Non Christians, If after I die and my God wasn't real the whole time, What have I lost?

Question

NOTHING! I've lived a good life and helped the hurting of the world. I've lived a moral life and done right by people and myself. If after you die and did not believe in my God, you've lost everything. Jesus died for you just as much as he died for me. Accept him in your heart and he will change your life!

WHEEE if you love JESUS say it with MEEEE!

Answer 1

Pascal's Wager states:

If I believe and there is a God, I am infinitely rewarded.
If I believe and there is no God, nothing happens.
If I do not believe and there is a God, I am infinitely punished.
If I do not believe and there is no God, nothing happens.

Let's replace 'God' with 'Odhinn'.

If I believe and there is a Odhinn, I am infinitely rewarded.
If I believe and there is no Odhinn, nothing happens.
If I do not believe and there is a Odhinn, I am infinitely punished.
If I do not believe and there is no Odhinn, nothing happens.


So... I should believe in Odhinn too?

Answer 2

I also live a good life, but I have more freedom to choose without being bound by a religious moral code. I must also take responsibility for my own actions, because I don't believe that there's a special dead guy who takes away all my sins. I've tried things your way and found religion lacking true substance, but I doubt you would have the courage to disbelieve.

Organized religion is just a crutch for the weak.

In short, I feel I have the opportunity to live a fuller life. If in the end there is no God, then you've wasted the only time YOU had by not allowing yourself the freedoms I enjoy and pursuing your full potential.

Now wrap your washed brain around this: Your God, He's all-forgiving, right? So even if I DON'T believe, I'll be forgiven in the end after living a better life anyway, so I come out ahead in life AND in the afterlife according to your Christian rules!

Answer 3

I've lived a good life and helped the hurting of the world. I've lived a moral life and done right by people and myself. I am a non-Christian, non-Jew and non-Muslim but I believe in God. All that will happen is that I will come back again when my body dies. And this will still happen no matter what you or I believe.

Therefore, my argument is as valid as yours ;)

Answer 4

What you've described is what's known as "Pascal's Wager" -- that is, if you don't believe and you're wrong, there are consequences, but not the reverse; ergo it's better to believe.

The incompleteness of the argument is known as "Pascal's Flaw." The flaw is comprised of three parts:
1. It ignores the question of what the truth actually is, and renders it meaningless;
2. It ignores the question of if the specific god in question is, in fact the correct and/or only god, and if disbelief if incorrect would have consequences; and
3. It assumes that belief may be arbitrarily chosen.

The third one is of particular interest to me -- would the Christian god take as heartfelt a "belief" based solely on the logic of risk-avoidance? Assuming that he is omniscient, he would know the motivations.

It's worth noting that Pascal didn't even believe in the argument -- he was a rationalist. The example of Pascal's Wager was simply a characature of a Christian argument. It is one of the bases for the mathematical field of game theory, however.

Answer 5

You have lost all the time you wasted in prayer to a being that doesn't exist. You could have been doing something more productive. Also, most people who believe in a God also believe that there are some highly enjoyable activities which their God forbids them to do. If you're wrong about God you have denied yourself those pleasures for nothing.

Answer 6

"If you believe in God and turn out to be incorrect, you have lost nothing -- but if you don't believe in God and turn out to be incorrect, you will go to hell. Therefore it is foolish to be an atheist."

This argument is known as Pascal's Wager. It has several flaws.

Firstly, it does not indicate which religion to follow. Indeed, there are many mutually exclusive and contradictory religions out there. This is often described as the "avoiding the wrong hell" problem. If a person is a follower of one religion, he may end up in another religion's version of hell.

Even if we assume that there's a God, that doesn't imply that there's one unique God. Which should we believe in? If we believe in all of them, how will we decide which commandments to follow?

Secondly, the statement that "If you believe in God and turn out to be incorrect, you have lost nothing" is not true. Suppose you're believing in the wrong God -- the true God might punish you for your foolishness. Consider also the deaths that have resulted from people rejecting medicine in favor of prayer.

Another flaw in the argument is that it is based on the assumption that the two possibilities are equally likely -- or at least, that they are of comparable likelihood. If, in fact, the possibility of there being a God is close to zero, the argument becomes much less persuasive. So sadly the argument is only likely to convince those who believe already.

