>From Stephen:
>But if Chris is wrong, and Christianity is true, then both Chris and
>I will die
>and wake up. But then for Chris, there will be everlasting self-inflicted
>torment as he contemplates *eternity* with what might have been. OTOH
>for me there will be everlasting happiness.
I could definitely see you enjoying an eternity of smug superiority
>In this classic version of Pascal's wager between an atheist and a Christian,
>I can't lose anything, but I can gain everything. Chris OTOH cannot gain
>anything, but he can lose everything.
and if he is right and you are wrong and he believes (as you do) that
he'd better pretend to be a Christian in order to hedge his bets,
then he will have lived his life as a lie. We are back to that. In
fact, if *you* are correct, he would *still* have lived his life as a
lie. I don't think even your god would be pleased with that. In a
sense, Pascal is correct. You pays your money and takes your choice.
In the end you must live a life of integrity as you see it. If your
god is displeased with that, then screw him. He isn't worth worship.
>Stephen:
>Chris must satisfy himself, in his *heart*. The test would be that Chris
>would be then relaxed about Christianity, and not getting angry at Christians
>or their God anymore. We do not get angry at some South Sea
>Islanders' god, or its followers, because we believes in our hearts that
>there is no real possibility of that god being true.
I believe in my heart that your god has no possibility of being true
and for exactly the same reasons you disbelieve the Islander's god.
Meanwhile, the South Sea Islander's god isn't pushed in our faces
every day. They aren't trying to use political influence to force
publicly funded schools to teach their particular brand of religion.
The South Sea Islanders are not anti-science because they think it
contradicts a detail of their religion. The South Sea Islanders don't
have a long history of burning heretics at the stake.
>I was reading the Koran the other day and it threatens me with eternal
>punishment unless I become a Moslem. But I don't bother attacking
>Moslems because I believe in my heart that there is *no* chance that
>Islam is true and so Mohammed's God is no more a threat to me than
>the Tooth Fairy.
true. And you would be pretty darned pissed if they took over the
public schools and insisted on teaching their religion to your
children. You would be angry if they took over the government and
used their influence to disenfranchise your wife and daughters. If
everywhere you turned they repeated their warning that you were going
to hell unless you embraced the truth of Islam. Oh, you would fight
them if they were constantly telling you to bet on their religion
because even if you sincerely believe Christianity to be correct you
will still burn in hell forever if they are right.
Oh, and while you are engaged in this fantasy, keep in mind that
world-wide there are 1.03 billion Muslims and only 391 million
non-Catholic Christians.
Susan
-- ----------I am aware that the conclusions arrived at in this work will be denounced by some as highly irreligious; but he who denounces them is bound to shew why it is more irreligious to explain the origin of man as a distinct species by descent from some lower form, through the laws of variation and natural selection, than to explain the birth of the individual through the laws of ordinary reproduction.
---Charles Darwin
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