for athesists ,again?

Question

Alright , i NOW understand that you don't HATE Jesus, but you just don't belive in Him.
thank you for your honest answers.
i'm just trying to understand atheists and their opinions.

well, the reason i thougt you hated Jesus is because you guys always say bad things about him. or whatever.
just a 14 year girl trying to understand people.

Answer 1

I appreciate you trying to understand atheists instead of jumping to conclusions about them.

Answer 2

As an Agnostic, i can easily say that Atheism is the easiest to understand in a lot of aspects. For those who demand logic Atheism works. As far as not believing in Jesus, I'm not so sure about, he was an actual person, whether or not he was a prophet or deity is a separate issue.

Answer 3

Click on my picture and read the question at the top of the list.

Atheism has a very simple meaning and it is unrelated to Jews, Christians, Muslims, the bible or anything other than not believing a "God" exists.

That's it in it's entirety.

Answer 4

You could go on and on and never understand people. There are many things in this world that are hard to understand,,, in your area of understanding that you are inquiring is the most difficult even. Ones understanding in that inside his or her mind body and soul. Once you have that understood within yourself it makes it easier to understand others,,, but not precisely.

Answer 5

There can be no gods. Logic tells us that.

Pascal's Wager
Pascal's wager sounds deceptively simple. Many a religious person finds such a call attractive: one only needs to believe without considering the evidence and one would immediately be in a better position than that of the non-believer. After all, they say, if I believe and then it turns out to be true I get to enjoy heavenly bliss; but if my belief turns out to be false, and there is no God, then when I die, I lose nothing. An atheist, the religious person may continue, if he turns out to be wrong will suffer an eternity of torment. If the atheist turns out to be right then it is only equal to the believer's "worst case." Obviously then, the believer will say, you must wager on the side of belief.

But Pascal's argument is seriously flawed. The religious environment that Pascal lived in was simple. Belief and disbelief only boiled down to two choices: Roman Catholicism and atheism. With a finite choice, his argument would be sound. But on Pascal's own premise that God is infinitely i


infinitely incomprehensible, then in theory, there would be an infinite number of possible theologies about God, all of which are equally probable.

First, let us look at the more obvious possibilities we know of today - possibilities that were either unknown to, or ignored by, Pascal. In the Calvinistic theological doctrine of predestination, it makes no difference what one chooses to believe since, in the final analysis, who actually gets rewarded is an arbitrary choice of God. Furthermore we know of many more gods of many different religions, all of which have different schemes of rewards and punishments. Given that there are more than 2,500 gods known to man [2], and given Pascal's own assumptions that one cannot comprehend God (or gods), then it follows that, even the best case scenario (i.e. that God exists and that one of the known Gods and theologies happen to be the correct one) the chances of making a successful choice is less than one in 2,500.


Second, Pascal's negative theology does not exclude the possibility that the true God and true theology is not one that is currently known to the world. For instance it is possible to think of a God who rewards, say, only those who purposely step on sidewalk cracks. This sounds absurd, but given the premise that we cannot understand God, this possible theology cannot be dismissed. In such a case, the choice of what God to believe would be irrelevant as one would be rewarded on a premise totally distinct from what one actually believes. Furthermore as many atheist philosophers have pointed out, it is also possible to conceive of a deity who rewards intellectual honesty, a God who rewards atheists with eternal bliss simply because they dared to follow where the evidence leads - that given the available evidence, no God exists! Finally we should also note that given Pascal's premise, it is possible to conceive of a God who is evil and who punishes the good and rewards the evil


Thus Pascal's call for us not to consider the evidence but to simply believe on prudential grounds fails. As the atheist philosopher, J.L. Mackie wrote:


Once the full range of such possibilities is taken into account, Pascal's argument from comparative expectations falls to the ground. The cultivation of non-rational belief is not even practically reasonable

Answer 6

Be careful about reveling your age on-line! There is a part of this world that is very ugly... I hope you don't have to find that out the hard way.

Answer 7

Of course we don't hate Jesus... what made you think that?!

is there a question here or is this misconduct?

Answer 8

We don't hate you either by the way.

(yeah, I know you exist)

Choosereality: see her other questions

Answer 9

I don't believe, but I don't hold it against you that you do.

Answer 10

yeah i don't hate him. i just don't think he was anybody special.