From: joedees@bellsouth.net
Date: Thu Jan 24 2002 - 23:45:47 MST
On 24 Jan 2002 at 14:28, Bill Roh wrote:
Hell is arguing theology with an stubborn obtuse fundy.
>
> Here is why the argument is flawed IMO
>
> 1> Believing is not enough to win God's favor in any religion I am aware of. One
> must act, witness, and worship. In other words one must devote part of their
> lives existence on god to achieve the benefits. However, if you are an atheist,
> any time spent on god is a tangible loss of life measured in time, effort and
> money spent. In other words, if you believe and you are wrong, then you have
> wasted all the effort - effectivly you have sold part of your single, brief life
> to fantasy. I can imagine no worse personal crime than to dedicate ones effort
> to satisfy delusion.
>
> 2> David: "The mounting and single value of the evidence is immaterial because
> it takes only one divine intervention to change the result. Could happen at any
> time." Bill: Divine intervention would violate the 2nd law of thermodynamics -
> which means God would have to exist only in our Universe to operate - and if
> that is the case, tell me which part of our Universe houses heaven and hell. The
> Christian model of god is certainly man made as every attempt to expain that
> model is easily disprovable, and in most cases attributable to a particlar
> person.
>
> So, to me, to accept Pascals wager for agnostics is to admit, unknowingly
> perhaps, that you would prefer to accept the notion of a god than to live with
> the evidence against. Agnosticism is to admit a fear of the science we uncover.
> To prove this, simply switch out "god" with "Zues". Is the agnostic still going
> to say that Zues might exist? Or any other god for that matter.
>
> So like you said in your second paragraph - "nobody asks if the premise is
> plausible". The athiest does ask, and the premise is not plausible, so the
> athiest knows the question is rigged.
>
> Bill
>
> David Hill wrote:
>
> > I scanned the text at plato.stanford.edu/entries/pascal-wager#1 to confirm
> > my recollections of what the bet was. I don't have time for further depth,
> > but my understanding is that the payoff matrix is:
> >
> > God exists, and believe-> win big
> > God exists, and don't believe -> lose big
> > God doesn't exist and either believe or don't -> no difference.
> >
> > I've always had a problem with this because though the premise proves the
> > conclusion, nobody asks if the premise is plausible. If I alter it slightly
> > to be: God exists, but doesn't want you to believe, the results also are
> > inverted. I find the liklihood of the standard Christian God to be highly
> > unlikely but possible and so side with the agnostics rather than the
> > athiests. The mounting and single value of the evidence is immaterial
> > because it takes only one divine intervention to change the result. Could
> > happen at any time.
> >
> > I've gone so far as to postulate the existance of the first meta-God (Larry)
> > who is the creator of Allah, Yaweh, Christ et cetera and who has been (until
> > lately) distracted elsewhere doing God stuff. He created the above as a
> > gullibility test for those of us here and is kinda disappointed at the
> > results.
> >
> > Of course we can't speak of the second and third meta-Gods (Moe and Curley).
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: owner-virus@lucifer.com [mailto:owner-virus@lucifer.com]On Behalf
> > Of Steele, Kirk A
> > Sent: Wednesday, January 23, 2002 6:40 PM
> > To: 'virus@lucifer.com'
> > Subject: RE: virus: Kirk: Standing my ground
> >
> > no. search for Pascal' wager to understand agnosticism
>
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