patrick.net

I can't remember that many people around here declaring their atheism. Any links?

Do I wish there was a god, sure. I'm pragmatic though. There's no evidence of a god existing. Humans take from each other and that's all religion is. I'm okay just being moral and a good person on my own without pissing away money to child diddlers.

The Catholic church could feed the word for decades and maybe a century by selling their assets. Certainly God would approve of that. They don't and won't. They hide from their past errors. To me that's not moral, so therefore I cannot be religious. Any religion. Not just picking on Catholics. They probably have done less evil than most other religions.

Reality is we're animals. Not a knock on anyone here, but you'd have to believe that dogs, cats and squirrels go to heaven as well. No one believes that happens if they're sane. You die and go to a dirt grave, get burned or rot somewhere. If there is an afterlife, I'll be accepted as I'm not a piece of shit human. So I don't really worry about it and I'm not forking over money to kid diddlers or terrorist if I were to be muslim.

I don’t know about the Pascal wager.
God is a concept invented by man, as is religion.

Pascal's Wager is just a preposterous as saying you wager your life by not getting the jab.

Waitup says

lot of atheists on this forum

When was that ... ever the case?

Some can believe in an ultimate source of the universe, but not label it as some old man with a bread, like the New Hampshire rock formation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Man_of_the_Mountain

Basically, this guy ...

I'm not an atheist, I am agnostic. I can't know if God exists. I can't know which of thousands of religions is more correct IF God exists. I can't know anything about God even if he exists.

If a follower of a particular religion thinks that his religion is correct while others are not, then he is self-centered and delusional. Who are members of the CORRECT religion, Eastern Orthodox? Catholic? Judaic? Muslim? Buddhist? Hinduist? Greco-Roman religion? Mithra followers? Zoroastrians? Mormons? Scientologists? Raelians? etc etc etc

About Pascal's wager, how many religious people stick to rules of their religion? Which religion should it be? Too many unknowns for a wager.

Waitup says

I've always wondered how an atheist resolves the dilemma presented by Pascal's wager

Pascal's wager is basically "you have nothing to risk!" - I think generally people recognize this is not true.

Consider the Christian religion in which Satan is said to be the "King of All Lies" - well, in the Bible - name the most evil thing that Satan has done? Give me chapter and verse. How do you know, that Satan isn't the God depicted in the Bible, and God is cast as Satan? How do you know the Bible isn't just one monumental lie CREATED by the King of Lies? God arranged to have his son tortured and murdered - the most powerful being in the universe, decided to have his son murdered. In the Bible, God killed every man, woman, child, fetus, kitten, and puppy in a great flood except for a handful of life forms. He tortured Job just to prove a point. Lot's wife was turned into a pillar of salt just for taking a glance back.

Now the most evil thing Satan did, as far as I know, was to tempt Jesus to turn against what might be an insane being.

You're mistaken if you think most atheists haven't thought quite a bit about the religion. Morality is a difficult question, but it seems to be possibly answered in evolutionary psychology to me. It's rather beautiful in that morality may be a basic force of nature and it's not just limited to people, but into animal subgroups as well, and it's iterative. It's improves over time. There is something that seems divine in the nature of reality. When you really really dig down into it, you end up with marvelous simple mechanisms that do incredibly complicated things. Game theory is intensely interesting - in game theory you can arrange a system that in which two people compete they end up BOTH being hurt, but when they cooperate, they are both advantaged. I suspect that generally cooperation benefits everybody we just don't understand how it does, so we don't understand why it's better for us to all cooperate.

I have often thought that Christians are stagnant at best, and at worst, are worshiping an entity (that may or may not exist) which is dreadfully immoral. Pascal's wager is a blind bet among thousands of bets of dead religions. Maybe the Roman's were right, and the One True Religion (TM) is the mythology that died out centuries ago. Maybe that's why the Roman Empire perished. Maybe we'll all meet up in Hades at some point at the River Styx.

I view Pascal's Wager as a threat. It's as meaningful to me as a Muslim or Hindu saying "agree with my religion or you'll regret it for eternity". IF there is a god, it may be somewhat knowable, but I doubt it's within our comprehension or any man's comprehension. Maybe an animal as an innate sense of it. We have thinking, logic, and sentience - and it fucks it all up.

Waitup says

I've always wondered how an atheist resolves the dilemma presented by Pascal's wager

Pascal's Wager contains numerous assumptions and presuppositions with which I do not readily agree.

