11:13 pm
Never.
Religion is a poison.
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RE: Pascal's Wager and the Selfishness of a "Good God"
April 15, 2012 at 11:19 pm
(April 15, 2012 at 11:13 pm)Minimalist Wrote: Never.
Religion is a poison.
Shouldn't we provide the antidote instead of quarantining the patient?
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RE: Pascal's Wager and the Selfishness of a "Good God"
April 15, 2012 at 11:24 pm
(April 15, 2012 at 11:13 pm)Minimalist Wrote: Never.
Religion is a poison.
Believe me, I agree it is a poison. I just see no way out of this impasse my friend and I have come to. He's been so manipulated by his friends. It was peer pressure, in my opinion. I really don't know how our friendship can survive this. He keeps driving the wedge between us even though I plead for him not to.
There is no such thing as a Christian child: only a child of Christian parents.
I am against religion because it teaches us to be satisfied with not understanding the world.
~Richard Dawkins~
Listen to Greydon Square. He will blow your mind.
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RE: Pascal's Wager and the Selfishness of a "Good God"
April 16, 2012 at 1:39 am
Personally, I think you should try something of this order on your friend but only if you're willing:
"How about we talk about proofs for the existence of God/the Bible and the problems with them. If your faith is true you should not fear scrutiny and investigation because it will hold up to it but if it is false it will crumble away. Since you are certain of your faith there should be nothing to fear."
Of course that would require you to talk about the issue which again I am sure not you want to do. People wanting or not wanting to discuss atheism/religion is their personal preference. I just happen to be one of those people very interested in curing people of the "poison" so to speak. Again I don't think it is wrong of people to just not want anything to do with the discussion.
If you don't want to discuss it with your friend and you want to close that door I suggest you just tell him "We are not going to discuss this again unless I change my mind." If that ends your friendship then so be it, I know that may suck but sometimes it just has to be that way.
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RE: Pascal's Wager and the Selfishness of a "Good God"
April 16, 2012 at 1:52 am
(April 15, 2012 at 11:24 pm)darkment0r Wrote: (April 15, 2012 at 11:13 pm)Minimalist Wrote: Never.
Religion is a poison.
Believe me, I agree it is a poison. I just see no way out of this impasse my friend and I have come to. He's been so manipulated by his friends. It was peer pressure, in my opinion. I really don't know how our friendship can survive this. He keeps driving the wedge between us even though I plead for him not to.
I can see only one good course of action - don't avoid the debate. Fundies aren't exactly known for new and groundbreaking arguments. Pretty soon either your friendship would be over or he'd be the one saying that he doesn't care to discuss it. Remember that you are not fighting save your friend here - that's a battle only he can choose. You are fighting to save your friendship and for that, it must be worth saving.
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RE: Pascal's Wager and the Selfishness of a "Good God"
April 16, 2012 at 6:06 am
(April 15, 2012 at 10:34 pm)darkment0r Wrote: Wouldn't you rather be wrong about God existing and done all of his work and be a good person, than to not done any of his good work and be wrong?
Ask him when he is planning to convert to Islam based on this argument.
Self-authenticating private evidence is useless, because it is indistinguishable from the illusion of it. ― Kel, Kelosophy Blog
If you’re going to watch tele, you should watch Scooby Doo. That show was so cool because every time there’s a church with a ghoul, or a ghost in a school. They looked beneath the mask and what was inside?
The f**king janitor or the dude who runs the waterslide. Throughout history every mystery. Ever solved has turned out to be. Not Magic. ― Tim Minchin, Storm
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RE: Pascal's Wager and the Selfishness of a "Good God"
April 16, 2012 at 9:27 am
(April 15, 2012 at 10:34 pm)darkment0r Wrote: Sorry guys, need to go on a bit of a tangent here...
One of my few close friends is a "born-again" Christian. Which many of you know to be by far the most pressing types of theists. They cannot help themselves from spreading their new found faith even if, me for example, tells him, "No. I'd rather not discuss this." Yet he keeps the attempts at conversion coming. He used what is commonly known as Pascals Wager on me. Which goes a little bit something like this:
Wouldn't you rather be wrong about God existing and done all of his work and be a good person, than to not done any of his good work and be wrong?
First of all, that argument is used on children to scare them. Not an intellectually sound 18 year old person. I don't want to claim myself as a genius, but I am very aware of the world around me. I tell him often that I am a good person. I try to live life with morals and to treat others as I wish to be treated. He replies with, "God is selfish. If you do any of those good deeds without saying you are doing them for Him, then they don't count." That blew me away. How could someone succumb to such idiocracy? It made me very upset to hear that no matter what, if somehow all of this very easily disputed ridiculous religion is true, that someone who believes the world is 10000 years old and everything else the bible says, will get into heaven over someone who lived a very moral and decent life, but didn't believe in the bible.
God gave us free will. So we have the freedom to not believe his word. Even though he has no word.
In the beginning man created god. Many men and women just choose to believe the opposite.
This is a variation on Pascal's Wager.
Blaise Pascal was himself not a Christian and believed that the benefits of believing in god far outweighed the benefits of not believing in god. Pascal was an agnostic and thought god's existence was unprovable. His argument in a word, was that someone should choose to believe in god because it significantly enriches one's life despite the fact that it cannot be "known" only "believed".
Christian version (the "what if you're wrong" argument) states if you believe in god, they always mean their god, and you are wrong then you have wasted nothing and gained the comfort and structure of living a religious life. On the other hand, if you don't believe in god and you are wrong you end up going to hell and missing out on the "wonders" of Christianity.
There are two big problems with this argument:
1) Try to force yourself to believe something that you simply know is untrue for the sole purpose of comforting yourself. I would love to believe in Santa but it's simply not a logical belief. Same with god.
2) Christians always assume that their religion is the only and obvious choice. What if you are wrong about Zeus, Odin, Ahura Mazda, Allah, Kali, etc... By believing one religion you necessarily have the potential to be wrong about every other religion and end up in one of their hells. Plus believing just to cover one's own ass is horrifically disingenuine and certainly an all-knowing god would know whether you were believing just to stay out of hell.
"A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything." -Friedrich Nietzsche
"All thinking men are atheists." -Ernest Hemmingway
"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities." -Voltaire
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