Pascal's Wager Doesn't Suck (or "What if you're STILL wrong?")
Offline Hello my atheist friends ,
First off please don't take any offense to the subject line, I was just trying to use a little bit of humor (since of course, pascal's wager has been called by the laymen "What if you're wrong?", as we all know).
I'm posting this new thread only because I really don't feel like responding to a thread 10 pages later..
Muslims believe that both Jews and Christians will not be punished by hell:
From the Qu'ran
Those who believe in the Qur'an,
and those who follow the Jewish (Scriptures),
and the Christians and tha Sabians, -
any who believe in Allah and the Last Day,
and work righteousness,
shall have their reward with their Lord
on them shall be no fear, nor shall they grieve.
-- Sura 2:62
Jews don't believe in an afterlife at all, they believe that once you die, that's it..
From the OT:
All go to the same place; all come from dust, and to dust all return. Who knows if the spirit of man rises upward and if the spirit of the animal goes down into the earth?"
Ecclesiates 3:21
All eastern religions I know of do not believe in a heaven or hell, they believe in reincarnation.
The ancient Greeks and Romans believed in a Hades, but when you die, no matter how you've acted, you go there anyway..
So, the Christian religion is the only religion that preaches that we've screwed ourselves up and need to be saved from sin, so I think I'm going to play it safe on this one.
Regarding the rest of your bible quotes questioning the morality of God, it seems to me like you're only reading certain portions on the Bible that support your argument (without knowing the full background), which sounds to me to be a bit more of an emotional argument than a rational one (you don't understand why he does certain things, and they paint a bad picture of God, therefore they must not be true).
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Offline butterbattle wrote:There are scientists who reached that conclusion more than a thousands years prior using astronomy and mathematics.
Just to remind you, in case you forgot from school, the general consensus was until 1547 that the earth was flat.
Bob just pointed out that the Ancient Greeks knew the earth was roughly spherical, and made calculations of its circumference. Anyone who could read Greek before 1547 knew the earth was round. (Where did 1547 come from? Usually people cite Columbus as knowing before that.)
And even if both the scientists and the writer of Job both reached that conclusion, your scientists had ,as you say, astronomy and mathematics. I sincerely doubt the writer of Job was as educated as that, so where did the infomation come from?
The Egyptians (you'll find them mentioned in the bible) had astronomy and mathematics.
Almost as hard as for people to believe in science, ask a believer "what caused God", but not be able to see the absurd amount of faith it takes to believe that the components of the big bang magically appeared, and furthermore, being willing to accept that they have no evidence, it's illogical, and then prance around as lovers of logic.
Oh dear. The math involved in modeling the beginnings of the universe is a little mind-blowing. I don't suggest arguing about it until you've seen it. It's a model. It's not "something from nothing", it's a little more involved than that.
Whereas Christians already at least believe that something can come from nothing by God, we at least admit we have faith. You do too, you just call it a different name.
That's not true. There's a difference between a mathematical model and "God goes poof".
Wait, so you guys can ask me "What caused God?" and at the same time are willing to admit that somethings have no cause? Please enlighten me.
Two arguments there. Either you want to say that everything has a cause, and therefore, so does God (although, I personally would avoid this line of reasoning, as it implied exhaustive knowledge of "all things" ), or you can say that not everything has a cause, in which case, we're stuck with figuring out which things do and do not.
In the case of the universe, since time collapses with space during the beginning, "cause" gets a little fuzzy, since "before" and "after" are time dependent concepts.
Saint Will: no gyration without funkstification.
fabulae! nil satis firmi video quam ob rem accipere hunc mi expediat metum. - Terence
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Offline butterbattle wrote:There are scientists who reached that conclusion more than a thousands years prior using astronomy and mathematics.
Just to remind you, in case you forgot from school, the general consensus was until 1547 that the earth was flat..
And even if both the scientists and the writer of Job both reached that conclusion, your scientists had ,as you say, astronomy and mathematics. I sincerely doubt the writer of Job was as educated as that, so where did the infomation come from?
