Chuck Colson: A Sucker’s Bet

Comment by: Stephan

I totally disagree with Dawkins’ conclusion about the possible existence of God, and also with his reasoning on how he gets to that conclusion, but I would never mischaracterize it the way Colson does here. He obviously did not read the book. It’s too bad when someone criticizes something based on faulty information or hearsay rather than taking the time to find out the facts for themselves.

Comment by: Laura M.

It’s a shame how many people will read what Colson wrote and one, think what he said about Dawson is true, and two, think his reasoning is actually logical .

I meant what he wrote about Dawkins, not Dawson.

You know, it really is weird how many people don’t see through the Pascal’s Wager thing. Logical reasoning really should be taught early, often , and annually.

It should be required.

Comment by: Siamang

To go back to this Colson quote:

Or put it this way: If Dr. Dawkins had been on the Titanic and was offered two lifeboats—one certain to sink and the other with a one-in-seven chance of staying afloat—he would not have chosen the one that was sure to sink. That would be irrational.

Let’s take this statement logically. Okay, so we know Dawkins isn’t really at 1 in 7. But doesn’t the same reasoning hold up if it’s one in 1000? If 1 in 1000 lifeboats will make it? One in a million?

Colson assumes no downside, and only upside… you might find the ONE magic lifeboat.

In other words, Colson REALLY should carry a lucky rabbit’s foot with him at all times. After all, even if the odds are one in a million that it’s really lucky, HEY, at least it’s a possible lifeboat.

In fact, he shouldn’t stop at just one rabbit’s foot. We can festoon our bodies with lucky trinkets, just as I used to festoon my belief system with baroque details… just to be extra sure!

Angels? YES! Ghosts? SURE! UFO’s? WHY NOT?!?! Prosperity theology? Of COURSE!!! If it might possibly be true, why risk it!??

Comment by: Ir (Helen)

Siamang wrote:

I may have had this ethic drilled into me by my journalism teacher Allison Rittger, but I believe that any writer, especially one writing in a periodical, has a fundamental duty to his readers to check all assertions. When you are attempting to characterize the words of someone you disagree with, the obligation on you is DOUBLED… You must, absolutely MUST give the most accurate and fair characterization of your opponent’s point of view before you attempt to debunk it.

Wow, what an awesome ethic! I wish everyone embraced that ethic.

Comment by: Stephan

Pascal’s Wager is really only the first part of what Pascal wrote about faith. His intent was to prove that it is safe to bet that God exists. He had other writings to show why he believed Christianity was the one true faith. The Wager itself does not address this explicitly, although at the time it was written Christianity was the main way a European would exhibit their faith.

Really the wager does not speak to what religion one should believe, only that one should believe. Beyond that it is up to each individual to look into each religion and see which one holds up best. To stretch the Wager to try to pick a religion is ridiculous and was not what Pascal intended.

Comment by: Siamang

There are an infinite number of possible natures of God that make the Wager a BAD bet. What if God turns out to be down on people who dishonestly believe, and likes honest doubters? What if we have a Schoolmaster God who is testing us for our ability to do good without hope of reward or fear of punishment? What if God turns out to be the jealous god Beethrus worshiped by the fish-men who live on planet Xalthrab, and punishes all believers in false-gods but spares the atheists?

Pascal’s wager ONLY works if we really do know the nature of God. And if we knew the nature of God, we wouldn’t have to be making any wagers about it.

It’s circular. For the wager to have any value, you have to know the nature of God. If you know the nature of God, you don’t need the wager.

Comment by: Karen

To stretch the Wager to try to pick a religion is ridiculous and was not what Pascal intended.

That very well may be true; I haven’t read much about Pascal beyond this one point he made.

But it’s amazing how often believers bring this up, thinking it’s an non-stoppable argument in their favor. I heard it many, many times from the pulpit and I don’t think I’ve ever been privy to a discussion between atheists and theists where it hasn’t come up.

Comment by: Mike O

I agree, it’s a mind-bending concept for most who hold Pascal’s Wager to be true. But why do you think that is?

They’ve never been challenged on it. Christians assume there are only two positions - belief and non-belief, which is faulty. There is belief in any number of deities, but Christians IMO regard them all as non-belief - therefore Pascal’s wager makes sense to them.

Maybe that’s hard to understand from a non-C perspective.

Comment by: Ir (Helen)

I think others have already said this but anyway…

Stephan, I think Pascal’s Wager is invalidated by his failure to realize that if someone else’s God exists, being a Christian won’t save people from that God’s hell.

Just as being a devout believer in another religion’s God wouldn’t save that believer from Pascal’s God’s hell.

Since hell therefore is a possible outcome of wagering on Pascal’s God (because what if he is the wrong God), Pascal’s premise that there’s no risk of major downside if you bet on his God is wrong and therefore his whole wager argument is invalidated.

I would agree with Siamang in calling it a fallacy.

