A question

[IceMobster]

So, I've been reading some comments concerning atheism and got to this:

A comment: "This world is not aimless and everybody will be accounted what they done in the after life. Yes there is eternal punishment and reward. Imagine you burn every day and your body regenerates. Just think what if this atheism drags you to hell forever. are you willing to take this risk? are you that certain to take this possibility?"

Response: "Everyone takes that "risk" when they choose to follow a religion. There are so many different religions in the world that even if your religion was proven to be right, there would be so many people in the world who would be condemned to hell because they followed a different religion and "sinned" even if they faithfully followed their religion for their whole lives. How do you know for sure that your religion is the right one? So if you follow one religion there's still a chance that you chose the wrong one. As an atheist, I'm only rejecting one less religion than you so I think I'll take my chances. Anyway, I wouldn't join a religion because someone threatened me with eternal torture for a finite crime. No thanks. I'd rather go to hell than worship a deity that could inflict that onto it's creations."

Could you comment on this atheist's response? (S)he has a point. If you were born somewhere else, you would adhere another religion. How do you distinct correct from incorrect religion?

Indeed, my other question is how God could inflict that onto His creations. I know, you will answer how we, as sinners, bring the hell upon ourselves, but taking into account God's omniscience, God knows who goes to hell and who does not. Why create us in the first place if He knew some of His creation would reject him and be doomed (in certain cases for eternity?)?
Much like if you send your child to the store and you know a car will hit it. Would you still send him?
Or you know that your child is gonna end up in hell even before you conceive it. Would you conceive it?

[Storyteller]

You don`t get sent to hell for following the "wrong" religion, you go to hell for rejecting Christ. There is a subtle difference.

If someone follows a religion because that`s all they know then I think it goes on what is in their heart. God knows if you truly reject Him. If you don`t know Him, you cannot reject Him. Once you know Him, if you reject Him, then why wouldn`t you go to hell?

As for God sending people there, No, He doesn`t. Rejection of Christ sends you there.

And why would you want to be in Heaven with a God you don`t even believe in anyway? Just to escape Hell?

As for God creating people who He knows are going to reject Him, well, for me that demonstrates hope. God has hope that even those He knows will reject Him may come to know Him, maybe through something someone says, something they read, there is always, always a choice. You want a God that creates mindless clones, someone who won`t question it? Just accept God because thats how He made us? Mindless, blind followers?

Or followers that have examined it, felt the truth of God and want to share it, that know God, choose God and love God.

[melanie]

So, I've been reading some comments concerning atheism and got to this:

A comment: "This world is not aimless and everybody will be accounted what they done in the after life. Yes there is eternal punishment and reward. Imagine you burn every day and your body regenerates. Just think what if this atheism drags you to hell forever. are you willing to take this risk? are you that certain to take this possibility?"

Response: "Everyone takes that "risk" when they choose to follow a religion. There are so many different religions in the world that even if your religion was proven to be right, there would be so many people in the world who would be condemned to hell because they followed a different religion and "sinned" even if they faithfully followed their religion for their whole lives. How do you know for sure that your religion is the right one? So if you follow one religion there's still a chance that you chose the wrong one. As an atheist, I'm only rejecting one less religion than you so I think I'll take my chances. Anyway, I wouldn't join a religion because someone threatened me with eternal torture for a finite crime. No thanks. I'd rather go to hell than worship a deity that could inflict that onto it's creations."

Could you comment on this atheist's response? (S)he has a point. If you were born somewhere else, you would adhere another religion. How do you distinct correct from incorrect religion?

Indeed, my other question is how God could inflict that onto His creations. I know, you will answer how we, as sinners, bring the hell upon ourselves, but taking into account God's omniscience, God knows who goes to hell and who does not. Why create us in the first place if He knew some of His creation would reject him and be doomed (in certain cases for eternity?)?
Much like if you send your child to the store and you know a car will hit it. Would you still send him?
Or you know that your child is gonna end up in hell even before you conceive it. Would you conceive it?

Great questions,
I have questioned the exact same ideas.
Even as a believer...
I think because fairness is a an idea that lies at the heart of every belief system.
Whether it be a universal nothingness but to be absorbed back into the energy of the universe, or reincarnation that gives us chances to achieve at some point spiritual connection, or Christianity that preaches direct connection to the divine.
But at the end if it all, it has to be ultimately fair. It must be righteous. Otherwise despite doctrine and dogma it has to exhibit the chatacter of God.

[Philip]

But when we're speaking of what is fair and righteous, we must make sure, when speaking of God, that we are applying HIS standards of such. Some things God has done in Scripture seem questionable to us, even unthinkable. Yet, as we know that God is the very definition and standard of righteousness, that He can do NO wrong, ever!