And in case you forgot, the consensus was controlled by the religionists.
By the way, it is interesting to note that the Hebrews had NO word for sphere.. they would have said "circle". So my point is not disproven. Although I do admit that it is not proven, either. Just understand that that statement is invalid.
In regards to the other statements, they appear as though they could be logical, but they in reality are false premises.
So the omnipotent, omniscient being who inspired the book couldn't have added the word to the language of his chosen people?
In regard to Thomathy - thanks so much for assuming that I hate several of my friends and a 2 of my roommates. Just because I believe in the bible does not mean I hate anyone. In fact you seem to me to be much more of a judgemental *whatever word you feel like calling me* than me, because I was simply having an intellectual conversation, sure I may be accused of taking some things out of context, but it was not my intention, and furthermore atheists do it just all the time.
I never said that because the Bible says homosexuality is wrong that I judge others. Bet you didn't know that I supported Prop 8 , did you, because even though it's wrong I can't force you (or shouldn', regarding your own body) to follow my code of morality.
So you believe in the Bible but don't follow Luke 14:26? I'm not even going to mess with the "Some of my best friends are..." stuff
"I do this real moron thing, and it's called thinking. And apparently I'm not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions."
— George Carlin
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Offline Just to remind you, in case you forgot from school, the general consensus was until 1547 that the earth was flat..
And even if both the scientists and the writer of Job both reached that conclusion, your scientists had ,as you say, astronomy and mathematics. I sincerely doubt the writer of Job was as educated as that, so where did the infomation come from?
By the way, it is interesting to note that the Hebrews had NO word for sphere.. they would have said "circle". So my point is not disproven. Although I do admit that it is not proven, either. Just understand that that statement is invalid.
In regards to the other statements, they appear as though they could be logical, but they in reality are false premises.
What school did you go to that taught you that crap that the world believed up until 1547 the earth was flat? The catholic church might have up until then but not the rest of the world
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spherical_Earth
The concept of a spherical earth goes back as far as the 6th century BCE. However with the fall of Rome and the rise of christianity the flat earth concept comes back into power based on biblical teachings.
As well the concept of the earth in the Hebrew bible (Torah from which the Christian bible is based on) is more or less taken from early Egyptian and Mesopotamian thoughts about how the earth is a flat disk floating in the ocean, as per the Torah that the earth is surrounded by water above and below Genesis 1:6-8.
Wait, so you guys can ask me "What caused God?" and at the same time are willing to admit that somethings have no cause? Please enlighten me.
We ask because in the end you attribute creation to god, a being of complexity while we go for the most natural and simplest route. You invoke a being, intelligent, complex etc, yet it does not need creation, but the simple things, energy for example (again using other creationists arguments as yours seems to be going that way) requires a creator. Why doesn't god need a creator but everything else does?
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Offline The Hebrew word Chuwg means a flat-circle like a coin. The Hebrew word for a sphere like a ball is Duwr. So the distinction could be made.
What word did they use in the passages in question? I haven't found out yet.
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
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Offline In Isaiah 40:22 it uses the word Chuwg (as per my jewish contact)
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Offline Hello my atheist friends ,
First off please don't take any offense to the subject line, I was just trying to use a little bit of humor (since of course, pascal's wager has been called by the laymen "What if you're wrong?", as we all know).
I'm posting this new thread only because I really don't feel like responding to a thread 10 pages later..
Muslims believe that both Jews and Christians will not be punished by hell:
From the Qu'ran
Those who believe in the Qur'an,
and those who follow the Jewish (Scriptures),
and the Christians and tha Sabians, -
any who believe in Allah and the Last Day,
and work righteousness,
shall have their reward with their Lord
on them shall be no fear, nor shall they grieve.
-- Sura 2:62
Jews don't believe in an afterlife at all, they believe that once you die, that's it..
From the OT:
All go to the same place; all come from dust, and to dust all return. Who knows if the spirit of man rises upward and if the spirit of the animal goes down into the earth?"
