Xamonas Chegwé wrote:Lion IRC wrote:I'm not a fan of Pascal's Wager for a couple of reasons but it does come with a side order of better health / longevity.
Natural selection?
Also, Xamonas Chegwé, you are assuming that the merciful deity punishes people who merely got the name wrong and who had the intention of honoring God to the best of their understanding or their parents understanding etc, etc.
I have a lot of time for agnostics and people of little or no faith and I enjoy debating theology with other religionists.
But anti-theists really get my attention because so many of them rather arrogantly demand proof that their existence is not the consequence of a Higher Being's will and who (by theological reckoning) is NOT actually obliged to do anything.
I sat down once and spent 3 hours trying to explain to a cockroach who I was and how powerful I was and how much I knew about the other side of this planet called earth because I've seen it and how there is so much more to the universe than cockroaches can possibly imagine.
You know what?
That cockroach acted as though I wasn't even there. Maybe it was a pantheist or deist cockroach. Maybe it didn't "detect" me clearly enough.
Lion (IRC)
This is not an answer to my post. I honestly can't even follow it. It lacks coherence and any kind of logical narrative,
Perhaps it made sense when you originally posted it over at RS. I would like to see if that is the case. Rachel, can you give me a link, please?
Hi Xamonas Chegwé
Just so we are clear, my response to your “
what if you're wrong and the muslims / Sikhs / scientologists / hindus are right” was about a divine being -
Jake perhaps? - rewarding people who (at least)
intended to worship a manifestation of
Jake but innocently got the name and details wrong. Of all the people living in “
Jakes shack”, the ones he would be
most displeased with are those who go about saying
there are NO manifestations of Jake. Pascals Wager does
NOT originate
from any single branch of theism – all of which can regarded as being at least partly true. Instead Pascals Wager is directed
solely at atheists. So in my opinion you are giving bad advice to Bolero to equate atheists with muslims / Sikhs / scientologists / hindus and obfuscate the argument. If Bolero took your advice she would be challenged in this way very quickly.
I use the cockroach analogy often. I have mentioned Pascals Wager elsewhere too. Hope that’s not a problem.
I’m not sure how it helps rachelsinatra to accuse guests of “
pretending to offer an opinion” (disingenuous / troll / intellectual dishonesty /derail attempt / you’re stupid nah nah nah / etc). Isn’t it easier to simply say, I disagree with you because………… --->
insert, you know, like, an ACTUAL argument here<---
But I take my hat off to rachelsinatra for that photographic memory of peoples’ posts. I wonder about people who commit every post on rationalskepticism to memory and only wish it was all about me and my posts being the center of attention but I suspect other theists get similar attention.
Since you yourself admit to having difficulty following my cockroach post, here is how to join the dots.
1. Bolero asks everyone (not just people who dislike cockroach analogies) for comments on Pascals Wager.
2. Pascal’s Wager is directed at people who won’t accept God/afterlife/soul without proof of a very, very, very specific kind.
3. The cockroach analogy is apropos because a) they cannot make demands for proof on a higher being, b) they might not understand the proof anyway, c) they have nothing to lose in the wager.
4. Accepting Pascals Wager is a valid choice for people who might think their “God antenna” is broken and want to try theism (and it’s health benefits) just once before they die.
Lion (IRC)
