Many atheists say as long as they live good moral lives in this life, if they do meet God, it will all be good. Well I heard this great example, say God owns a company that specializes in good deeds. You tell God that you do not want to be a part of His company, but you perform the same service as His company. When you retire will you be given benefits from a company you did not work for, probably not.
That being said, I do not know if God would let someone who only "believed" in Him, because he liked the odds, have a part in heaven. Then again it is all up to God in the end.
2007-04-16 10:46:49 · 38 answers · asked by Anonymous in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
and let the you are a moron that believes in skyfaries comments start
2007-04-16 10:49:58 · update #1
Every atheist and theist has a what-if-your wrong voice in the back of their mind.
As for the argument about people who had never heard of God, that is different from my use of atheist, as they have not openly rejected God, severely breaking the first commandment.
Also I will never know if I am wrong, and atheists will never know if they are right
2007-04-16 10:57:52 · update #2
Say you're Christian and you have five children. One is Christian, and the other four practice their God given gift of free will and switch to Judaism, Islam, Paganism and Atheism. Do you only love the Christian child?
This is happening to my parents right now. We were all raised Christian, but we were allowed to choose what religion we wanted to follow and through that and through marrying different faiths, some of us have changed to Paganism, Muslim, and Buddhist and I assure you, my parents don't love us any less.
2007-04-16 11:02:07 · answer #1 · answered by QaHearts 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
"Then again, its all up to God in the end". This is one of the main arguments against the Wager : it assumes that God rewards belief (whether "tactical" or "real").
Sure, if God operates on the capitalist system, your argument is sound. But there are huge assumptions:
A. That God operates on the capitalist system.
B. That He operates on the system you are following
Now we can't apriori assume which "system" God follows and there are several alternatives to 2. Lets be kind and say there are 3 possible alternative systems:
A. Your atheists
B. Your's
C. A. N. Other
And lets do the maths! Assume the possibility that God exists is 1. Assume that if you follow the right path you get to heaven. The odds of you getting to heaven are 2:1. The odds of the atheist getting to heaven are...2:1. This is not reversal! The only reversal is if you consider your chances of going to hell - 2:1 on!
2007-04-16 10:57:28 · answer #2 · answered by anthonypaullloyd 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Perhaps it is because in christianity, many think that god judges the deeds of man. What happens to someone on a foreign island who never heard of said god, but lived a good and moral life. Does he get turned away from heaven? And gods benefits? The argument goes both ways and is a matter of faith, not fact. And faith can not be proven or disproved.
2007-04-16 10:51:09 · answer #3 · answered by C. A 2 · 1⤊ 0⤋
This goes back to there being no difference
between somebody living a life with God and
one without.
Which is completely fictitious.
If you live your life without God, you are going to make
different decisions. Maybe you'll choose drugs that
are based on science and live longer. etc. etc.
If you had complete and total faith in science and
had some sort of relationship with God at the same
time, then maybe ...
But the whole point of faith is to extend beyond what
science is telling you.
Paschal's wager is entirely moot. It was made at
a time when not believing in science didn't have
such an effect on your mortality.
2007-04-16 10:53:41 · answer #4 · answered by Elana 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Why would an atheist say they will go to Heaven? If they believe in that, then they're not atheists. And that analogy you used isn't the best, I'm afraid. If you do good deeds, and are a good person, there really isn't any logical reason why you shouldn't be okay. Surely God is not that particular.
2007-04-16 10:51:33 · answer #5 · answered by I'm Still Here 5 · 1⤊ 0⤋
A true atheist would never do or say anything of the sort. An atheist does not believe in the concept of a god, in any way shape or form. We are moral because good and bad are universal constructs and have nothing to do with religion.
2007-04-16 10:51:16 · answer #6 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 1⤋
I've never heard an atheist say that "if they do meet God," because atheists do not believe God exists.
Why do people make this sort of thing up?
2007-04-16 10:59:57 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
As a an Atheist I can reverse Pascal's wager using Twisted Atheist Logic that we are taught at Atheist Training Camp.
2007-04-16 10:58:56 · answer #8 · answered by paul n 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
We don't believe in Pascal's Wager at all. It's a stupid idea - "Okay, I'll pretend like I believe in God so that when I die, if there is a God, I'll be okay, but if not, no big deal." You don't think an omnipotent being wouldn't see right through that? There is no God, so there's no point in even discussing this further.
2007-04-16 10:52:25 · answer #9 · answered by ReeRee 6 · 1⤊ 0⤋
What if you are working for the wrong company and it goes bankrupt and you lose all your benefits of working that company anyway? Who is to say that God is the Christian God? That is just one company offering benefits, there are others that may be more stable.
2007-04-16 10:54:51 · answer #10 · answered by Wisdom in Faith 4 · 1⤊ 0⤋