Comment by: Karen

They’ve never been challenged on it.

Bingo! Which points out the value of forums like this one. When you’ve never had your cherished beliefs seriously challenged, of course you don’t even “get it” when a challenge arises.

Christians assume there are only two positions - belief and non-belief, which is faulty. There is belief in any number of deities, but Christians IMO regard them all as non-belief - therefore Pascal’s wager makes sense to them.

Ah, interesting. I think this is where we get into fundamentalist belief territory. So there are two categories: Belief in Jesus and Christianity, and non-belief, which includes belief in Allah, Buddha, Yahweh, humanity, actual atheism, and other “false gods.” Kind of like fundamentalist Muslims might say there’s belief in Allah and Muhammad and everyone else (Christians, Jews, atheists) is an infidel. Is that what you mean?

That’s the position I came from exactly, that belief in other gods was actually derived from satan and therefore invalid. But most moderate and liberal Christians do not even seem to believe me when I say that’s the teaching we got, since that’s apparently not what they are taught at all. Some are even taught that belief in other gods is just as valid - or almost - as Christianity. This would have been heresy of the highest order at the churches I attended.

Maybe that’s hard to understand from a non-C perspective.

It’s almost impossible for most non-Christians to understand, in my experience, and particularly atheists who tend to want to examine things as objectively and logically as possible. Assuming that only one kind of belief is valid from the outset introduces a fatal bias into the wager, so it’s immediately invalidated. Non-Christians don’t understand that that’s exactly what Christians are doing, and Christians don’t understand what’s wrong with doing that.

Comment by: Eliza

I’m a 6.2 for belief in existence in the God of the Bible, and on another axis not represented on the scale regarding the possibility of any God at all. You could call me a 4, but really my position tends to be a question, “What is meant by ‘God’ and how would we know whether or not it existed?”

Comment by: Stephan

I would say that this is much more simple than some of you think but much more complex than most Christians would like it to be.

I would say that Pascal’s Wager, on its own, is binary. Either God exists, or He does not. Atheism or theism. You do not need to know the nature of God to decide whether or not he/she/it exists in some form. That’s the easy part.

The hard part, as many of you have noted, is that once you decide there is a God, you have to decide what this God looks like. It’s not as Pascal put it, that, if God exists, and you believe, you will get an eternal reward. There are many more options than that. But you cannot explore these options unless you have decided that God exists. You cannot explore how to follow God unless you have decided to live as though God exists. Then things start to get infinitely complicated.

But this, in my opinion, comes after Pascal’s Wager, not before.

Comment by: Siamang

I would say that Pascal’s Wager, on its own, is binary. Either God exists, or He does not.

You’re assuming only one god.

Further, to make the statement “God exists” you’ve got to define the word “God” in such a way that the statement “God exists” is a meaningful statement.

I can make the statement “Foobar exists” and it is a nonsensical statement. There’s not a binary set of possibilities until I define “foobar”. If I define “foobar” as a pink unicorn, then it’s a false statement.

If I define “foobar” as a dinosaur, then it’s a not entirely untrue statement… but not entirely true. Dinosaurs did exist, but don’t now. If I define “dinosaur” taxonomically, then birds count as dinosaurs, therefore it’s a true statement. However if I define “foobar” as Barney the Dinosaur, then he exists as a fictional character and concept, partially existant as an idea and a property, but not existent as a real autonomous living creature.

Without defining the word “God”, the statement “God exists” is a contentless statement.

I can make any number of contentless statements, with the fine-print details to come later. Why not just make the wager “X exists” and then come up with what X means at a later date?

I don’t make contractural agreements that way, I hope you don’t either, in business or religion.

Comment by: Siamang

You aren’t dealing with my objections to the wager, which are logical objections to the front-loaded hidden assumptions therein. Regardless of my personal beliefs, those hidden assumptions are still part of the wager. If I were never born, those hidden assumptions would still be part of the wager.

Of course if you take the Wager and decide there is no God, or decide not to take the wager at all, then you don’t need to deal with all of those messy questions about the nature of God.

You aren’t addressing the fact that the nature of God is tacitly assumed in the question itself, thereby invalidating the wager.

You have decided there is no God, which ends any debate right there. It’s all so tidy and neat.

Regardless of whether God exists or not, the wager is still logically fallacious.

One might say you are obscuring the Wager to avoid dealing with the questions that a positive answer might bring up.

The only world where a positive answer means anything is one where the wagerer already knows the nature of God, and therefore wouldn’t need to be wagering.

Comment by: Siamang

“This can only be possible if there is some intelligence behind it,” then you have accepted the Wager.

No, that’s not Pascal’s Wager, it’s the teleological argument. They are two different arguments. One is the argument from design, the other is the argument from consequence.

Please don’t confuse one for the other, or you’ll make me dizzy.