Annette mentioned people being hellbound because they reject Christ. Ultimately, while that is true - as Jesus is God - many don't realise they are doing this. In fact, they may never have heard of Jesus. But they do KNOW they are rejecting God as per what He has already revealed of Himself, to them. For such people, knowledge of Jesus would simply be more they would reject. As God has always perfectly known this, it's probably why they were geographically placed so as to never have heard the Gospel, as their determined resistance to God would make it of no use to them.

[Jac3510]

The original comment/response is just a modern version of what is called Pascal's Wager. If you don't know it, then I encourage you to look it up.

The problem with the popular interpretation of both the wager and the response is that the assumption is that belief in God is sufficient to save. But that's not what Pascal was getting at, and it opens one up to the response given. If you want to recast the wager along those lines, you'd have to say something like, "You can either follow the teachings of a particular religion knowing that, if you are correct, you will gain heaven and all its rewards, or if you are wrong, you lose nothing; or you can refuse to follow any particular religion and, if you are correct (about no religion being true), then you gain nothing, but if you are wrong, you lose everything. Which, then, is the wiser gamble?"

Obviously, the wiser gamble is to pick a religion. The question then becomes which one. That can't be answered by the Wager. You answer that by looking at each religion (each "game," if you prefer) and seeing which one is more likely to be correct. You then increase your odds of "winning" by being more rational. So I wouldn't bother with Hinduism because, if I'm wrong, I come back again as a lower class or maybe as a worm. Fine. I get another shot at it. Being wrong about the Abrahamic religions is a lot more dangerous! Just so, forget Buddhism . . . no real consequence for being wrong and relatively small upside for being right. Again, the Abrahamic religions have higher stakes. Odinism has pretty high stakes, but seems far less probable for many reasons than even Islam, and so on.

Ultimately, the question comes down to who Jesus is. But at this point, we're very far down the road. Again, the original Wager/response is usually very poorly presented by both theists and atheists. Moreover, none of this is a proof demonstrating that God really does exist. It just gives us an extra reason for putting our faith in it. Lots of potential upside if you get the right God, relatively little downside for being wrong if not God exists at all (maybe missing a few carnal pleasures in this life), a major potential downside having no God at all. Again, lots of major potential downside if you get the wrong God, but before you get to the wrong God, you have to start with A God, and atheism doesn't even get that far.

[Nicki]

The original comment/response is just a modern version of what is called Pascal's Wager. If you don't know it, then I encourage you to look it up.

The problem with the popular interpretation of both the wager and the response is that the assumption is that belief in God is sufficient to save. But that's not what Pascal was getting at, and it opens one up to the response given. If you want to recast the wager along those lines, you'd have to say something like, "You can either follow the teachings of a particular religion knowing that, if you are correct, you will gain heaven and all its rewards, or if you are wrong, you lose nothing; or you can refuse to follow any particular religion and, if you are correct (about no religion being true), then you gain nothing, but if you are wrong, you lose everything. Which, then, is the wiser gamble?"

Obviously, the wiser gamble is to pick a religion. The question then becomes which one. That can't be answered by the Wager. You answer that by looking at each religion (each "game," if you prefer) and seeing which one is more likely to be correct. You then increase your odds of "winning" by being more rational. So I wouldn't bother with Hinduism because, if I'm wrong, I come back again as a lower class or maybe as a worm. Fine. I get another shot at it. Being wrong about the Abrahamic religions is a lot more dangerous! Just so, forget Buddhism . . . no real consequence for being wrong and relatively small upside for being right. Again, the Abrahamic religions have higher stakes. Odinism has pretty high stakes, but seems far less probable for many reasons than even Islam, and so on.

Ultimately, the question comes down to who Jesus is. But at this point, we're very far down the road. Again, the original Wager/response is usually very poorly presented by both theists and atheists. Moreover, none of this is a proof demonstrating that God really does exist. It just gives us an extra reason for putting our faith in it. Lots of potential upside if you get the right God, relatively little downside for being wrong if not God exists at all (maybe missing a few carnal pleasures in this life), a major potential downside having no God at all. Again, lots of major potential downside if you get the wrong God, but before you get to the wrong God, you have to start with A God, and atheism doesn't even get that far.

Yes - but the important thing is looking at which is more likely to be correct, rather than the consequences of each being correct. No use believing in a faith with great consequences if it's not true.

[Jac3510]

In general, it certainly is better to look at which is more likely to be correct. And as I'll mention just below, I think that's what we usually do here. But that misses the point of the wager. What Pascal wants us to do is to a cost/benefit analysis. Let's use a totally non-religious example to illustrate:

You are playing a typical "pick a door and get a prize" type game. You have three doors to choose from. You're told that behind A there might be a brand new car, behind B there might be a potted plant, and behind C there might be a million dollars in cash. You're told that only one of the doors actually has the prize behind in question behind it. The other two just have nothing.

