"If I am right, I go to heaven, if you are right, you die anyway."

Discussion in 'Religion Archives' started by garbonzo, Apr 6, 2012.

  1. wynn ˙ Valued Senior Member

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    Oh. So it's stupid to read your employment contract?

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  3. wynn ˙ Valued Senior Member

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    You are working yourself up over nothing.

    It is said that no sinful thing comes into heaven, and that those who do get into heaven are previously washed of their sins.

    If Hitler were to get into heaven, he certainly wouldn't be killing Jews there, or do anything of that kind. Washed of his sins, he'd be practically unrecognizable to us.
     
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  5. Arioch Valued Senior Member

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    @wynn --

    That's a straw man argument and you know it. Why must you insist on making logically fallacious arguments?
     
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  7. lightgigantic Banned Banned

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    for a vast majority of people, placing themselves under [the current version of] a set of religious laws doesn't involve condemning delusional young females to burn at the stake and taking away the lives, homes and freedom of peoples considered 'pagan'

    ... and furthermore, the notion of cleaving to one's own set of social/legal norms is not really an option
     
  8. DaveC426913 Valued Senior Member

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    It is, but I'm not sure Wynn realizes it. So I'll address it if it helps Wynn understand the principle.

    I'll counter with: do you indiscriminately read the employment contract of every place you've ever applied to? Or do you filter out the 95% of the places that don't call you in for an interview, and only read the contracts of the ones that stand a high probability of coming to fruition - such as the ones that call you in for an interview and present you with a contract?



    Since the number of things we can buy in to is far smaller than the number things we can reject, it is feasible to closely examine the things we buy in to.

    Imagine you're on a Cosmic Game Show, and 1000 philosophies/religions are presented before you. You can only choose a few (since your life is finite). You will rapidly dismiss 950 of the ones that want money, body parts or your children. But a few look promising. Before buying in, you examine those closely.

    See?
     
  9. Yazata Valued Senior Member

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    My response to that would probably be something like, 'Yeah, I guess. I don't think you are right.'

    It's kind of like me saying, 'If I'm right, I'm Jesus Christ. If you are right, you're just some insignificant human.'

    This sort of thinking seems to justify any kind of grandiose belief about one's self or one's fate, without any regard to its truth, just because it's more grandiose than whatever the alternative is.

    Unfortunately, madness seems to lie in that direction.
     
  10. wynn ˙ Valued Senior Member

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    For crying out loud, go back to what I first said: it was you who started with the strawman of my comment.
     
  11. keith1 Guest

    I've lived both sides of the fence...
    A gated community is much like a cage, where it can become confusing as to which side of the bars is found the majority of stifled beasts.
    An unrealistic and unsatisfactory heaven needs a hell to compensate it's deficiencies.
    A real heaven would not have the capacity to be deficient.
    --keith1
     
  12. Jeeves Valued Senior Member

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    And minorities don't count - obviously.

    I didn't say legal or social norms; nice switcheroo! Without moral choice, free will, or whatever having an option is called - this whole discussion is devoid of a subject.
     
  13. lightgigantic Banned Banned

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    well sure ... unless you want to talk again about burning people at the stake as an inevitable consequence of a person becoming religious





    this is what you said :

    it's between placing yourself under [the current version of] a set of religious laws or cleaving to your own.

    what you are missing is that having a moral choice, free will, or whatever having an option is called is historically documented as not being diametrically opposed to religion.

    In fact you could even say that following the path of the historical representation, practice and organization of religion is precisely about the re-assessment of details of morality, social justice etc.
     
  14. Jeeves Valued Senior Member

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    You mean this?
    I don't see "inevitable consequence". In the seventeenth century the possibility wasn't that far fetched.

    Which holds true when you join any religion: you take on the moral precepts of the church, which usually means abandoning your earlier ones if they are in conflict. So?

    For the believer, or one who fits into the religion, no. But he's not the subject of Pascal's Gambit.
    The point is not whether the church's attitude at any particular moment is inimical to one's own, but that, in joining a church out of expediency, one allows the institutional moral code to override one's own from that time forward.
    If you're right, i may go to hell, so i'll pretend that you're right, just in case. But if you're wrong, i've given up my moral autonomy for nothing.


    I understood
    to mean that people can't have their own moral codes. If you just meant they have to obey the law of their country, that's true but irrelevant.

    This i don't understand at all.

     
  15. lightgigantic Banned Banned

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    Similarly being a staunch atheist during a certain era of russian politics also sees similar opportunities present themselves (on a grander scale)


    Actually usually it works the other way around - one takes on moral precepts and then joins a religion


    I'm not sure what inextricable connection you are drawing between believing in the existence of god and over-riding some moral issue.
    I mean its not like belief in god requires one to burn people at the stake, is it?



    As well as that I meant its an imagination to think that you (or anyone) can have a moral code totally independent of the society you (or they) arose in.

    What to speak of having a moral choice within the framework of religious doctrine, changing norms on morality are historically documented to influence how one approaches the framework of religious doctrine.

    For instance, even though Catholicism is certainly not my favourite take on theism, there is no denying that its flexibility and ability to adapt has certainly led to it being one of the most longest/prominent traditions
     
  16. Jeeves Valued Senior Member

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    What we've been talking about:

    and it's silly because it's based on a several premises that are fr from proven.
    It's more a thought experiment: Christian meets mathematician... no real people or religious experience involved.
     
  17. DaveC426913 Valued Senior Member

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    I am not above admittiing it if I am wrong. Please explain to me again what it is you said and then how I turned it into a strawman.
     
  18. keith1 Guest

    It's a lame statement in that it completely ignores the two most significant and equally valid assumptions:

    - You may believe in God, and God doesn't exist, in which case you have wasted your valuable time (which is much more devastating than, "gain nothing"--a negative being worse than a zero).

    - You may not believe in God, and God may exist, in which case you may not be punished, as you always have enough time to be forgiven at the last moment.
     
  19. lightgigantic Banned Banned

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    wagers begin precisely where attempts at proof exhaust themselves
     
  20. lightgigantic Banned Banned

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    the first is already entailed in the wager
    the second is unclear in how that precisely works
     
  21. DaveC426913 Valued Senior Member

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    Deathbed converts. With your last breath, you can always repent, and you will be forgiven.

    At least, that's the popular thinking.
     
  22. lightgigantic Banned Banned

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    sounds rhetorical
     
  23. wynn ˙ Valued Senior Member

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    Exactly. And popular thinking is not celebrated for being philosophically sound or mature.
     

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