I agree that you have to define something before you can decide whether or not that thing exists, but you can decide there is a God without defining the details, just as you can identify a tree without deciding if it is a pine or an ash or a maple or an oak.

Before you can identify a tree, you have to define the word “tree”. The word tree, to you and to me, carries an implicit definition.

You and I know the general nature of that definition, because both you and I know what does and does not constitute a tree.

You and I agree on the nature of trees, so it is easy for you and I to identify a tree without getting too far into details.

I do not know the nature of Gods, except to know that they are proported to be powerful. I cannot think of any test to tell the difference between a God and a scientifically advanced alien. I cannot think of any test to tell the diference between a God and any magical being, were I to see one.

Without a definition of the word “God” that works, I cannot say that the phrase “God exists” means anything.

You bring up various religions, but all agree on the basic tenet that there is a God or gods.

Not quite.

Some forms of Buddhism are technically nontheistic. The Carvaka School of Hinduism was atheistic and philosopically materialist. Classical Samkhya and Purva Mimamsa are two other atheistic Indian traditions. Jainism also has no God, but merely a set of role-models.

But this statement:

but all agree on the basic tenet that there is a God or gods.

also carries a hidden assumption: That humans are somehow correct in their broad concepts of God(s). The possibility that humans are actually WILDLY off on their assumptions about the nature of a God(s) doesn’t enter into your assumptions… but actually it’s a probability that has a high likelihood.

Assuming there are an infinite number of aspects of God, the chances we got it right are vanishingly small.

That is, of course, unless you are already a THEIST, and believe we got it right.

And if you ARE a theist, then you don’t have to make Pascal’s wager… you’re already a believer and you don’t need to convince yourself that you should follow along “just in case it’s true.”

Comment by: Laura M.

Stephan,

The argument here is whether Pascal’s Wager is logical or not. Logical reasoning has certain rules. Pascal’s Wager doesn’t follow those rules, therefore it is an illogical statement. It’s not really open to opinion.

This is not an argument about whether or not God exists or whether or not mankind should seriously consider whether or not God(s)(esses) exist(s).

There’s a huge difference between: seriously considering an issue/ question, and deciding that you know the answer to the question.

From your perspective as a Christian you think it is a simple and obvious thing to decide that some sort of God exists but the truth is it can’t be that obvious or I don’t think there’d be billions of atheists in the world right now.

guess the whole point of the Wager is to decide whether or not you are interested in God and the nature of God. If you look around and say, “This can only be possible if there is some intelligence behind it,” then you have accepted the Wager.

Many people, billions of them, look around and do not at all agree with that statement. What about all the people who look around and see both possibilities?
It is possible there is an intelligence behind all this, it is possible there is no intelligent designer behind all this.

You have not yet decided what the nature of God is, nor do you need to in order to accept the Wager.

And as Siamang has been trying to make clear to you, your statement shows that you are assuming an awful lot about the nature of God (s)(esses):

1) Intelligent
2) Creative
3) Personally involved or knows how you are now living your life
4) Cares a rats ass how you live your life
5) Takes what happens here on Earth so seriously he/she/it/they aren’t already planning to wreck this planet and open an intergalactic shipping lane through this space

You think some of these other possibilities are just plain silly, but you’re forgetting the hundreds of thousands, millions, and in some cases billions who have a very different perspective on God.

You simply cannot decide if there is or is not a God if you have no clue what the nature of God is/would be.

Christianity assumes in minute detail what the true nature of God is, then says that since their version of God makes so much sense to them (now that they’ve worked out most of the details of what a God would do/look like) that this God must exist.

We could all sit around and make a ‘build it yourself God’ which perfectly fits the mold of what we think a God should be, then declare that since our God is so perfect and makes so much sense (and why wouldn’t he/she/it/they if we invented him/her/them?) that it must exist.

Remember, not all religions claim that their God(s) are the creator(s) of life in this world. That’s your definition of the ‘nature of God’.

Comment by: Siamang

You and Siamang think you need a complete set of blueprints to decide whether or not God exists. I think you only need a very basic understand, and you figure it out from there.

I’m not out to prove in this thread if God exists or not.

The question of “Is Pascal’s wager front-loaded with hidden assumptions that when analyzed invalidates the logical formation of the proof?” is a much, MUCH easier question to solve than “Does God exist?”

Pascal’s wager is front-loaded with assumptions. It is. Therefore Pascal’s wager is a poor logical formation.

If God created logic, then Pascal insults God with this poor logical formation.

Comment by: Laura M.

So Laura’s answer to my earlier question appears to be no, I cannot understand Siamang’s point and still disagree with him. I only disagree because I misunderstand.

Actually, I think you could understand Siamang’s point and still disagree with him, but I don’t think that’s what you’re doing here. Based on your own words, you are clearly misunderstanding Siamang’s and my point.

You and Siamang think you need a complete set of blueprints to decide whether or not God exists. I think you only need a very basic understand, and you figure it out from there.

