And you, being a theist, do?

Let's hear it.

If the Theist is right, theists will be spending eternity with a someone that encourages people to lie to themselves and tortures athiests just for being honest about what they think. Therefore, he can't be such great person to have to live with forever, can he?

If there does happen to be an afterlife, wouldn't you want to spend it with people that are honest(atheist/agnostic) or people that lie about believing(suckers for Pascal's wager/Divine ass-kissers)?

By the way, does it smell like troll in here to anyone else?

If someone claims they saw a person rise from the dead, they are either lying or psychotic.

OK, but you will have to provide a detailed description of exactly what you saw, photos, etc, for us to even start to explain what you saw.

Including proof that the person was actually dead, ie, either with gross physical injury, or showed no vital signs whatever, for at least. say 10 minutes, when hooked up to working medical equipment. Or at the very least certification after examination by a qualified medically-trained person.

Certainly that sort of claim cannot simply be accepted on face value.

That is a very weak argument. How long was the continuous period over which a pulse could not be found? You do realize that under some conditions heart-beat can be so weak that a pulse is not easily detectable without medical equipment.

In any case, what about this incident actually points to the intervention of a God? Did he leave his printed card?

 It has many problems.

Pascal's Wager
1. Either God exists, or he does not.
2. You can either believe or not believe.
3. If one believes, he stands to gain all if God exists; If God does not exist, he loses nothing.
4. Therefore, it is better to believe.

1. What is "god"? What evidence is there for "god"?  Unless there is evidence of its existence, to claim that 'god' exists is a naked assertion, a presupposition.
2. Believe in what? As far as belief goes, one can believe whatever one is able to imagine. Imagining 'god' does not compel it into existence. I can not believe 'god' actually exists outside the imagination of theists because it does not exhibit any evidence of itself.
3. Not knowing what "god" is, I wouldn't know if I'd gain anything. The claim is that I will gain all if I believe; but what is 'all'? All of what?
4. No conclusion can be made from Pascal's Wager.

It would be much more accurate to say that the "Death of Jesus" is the LEAST well established of all such purported events in the history of mankind, that are widely believed and considered extremely significant...

The existence of God, and his intentions, are not determinable with any high degree of confidence, otherwise Pascal's Wager would not be an issue.

There is no way to know the nature of any hypothetical such beings, or if they even exist, or what are their demands of us, or whether any communications attributed to them can be taken at face value - there is no way we could know they are not just playing with us, lying to us, etc. The ideas of 'none of the above', ie no Gods, is the most plausible in the absence of any evidence of a God.

So the idea of being able to assert any probabilities to base a decision on in this Wager, are purest fantasy.

aiia,

Your reply is confusing. You quote my response, however I don't believe you even read it; at least it doesn't appear to be the case. I come to this conclusion because I not only agree with all of your points, but stated some of them explicitly. My point was that my use of Pascal's Wager is not to reach ANY conclusion at all, but to spark interest in the conversation. This is actually quite the opposite of reaching a conclusion; instead I am asking them to reconsider their conclusion in light of all the possibilities (including my own). Many people I talk to seem dis-interested in knowing or seeking after the truth. In many ways they are just as irrational and dogmatic as others claim religious fundamentalists are, because they blindly, unquestioningly tout their worldview. The purpose of my use of Pascal's Wager is to urge them that such dogmatic belief (or inaction for the pursuit of truth) would be foolishness if Christianity's claims were true (or anyone else's for that matter).

If, in fact, the person with whom I shared this version of Pascal's Wager responds with arguments for his or her own worldview, and perhaps against others', then I know that I have incorrectly judged the individual's stance. This individual needed no exhortation to the pursuit of truth, and consequently needed no posing of Pascal's Wager in any form or fashion. However you might be surprised how little this occurs. In fact most of the people I meet seem like they don't even care if they are right or wrong. And it is for these people that I employ my version of Pascal's Wager.

With this in mind, do people think this use of Pascal's Wager "sucks" or is absurd?

Wagner sucks ...

