Everyone goes to hell, right?

[aiki]

I am still waiting for someone to give evidence that free will exists.

You all liek to throw it around as if it ddoes exist.

Just just saying something does not make it so.

But this is true of you, too. Implying that free will does not exist (by asking for proof that it does) does not mean that it is so.

Selah.

 

[dcalling]

I agree.

No-one has come back from death.

But it would tell us about near death (the time between the ceasation of cardio-vascular and respiratory function and brain death). And that would be awesome.

I do love to wonder what happens in that time.

But it is just speculation (so, I do not take it seriously).

I will respect your decision. It will be awesome if someone can give funding to research this a bit more (instead of all the pork...)

 

[workmx]

I think you know you are trying to tweak Pascal's wager and adding words to it. Your previous one is at least within limits, this one is without evidence as you said.

The existence of all gods is without evidence.

So I can live with that.

It is an interesting proposition is it not though: an all encompasing pantheistic goddess who can save all because all other gods are a sub-set of her.

 

[workmx]

But this is true of you, too. Implying that free will does not exist (by asking for proof that it does) does not mean that it is so.

As it stands free will seems to be one of those unsolveable problems (like solipism).

I would love to know if free will exists.

The burden of proof is yours, so if you could help me out it would be great.

 

[dcalling]

The existence of all gods is without evidence.

So I can live with that.

It is an interesting proposition is it not though: an all encompasing pantheistic goddess who can save all because all other gods are a sub-set of her.

Have you studied the actual scripture and see what that goddess demands? Does those demands seems divine?

Also I got some official answers for the which version of the 6xx commandments should gentiles follow. Ayea Jay on the other thread said the following:

"Torah observant Jews will tell you that the 613 mitzvoth (laws) were given to the Hebrews only and Gentiles are not required to follow them. There are seven laws that were given to Noah for all people to follow, they are…

1.The prohibition of idolatry.
2.The prohibition of murder.
3.The prohibition of theft.
4.The prohibition of sexual immorality.
5.The prohibition of blasphemy.
6.The prohibition of eating flesh taken from an animal while it is still alive.
7.The requirement of maintaining courts to provide legal recourse."

Have not verified from the source yet.

 

[workmx]

I will respect your decision. It will be awesome if someone can give funding to research this a bit more (instead of all the pork...)

Yes. It would be great.

 

[catholichomeschooler]

I would love to know if free will exists.

The burden of proof is yours, so if you could help me out it would be great.

Maybe he doesn't want to....

 

[workmx]

Have you studied the actual scripture and see what that goddess demands? Does those demands seems divine?

Yeah - I have read a lot of Shinto and Japanese mythology, plus my family are Japanese. Although i was raised catholic.

Amaterasu is a low maintence goddess and makes few direct demands.

You could travel to the Ise Shrine for the once very 20 years ceremny to worship her.

Otherwise, just offer part of the first food of the day to her and pray by clapping your hands twice and bowing your head for a few seconds.

Also I got some official answers for the which version of the 6xx commandments should gentiles follow. Ayea Jay on the other thread said the following:

"Torah observant Jews will tell you that the 613 mitzvoth (laws) were given to the Hebrews only and Gentiles are not required to follow them. There are seven laws that were given to Noah for all people to follow, they are…

1.The prohibition of idolatry.
2.The prohibition of murder.
3.The prohibition of theft.
4.The prohibition of sexual immorality.
5.The prohibition of blasphemy.
6.The prohibition of eating flesh taken from an animal while it is still alive.
7.The requirement of maintaining courts to provide legal recourse."

Have not verified from the source yet.

Thanks.

 

[workmx]

Maybe he doesn't want to....

So, where there is no evidence for a claim we reject it, right?

That seems the rational thing to do.

 

[dcalling]

Yeah - I have read a lot of Shinto and Japanese mythology, plus my family are Japanese. Although i was raised catholic.

Amaterasu is a low maintence goddess and makes few direct demands.

You could travel to the Ise Shrine for the once very 20 years ceremny to worship her.

Otherwise, just offer part of the first food of the day to her and pray by clapping your hands twice and bowing your head for a few seconds.

Thanks for the information, that saved my time for investigation.