I don’t think you need a complete set of blueprints or anything close to that. That’s part of your misunderstanding.

Perhaps, but you do not need to know the details to have an idea, a glimmer of realization, that there is a God

You have to have some details though.

Laura, you said I assumed the following:

1) Intelligent
2) Creative
3) Personally involved or knows how you are now living your life
4) Cares a rats ass how you live your life
5) Takes what happens here on Earth so seriously he/she/it/they aren’t already planning to wreck this planet and open an intergalactic shipping lane through this space

All of which may be true about me, but you do not need to assume all or any of the above to decide that God exists.

I so completely agree with you Stephan, but that’s neither here nor there in this discussion. As Siamang and I said, that’s not at issue here. You do have to assume all of the above for Pascal’s Wager to make any sense.

Disagree? Go back and read it again. Finished? Did you catch the part where it says you have nothing to lose by betting your life on God’s existence?

The great philosopher Blaise Pascal wrote that if there is no God, and you bet your life there is, you have lost nothing. But if there is a God, and you bet your life there is not, you have made an eternal mistake.

If you make a bet and lay down your life as the stakes and then you lose the bet, you lose your life. That’s the way a bet works.

But if there is a God, and you bet your life there is not, you have made an eternal mistake.

How could you have made ‘an eternal mistake’ unless all of the following about God are true(?):

1) Intelligent
2) Creative
3) Personally involved or knows how you are now living your life
4) Cares a rats ass how you live your life
5) Takes what happens here on Earth so seriously he/she/it/they aren’t already planning to wreck this planet and open an intergalactic shipping lane through this space.

That ‘eternal mistake‘ line implies a Judeo-Christian -like type of God or some similar idea involving a :

1) Intelligent being (with supernatural powers)
2) This being created you or is involved with being(s) who created you. In other words, a being that is creative or part of the creative process. You were created for a purpose which he/she/it/they intend to see you fulfill.
3) This God is watching you
4) This God has eternal consequences in store based on the choices you are making now (you’re betting your life after all) which is why he/she/it/they give a rat’s ass
5) Takes what happens here on Earth seriously (thus the eternal consequences)

There would be no ‘betting your life’ or ‘eternal comsequences’ without the previous five assumptions. Pascal is most definitely not talking about a ‘glimmer of God’, but instead a very specific type of God. Without the previous five assumptions, there is no bet. After all, there has to be a standard by which to judge if a bet has been won or lost.

As Siamang said:

The question of “Is Pascal’s wager front-loaded with hidden assumptions that when analyzed invalidates the logical formation of the proof?”

And again, as Siamang said, the answer is yes, it is. That is why it is an illogical statement.

Comment by: Laura M.

There may be some assumptions up front, but I believe they are minimal.

This is the error in what you and Pascal are saying.

Betting your life and suffering eternal consequences are not ‘minimal’ assumptions about the ‘nature of God’ in this wager.

They are huge assumptions about the nature of any God(s) that may or may not exist.

How can your life and eternal consequences possibly be minimal?

Comment by: Siamang

How do you know that there are eternal rewards in God’s plan at all?

Again, front-loaded assumptions.

Blame your own preconceptions.

Blame your own preconceptions.

So you admit then that Pascal’s Wager fails if you do not make the preconceptions of someone who is a theist?

That’s all I’ve been saying.

Pascal’s wager is worthless if you aren’t a believer already.

Comment by: Siamang

If you are a deist or a pantheist you do not need to make a wager, you already believe.

All deists already will live their lives as if the deist deity exists.

All pantheists already live their lives as if the pantheist deities exist.

If you approach these people and say “hey, how about living your life as if your conception of God exists, just in case your conception of God exists?” They’ll look at you and say, dude, totally already doing it.

I’ll point out that I am doing the exact same thing. My “conception of God” is that He’s nonexistant. So I’m living my life as if my conception of God is correct.

Which is why the Pascal’s Wager fails and is a statement that has no content: It cannot bring me from one state of belief to another.

All it is is an illusion of a rational argument from which a believer in one thing can argue that it’s more logical for other people to drop their beliefs and join theirs.

It’s a fallacious argument. It fails because it utterly depends on what your opinion of God is.

If Pascal’s wager is a logically sound idea, then you should drop your religion and become an atheist. Because everyone knows that my conception of reality is better than yours.

No? Don’t agree? GOOD! That’s because Pascal’s wager ASSUMES that the theists definition of God is mostly the same as the atheist’s definition of God, but in actuallity the two are really as opposite as opposite can be.

Which is why Pascal’s wager fails. It looks as strong as steel to the theist, but it’s as thin as wet tissue paper to the atheist.

And Pascal’s wager is DESIGNED to supposedly give an atheist a reason to believe in something. Which it fails at.

All it does do is make theists think they’re offering a bridge of the strongest steel to the atheist, and the atheist, dishonest chicken shit that he is, won’t step one foot on that rickety-ass thing!