Now, if that's all the information that you have, which would you "wager" on? All things being equal, you'd certainly pick the third door. You might say, with Pascal, "Well, if I pick the third door and I'm right, I've won a LOT of money . . . if I pick it and I'm wrong, I haven't really lost anything. On the other hand, if I pick the second door and I'm right, yeah, I get a potted plant, but if I'm wrong, that means that I missed out on a very real possibility of winning a million bucks!"

And so it is here. All things being equal (and I immediately add that it is not true that all things are equal in terms of what is the true religion), the rational person places their bet on the option with the best outcome for being right and avoids the worst outcome for being wrong. And applied to God's existence generally, such a person at least chooses to acknowledge His existence to at least get their free ticket to play in the first place (on the pain of not playing and therefore losing all the games and suffering the consequences if one of them does happen to be right).

Now, it so happens that Christianity has the strongest claim to being "the right" religion, anyway. To extend our pick-a-door analogy, suppose you were told, "By the way, the chances of there actually being a car behind the first door abour 1:10, of a plant actually being behind the second are 1:1000, and the chances of there actually being a million dollars behind the third are 1:1.5." Again, which would you choose? Obviously the third. There's just no question about it. It's so obvious that it wouldn't be a very interesting game. And so it is with our faith. That, of course, has to be demonstrated, but that's what discussions like these are all about. In any case, to beat our game analogy to death, to make either an overall refusal to play (or the choice to pick the second door) reasonable, you would have to have some sort of evidence that the chances of winning in any of the three (or the first or third doors, respectively) are so remote and the cost to play so high that it's just not worth it. Maybe the chances of anything being behind ANY of the doors are 1:1000000000, and the cost to play is several thousand bucks, plus the added penalty of picking the wrong door meanng that you went to prison for the rest of your life. No one would play that. But that is precisely the position the atheist finds themselves in. Unless they can show that belief in God is so irrational (not just unproved) that it is actually extremely harmful to the believer--so harmful that it outweighs the possible benefits of heaven and the possible consequences of hell--then they are simply being irrational in opting not to play (or opting to choose the second door).

[abelcainsbrother]

So, I've been reading some comments concerning atheism and got to this:

A comment: "This world is not aimless and everybody will be accounted what they done in the after life. Yes there is eternal punishment and reward. Imagine you burn every day and your body regenerates. Just think what if this atheism drags you to hell forever. are you willing to take this risk? are you that certain to take this possibility?"

Response: "Everyone takes that "risk" when they choose to follow a religion. There are so many different religions in the world that even if your religion was proven to be right, there would be so many people in the world who would be condemned to hell because they followed a different religion and "sinned" even if they faithfully followed their religion for their whole lives. How do you know for sure that your religion is the right one? So if you follow one religion there's still a chance that you chose the wrong one. As an atheist, I'm only rejecting one less religion than you so I think I'll take my chances. Anyway, I wouldn't join a religion because someone threatened me with eternal torture for a finite crime. No thanks. I'd rather go to hell than worship a deity that could inflict that onto it's creations."

Could you comment on this atheist's response? (S)he has a point. If you were born somewhere else, you would adhere another religion. How do you distinct correct from incorrect religion?

Indeed, my other question is how God could inflict that onto His creations. I know, you will answer how we, as sinners, bring the hell upon ourselves, but taking into account God's omniscience, God knows who goes to hell and who does not. Why create us in the first place if He knew some of His creation would reject him and be doomed (in certain cases for eternity?)?
Much like if you send your child to the store and you know a car will hit it. Would you still send him?
Or you know that your child is gonna end up in hell even before you conceive it. Would you conceive it?

Atheists like to use this kind of an argument for not believing in God. Atheists think they are somehow given a pass to search until you've found the right God.It can be done and you can norrow it down to the few other religions of the world that matter,but atheists won't even do this.The truth is most atheists are just making up excuses for reasons to not believe in God but it will be far worse for the atheist if they are wrong.

Just like with anything it still comes down to evidence even when it comes to religion or which God is the true God and the people in other religions know about Christianity and Jesus but if they fail to find the true God they are without excuse for it is everybody's responsibility to make sure they are believing in the true God and only those who truly have never ever heard of Christ might have an excuse,but everybody knows about Jesus regardless of their religion and it is up to them to make sure they believe in the true God.

It is atheists that are playing a very dumb game having absolutely no evidence atheism is true while rejecting God for any excuse they can think up.Atleast false religions have some evidence to go by,but atheism has absolutely none and yet they are the first to demand proof and evidence from those who believe in God but then reject it for atheism with no evidence at all,just an opinion at best.