It is not easy to go to heaven, Jesus said that unless you are reborn from water and spirit you can't be saved. I would say food offerings and clapping hands will most likely not help me archive that goal.

 

[dcalling]

So, where there is no evidence for a claim we reject it, right?

That seems the rational thing to do.

Sometimes you can't reject something that has no evidence. For example do you have evidence that nothing can be faster than light?

 

[catholichomeschooler]

So, where there is no evidence for a claim we reject it, right?

That seems the rational thing to do.

Free will is obvious. You use it every day.

You are not a robot. Your actions are not predictable.

(I think you missed the joke, by the way)

 

[workmx]

Free will is obvious. You use it every day.

You are not a robot. Your actions are not predictable.

(I think you missed the joke, by the way)

No it is not.

 

[workmx]

Sometimes you can't reject something that has no evidence. For example do you have evidence that nothing can be faster than light?

You are right.

I was wrong.

I should have said:

Where there is no evidence for a claim we should withhold belief in it, right?

That seems the rational thing to do.

 

[dcalling]

You are right.
I was wrong.

Thank you, you are rational indeed

I should have said:

Where there is no evidence for a claim we should withhold belief in it, right?

That seems the rational thing to do.

Think about it this way. Many scientific theories were not proven when they are first published. String theory, or a better example, e=mc2, Einstein's theory of matter and energy was not confirmed some 30 years later. Should Einstein withhold his theory for 30 years?

We just had a discussion at the office a few days ago, about the phrase "Failure is not an option". We all agreed that that is wrong on so many levels, one of the biggest is that avoiding failure is the same of avoiding innovation.

 

[Joshua260]

Originally Posted by Joshua260

Maybe you should study the Pensees before speaking for Pascal.
​

I have. And as I said, his wager only works if we can prove that the christian god exists.

To be clear, I did not suggest that you just read up on Pascal's wager, which is so often taken out of it's intended context on so many atheist internet sites (I've seen quite a few on this subject, and I've never seen them get it right). Rather, I suggested that you read his work entitled the Pensees, in which he provides the context surrounding his offering of his wager. If you had, then you would no doubt know that he had already considered various evidences and logical arguments (including those ruling out other faiths as unreasonable) before coming to the point where he narrowed down his list of "reasonable faiths" to Christianity alone. Based on that foundation, he THEN began to offer his wager.

With all due respoect, you don't undestand it either. It is a 2x2 decision matrix. We now need a millions x two matrix.

We now know that millions of gods have been worshipped. So, we are left with the problem of which one to include in the wager. The best/quickest way to do this is to provide that one actually exists. Otherwise, in the current context, the wager is menaingless.

Further proof that you either did not read the Pensees, or you did not understand Pascal's argument. By the time he offered his wager, he had already ruled out all other faiths as being unreasonable.

You said in your last post that "Second-hand accounts are not trustworthy". I hope that means that you did not learn all you know about Pascal's wager just from some atheist internet sites. As I said above, I've never found one yet that represented Pascal's wager within it's intended context. Pascal's wager, taken within it's intended context of the Pensees, is actually a sound logical argument.

I know you don't believe, but let me try to troubleshoot the real problem I think you have with Pascal 's wager. I desire to do this because I've heard so many atheists trash Pascal's wager unfairly. I don't believe it's the wager itself that bothers them, but it all points back to the old evidence debate. You said yourself:

Pascal's wager, as I said, only works if we have evidence that the christain god exists.

First, remember that Pascal had performed his own research concerning evidences and philosophical arguments and had come to the conclusion (after ruling out all other faiths) that it was just as reasonable to believe in the Christian god as to not believe in the Christian god.

Secondly, he laid out the gains and losses of believing and being wrong, versus not believing and being wrong.

Then he came to the conclusion I paraphrased:
"Given that it is equally as reasonable to believe in the Christian god (as opposed to other faiths he ruled out for various reasons) or not, it is better to believe in the Christian god and be wrong than not to believe in the Christian god and be wrong."

So given the truth of 1 and 2, Pascal's conclusion is the logical result. The problem I believe you have is that you do not accept premise 1, which is the old evidence argument. So the logical and productive progression in a discussion concerning Pascal's wager is to accept the soundness of the argument itself (which it appears that you finally did so by your comment above), and move on to discuss the truth of it's premises.