Comment by: Laura M.

I just typed a long response which said exactly what Eliza just said (’cause I’m a genius too), but mine got accidentally deleted. Damn my clumsy fingers.

Well, maybe it didn’t say exactly what Eliza’s said, but I did make the point that Pascal’s wager says a lot more than either God exists or doesn’t exist.

If that were all it said, I’d be the first to agree. Stephan, you’re forgetting that I comepletely agree with that point of view. I’m a #4 on Dawkins spectrum of beliefs, remember?

Here’s where I think you’re going wrong with this Stephan. I think you’re assuming that if the individual statements are each true, then the whole thing overall must be logical. And of course, as a Christian, you assume that it is true.

Nothing wrong with thinking it is true. That is just a matter of opinion, and you’re welcome to yours.

But even though the individual statements in this wager are true (for the sake of arguement- and why not, maybe they are), the thing is still illogical.

And not just because it discounts the preconcieved notions of atheists when making a statement to atheists that is meant to be convincing to athiests. I mean that’s just bizarre isn’t it, when you think about it? Basically saying, forget all your preconcieved notions and believe mine for no other reason than because I say so.

Pascal’s wager is as logical as the following:

A)All birds have wings.
B)All penguins have wings.
C)Therefore all penguins are birds.

Completely illogical, right?
Despite the fact that each individual statement is true.

Comment by: Laura M.

I have yet to see a serious scenario where you have something to lose by wagering that God exists.

Stephan,

Siamang, myself, Karen and Helen have all already explained that we were once Christians who left the religion and now do not ‘believe’ in God.

As Christians, we once believed, or ‘wagered that God exists’.
We no longer do for a reason.

Life is one long costs/benefits anlysis. We all obviously had more ‘to lose by believing’ than we have by not believing. That is why we are no longer Christians.

Nothing could convince me that I have ‘nothing to lose’ by believing, because 19 years of my life taught me the opposite. The second 19 years of my life without a belief in God has been steady ‘gains’.

I was perpetually and clincally (dangerously) depressed for the first 19 years of my life while trying to convince myself to believe in God, precisely because of being taught to agree with ‘Pascal’s Wager’ type thinking.

It was only when I finally accepted that I didn’t have to agree with other’s preconcieved notions of God, and in fact could live my life as though there were no God at all, that I became a happy person.

I had no life while trying to believe in God and as a matter of fact came close to losing my life entirely so many times. I gained everything by letting go of the need/desire for faith/belief. I gained my health, happiness, sanity, my life.

I have yet to see a serious scenario where you have something to lose by wagering that God exists.

I have everything to lose.

Comment by: Laura M.

Based on what I have read, your faith, Helen’s and Siamang’s are very different from mine and most Christians I know. I never believed in what you apparently have stopped believing in, so it really doesn’t relate to me.

Stephan,

I’m not trying to ‘nah-nah-nah-boo I’m rubber and your glue’ you here, but I sincerely think you’re the one not making distinctions here. I wish I could say that’s not been my typical experience with most Christians.

You’ve lumped all atheists beliefs about God into one category. Apparently we all believe the exact same thing(s) about God, and of course we’re all wrong.

You say you don’t believe in the same God I don’t believe in, but I never said I don’t believe in any God except the Christian definition of God. I’m not talking about the Christian fundamentalist definition of God, I’m talking about the overarching definition of God that all Christians share and believe in. The reason I don’t believe in that God is because I believe Christians have defined their God out of possibly being able to exist.

The ‘nature of God’, as described by Christians including yourself , from my conversations with you, is a contradictory nature. Then Christians say that their God’s nature has no contradictions. I can’t agree that something my brain tells me is contradictory is not actually contradictory at all. I can’t agree with that until my brain understands how and why it is not contradictory.

My brain has never understood how the Christian God is not a God of contradictory nature(s). If I am then told that I must beleive in the Christian God and believe that God has no contradictions in His nature, that is impossible for me to do.

That insistence, by virtually all Christians, makes me so confused and depressed I begin to think there’s no point in being alive. Until I remember that , if it’s OK for them to think I am wrong and live their life accordingly, then it’s OK for me to think they are wrong and live my life accordingly.

Living my life accordingly means no more and no less than that I stop trying to force myself to believe in something that I know is impossible for me to believe in (a God of a contradictory nature who is not contradictory), and that I stop making myself terribly sick in the process.

Almost all of the atheists I have talked to here come from a repressive fundamentalist church where being a Christian is like wearing a straight jacket. Your description of how your faith dragged you down is a prime example.

I attended lots of different churches and denominations as a child, Stephan. I attended those churches every weekend because I enjoyed it, not because anyone made me. My mother never attended church. I preferred my family’s Pentecostal church and the Church of Christ churches that I attended at the time. They were the most fun.

