is been in a religion a gamble?

Question

i know the bible says do not gamble

Answer 1

Here's the gamble.
If Jesus’ words are true about the existence of an eternal kingdom and you live your life in the hope that they are not true, the question is ‘what if you’re wrong?’
For the question is not about your philosophical & moral position in this life but it is more about your position in eternity. In addition to this you will need to consider the logic of comparing the outcome of the two ‘what ifs’, which clearly present you with a decision that has to be made one way or the other. For, if Jesus’ words are true, the consequences of being wrong are far worse than being right. The choice involves either losing everything and regretting the loss forever or oblivion. The certainty is unclear but the question remains. As Jesus logically put it, ‘What if you gain the whole world but lose your soul’.

Let me explain what you gain and what you lose, first from a logical standpoint. As to the question where you are going to spend eternity the answer has to be right or wrong. It’s not sensible or intelligent to ‘fudge’ this with fuzzy logic, considering the brevity and seriousness of the question. If you get the answer right, that there is no ‘waking of the dead’ and no afterlife, you can be sure that you will not know whether you got it right or wrong because in this kind of death there is oblivion. Oblivion cannot speak. It follows from this you can also be sure that those who did believe will not be spending eternity gnashing their teeth with the pain and anguish of knowing they spent their lives believing in somebody who didn’t exist. For, if God doesn’t exist, there will be no voice to tell you, or them, that you were right before death came, since you’ll be dead as a stone. In this sense it doesn’t really matter whether or not you got it right because you will not know anything about it. Do you understand what I am saying? No-one will know whether you made a fool of yourself, no-one will care two hoots, oblivion is as deaf and mute as a wooden chair. In this potential scenario it’s a win win situation for all people then, whether they believed or not. For those who believed, no loss. For those who didn’t believe, no loss. Both believer and non-believer will know nothing about their past life to get angry or sad about it.
On the other hand if you get it wrong and there is a voice in the afterlife that tells you you got it wrong, the same voice that told you about it 2000 years ago, what kind of eternity will that be like?
We construct our temporal world out of words to create meaning but if the other world exists, to which Jesus referred as the Kingdom of God describing himself as the door to this Kingdom, what do you think will happen to you if you have rejected his words when they come to call you home to your Maker as he himself promised they would?
“Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.” (Mat 24v35)
“As for the person who hears my words but does not keep them, I do not judge him. For I did not come to judge the world but to save it. There is a judge for the one who rejects me and does not accept my words; that very word which I spoke will condemn him at the last day” (John 12v47-48)
The world that Jesus came to save us from is the life we assume ends when we die. It is this assumption that puts us under extraordinary pressure to try and achieve so much before we die and in the process we construct a world of fierce consumption and competition that always leads to slaughter and evil. Every history book is a testimony to this!
Of these two choices then the question you need to ask yourself is which of these positions of belief is the most logical? The one that is a win or win situation for the believer or the one that is a win or lose situation for the non-believer?
“Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, trust also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going.” (John 14v1-4)
It is a fact that the only means of knowing the truth is through words. If the words we rely on for understanding the truth are erroneous because they have been produced by corruptible minds what about the words that have come to us from a mind that is incorruptible and eternal? Whose words are we going to trust for our lives?

Answer 2

A gamble infers you do not know the outcome, but you are willing to take the risk. If that is your definition of religion, then it is a gamble.

Faith in God, is confidence that whatever the future may hold, whether for good or ill, that what he has promised, he will fulfill.

(By the way the question I answered was 'Is being in a religion a gamble?')

Also I am not aware that the bible expressly forbids gambling, but it does assert that God knows the result before the lot is cast. Some people don't gamble on principle and that is to be respected.

Answer 3

To quote the great sage Homer...

"Suppose we've chosen the wrong god. Every time we go to church we're just making him madder and madder."
— Homer Simpson's version of Pascal's Wager

Bottom line, there are over 150 major* religions in the world, all of whom contradict one another. The chance of any one being correct is .06%. This means there's a 99.4% chance that your religion is wrong. If we include ALL religions in this calculation, the percentage approaches 100%. Yeah, I'd say that's a gamble!

Answer 4

It's the flip side of Pascal's wager. You are gambling that all those other gods are fiction, and won't be p!ssed off at you for worshipping the false god of Abraham and not them.

Mr. Addendum: You gave a L O N G drawn-out explanation of Pascal's wager, which we are all familiar with, having been exposed to basic education. I already gave the response to Pascal's wager right here (Hawaiian Brian did as well, below). Care to reply to it?

Answer 5

perception in a deity would not place self assurance in rationalisation in step with empirical info that's why you are able to not argue this way with theists. as a rely of actuality many say that 'faith is the info of issues unseen' - that's very handy for this objective. do no longer concern. you're already living existence the final way you already understand how. certainly, treating others as you will possibly choose to be taken care of is fairly a biblical edict satirically adequate. Religions are fairly golf equipment besides. Many place self assurance in the risk of divine retribution to maintain club numbers up. that's each and every of the ' in case you do no longer worship me you're doomed ingredient' quite is.

Answer 6

If you mean it might be a gamble because you can't find out which one is true, it's a simple answer: You can find out which one is true so there isn't any gamble!

http://scriptures.lds.org/en/moro/10
See verses 3-5 then think about what you just read actually means.

Answer 7

i agree with GG.

the real gamble is not accepting Christ.

Answer 8

Yep in fact picking a religion and hoping its right is nothing more than a crap shoot.

Answer 9

You mean BEING? No, but not acctepting Christ's free gift of salvation is.

Answer 10

being in the wrong one could be - give your life to christ and it will be the best thing youve ever done