 

[workmx]

Thank you, you are rational indeed

Think about it this way. Many scientific theories were not proven when they are first published. String theory, or a better example, e=mc2, Einstein's theory of matter and energy was not confirmed some 30 years later. Should Einstein withhold his theory for 30 years?

We just had a discussion at the office a few days ago, about the phrase "Failure is not an option". We all agreed that that is wrong on so many levels, one of the biggest is that avoiding failure is the same of avoiding innovation.

A theory is the best explaination based on the currently available evidence.

In that sense, Einstein's hypothesis was not a theory.

So, it was the rational thing to do to withhold belief in it until that evidence became available.

Other wise, we would believe whatever crackpot hypotheses are presented to us...

 

[workmx]

Originally Posted by Joshua260

Maybe you should study the Pensees before speaking for Pascal.

​

To be clear, I did not suggest that you just read up on Pascal's wager, which is so often taken out of it's intended context on so many atheist internet sites (I've seen quite a few on this subject, and I've never seen them get it right). Rather, I suggested that you read his work entitled the Pensees, in which he provides the context surrounding his offering of his wager. If you had, then you would no doubt know that he had already considered various evidences and logical arguments (including those ruling out other faiths as unreasonable) before coming to the point where he narrowed down his list of "reasonable faiths" to Christianity alone. Based on that foundation, he THEN began to offer his wager.

Further proof that you either did not read the Pensees, or you did not understand Pascal's argument. By the time he offered his wager, he had already ruled out all other faiths as being unreasonable.

You said in your last post that "Second-hand accounts are not trustworthy". I hope that means that you did not learn all you know about Pascal's wager just from some atheist internet sites. As I said above, I've never found one yet that represented Pascal's wager within it's intended context. Pascal's wager, taken within it's intended context of the Pensees, is actually a sound logical argument.

I know you don't believe, but let me try to troubleshoot the real problem I think you have with Pascal 's wager. I desire to do this because I've heard so many atheists trash Pascal's wager unfairly. I don't believe it's the wager itself that bothers them, but it all points back to the old evidence debate. You said yourself:


First, remember that Pascal had performed his own research concerning evidences and philosophical arguments and had come to the conclusion (after ruling out all other faiths) that it was just as reasonable to believe in the Christian god as to not believe in the Christian god.

Secondly, he laid out the gains and losses of believing and being wrong, versus not believing and being wrong.

Then he came to the conclusion I paraphrased:
"Given that it is equally as reasonable to believe in the Christian god (as opposed to other faiths he ruled out for various reasons) or not, it is better to believe in the Christian god and be wrong than not to believe in the Christian god and be wrong."

So given the truth of 1 and 2, Pascal's conclusion is the logical result. The problem I believe you have is that you do not accept premise 1, which is the old evidence argument. So the logical and productive progression in a discussion concerning Pascal's wager is to accept the soundness of the argument itself (which it appears that you finally did so by your comment above), and move on to discuss the truth of it's premises.

I am not sure you read what I wrote.

So, I will say it again: Pascal's wager is pure nonsense.

He may have rejected some concepts of god, but we now know:
- there are many more gods that have been worshipped than he know of;
- he had no rational reason to reject some gods and not others, because the supernatural is unknowable.
- it does not deal with the null hyopthesis (addressed in my "what if god only saves atheists and agnostics" post).

 

[workmx]

The other problem I have with Pascal's wager is that it assumes an omnipotent, omnibenevolent and omniscient god can be fooled.

Really? Is that in any way credible?

I do not think so little of god. I wonder why others do.

I assume that Pascal invenetd the wager as a post hoc justification for an existing irrational unjustified belief in god.

And I tend to make the same assumption of anyone who thinks that the argument is credible.

 

[dcalling]

A theory is the best explaination based on the currently available evidence.

In that sense, Einstein's hypothesis was not a theory.

So, it was the rational thing to do to withhold belief in it until that evidence became available.

Other wise, we would believe whatever crackpot hypotheses are presented to us...

I doubt everyone believes in Einstein when his hypothesis first published. That didn't make him withhold his belief.

And as a rationalist, it is best to investigat a claim before deny it.