people believe in god because it gives them comfort thinking they'll go to a better place when they die. it's an anxiety factor

as well, chrstians most likely wouldnt go around making assumptions about why some scientists reject the idea of a diety, like many athiests do concening why the religious believe in a god/gods.



This post was edited by Ylem122 on Nov 25 2012 01:16pm

Well, it seems you have life all summed up. Congrats!



Sarcasm aside, it's called faith. We "Christians" know that we don't know everything. We know there are things out there that are beyond any human capability to understand, things even the almighty YOU can't understand. Yeah, science can find out facts about life, and that's a good thing because we wouldn't be here in this thread without science. But, some people have this faith in God that trumps human understanding.

hahaha i have a hard time living with myself actually. the ideas i mentioned don't really sit well with me, but i'm not sure where to turn, being someone who requires proof in exchange for my loyalty to an idea. I've had a hard time making up my mind.



well sir that seems a tad bit biased since you're either leaving out a little bit of information or just unaware... I guess that's my fault for not informing you.

first and foremost i should announce that i do not fall into any particular sect of religion. I am simply saying that I am refraining from believing that there is simply nothing spiritual about our universe.

I guess if you like labels you could call me an agnostic, but I'd rather not live with the negative attributes associated with claiming that title. In any case, I am simply a believer.

Let's look at the two scenarios you presented me with.

there is a.) i believe in the religion i am endowed with because of my geographic circumstances, or b.) i choose to not believe in any religion.

i feel like I should point out that I am going to hell in a hundred religions, possibly more, regardless of a) or b). in fact, the act of existing causes one to go to hell in a hundred religions. kind of defeating to believe, so i simply choose not to. I use the term believe very loosely here, due to the fact that there is no way to prove or disprove any one of these fickle hundred religions.

in either case, i am in fact a fan of pascal's wager, although the addition of the hundred religions upsets the grounds of ceteris paribus that I was using to make my claims, so I'll have to work with it. factoring in the hundred religions changes the two possibilities to two outcomes: either a.) you believe in SOMETHING, and you MIGHT win, or b.) you believe in nothing, and you DEFINITELY wont win.

kinda like that old marksman's saying.. you miss 100% of the shots you don't take. Only, you can't just go around trying on religions until you've tried all of them, hoping the said deity that actually exists will see you've tried his on and think, OK, that's good enough! Or can you? idk, a topic for another time.

This post was edited by Rejection on Nov 27 2012 11:04pm

The only way we can be sure Pascal's wager is a good wager is if there is zero cost in believing. If there is a non-zero cost (no matter how trivial) then it may or may not be a good wager (we would need to assign numbers to the rewards, probabilities, and costs to find out if it is a good wager and this information does not seem available).

Posting in a Life of Pi thread c

This is true, and although there is no way to know for sure, we can only assume that in the said religion's eyes, not believing in anything is the same thing as believing in a different religion than the said religion.

The "non-zero cost of belief" means anything you sacrifice as a part of your religion. If you want to have meaningless sex but give it up for your religion, that's a cost. If you donate 10% of your income in tithes, that's a cost. If you hate waking up early on Sundays but do it anyway, that's a cost (because honestly, everyone can name something they could do with an extra three hours or so on a weekend). It doesn't describe the "What If I Choose Incorrectly?" scenario.

This post was edited by bentherdonethat on Nov 29 2012 06:38am

OHH, I get it. You're saying the flaw in pascal's wager is that you actually do lose things by believing (e.g. the examples you used). Hmm well yes I agree then.

I guess in that case it's just a judgment call. Personally I believe that everyone should follow a religion that coincides with their own moral compass, even if they have to branch out into a different sect.

I mean think about it, if you have what you think is right and wrong, and you're part of a religion that believes differently than what you think is right and wrong, then it kind of defeats the purpose..

You're doing the "right" thing for the wrong reasons (just to get into "heaven"), which to me is no better than doing the wrong thing, as far as being judged for entry.

For example, your first example was having meaningless sex. I do not think that having meaningless sex is wrong or immoral in any way, and if I were to abstain from doing so solely for the purposes of gaining entry into heaven because a religion says so, I'd only be abstaining out of fear of going to hell, which is in my opinion an awful reason.

So I guess in conclusion, there isn't just a hundred+ religions, there's billions - one for every person out there and for ever person who has and will have existed. Everyone has what they think is wrong and right. I believe that if you try to avoid doing what you perceive to be wrong yourself, then the deity that does happen to be out there, if there is one, wouldn't mind letting you into "heaven", should such a place exist