I hope your reply wasn't to me, Matt. If you cared to read both my responses, you would realize I never made a false dichotomy. Almost every time I mentioned Christianity, I added "or any other religion for that matter." In simpler words, my version of Pascal's Wager says, if my religious claims are true, then such-and-such is true. And if it is wrong, then you have one less option to consider. How on earth is that a false dichotomy? Either I'm right, or something else is.

Not only that, but throwing around vulgar comments like "dumbass" (especially where your assertion is clearly inccrrect) does not make you sound any smarter. On the contrary, it makes your IQ appear to be on par with the size of your vocabulary--i.e. very small.

Sorry look2logic. I know what you posted, I was merely (re)listing the problems to emphasize (for theists) why it makes a useless argument, not only for believing in a 'god' but also for the existence of 'god' and I think Pascal's Wager is absurd; its éclat is exaggerated and actually discussing the conclusion is a waste of time until the theist can prove 'god'.

You've never prayed before? You should try it some time, God is listening in all His Glory.

Surrender yourself to Jesus... God is all around us, so the easiest way is to search Within Yourself...

I have answered, you just don't want to listen. Typical atheism.

So you would disagree with the use of any version of Pascal's Wager? Even if the point of the question is not to quell doubts (reaching conclusions on faulty reasoning), but to raise them (even if their eventual conclusion opposes mine)?

I don't agree, obviously. I think that any sort of question that causes people to think (or re-think) about their beliefs (and particularly think of arguments, reasons, and evidence for their beliefs) is a worthwhile question. However, I did simply want to hear some people's opinions regarding my version of Pascal's Wager. Fair enough, aiia. Thank you for the response!

The task of religion is always to affect the way one lives his or her life on the planet Earth.

Many people do not make a religious commitment because they are waiting for an answer.  But chances are, the answer is not going to just come to you.   There will be many things that we will never be able to prove.  At some point, you HAVE to make a leap of faith. 

So make that leap of faith because it is going to affect the way that you live.  Do not wait until the answers come to you because you'll probably be dead before they do.... and you'll have died not living your life like you could have lived it. 

What do you have to lose? 

We do not need to PROVE things to assess the relative strength of all the available evidence, and that certainly does not point to God. No leap of faith required, just look at what the evidence seems to indicate. If we had to wait for PROOF that a given course of action was the only correct one , we would be perpetually in a paralysis of indecision.

I'm just stating it differently.  I didn't see where anyone brought up the main tenet of it: that the goal of religion is to improve life RIGHT NOW.  Maybe someone brought it up but I don't feel like reading through a two year old thread.  My point is,  I never interpreted the wager as having much to do with the afterlife.

I've met many atheists and they all come across as miserable human beings.  Watching Brian and Kelly on Nightline did very little to change my opinion.  Not that I'm making any universal claims here, just my experience.

Mind telling me what makes your life so great?  What do you do right now that religion would take away?

Uuuuhhh, how is it different? It's still just a fear tactic based on a false dichotomy. 

This has nothing to do with Pascal's Wager.

Well then, you interpreted it wrong, and you need to stop referring to it in your argument.

Argument from personal observations of people's moods?

I have friends. I have parents that love me. I have a car and a home. I'm majoring in physics at a prestigious research university. I already have at least two job offers waiting for me whenever I have more time, a sales representative for Vector Marketing or a tutor for WASLpass. Plus, I have access to numerous research opportunities as an undergraduate. I should be able to finish my first quarter with at least a 3.5 average. 

I've been to several countries. I've been to Seattle, Boston, New York City, Washington D.C., Los Angelos, San Francisco, Las Vegas, etc. I've eaten more kinds of food than most people eat in their entire lives. I've climbed mountains, rafted rivers, explored caves, hiked forests. I know how to play Chess and Go. I enjoy tennis, soccer, swimming, football, and more; albeit, I suck at most sports, but, heck, I can still enjoy it. I've done countless hours of voluntary community service with over a dozen non-profit organizations. 

I have a bright future ahead of me. I'm witty. I'm good at communicating. I'm optimistic. I've read the Bible, the Book of Mormon, part of L. Ron Hubbard's Fundamentals of Thought, a little bit of the Koran, I'm trying to get the Torah, and I'm intellectually enlightened enough to know that they're all full of shit.    

