Pascal's Wager: What Have I Lost?

[JonathanL]

If your life is complete as is and you're content then you shouldn't.

I don't think feelings of contentment and life satisfaction has much to do with it. One should hold to the Christian view because it's the truth. Now, which particular Christian view is the one that corresponds the most to the Truth is another thing, but whichever type of (orthodox) Christianity one ultimately decides upon it will still be closer to the truth than any non-Christian view out there.

[Tassman]

You have already shown that NO evidence is good enough for you, so you are not worth my time answering your idiotic questions.

You haven't presented any good reason to believe in an invisible deity, merely outlandish hypotheticals. Nor have you presented the evidence of what would make you cease to believe in your God, as I requested. Clearly NO evidence is good enough for you.

[Tassman]

Science or hypothesis? Give a specific science fact. Not a generalization. You might also give what is you know about the human genome which would make the Genesis story of the creation of man and woman impossible. That would do it, I would think.

A Scientific Theory is a coherent group of propositions formulated to explain a group of facts or phenomena in the natural world and repeatedly confirmed through experiment and observation...as per the scientific Theory of Evolution. In short, established scientific theories are fact. If you don't believe me jump of a twenty storey building and see whether the Theory of Gravity is "fact" or merely an unverified hypothesis.

Conversely 'god-did-it' is a failed hypothesis.

[JonathanL]

Nor have you presented the evidence of what would make you cease to believe in your God, as I requested.

Why are you lying? You even responded to the post where Sparko gave an example of what it would take for him to stop believing in God.

Or are you really that oblivious that you didn't realize that's what he was doing?

[Tassman]

Why are you lying? You even responded to the of what it would take for him to stop believing in God.
:

My mistake. I missed it.

[Abu Njoroge]

But christianity isn't true, so we don't lose anything. I know, I know, "how do you know?" Because i'm not stupid and can decipher between History and Fairytales.

Edgar Cayce received unexplainable knowledge while in a sleep like trance. He was responsible for healing many people by diagnosing maladies that stumped the doctors He claimed that Christ was to be mans highest goal and aspiration. To be more Christ like. He claimed Jesus visited us four times and I believe him. There are somethings science cant explain.

[Meh Gerbil]

I don't think feelings of contentment and life satisfaction has much to do with it. One should hold to the Christian view because it's the truth. Now, which particular Christian view is the one that corresponds the most to the Truth is another thing, but whichever type of (orthodox) Christianity one ultimately decides upon it will still be closer to the truth than any non-Christian view out there.

If his life is complete and he is content then either:
1: He has found the truth and has subsequently been set free.
2: The Holy Spirit isn't revealing his need of Jesus to him.

In either case I've no business speaking to him of spiritual matters.
Time is better spent elsewhere.

[Sparko]

i'm not stupid

ECREE!!! You need to provide evidence of this!

[Sparko]

You haven't presented any good reason to believe in an invisible deity, merely outlandish hypotheticals. Nor have you presented the evidence of what would make you cease to believe in your God, as I requested. Clearly NO evidence is good enough for you.

I gave you details of what evidence it would take for me to not believe. I do believe so how could I present ACTUAL evidence that would make me not believe? If I did, then I would not believe. right? But I gave you exactly what kind of evidence it would take me to stop believing: good evidence that Jesus did not resurrect, such as incontrovertible evidence of his body being found in a tomb.

But you can't even give a hypothetical situation of evidence that you would accept. Your standard of evidence is that NO evidence is good enough to make you believe, so you are a waste of effort. You go around demanding evidence when the truth is you would not accept it anyway. You are a troll and a waste of effort.

[Sparko]

My mistake. I missed it.

what? You responded to it!

[37818]

A Scientific Theory is a coherent group of propositions formulated to explain a group of facts or phenomena in the natural world and repeatedly confirmed through experiment and observation...as per the scientific Theory of Evolution. In short, established scientific theories are fact. If you don't believe me jump of a twenty storey building and see whether the Theory of Gravity is "fact" or merely an unverified hypothesis.

Conversely 'god-did-it' is a failed hypothesis.

No. You have not provided any specific that would remove God [uncaused Existence]. Nor provided for the uncaused Cause for the sequence of causes that must be. You only have argued the knowledge of the aftermath of our known universe.

[Roy]

so what does the evidence prove? THAT IT IS TRUE? so basically the same thing I said about Christianity. Believe it because it is true.

The evidence is such that it could have been proven false, but wasn't. This doesn't apply to Christianity since the evidence presented is rarely amenable to such examination.

You would suck as a juror then.

I didn't.

[Meh Gerbil]

The evidence is such that it could have been proven false, but wasn't. This doesn't apply to Christianity since the evidence presented is rarely amenable to such examination.I didn't.

It occurs to me that there is a significant difference between historical evidence and scientific evidence.
There really is no historical evidence that really stands up well to a strict level of evidence required for science (1).

With that in mind I'm left with a couple of difficult ideas:

1: First, given the nature of history, especially in regard to fraud, lies, folk-lore, stories, nonsense - the Christian is in a position of picking one set of extraordinary events over any other number of extraordinary events and that isn't a fun place to be if one is inclined to be intellectually rigorous, insisting each step of the way that each assertion is scientifically proven. It cannot be done. A higher degree of probability relative to other 'faith' systems is possible, which is significant, but unsatisfying for some.

2: Secondly, I don't think the skeptic is in a good spot here either. The problem is that if a God did reveal Himself at any point in history the skeptic that demands the scientific level of evidence would have no intellectual route to truth. The weakness here is the discounting of all that came before which, if applied consistently to all knowledge (it never is) would leave each generation of skeptic re-discovering fire.

I think the insistence on scientific proof, when consistently applied, provides a few problems for each camp.
I don't know anyone who actually lives that way.






NOTES
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1: This isn't meant as a back door jab at evolutionary theory. Let's set that off to the side and deal with general historical evidence.

[Kbertsche]

The creation narratives in Genesis (and Adam and Eve in particular) are scientifically falsifiable and falsified.

Only if they are making scientific claims and are meant to be read as a scientific text. But if they are making theological claims in poetic language, how can they be scientifically falsifiable or falsified?

[Meh Gerbil]

Only if they are making scientific claims and are meant to be read as a scientific text. But if they are making theological claims in poetic language, how can they be scientifically falsifiable or falsified?

You've just regulated the creation account to a parable.
Generally, the science types don't worry about confirming or disproving parables.