I have no problem with the fundamentalist version of Christianity as opposed to other forms of Christianity because I understand where they are coming from. I grew up with it and it makes as much sense to me, actually more sense to me, than mainstream Christianity. I’m actually considering putting my daughter in the Sunday School at a nearby Church of Christ (very fundamentalist here in the South) location because she wants to learn more about the Bible and Jesus, which is not taught very frequently at the UU church which we attend.

I have no problem with the fundamentalist version of Christianity as opposed to other forms of Christianity because I understand where they are coming from.

This doesn’t mean I agree with them, it just means I understand where they are coming from and I like their style. I was never told in fundamentalist churches that my life would be easier or better if I were a Christian. It has been mainstream Christians who tell me this, and my past has proven them wrong.

Comment by: Laura M.

Once you have your mind made up, logic and reason mean nothing. If you are unwilling to consider a viewpoint other than your own, all other arguments look weak.

Atheism means open minded about God and theology. You’re confusing atheism with anti-theism/anti-deism.

Huge difference.

Atheism means you haven’t done the blueprint/build-it-yourself God thing that theists have done. Atheism means you’re still open to input/new information. Atheism means it’s not all figured out already, contract signed and sealed down to the fine print- eternal consequences and all.

You’ve admitted that you have your mind made up about some very specific details/descriptors of God/God’s nature:

)1) Intelligent being (with supernatural powers)
2) This being created you or is involved with being(s) who created you. In other words, a being that is creative or part of the creative process. You were created for a purpose which he/she/it/they intend to see you fulfill.
3) This God is watching you
4) This God has eternal consequences in store based on the choices you are making now (you’re betting your life after all) which is why he/she/it/they give a rat’s ass
5) Takes what happens here on Earth seriously (thus the eternal consequences)

The atheist’s mind is never made up, but by your own words, Stephan, yours is. So maybe you’re right:

. Once you have your mind made up, logic and reason mean nothing. If you are unwilling to consider a viewpoint other than your own, all other arguments look weak.

Comment by: Laura M.

One difference I can see between you and me from your last post is that I can live with apparent contradictions, knowing that either my understanding is wrong or what I believe is wrong, and someday one or the other will be sorted out. For me not to believe in God based on all that I know would be a bigger contradiction than any other. I simply cannot explain my experiences without there being a God, even if there are apparent contradictions in how I understand Him.

You’ve precisely got it here Stephan. That’s what I was trying to get across in those last couple of posts. You said:

One difference I can see between you and me from your last post is that I can live with apparent contradictions…

I can’t live with those contradictions. And I mean that literally.

For me not to believe in God based on all that I know would be a bigger contradiction than any other. I simply cannot explain my experiences without there being a God, even if there are apparent contradictions in how I understand Him.

For me to say I believe in the Christian God (the all perfect God), apparent contradictions and all, would be the biggest lie of all. Belief in that God is a physical impossibility for me. My brain only responds with ‘does not compute, does not compute’. And then I get sick to my stomach.

So many Christian-turned-atheists think they can close the door because “I’ve already been a Christian, so I know what it’s all about and I don’t believe it.” I simply don’t buy that.

Christians are the ones who get to define the Christian God. Apparantly they own Him. That’s fair!

I’m willing to let God define Himself.

If atheists can’t believe in that version of God, then we don’t get to be labeled ‘Christian’ by most Christians.

I would never say to someone, “Well, you were never a real Christian,” because I don’t even know for sure what a real Christian is. All I know is that you are not the same as me. Your beliefs (past and present) and experiences are not mine. So you cannot say, “I’ve been there,” because, quite simply, you can’t have been there because you don’t even know where “there” is.

I never said or implied that I’ve been where you are ,Stephan, because I know I’ve never even been close. I was telling you where I’ve been and why I am where I am now. I am an atheist because I believe what I believe, and all the Christians I knew did tell me that if I believe that then I’m not a true Christian.

I had no problem with that ’cause I don’t care so much about label/titles nor do I feel the need to be a part of any particular group. It was when I was told that I had better believe in the Christian version of God (or else! Pascal’s Wager) and I knew I couldn’t believe that, then the ‘I’m guess I’m not a Christian’ realization came to me.

How would you label my beliefs right now, as I’ve described them to you?

Atheist or Christian?

I think a problem arises if Christians begin to care more about the label than the content.

Sometimes you guys care so much about the label that if we don’t wear your label you’re afraid we might be separated from your ‘in-group’ for all of eternity. Like a field trip gone horribly awry.

Did God write that label?

CHRISTIAN: ONE WHO BELIEVES I(GOD)
AM PERFECT AND WITHOUT CONTRADICTION

All others must ride the ’special’ bus.

Comment by: Laura M.

I am open to a whole world of experiences that you dismiss as fantasy.

What is this fantasy of yours about this world you live in?

I live in a world you can only dream of.

Hah! And Hah again I say!! I dismiss this notion entirely.

