Comment on Teh Garden of Eden by mjranum
All I will say is this: I accept the points you brought up as valid view points, but I just simply believe what I believe (and I'm not saying that I accept everything the Bible says at face value). I can't remember the name of the man, but he said something along the lines of: "If I do not believe in God and there is one, I am screwed for all eternity; but if I do believe in God and there is not one I have not lost anything." (There's more, but I cannot remember it at the moment, nor can I remember the man who came up with the theory.)
"If I do not believe in God and there is one, I am screwed for all eternity; but if I do believe in God and there is not one I have not lost anything."
That's called "Pascal's Wager" (after the French mathematician Blaise Pascal)
It's an example of terrible logic.
The first problem with it is that here are at least 1,000 different "gods" that humans have made claims about - so if you want to make Pascal's Wager you not only have to gamble the existence of god, but what if you find out that the hindus were right, or perhaps the ancient norse were right about odin, etc, etc. I.e.: it's not a coin-toss it's a much more complicated problem than he makes it out to be.
It's also a terrible example of moral reasoning; if there was a god who would punish you for not believing in him, then you should be hoping that such a god does not exist because - if you die and it turns out that he does exist, you're stuck for eternity with a completely psychotic monster.
Good luck,
mjr.
That's called "Pascal's Wager" (after the French mathematician Blaise Pascal)
It's an example of terrible logic.
The first problem with it is that here are at least 1,000 different "gods" that humans have made claims about - so if you want to make Pascal's Wager you not only have to gamble the existence of god, but what if you find out that the hindus were right, or perhaps the ancient norse were right about odin, etc, etc. I.e.: it's not a coin-toss it's a much more complicated problem than he makes it out to be.It's also a terrible example of moral reasoning; if there was a god who would punish you for not believing in him, then you should be hoping that such a god does not exist because - if you die and it turns out that he does exist, you're stuck for eternity with a completely psychotic monster.
Good luck,
mjr.