ImTheCaptain
I disagree with you
I married ISIS
on the fifth day of May
on the fifth day of May
For the sake of argument, couldn't I just go shoot up "insert place here", and right before I'm doing it call 911 and say it was for the Christian God?
That doesn't mean it was my real intent. Obviously I just wanted to kill Frank, the sleaze bag who stole my girlfriend 14 years ago.
I just took a shit in the office bathroom that I am pretty sure severely injured a guy from accounting's olfactory glands. As I pinched it off, I said "This is for Allah."
Am I a terrorist?
Religion in itself is inherently illogical in the sense that it is based in faith.
I agree that given the choice between "believing" and "not believing" you should always "believe" from a pure risk/reward standpoint. There is no loss if you believe and there is nothing there, whereas there is great loss if you do not believe and are eternally damned.
That seems to leave out the notion of "intent" behind the belief, which an omnipotent God would most certainly be able to sort out.
If I wanted to believe as much as I could, but I just can't get past the lack of any information backing a supernatural being, then that will not be sufficient to avoid the eternal damnation would it?
I don't buy Pascal's defense to that---if the wager is truly valid then you are unable to rationally believe there is no god---as it is circular logic at its finest.
You should re-read Pascal. He addresses this explicitly.
For the sake of argument, couldn't I just go shoot up "insert place here", and right before I'm doing it call 911 and say it was for the Christian God?
That doesn't mean it was my real intent. Obviously I just wanted to kill Frank, the sleaze bag who stole my girlfriend 14 years ago.
I remember everything quite fine from my philosophy classes. Just excuse he "addresses (it) explicitly" does not mean that I can disagree with his assessment of the situation at hand.
That's a pretty big one to overcome, and I don't think he successfully does it.
Also, and I don't remember this as well, but a pretty big refutation to this Wager overall is the fact that it's not necessarily a binary choice.
If it was just "yes" there is a God (and you are eternally damned for not believing), or "no" there is not a God (and there is no afterlife period, so it doesn't matter), then it would make it a much simple scenario. As is, there are hundreds, if not thousands of different Gods/religions/worships patterns/belief systems. From a pure statistical standpoint, the notion that we are believing in the "right" one is astronomically small. Just because a lot of people believe in the Christian God doesn't make it any more likely to be the CORRECT choice than, say, Shintoism.
This is a good discussion, I'll need to go back and read some of the books I kept from Wake on it. A lot of good arguments and refutations on both sides.
If your memory is fine, then you lacked understanding from the start.
His answer to your objection is that if you can't believe, then act as if you do--read the bible, go to church, participate fully in a believer's life--and your acts will cure you of your disbelief.
That sort of attempt to justify and quantify his beliefs with various labels of levels seems like a religion in itself. If you don't believe in something then you don't believe in it, and that should be the end of it. I don't believe in flying unicorns, and that's it, no further explanation needed. It sounds like he is just trying to backdoor a win in case he is wrong. He sounds like a pussy.
Right, but that doesn't constitute "belief". Nor is it just as easy as "doing" it, in the sense that it requires a lot of time spent that could be utilized in another manner. That to me, does not in the least constitute steadfast belief in something, nor does it increase the likelihood that I will be come a "true believer".
Once again, just because he "addressed" it doesn't mean that I am obligated to trust his logic fully.
Thank you for your snide concern about my apparent lack of understanding on this topic though. We can probably discuss without the notion of superiority if you really wish to engage in a fruitful discussion.
That's a fair request. I'd ask you to do the same, and not just about religion, but in your posts more generally.
"poorly educated"
LOL That's not too condescending.
That was a joke.
But I think you meant it. That's how you see Trump supporters.