Ecclesiates 3:21
All eastern religions I know of do not believe in a heaven or hell, they believe in reincarnation.
The ancient Greeks and Romans believed in a Hades, but when you die, no matter how you've acted, you go there anyway..
So, the Christian religion is the only religion that preaches that we've screwed ourselves up and need to be saved from sin, so I think I'm going to play it safe on this one.
Regarding the rest of your bible quotes questioning the morality of God, it seems to me like you're only reading certain portions on the Bible that support your argument (without knowing the full background), which sounds to me to be a bit more of an emotional argument than a rational one (you don't understand why he does certain things, and they paint a bad picture of God, therefore they must not be true).
How can you be sure that the real God (if such a god exists) is a god which has been mentioned by the peoples of the Earth? Afterall, the universe is a huge place. How do you know that the "real" god's name isn't "zzzywat" and has chosen a race of reptiles on the planet "zort" to be his chosen people that he sends into heaven? How can you be so sure that the "real" god really didn't invent Christianity to punish christians, while sending everyone else to heaven?
The problem is, if you are using Pascal's wager, you are conceding that there is no better reason to believe in a particular god other than statistics -- and since there are an infinite number of possible gods, many of which would punish you for not believing in them, the statistics are not really in your favor.
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Offline In regard to Thomathy - thanks so much for assuming that I hate several of my friends and a 2 of my roommates.
Romans 1:27 - Who are the people at highest risk for HIV/AIDS ? "Men who have sex with men" (BTW, I am NOT a bigot, I don't judge or hate anyone who is gay, I'm just saying that the bible already stated this 2 1/2 millenia before we as a scientific community realized it).
Just because I believe in the bible does not mean I hate anyone.
In fact you seem to me to be much more of a judgemental *whatever word you feel like calling me* than me, because I was simply having an intellectual conversation, sure I may be accused of taking some things out of context, but it was not my intention, and furthermore atheists do it just all the time.
I never said that because the Bible says homosexuality is wrong that I judge others.
Bet you didn't know that I supported Prop 8 , did you, because even though it's wrong I can't force you (or shouldn', regarding your own body) to follow my code of morality.
Thomathy wrote:You really have to try hard to make it seem as though this:
He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth,
and its people are like grasshoppers.
He stretches out the heavens like a canopy,
and spreads them out like a tent to live in.
mean the Earth is round as in spherical.
Almost as hard as for people to believe in science, ask a believer "what caused God", but not be able to see the absurd amount of faith it takes to believe that the components of the big bang magically appeared,
and furthermore, being willing to accept that they have no evidence, it's illogical, and then prance around as lovers of logic.
Whereas Christians already at least believe that something can come from nothing by God, we at least admit we have faith. You do too, you just call it a different name..
Let me start over (you got me really pissed with the bigot comment)
[thedjjudah]I never said that because the Bible says homosexuality is wrong that I judge others.
The bible sometimes uses the word "heavens" as a term to describe the sky as well, as could be what this means.
Thomathy wrote:That to me, seems like an entirely speculative response, based on trying to find an explanation that contradicts mine, since we now know that that is how wind DOES moveCivilization had been around for some, oh, five thousand years prior to the writing of the bible. Is it difficult to believe that people knew that wind followed a particular pattern with the seasons? I mean, this is something that humans would have noticed. Kind of like the day/night cycle or the tides or the cycle of the moon and ...need I go on? It's merely describing a pattern. It is not describing how wind currents and the atmosphere work (and it's probably not an accurate representation of the wind patterns of that region, either). That is an incredibly dishonest interpretation to take and it is extremely laking for a book either inspired or written by god.
Now, you're being dishonest. See, I can quote what you wrote.
Ecclesiates 1:6 - Describes how wind currents and the atmosphere works.
So, bigot (and I'll stop calling you a bigot when you learn to disavow yourself of you petty interpretation of the bible and free yourself of the indignant cognitive dissonance from which you suffer), how is it that you were going defend your interpretations (never mind the thoroughly dessicated corpse of that wager)?
