Pascalβs Wager. Totally ignores that there are hundreds of gods and religions, trending toward infinity if you count all of human history and potential other worlds. The wager only works if itβs one religion versus missing out on the afterlife.
this post was submitted on 13 Feb 2025
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I wouldn't say it was weird, I think it's one of the better arguments since it only relies on pure hard nosed practicality, but it still doesn't hold water for the reasons you say. I think at least within the constructs of what it considers, it's logical, it's just that it fails to consider too much, among which, whether or not belief in the existence of something like that can just be chosen on the basis of what would be practically expedient.
It could be demonstrated to me that belief in Santa Claus can have material benefits, and failure to believe will mean that, if he does exist, you will no longer receive gifts. With that logic it would make more sense to believe in Santa Claus than not to, since there's no downside to believing and being wrong and a potentially negative consequence to lacking that belief and being wrong. The problem is that, I can't sincerely believe in something that for all intents and purposes I can say I "know" isn't real simply because I would like to enjoy the hypothetical benefits and avoid the hypothetical consequences. I can say I believed in Santa Clause, if doing so meant that someone was going to give me gifts, but saying it and believing it are distinct concepts so the wager would be more persuasive as a means of deciding whether or not to declare belief in something than believe it.
Probably the one where people admit that it's the only thing stopping them from murdering random people
Anything, anything, random mutations.
I once met a guy who became a priest because he had a religious experience while talking to a chair.
The weirdest one I ever got was in highschool, someone said "how can you not believe in god, god is love" and I still don't understand how that's meant to be an argument.
Hahaha I love that this is written as "he had a religious experience WHILE talking to a chair", not "he had a religious experience AND talked to a chair". Dude's just having a normal conversation with a chair and then something weird and unexplained occurred that put him on the path to god. I wonder if the chair was as convinced.
That kind of phrasing always seems they assume that not believing is the same as rejecting and therefore you too believe in the existence of God/god.
They just completely miss the point.
The best ones from my extended family was hedging their bets. They believe just in case their is. I hate to break it to them but if he is all knowing. Wouldn't he banish you anyway for not truly believing. But I didn't want to get into a fight so I dropped it. But I do laugh sometimes when I think of the Christian god as some kind of protection racket mobster.
So basically something similar to Pascal's wager?
Yeah it's the perfect con give 10% of your earnings for your whole life to me on the chance a story I made up is true.
Also which God should you devote your life to? If you pick the wrong one your screwed right?
Pascal's wager is a defense of theism in general, not a specific flavor of theism. If you accept that there is a God, any God, then you can reason and argue about which way to worship her is correct.
If you do not believe that God exists, however, then the particularities of which godhead you worship are irrelevant trivia.
If God or Brahman or Kamisama exist, then they are aware of the imperfect worship flavors that they receive and have appropriate accommodations included, if they are worthy of worship at all. (Please note that Zeus is not included in this list, because that guy's just a rapist bastard.)
What if there's a god and they hate anyone who believes in them?
On the hottest day of the year a few years ago, the Mormons were out door knocking in their little suits. They were clearly not having a good time so we invited them in for a cold drink just to offer them some respite from the afternoon sun.
They got me to read a passage about Joseph Smith going into a cave and feeling euphoric and were like "well how do does that make you feel" and I'm like "what? I know people who've had more convincing experiences than that who still aren't religious because they knew they were on drugs"
They came back again a few times until it was clear we're absolutely not becoming Mormons.
I sometimes wonder if it occurs to them that we were probably better christians than most actual Christians they've met, even without the blackmail.
I only recently tossed a Handbook Of Christian Apologetics by Tacelli & Kreeft. I was never devout, let alone outright brainwashed into anti-science nonsense, but at the cusp of my reddit atheist phase I figured a question this big deserved a fair shake. So I got a big ol' book of the best arguments anyone had. They all sucked. So that was that.
The one that made me put the book down and go 'yep, atheist' was "the argument from magic." You think about moving your hand. Your hand moves by thought alone. Magic! Therefore, Jesus. I fucking wish I was exaggerating.
Took another decade to figure out the people pushing these arguments don't actually give a shit about being right. The point is performing loyalty to the ingroup. There's a conclusion, and it comes from people above you, so your job is to make whatever mouth noises get there. Consistency and logic are neat features if you can manage. A monotheistic god is only the purest expression of that tribalist worldview.
Not in God per se, but this puzzle came up at the Radio Shack I used to work at when I was 18. I didnβt have an immediate explanation for how it was possible.
My co-worker used it as an example of how some things are unexplainable. Therefore, yβknow, God.
Someone told me one time they believe in specifically the christian god because the world is so perfect, and i was like what fucking world are you living in and how do i get there?
It also doesn't make any sense why it would be the Christian god if that's the reasoning because I think rather a lot of different religions would happily take credit for whatever it is they thought made the world "perfect" so why would the Christian claim to this perfection be any stronger than any other?