That is precisely why I am a #4, 50/50 atheist. I dismiss the notion of anything supernatural totally and completely exactly 50%of the time.

The first 19 years of my life I believed in the possibility of God and a supernatural realm, the other 19 years I’ve decided to dismiss it entirely and totally. Balance in life is very important you know.

Comment by: Laura M.

Wait, that means it’s now time to switch back for the next 19 years.

But that only works if I switch back again for another 19 years after that, and I don’t know if I’ll be around that long.

I’ll have to think about that one. Geesh, balance is difficult.

Comment by: Karen

Wait, that means it’s now time to switch back for the next 19 years.

LOL! Laura, being a 4 and a Unitarian (right?) probably gives you the perfect balance. :-)

I would advise a little caution on sending your kids to a fundy Sunday school class, though I’m sure you don’t need my warning. Having been through years of Sunday school, I can say that the indoctrination can be pretty thorough. If your kids want to know more about Jesus, get some of those children’s bibles and read them with them so you can answer their questions - that would be my suggestion.

Comment by: Mike O

Laura said in #23,

And never mind the fact that Christians still can’t agree over how God wants you to live, either.

Ah, so it’s noticable, huh??

Comment by: Mike O

Laura said in #32,

but the truth is it can’t be that obvious or I don’t think there’d be billions of atheists in the world right now.

well, if you’re going to be intellectually honest about that statement (which may or may not be true - I don’t know), you have to factor into it that the vast majority of atheists are atheists because they were raised that way, or because Christians were stupid and soured them on the idea of God. Of the billions of atheists out there, how many do you really think have done all the analysis you and Siamang and others in the scientific community have done to really search it out?

I don’t mean to say you have to not think to be an atheist - not at all. I’m jsut saying how may atheists are atheists by default rather than by pursuit of the truth? Please don’t read anyting into that - I’m just pointing to the masses, not the scholars.

And of course the same can/should be said of people who call themselves Christians.

Comment by: Stephan

Laura, you asked:

How so? The open to more possibilities part. By decided atheist do you mean ‘hard’ atheist who is certain there is no God?

I’m going to go back on what I said earlier about not labeling people and go out on a bit of a limb. You sound to me more like an agnostic than an atheist. By that I mean that you believe there might be a god, but you don’t know and you aren’t even sure if it is knowable. Most people I have chatted with on the web who refer to themselves as atheists will add the caveat that they are not “hard” atheists, but they also are not really open to the idea that God exists, so there really isn’t much difference.

Comment by: Karen

I would be curious to here how these liberal and moderate Christians come to that position - biblically, I mean. Do they think they’re following the teachings of Christ (thus the name, “Christian”). OR do they just assume it’s Christian because it’s nice.

Honestly, I don’t thoroughly understand it either, Mike O. You’d have to get into a discussion with a liberal or moderate Christian on that subject, I suppose.

I looked into a couple of churches like that as I was transitioning away from religion, and they just didn’t do it for me. It seemed to me like they used different interpretations of various scriptures than I had heard growing up fundy. The problem I immediately had with that was that people can - and do - find whatever interpretation of the bible works for them, and then they claim that their interpretation is the true and right way to read the passage in question. In some cases, these alternate interpretations come up with conclusions that are the exact opposite of what the fundamentalist interpretation is!

Astonishing. What that realization taught me is that people can interpret the bible so that it says just about anything they want it to. It’s like a tabula rasa. That negates its value for me, at least in terms of finding any kind of definitive cosmic truth from it.

Comment by: Siamang

With an infinite number of possible gods to choose from, that’s a mighty big apple. We can take a million bites and we’re no nearer to an answer.

You’re welcome to propose a god, and if we are willing to stipulate that that’s the only God, we can run the cost/benefit.

But be assured that the god the offer the biggest carrots and or the biggest stick always wins the wager.

Comment by: Siamang

Atheists don’t believe in any god, right? So I’m just saying, let’s look at one of the gods you don’t believe in and see why?

For my part, lack of sufficient evidence.

Comment by: Mike O

So it’s not a logical issue? Is it a true statement that part of the problem is that you don’t see evidence in his followers? That’s what I suspect is a big part of it.

Take Dawkins, for example - he’s got bigger logical issues with God, right? Are there “major” points?

Or Eliza - why do you call yourself a 6.2? Why not 6? Or 5?

Comment by: Siamang

Hi mike, are you responding specifically to me?

“So it’s not a logical issue?”

That depends. Are you making a inquiry based on logic or other factors?

I feel nothing when I pray. I have not seen any reason to believe that the supernatural exists, therefore I think it is logicically prudent not to assume the existence of such an entity until such time as my perceptions change.

I’m not going to limit my reasoning to logic, because it does have to take into account my life experience which is of course partially subjective. But I don’t think anything I’m doing is illogical given my life experience.

Is it a true statement that part of the problem is that you don’t see evidence in his followers?