BigUniverse wrote,
"Well the things that happen less often are more likely to be the result of the supper natural. A thing like loosing my keys in the morning is not likely supper natural, but finding a thousand dollars or meeting a celebrity might be."
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which then you get to break it down to which sect of christanity is the correct one because each one of them believes their teachings, and religion dogma for each sect it right. I mean after all if your celebrate your birthday and the Jehova witnesses are right, your going to hell. If the catholics are right we are all going to purgatory then maybe hell or heaven, etc, etc, etc, etc.
that's why I go straight off of what's written in the Bible..
Which bible version and which sect really. Mormons have their own bible, Do you take the Thomas Pain version as well?
sorry, just had to jump in and say jw's don't believe in hell. they just believe you won't be resurrected into paradise. carry on.
"I have never felt comfortable around people who talk about their feelings for Jesus, or any other deity for that matter, because they are usually none too bright. . . . Or maybe 'stupid' is a better way of saying it; but I have never seen much point in getting heavy with either stupid people or Jesus freaks, just as long as they don't bother me. In a world as weird and cruel as this one we have made for ourselves, I figure anybody who can find peace and personal happiness without ripping off somebody else deserves to be left alone. They will not inherit the earth, but then neither will I. . . . And I have learned to live, as it were, with the idea that I will never find peace and happiness, either. But as long as I know there's a pretty good chance I can get my hands on either one of them every once in a while, I do the best I can between high spots."
--Hunter S. Thompson
Your assuming the one who says they have a gun does and you assume the ones that don't say anything don't have guns. How is that safe?
What about the god who doesn't want you to believe so it didn't make a book and believing will make it angry with you and punish you?
Sounds made up...
Agnostic Atheist
No, I am not angry at your imaginary friends or enemies.
Even if, against all logic and reason, a God of some sort exists, there is no way to know with any confidence what such a being's actual motives would be. The Holy books are just hopeful guesses, or the Books could even be a practical joke played by a Deity who will reward those who have the intelligence to see thru the absurdities...
Any claims to have any real idea as to how a Deity would react to the Pascal's Wager situation are totally without foundation.
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
Welcome to the forum.
Pascal's Wager still stucks.
It is an appeal to consequences. Furthermore, it is a false dichotomy, but not just because of other major religions; you still have a infinite number of possible unproposed afterlife scenarios to consider. Not to mention, just like every other theist who uses the argument, you've assumed that the atheist can't get into heaven.
See here.
Pascal's Wager Version 2.0
Don't forget all the non sequiturs either.
How many non sequiturs can you count in Pascal's Wager?
If you think a verse was quote mined, you need to show how it was quote mined.
Edit: Oh yeah, don't forget. There are numerous different Christian denominations. No matter what you believe, there will always be a couple of them that think you're going to hell. So, feeling lucky?
Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare
Hello. Welcome to the boards!
The argument from evil isn't so much a convincing argument against existence as it is a way of showing basic theology as being a little confused.
God doesn't exist in the conventional sense, like we do, or like our desks and chairs do, and if that's how you see existence, then God doesn't exist. It's not as complicated as an argument from morality or Pascal's wager, etc.
Saint Will: no gyration without funkstification.
fabulae! nil satis firmi video quam ob rem accipere hunc mi expediat metum. - Terence
Hey.. sorry it took me a while to respond. I just got out of class.
No, I do not take the Thomas Paine version of the Bible.
The fact is that a few Christian sects (Mormons and Catholics included) DO add something to their Bible, so your point there is valid.
I will admit that this does make trying to find the "right" interpretation of the Bible difficult. That is why I go off of the "Bible".
(by "Bible", I mean the standard book for Christian living that is not affliated with any particular sect, and what is accepted by the majority as the unedited book, excluding therefore the book of Mormon, the Apocrypha, etc).