Nothing, except my liberty.

Yes it does.  Read it straight from the horse's mouth:

"Now, what harm will befall you in taking this side? You will be faithful, honest, humble, grateful, generous, a sincere friend, truthful. Certainly you will not have those poisonous pleasures, glory and luxury; but will you not have others? I will tell you that you will thereby gain in this life, and that, at each step you take on this road, you will see so great certainty of gain, so much nothingness in what you risk, that you will at last recognize that you have wagered for something certain and infinite, for which you have given nothing."

In other words, making that leap of faith will change the way you live IN THIS LIFE. 

I wouldn't even really call it an argument.  I'm not making any universal conclusions here.   Just my personal observations. 

Perfect.  And God won't take any of those things away from you.  So you really have nothing to lose by making the leap of faith.  Pascal would argue that it would make things EVEN BETTER.  Once again, if you are waiting for an answer, it probably isn't going to come to you. 

In fact, how do you know your parents love you?  Maybe they are just using you and trying to mislead you.  You put your trust in your parents, and yet scientists can never place that under a microscope and define it in some law.  You are making a leap of faith.  And it is affecting the way you live.

Choose God.  It will pierce like a knife at first, but then it will heal.  You will not be sorry.

The fact that you want me to answer your post tells me that you don't think it is a waste of time to be debating with me, which means that I am making points that you feel need to be disproved.  And you wouldn't feel that way unless they were compelling.  I thank you, darling.

Want to meet me for dinner?

I'm quite familiar with it and it has nothing to do with what I am talking about.   Evolutionary psychologists merely describe how human thought processes adapted to changing environments.

My premise was that emotions are not physiological mechanisms.  You can't be certain that your parents love you in the same way that you are certain of the laws of gravity or the laws of thermodynamics.  You are essentially making a WAGER.

And yes, there have been many who have attempted to describe things like "love", "anger", "desire", "sadness" in physical terms (they are known as "physicalists" and you should have brought that up if you wanted to contradict my position), but they fail miserably.

Ghost, human emotions and behaviour are very much an active and productive area of scientific research.

Obviously, microsopes aren't much use, but fMRI scanners are, and there are many kinds of tests run with groups of volunteers, using interviews, setting all kinds of tasks, games, etc, and sophisticated analysis of responses and comparison with other groups, other studies, fMRI results, etc.

Studies and interviews of individuals in a variety of life circumstances add more data points. All of this allows us to extract common features which filter out individual variations to get at some core facts about how emotions govern our thoughts and behaviour, while fMRI scans allow us to map the emotional responses to events in the various parts of the brain with ever greater precision and detail.

Of course the results of these studies have to be framed in very different terms to studies in physics, where we describe the regularities we find in the interactions of mass and energy by 'Laws'.

Studies of complex entities such as living organisms don't lend themselves to relatively simple mathematical expressions which can be enshrined in a Law. 

Science can in principle be applied to anything where we can make some sort of consistent observations of the subject. If the subject of study are experiences within a human mind, we listen to their descriptions of what they felt, ask them questions, compare their response to other claiming similar experiences. If they claim there was some some physical manifestations, that too is investigated.

If something can't be investigated by science, that just means we have only isolated, non-repeatable, non-predictable, very individual accounts, with no available physical eveidence, making it impossible for anyone to do any more than speculate about what may be the ultimate explanation.

When we take into account the massive evidence that the ability of the human mind to come to believe in the absolute reality of virtually anything, no matter how bizarre or demonstrably incorrect, simple errors of reasoning or mis-perception, etc, are always going to an explanation that cannot be dismissed.

Since our basic 'hardware' (our brains and bodies) and 'software' (shared cultures and experiences) have more in common that they do differences across large groups of people, we will also expect to see many people reporting similar non-physical experiences, so the frequent argument that there must be something real because so many people report the same thing, only demonstrates what I just said - we share very similar basic mental mechanisms and sensory imperfections...