Also, many feel that for intellectually honest people, belief is based on evidence, with some amount of intuition. It is not a matter of will or cost-benefit analysis.

Formally speaking, the argument consists of four statements:

One does not know whether God exists.
Not believing in God is bad for one's eternal soul if God does exist.
Believing in God is of no consequence if God does not exist.
Therefore it is in one's interest to believe in God.
There are two approaches to the argument. The first is to view Statement 1 as an assumption, and Statement 2 as a consequence of it. The problem is that there's really no way to arrive at Statement 2 from Statement 1 via simple logical inference. The statements just don't follow on from each other.

The alternative approach is to claim that Statements 1 and 2 are both assumptions. The problem with this is that Statement 2 is then basically an assumption which states the Christian position, and only a Christian will agree with that assumption. The argument thus collapses to "If you are a Christian, it is in your interests to believe in God" -- a rather vacuous tautology, and not the way Pascal intended the argument to be viewed.

Also, if we don't even know that God exists, why should we take Statement 2 over some similar assumption? Isn't it just as likely that God would be angry at people who chose to believe for personal gain? If God is omniscient, he will certainly know who really believes and who believes as a wager. He will spurn the latter... assuming he actually cares at all whether people truly believe in him.

Some have suggested that the person who chooses to believe based on Pascal's Wager, can then somehow make the transition to truly believing. Unfortunately, most atheists don't find it possible to make that leap.

In addition, this hypothetical God may require more than simple belief; almost all Christians believe that the Christian God requires an element of trust and obedience from his followers. That destroys the assertion that if you believe but are wrong, you lose nothing.

Finally, if this God is a fair and just God, surely he will judge people on their actions in life, not on whether they happen to believe in him. A God who sends good and kind people to hell is not one most atheists would be prepared to consider worshipping.

Answer 7

Really nothing.

Great. Like you, all those who have lived a good life and helped atleast a few in the world, are also great, and loose nothing, just like you.

But why bring God into what you and others are doing? Leave Him free!

When none of us know exactly what happens after death, let us act in helping a few more before we die.

Answer 8

But if some other god is the real god, and if he hates people who believed in false gods but is ok with people who simply never believed at all, then you're toast and I get 72 strippers and a beer volcano.

In the mean time, I can live like a modern human without striving toward ideals invented by bronze age tribesmen.

Answer 9

You have lost every second of that life you spent praying, which by the end probably adds up to a couple of days at the least.... not to mention the time in church you have spend. You've also lost every cent you've donated to the church for them to get rich off of. Not to mention the constant fear you must be in to choose religion over the alternative simply because you fear what might happen if you are wrong.

Answer 10

How much have you given to churches in your life? My sister gives her church $50 a month. If she saved that much, instead of throwing it away for nothing, in 3.75 years, she could buy my Zegna suit; in 19.17 years, she could buy my Vacheron Constantin "Patrimony" watch; and in 43.5 years, she could buy my Piaget "Polo" watch. How many hours have you sat in church over the years? It's all time wasted. My sister goes to three services of some sort each week, and that's eight hours or more. It adds up to 416 hours per year. You've lost much money and time, at least, for nothing. We have only your word about your good life, helping hurting, etc. If I knew you, I might find this is not quite true. I see many hypocrites in church. My sister is a bad one. I don't love or hate Jesus. If he really existed, much fiction was written about him. I love Miyuki who is nearby, not some mythical figure who may've lived about 2000 years ago...if he lived at all. What a waste to spend so much time on such stuff!

Answer 11

So, you believe out of FEAR? And we are supposed to believe out of FEAR?
Sorry, it doesn't make sense and it doesn't work,
you see, I have a brain that can sort out logical contradictions in this life/world,
I don't need an ancient book to spoon feed me a pile of crap about life in the ancient world (beating slaves, plundering women and children, slitting the throats of lambs and calves, some old pervert scribbling song of songs in a cave, later on some Jesus guy saying some pleasant words with some threats and then the big fictional grand finale dooms day ending....etc, etc.)

and I don't respond well to threats.......