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islam

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.
 
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.

Who is Frank and why'd you lose your girl to him?
 
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?

Nobody thinks your office has plumbing.
 
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.
 
You should re-read Pascal. He addresses this explicitly.

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.
 
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.

Exactly. And if your dad hated gays and you were a gay and you were killing some gays whom you really wanted to bang, wouldn't it be better for your dad to think it was for God?

I don't want to excuse radical terrorists for their crimes at all. I hate those motherfuckers. But I don't want just any asshole who says its for ISIS to count. ARen't you interested in the truth? I call bullshit, I think the guy was covering his gayness.

The difference is the response. You people WANT this to be about ISIS, so you can go through your Muslim is a huge problem ruminations and call for more bombing or bans on Muslim immigration. I guess. Or something. I don't know. I have no idea why it must be labelled am ISIS attack. why again?
 
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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.
 
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.

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.
 
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.

always makes me think if this clip:

 
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.

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 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.

Please prove that "flying unicorns" don't exist. Once you have you'll be a 7.0 "flying unicorn atheist" until you've proved it with certainty, you are, at best, 6.9.

Lack of evidence that something does not exist is not conclusive that the thing truly doesn't exist. However, if you are talking probabilisticly, lack of evidence can mean that the thing probably does not exist. Atheists have looked at the evidence and concluded that god does not exist with very (extremely) high probability. There is nothing vaginal about it, it is simply how evidence and knowledge accumulation works. Pascal's wager is for those who's assessment of the probability is less than high, that's where the "pussy" label seems apropos.
 
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.
 
That's a fair request. I'd ask you to do the same, and not just about religion, but in your posts more generally.

I didn't realize I came across that way, I apologize.

One issue is I get really worked up over Trump, guns, and religion (so basically Southerners/poorly educated), and those have been in the media a lot lately, so that's probably providing a large dose of my snarkiness lately.
 
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