"God is, or God is not. Reason cannot decide between the two alternatives." Already problematic, for it does not DEFINE God. God as religions describe him, or God-but-something-different?

"A Game is being played... where heads or tails will turn up." As above, this is not a simple binary in the absence of an agreed-upon definition

"You must wager (it is not optional)" Fuck you then. Find another rube to wager on undefined outcomes!

"Let us weigh the gain and the loss in wagering that God is. Let us estimate these two chances. If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing" IF.

"Wager, then, without hesitation that He is. (...) There is here an infinity of an infinitely happy life to gain, a chance of gain against a finite number of chances of loss, and what you stake is finite. And so our proposition is of infinite force when there is the finite to stake in a game where there are equal risks of gain and of loss, and the infinite to gain." 1000% gain of nothing is still nothing. Again, working from an unagreed-upon definition of what God is and how He moves.

"But some cannot believe. They should then 'at least learn your inability to believe... and 'Endeavour then to convince' themselves." I consider my "inability to believe" a FEATURE, not a flaw, of a scientifically trained mind.

Bottom line, Pascal's Dilemma is not even a dilemma to people who are comfortable with the case that no god exists.

I consider religion one of the bluest pills mankind ever invented. It's a tool that's very useful in harnessing people to work for elites' interests even against their own.

richwicks says

Pascal's wager is basically "you have nothing to risk!" - I think generally people recognize this is not being true.

Opportunity cost is HUGE with religion. I have shit to do on Sunday mornings!

Rather than Pascal’s wager, the more grave concern would be the rich man’s wager. You see he didn’t believe that he needed a savior until it was too late. And by then he even lost the opportunity to warn his brothers of their need.

Luke 16:19-31
King James Version
19 There was a certain rich man, which was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day:

20 And there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, which was laid at his gate, full of sores,

21 And desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man's table: moreover the dogs came and licked his sores.

22 And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom: the rich man also died, and was buried;

23 And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom.

24 And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame.

25 But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented.

26 And beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence.

27 Then he said, I pray thee therefore, father, that thou wouldest send him to my father's house:

28 For I have five brethren; that he may testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of torment.

29 Abraham saith unto him, They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.

30 And he said, Nay, father Abraham: but if one went unto them from the dead, they will repent.

31 And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.

PeopleUnited says

Rather than Pascal’s wager, the more grave concern would be the rich man’s wager.

Ah, redemption from good works. That's another thing I've had a problem with in evangelical Christianity, redemption isn't found through simply good works or even any good works at all, it's only found on faith in Jesus as being the messiah.

I was raised Catholic so I was taught in my younger days that redemption was reached through good works and faith. I abandoned the idea that faith would have to be a part of it because the world was predominately non Christian. When I questioned Baptists and Evangelicals about what I thought was a paradox to me, they explained "well, everybody has heard of Jesus - everywhere on all the planet" and that chipped a long way into any remaining faith I had left. People were delusional to believe that. If it was true that redemption was only gained through faith alone, that meant a good portion of the world was condemned to Hell, through absolutely no fault of their own.

15 years ago I'd have a jolly old time testing your faith this way. Today I prefer not to do it other than to demonstrate my early thinking in my evolution or decline into what is BASICALLY atheism. It's weird, I was a strident atheist once today.. It's difficult to explain. I've said if there's a god it's unknowable to a human being and I think I have some evidence that any society must evolve to morality as well. I have some belief it does anyhow.

Religion is a s* god is another s* created by pedos to take advantage of children and women (and boys and some men as we know lately) and most importantly to gain power and loot money.

I see that a lot of comments base their concept of whether God exists or not on their understanding of Christianity. I hope that people research at least all the major religions (from their sources) before coming to a conclusion. I guess that is the least one can do.

richwicks says

Ah, redemption from good works

No, the key point is this:

PeopleUnited says

27 Then he said, I pray thee therefore, father, that thou wouldest send him to my father's house:

28 For I have five brethren; that he may testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of torment.

29 Abraham saith unto him, They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.

30 And he said, Nay, father Abraham: but if one went unto them from the dead, they will repent.

31 And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.

richwicks says

You're mistaken if you think most atheists haven't thought quite a bit about the religio

Exactly! Conflating religion with Intelligent Design.

One brief remark about the Original Post then on off-topic segue into a rant about religion.

Atheists can be as obnoxious as those who aggressively proselytize their cults or religions.