While I don't believe that every sect can be right (If we follow the rules of logic, we all know this is impossible) if you stop to examine the different texts, really the core concept is believing that Jesus died for sins and accepting him into your heart. If you do these things, you're safe.
Valid..
Excellent Point. I will not argue with you that this point is not valid. However, if that is the case then all of us would be screwed by such a God anyway. Therefore it is to no advantage if I even would be able to figure out the existence of that God and believe in it anyway, since obviously we would consider such a being to be malevolent.
I will not deny that once the evidence that a God does exist is presented, it is a lot more of a challenge to single out the correct God. As Ray Comfort said in the public debate (I really don't like quoting his responses though, they were more appeals to the heart rather than logical, but that doesn't necessarily mean this point is moot), there have been things stated in the Bible that could not have possibly been known at that time by any other means other than divine inspiration (the fact that our planet,is in fact round, when scientists did not figure it out until Magellan sailed around the Earth in 1547).
Here are some Bible verses (yeah, I know, sorry..) that state things that hadn't been revealed by science until (most of the time) at least a millenium later.
Isaiah 40:22 - The earth is round.
Job 26:7 - The earth sits in space
Ecclesiates 1:6 - Describes how wind currents and the atmosphere works.
Romans 1:27 - Who are the people at highest risk for HIV/AIDS ? "Men who have sex with men" (BTW, I am NOT a bigot, I don't judge or hate anyone who is gay, I'm just saying that the bible already stated this 2 1/2 millenia before we as a scientific community realized it).
Just a few of those help me to believe that the God that I am choosing to believe in, is in fact the real God.
I can see, as a logical individual, how you can come to that conclusion. Unfortunately, we also have an infinite number of proposed scenarios for THIS life (called choices, and their respective consequences), and we obviously exist. So that point is null.
Fair enough. But the points I've mentioned earlier still stand and, I feel, are major holes in your worldview that must be addressed.
Wrong. See above. Whether I am a Orthodox Christian, Anglican, Catholic or Presbyterian the main belief is that I need to have Christ cover my sins. The differences are in the rituals, or their idea of the afterlife. ( See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_denomination 
.
On top of all that, we will never know apart from God how the matter that started the Big Bang got there in the first place. You cannot believe that time infinitely runs in both directions, because we cannot possibly exist if that is the case (the point in time that we are in is in existence only relative to the points around it). And it is against science to believe that something came from nothing (see Louis Pasteur). If spontaneous generation is impossible for biological systems, then why would it be true for celestial systems?
No, I wouldn't be punished because I don't believe in said god. Why do you consider this being malevolent?
Sounds made up...
Agnostic Atheist
No, I am not angry at your imaginary friends or enemies.
Isaiah 40:22 refers to the circle of the Earth, which does not describe a sphere, rather a flat, circular disk.
The Greeks believed the Earth was spherical 100's of years BC.
Eratosthenes in 250 BC made a surprisingly good estimate of the diameter of a spherical earth.
So that argument doesn't work.
The first part of that quote is not in any way accurate, the second part is more consistent with a flat earth with a sky above and emptiness below, rather than a spherical Earth with emptiness all around it, not just 'below' it.
More proof that they believed in a flat earth, since that would mean that the wind could not keep blowing in one direction, since it would just all blow off the edge. Whereas on a spherical Earth, the wind can keep blowing in one direction indefinitely around a sphere.
You should have provided the actual passages, not just your inaccurate interpretation of them.
EDIT: Genesis alone is proof that the writers of the Bible had no idea about the nature and origins of 'Life, the Universe, and Everything'.
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth,
and its people are like grasshoppers.
He stretches out the heavens like a canopy,
and spreads them out like a tent to live in.
mean the Earth is round as in spherical. The Earth is, in fact, an oblate spheroid. It is certainly not a circle, to say nothing about any 'He's' being enthroned above it.
We don't even fully understand the complexities of wind currents or the atmosphere and there is an entire science built up around it that would take a great deal of time to learn. Entire university studies are devoted to atmospheric science. A single sentence in the bible does not describe the workings of wind currents or the atmosphere.