Am I supposed to see evidence in his followers? I was unaware that was a promised evidence of God’s existence.

Take Dawkins, for example - he’s got bigger logical issues with God, right? Are there “major” points?

It’s been a bit since I read The God Delusion, but I think the major point is that he feels that God, as he is normally described as an interactive entity is something that we should be able to detect.

In other words, Dawkins takes scientific creationists/Intelligent Design advocates at their word and agrees with their underlying premise: we should be able to detect the existence of a God by studying the world we find ourselves in.

Where the Creationists study the world and see something like the bacterial flagellum or the blood-clotting cascade or the human eye and see a “purposeful arrangement of parts” that implies a Designer…

Dawkins looks at this stuff with the eyes of a scientist. And science clearly shows that there was no need for a supernatural event for the human eye to evolve, nor the blood clotting cascade nor the flagellum.

Indeed, if we are attributing the human eye to the magical design of God, He’s got some ’splaining to do, because our eyes are an awful mess, and He must really like octopuses and hawks much more than He likes us.

In fact, our eyes are the kind of cobbled-together mess that we should expect to find as the product not of a designer, but of a mindless natural process that can only adapt to current conditions and can not plan ahead.

Anywhere we look with the eyes of science, we cannot find anything that could not have possibly happened without a divine intervention.

Dawkins takes the most parsimonious answer to be this: God does not exist.

His larger point is this… either we live in a world which was created by a God, or we don’t. If we DO, we should be able to find out by studying the world… that is if the word God has any content at all.

So he begins by describing what we should see around us if a God exists, then checking if we do see these things around us.

Do we see a world where prayer works?
Do we see a world made of things where natural process are not involved?
Do we see a world where clearly one group of people are getting their prayers answered more consistently than those of a different religion or ethnic group?
Do we see a world where acts of nature occur by a discernable will.

Dawkins seems to think that if we cannot detect a God, in any way, shape or form, then such a thing probably doesn’t exist.

He leaves room for further evidence changing his mind, but barring something extraordinary, that’s not likely possible.

He also spends a considerable portion of the book addressing some of the logical arguments for the existence of God, and giving the standard reasons why those logical proofs are said by some to fail. These are the ontological argument, the teleological argument, the argument from universal morality and Pascal’s wager.

The rest of the book is not arguments against the existence of God, but arguments against some of the arguments for the utility of religion.

Folks correct me if I missed anything.

Comment by: Siamang

You sent me an evolution textbook a while ago, and I found that a very difficult read because I just couldn’t buy into the theories, so it ended up being quite tedious.

Really?

I thought it would be an easy read because it starts off as a history rather than launching right into the science.

It starts off with a narrative of Darwin’s voyage, and then the time when people started finding fossils and for the first time realizing these were the bones of animals from a lost world millions of years before human history.

It approaches the material with such an eye for narrative that I thought you’d find it an easier read.

Comment by: Mike O

If you had a difficult time reading the book, which is a companion to the PBS series of the same name, because you couldn’t buy into the theories, it sounds like you were kind of fighting against the ideas. Did you read it to learn what is taught as evolution, or did reading it just get your dander up?

No, I wasn’t fighting the ideas - I am interested in the ideas and how they could be believed.

Maybe I just lost interest for a while - we had been spending a lot of time on it, I remember. But my gut reaction to this statement by you up in #74 makes me think I may need to give it another go.

Where the Creationists study the world and see something like the bacterial flagellum or the blood-clotting cascade or the human eye and see a “purposeful arrangement of parts” that implies a Designer…

Dawkins looks at this stuff with the eyes of a scientist. And science clearly shows that there was no need for a supernatural event for the human eye to evolve, nor the blood clotting cascade nor the flagellum.

Indeed, if we are attributing the human eye to the magical design of God, He’s got some ’splaining to do, because our eyes are an awful mess, and He must really like octopuses and hawks much more than He likes us.

In fact, our eyes are the kind of cobbled-together mess that we should expect to find as the product not of a designer, but of a mindless natural process that can only adapt to current conditions and can not plan ahead.

Anywhere we look with the eyes of science, we cannot find anything that could not have possibly happened without a divine intervention.

I see things SO differently.

Comment by: Mike O

The opposite statement to that, if I’m getting correct the way you see things, is ” we DO find things that could not have possibly happened without a divine intervention.”

Yes

In order to make this statement, don’t you need to know what the natural explanations are, and how to evaluate whether or not those explanations are supported by the facts?

And yes, to make that statement, I would need to know the natural explanations … which I’m sure I don’t.

Yes, life does a lot of amazing things that look like magic. But before you declare that it is magic, you should learn what people who study nature’s tricks have to teach.

Agreed. But showing how it could happen naturally doesn’t mean there isn’t magic. (No, I don’t believe in magic!)

That’s why I think I need to pick up that evolution textbook again. I don’t understand the science behind it.