Posted on 04/17/2005 3:15:49 PM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
Vishnu did not exist. Jesus Christ did.
Jesus Christ existed according to Christian Scripture. Vishnu existed (or exists) according to Hindu Scripture.
I've had this discussion with others but I'll extend my thoughts to this one. To deny that something exists doesn't require faith. Denial of anything is a refusal to grant the truth. One can state the denial of something through many paths including rational discourse and ignorance.
An agnostic can be either an atheist or a theist. One can have faith in a deity and still acknowledge that it is impossible to know of the deity's existence. Likewise, an atheist, through whatever paths of denial, can still acknowledge that it is impossible to prove that God doesn't exist. Some people might say "Ah-ha, so isn't denying something you can't prove a leap of faith?" To which my answer is absolutely not. Denial is not accepting something to be true, and for different people the conditions for acceptance of truth can be limited or rigorous.
If I believe in the wrong god, I have lost everything. The wager fails right there with a false dilemma.
Why do you exclude "nature of god" challenges? The wager assumes many natures of god, and the Wager fails if any of any one of these natures is challenged. The Wager can survive in the context of many narrowly-defined parameters, but in the real world it dies a quick death.
By the rules of logic, a creator exists before a creation and is, therefore, not bound the nature or limitations of his creation.
Whose creation was God created in? As I thought, you solve it by defining god as you wish. It's nice to be able to make the rules, isn't it? But your god does have a creator, the Invisible Pink Unicorn (PBUHH) created him by waving Her horn. That is Her nature, existing before She created time or even the concept of existence, then She created all other gods. Logic says She needs no creator.
What evidence leads you to believe in the Pink Unicorn?
A conscious creator doesn't derive from a distinct beginning, but from the existnece of conscious-ness in the effect. The thunderbolts aren't conscious, so of course their antecedent doesn't need to be conscious. If they were, then conscious-ness would exist antecedent to the bolts. The effect cannot be greater than the cause.
After that, of course we argue incessantly about what, exactly, consciousness is and whether it can arise by natural forces only. Much of this argument is semantics. Define consciousness or any other quality you consider the essence of personhood any way you like; that thing you define must have come from somewhere, so it must have existed in the antecedent, in some form.
You can call that antecedent anything you like -- "nature", "the primordial hyperdensity", etc. And you can say, if you like, that there was nothing before this thing. You're now writing a creed. (We say there is one person who did not come from something else. This is a creed.)
Or, if you like, you can say there was no beginning, that physical reality simply stretches infinitely back into time -- and of course, space and time break down -- and you are now just writing a creed. Just substitute the word "god" for the word "hyperdensity" (or whatever term is fashionable this milennium) and be done with it.
Pascal is not making a metaphysical argument. He is making a WAGER. And a wager is nothing if not a set of unique facts.
Pascal's wager only takes force from his word "God", and the background he (the wagerer) brought to the word. You don't have to believe in his "God", but you can't evaluate the wager aside from his specific hypothesis containing specific unique facts. And if you throw out the implied content of the wager, then evaluate the wager with your own content, you change the wager, and bury your own premise in your analysis in a classic petitio principi fallacy.
Pascal's wager is equally applicable to those other gods only to the degree they (hypothetically) hold one accountable for believing in Him. Pascal's "God" and his hypothetical method of evaluating human lives and punishing disbelief is precisely what creates the cost of erring in the wager, and so is intrinsic to the wager.
It is not meant to be a proof of anything.
You could create a similar wager for Odin, and it would have to be evaluated independently, ascribing to the hypothetical deity the QUALITIES NOT OF JEHOVAH BUT OF ODIN. Again, it is not a proof of a deity's existence; it is an introduction to a relative cost analysis.
It's amazing to me the people who dismiss Pascal on this one point without ever understanding what PRECISE logical exercise he was doing. I think he was just smarter than all of you.
You have used "atheist" in debate in a way that only uses one half of this definition. The other definition, according to "disbelieve" can be what you classify as agnostic. "Disbelief" can mean simple refusal to believe or to withhold belief, not necessarily deny.
You might want to use the terms used in atheist circles. A "hard atheist" is one who makes the positive proposition that there are no gods. A "soft atheist" is one who simply does not accept the positive propositions of divine existence.
LOL, good points.
Not much different in some ways. They both think nothing makes any difference in the end.
Nah. An atheist sees no evidence to support the idea of a god so they don't believe. It's like ghosts or UFO's. You either believe or you don't.
Many atheists today are simply "anti-theists". The concept of God is irrelevant. They just argue against theists. The vast majority of them are anti-Christians.
We have a "Freethinkers Club" on campus. 99% of their activity is arguing against Christianity.
She touched me with Her Most Holy Horn one night when I was in despair and it raised my spirits and made me a believer. It was only then that I realized Her, and could tell that although invisible, She is indeed pink.
Now let's all give thanks to the Invisible Pink Unicorn (Peace Be Upon Her Hooves), and hope to one day join Her in Her Divine Pastures. All who reject Her will spend an eternity scooping up the Most Holy Road Apples.
Like the little Islam dig with PBUHH? ;^)
Then you're safe either way. But you won't know that till the end, looking back.
Really, you just don't undersatnd Pascal.
OK.
And I thought the Scientologists were nutty.
Except that this didn't really happen, did it?
...understand him, either.
Immoral? Evil? There is no right or wrong, only actions and consequences.
I sincerely hope you and your fellow theists eventually reach the point where you realize that your god is no more real than Zeus or Ra.
Why would that matter to you?
I stand firm and do not disagree with your definitions. You saved me the leg work actually. Look at the definition of Agnostic that you posted.
One who believes that it is impossible to know whether there is a God.
Notice the word "faith" is not in that definition. One can have faith in the existence of something without having tangible evidence or knowledge of the object of faith. Faith is a belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence. A person can also be skeptical regarding their faith and still affirm that what they believe is true until such time that they decide is not true. In this manner, a person can be both an agnostic and a aheist/atheist. As for your retort to my statement on truth, I think you missed the point. I'm not arguing the nature of truth as Socrates did. I’m stating that denial of something is based on a person's acceptance of what they believe to be true. Whether their perception of truth is correct or not is inconsequential to the fact that people make denials based on their perceptions.
Dave's off his nut. There is no way to prove that God doesn't exist. A person can only say they believe or disbelieve. Note: Saying there MIGHT be a god is basically the same as saying "I don't believe there is a God".
Most of them are looking for validation of their choices.
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