Let's look at the passage, however, to find out what the bible does say about HIV.
'In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.'
Hmm ...nothing. It doesn't mention HIV. In fact, you must be interpreting 'and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.' as meaning that HIV is a penalty for being a gay man.
It's interesting that women and heterosexual people are infected to, isn't it? It's also interesting that the HIV didn't exist in humans prior to the 20th century, right?
On what do you base your interpretations? What would people have made about even the above passage before HIV? What would that due penalty have been interpreted as and what makes you think that your interpretation of the passage as referring to HIV is correct?
And pascal's wager is clearly bad logic and it's entirely a dead horse. It's unfortunate that, again, we're beating it. Further, even if it were good logic, it's entirely unconvincing as an argument. What would ever possess me to believe in something only out of the fear of damnation, especially given the fact that I can't verify in this most certain existence that the possibility is true and especially when it would require me to relinquish my good conscience, intelligence and integrity. What sort of evil being would want immoral, stupid and dishonest believers? Frankly, I would take my chance and rather stand by my virtue. It would be insulting, were the wager valid, to have someone impose it upon me as an argument to believe their story. As it is, it's only annoying and I don't believe their story.
BigUniverse wrote,
"Well the things that happen less often are more likely to be the result of the supper natural. A thing like loosing my keys in the morning is not likely supper natural, but finding a thousand dollars or meeting a celebrity might be."
You meant to say Thomas Jefferson. The Jefferson Bible is the New Testament with all of the references to divinity and miracles removed. Thomas Paine was a founding father who was a deist (as perhaps was Jefferson) who claimed that the Bible was a book of lies. Thomas Paine wrote "The Age of Reason" and Thomas Jefferson removed all the miracles and divinity from the New Testament.
"You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."
British General Charles Napier while in India
The Greeks had figured out that the Earth was a sphere and they had a pretty good estimate of the radius (Eratosthenes ~240 BCE). I guess that means Zeus is the god who provides divine inspiration.
This verse says the earth is a circle, and that heaven is like a tent above it. Flat-earthers couldn't have said it better. No hint of knowledge that the Earth is a sphere in this one. No, circles are not spheres.
Who ever wrote Job must be confused, since Job 9:6 says (NASB):
Who shakes the earth out of its place,
And its pillars tremble
Which is it? Or is the earth suspended upon pillars of nothing?
If this is divinely inspired knowledge, all gods must exist. Especially weather gods. It doesn't take that much to notice how winds change over a year. Furthermore, it says absolutely nothing about how the atmosphere works.
You win some sort of prize here for reading into a verse. It doesn't say anything about HIV/AIDS or any other decease for that matter.
In conclusion: epic fail. Please try again.
My mistake your right, damn it working to hard and nothing thinking to much at that moment.
When I mean which version I mean which out of the 100 or so English versions of the bible do you follow? I mean to say the bible does not tell me which version it is that you follow, is it the King James Version, the American translations 1931 version, The Aramaic bible version? Common English New testament? Cotton Patch Version (CPV)? Dead Sea Scrolls bible (1997)? Dartmouth Bible? Geneva Bible? Holy Bible revised version? Inclusive version? Jerusalem bible? Lamsa Bible? New Evangelical Translation? New Life version? Original New Testament? Noli New Testament? Scholars version? Scriptures SISR version? Wiclif Translation? The William Tyndale translation? Young's Literal translation revised version? Or one of the other 80 or so one's I didn't include.
The point is that if you are making a wager, you must entertain every possibility without consideration for their validity. It is a mere assumption that we only have to give credit to established belief systems. In other words, I could propose any hypothetical situation, and it would have to be included in the wager. For example, I could say that religion was actually a test from God to evaluate the rationality of his Creation and that only people who weren't religious would go to heaven. Obviously, this is not what I believe, but this vividly portrays the main flaw of Pascal's Wager: it's assumptions.
