Fine tuned universe

[Svartalf]

Pascal's wager assumes that the god or gods in question can be fooled by a mere mortal. Still not impressed.

Pascal's Wager is a product of the prejudiced assumption that it doesn't apply to every one of the 10,000-odd gods that were ever worshiped, and/or that belief in some general "God" will suffice to avoid post-death catastrophe. What a lot of people forget is that belief in the wrong god isn't any better, according to many religions, than belief in none at all.

You still have the basic concept, "I'll lie about having faith, God won't spot that."

Yep. Seth tries to fix that by saying that if you pretend hard enough, you'll eventually convince yourself that what you were faking before is actually true. I.e. god wants people to brainwash themselves.

Technically, That's indeed the whole point of the Wager... self brain washing through going through the motions until you actually believe it, all for your own good.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Pascal's wager assumes that the god or gods in question can be fooled by a mere mortal. Still not impressed.

Pascal's Wager is a product of the prejudiced assumption that it doesn't apply to every one of the 10,000-odd gods that were ever worshiped, and/or that belief in some general "God" will suffice to avoid post-death catastrophe. What a lot of people forget is that belief in the wrong god isn't any better, according to many religions, than belief in none at all.

You still have the basic concept, "I'll lie about having faith, God won't spot that."

Yep. Seth tries to fix that by saying that if you pretend hard enough, you'll eventually convince yourself that what you were faking before is actually true. I.e. god wants people to brainwash themselves.

"Lying long enough, loud enough, and you'll get into Heaven." Yeah, I can see where he would buy that.

[Brian Peacock]

... If one truly believes in God (whether it's a delusion or not) then obedience to God is not irrational or crazy, it's the only really sane thing to do, given the ultimate consequences.

But how would one ever know what God wanted us to do because, as you suggested, Her motivations and purposes are unknowable and a presumption of knowledge would be a flawed and arrogant conceit?

[Gawdzilla Sama]

And we have that old "duck and shuffle".

God doesn't manifest himself because it would take away our free will.

Then Xtians pray for divine intervention.

[Brian Peacock]

I think if one is going to take Pascal's Wager then one has to place an equal bet on all deities and other supernatural controlling and intentioning agents.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I think if one is going to take Pascal's Wager then one has to place an equal bet on all deities and other supernatural controlling and intentioning agents.

But there's only one True God.

[Brian Peacock]

I think if one is going to take Pascal's Wager then one has to place an equal bet on all deities and other supernatural controlling and intentioning agents.

But there's only one True God.

Indeed. As every officiate, votary, and sincere adherent of any religion will tell us - their own.

[Seth]

Pascal's wager assumes that the god or gods in question can be fooled by a mere mortal. Still not impressed.

Pascal's Wager is a product of the prejudiced assumption that it doesn't apply to every one of the 10,000-odd gods that were ever worshiped, and/or that belief in some general "God" will suffice to avoid post-death catastrophe. What a lot of people forget is that belief in the wrong god isn't any better, according to many religions, than belief in none at all.

You still have the basic concept, "I'll lie about having faith, God won't spot that."

Not really. It's "I'll pretend faith until my faith becomes real." God does not ask for perfect faith at all times, knowing as He does that humans are neither divine nor infallible (or so I'm told). If perfection of faith were the metric, no one would pass muster because everyone sins. That, I'm told, is precisely why Jesus was sent to be crucified...so as to redeem the sins of mankind that mankind was unable to avoid through imperfection.

[Tero]

If God really wanted to demonstrate his fine tuning, he would make pi=3.0. I would be impressed.

[Seth]

If God really wanted to demonstrate his fine tuning, he would make pi=3.0. I would be impressed.

It is equal to 3.0 where God lives. He just changed it in this universe to piss mathematicians off.

[Audley Strange]

Pascal's wager assumes that the god or gods in question can be fooled by a mere mortal. Still not impressed.

Pascal's Wager is a product of the prejudiced assumption that it doesn't apply to every one of the 10,000-odd gods that were ever worshiped, and/or that belief in some general "God" will suffice to avoid post-death catastrophe. What a lot of people forget is that belief in the wrong god isn't any better, according to many religions, than belief in none at all.

You still have the basic concept, "I'll lie about having faith, God won't spot that."

Not really. It's "I'll pretend faith until my faith becomes real." God does not ask for perfect faith at all times, knowing as He does that humans are neither divine nor infallible (or so I'm told). If perfection of faith were the metric, no one would pass muster because everyone sins. That, I'm told, is precisely why Jesus was sent to be crucified...so as to redeem the sins of mankind that mankind was unable to avoid through imperfection.

Yes right on the money with that. Which has always been obvious to me, but it seems those who believe it, don't actually get it.

It is simple.

The god made us ignorant.

It told us not to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. At this point we don't know the difference, so how could we understand disobedience?

The god gets all uppity about our lack of obedience (remember it claims to have created us) claims original sin (its flaw) and then punishes the shit out of us, drownings, acts of international terrorism, destabilising tribal truces, black ops genocide and psychological warfare against its own creations.

Then a long time later it manifests in human form, a field trip just to see how bad we have become, to see if it can communicate its thoughts with us.

It is incoherent and antagonistic as usual.

It gets rounded up by empire and executed. It's judgement?

It forgives us. We know not what we do. The original sin is absolved.

The fucker died for it own sins. We're still ignorant. It's happy with that. No more interference in monkey affairs.

Any other interpretation is just lateral thinking and a sub/dom fetish.

The end.


Ergo. No more miracles, no more interference, no Fatima.

[MrFungus420]

The fine-tuning argument is a complete nonstarter. An omnipotent god could create life to exist under any circumstances eliminating any need for any fine-tuning.

As far as the claim that giving us the knowledge of a god's existence taking away our free-will, that is also a nonstarter for any of the Abrahamic religions because Satan has absolute knowledge of God's existence and willfully goes against God.

[Svartalf]

I think if one is going to take Pascal's Wager then one has to place an equal bet on all deities and other supernatural controlling and intentioning agents.

But there's only one True God.

But are you going to worship him as a Catholic? Calvinist? Puritan? Presbyterian? Lutheran? Copt?

[Svartalf]

The fine-tuning argument is a complete nonstarter. An omnipotent god could create life to exist under any circumstances eliminating any need for any fine-tuning.

As far as the claim that giving us the knowledge of a god's existence taking away our free-will, that is also a nonstarter for any of the Abrahamic religions because Satan has absolute knowledge of God's existence and willfully goes against God.

Actually... NOT

I don't know where stories of the fall and some guy revolting to become a principle of evil come from.

But in my bible readings, I never saw any presence of Satan except as a guy well established in the Divine hierarchy, and whose evil shenanigans were not done against the divine will, but were his actual job.
(which makes the whole temptation in the desert episode extra funny if you believe that Jesus was divine in essence, because honestly, how do you believe that Satan is going to tempt Dog?)

[Coito ergo sum]

... If one truly believes in God (whether it's a delusion or not) then obedience to God is not irrational or crazy, it's the only really sane thing to do, given the ultimate consequences.

But how would one ever know what God wanted us to do because, as you suggested, Her motivations and purposes are unknowable and a presumption of knowledge would be a flawed and arrogant conceit?

I suppose it's just as reasonable to surmise that whatever gods exist desire to NOT be believed in. It seems to be taken as a given that gods want to be believed in.