I don't even understand what you're trying to say with this response, seems like a complete non sequitur to me. Yes, we obviously exist in this life. So what?
Edit: You haven't addressed my criticism that it's an appeal to consequences either.
It doesn't matter. No matter what you believe, somebody, somewhere, believes that after you die, you're going to be screwed, and that immediately makes the wager almost worthless.
I don't currently know what caused the Big Bang. You can't say that we will never know.
We don't know that God caused the Big Bang. He is merely one explanation, not supported by any evidence.
I don't know if it does.
I don't believe that either.
Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare
There are scientists who reached that conclusion more than a thousands years prior using astronomy and mathematics.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spherical_Earth
"It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in:"
Vague metaphors, how nice.
It says the Earth is a circle, not "round." The Earth is not a circle.
The sky is not a like a tent or curtain because it's open space. It's not like a ceiling. If the verse was merely stating that it "covers" the Earth, that would be correct, but anybody can figure that out just by looking up.
"He stretcheth out the north over the empty place, and hangeth the earth upon nothing."
This is hardly advanced scientific knowledge.
The Bible also says that the Earth sits on pillars.
"The wind goeth toward the south, and turneth about unto the north; it whirleth about continually, and the wind returneth again according to his circuits."
This is too vague to mean anything.
"And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was meet."
It doesn't say anything about HIV/AIDS.
Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare
Just to remind you, in case you forgot from school, the general consensus was until 1547 that the earth was flat..
And even if both the scientists and the writer of Job both reached that conclusion, your scientists had ,as you say, astronomy and mathematics. I sincerely doubt the writer of Job was as educated as that, so where did the infomation come from?
By the way, it is interesting to note that the Hebrews had NO word for sphere.. they would have said "circle". So my point is not disproven. Although I do admit that it is not proven, either. Just understand that that statement is invalid.
In regards to the other statements, they appear as though they could be logical, but they in reality are false premises.
In regard to Thomathy - thanks so much for assuming that I hate several of my friends and a 2 of my roommates. Just because I believe in the bible does not mean I hate anyone. In fact you seem to me to be much more of a judgemental *whatever word you feel like calling me* than me, because I was simply having an intellectual conversation, sure I may be accused of taking some things out of context, but it was not my intention, and furthermore atheists do it just all the time.
I never said that because the Bible says homosexuality is wrong that I judge others. Bet you didn't know that I supported Prop 8 , did you, because even though it's wrong I can't force you (or shouldn', regarding your own body) to follow my code of morality.
Almost as hard as for people to believe in science, ask a believer "what caused God", but not be able to see the absurd amount of faith it takes to believe that the components of the big bang magically appeared, and furthermore, being willing to accept that they have no evidence, it's illogical, and then prance around as lovers of logic. Whereas Christians already at least believe that something can come from nothing by God, we at least admit we have faith. You do too, you just call it a different name..
Let me start over (you got me really pissed with the bigot comment)
The bible sometimes uses the word "heavens" as a term to describe the sky as well, as could be what this means.
Can, theoretically, but doesn't, in reality, the winds literally are constantly changing direction.
Yes, I should have, and next time I will, I apologize. I didn't feel like typing a whole lot or even copying and pasting.
[quote =Thomathy]
Civilization had been around for some, oh, five thousand years prior to the writing of the bible. Is it difficult to believe that people knew that wind followed a particular pattern with the seasons? I mean, this is something that humans would have noticed. Kind of like the day/night cycle or the tides or the cycle of the moon and ...need I go on? It's merely describing a pattern. It is not describing how wind currents and the atmosphere work (and it's probably not an accurate representation of the wind patterns of that region, either). That is an incredibly dishonest interpretation to take and it is extremely laking for a book either inspired or written by god.
That to me, seems like an entirely speculative response, based on trying to find an explanation that contradicts mine, since we now know that that is how wind DOES move
Wait, so you guys can ask me "What caused God?" and at the same time are willing to admit that somethings have no cause? Please enlighten me.