'SamLowry' said:

'ryan20fun' said:

1:
have you ever heard of blaise pascal ? he said that i quate "if god does not exist, it doesnt matter if i believe. if god does exist, then i had better be a beleiver.
if i were a betting man, id say beleif is the safer bet !."

Not Pascal's wager again. It's a horrible argument, for multiple reasons; among others:

• You're making the assumption that there's either no god at all, or the christian god. False dichotomy. What if there's another god who would get really mad at you for worshipping the nonexistent christian god and would actually prefer you'd not worship at all?
• Believing out of safety is hardly noble. If you're only behaving good out of fear for hell, you're not a good person.
• It is not possible to just start believing what you previously thought were bollocks

Bearing in mind that it isn't the right reason to believe, it isn't a horrible argument. It's not a good argument, but it's not horrible.

Matter of opinion. If I were god (which I am, according to my religion), and were to discover that one of my worshippers only believes in me because he's afraid of me, I would be pissed off. Where's the trust?

If there is another god, your odds are still better to believe in any god because they go from 0% to a 1:N chance where N is the number of possible Gods. Worst case scenario is that you end up with the same chance, best case scenario is that you are right.

If you want to go statistical on me... there are an infinite number of possible gods, this is a mathematical certainty, so your probability range goes from 0 to 0. I estimate the probability of there not being a god to be greater than 0, so statistically, I am forced to believe there is no god.
Plus, if there is indeed a god, maybe its the kind who likes atheists (he does like to hide, maybe that's part of his message), which makes me a winner, yet again. There are plenty of possible scenarios where it is in my advantage not to believe. Fortunately for my self-esteem, my non-belief is not based on such reasoning.


To summarize, using Pascal's wager to think about religion is absurd.


I don't care if anyone believes there's a god, but I still like to point out the flaws in the rationalizations he or she uses to convince himself there is a god. It's faith, it's irrational, there's absolutely no proof for it, just accept that. I am not out to destroy anyone's belief system, I am merely seeking one out for myself. For now, I I definitely won't (or more correctly, can't) believe in the christian god, it's just too damn inconsistent. And saying "it's not meant to be consistent!" as some do just makes me cry. What's the point of looking for answers on such fundamental and important questions if one just settles for such easy answers?

As one would express it in Coq:

Axiom logic_is_overrated : False.

Parameter god : Set.
Parameter is_christian : god -> Prop.

Theorem christian_god_exists : exists g : god, is_christian g.
Proof.
elim logic_is_overrated.
Qed.




There you go, a machine-checked proof for the existence of the christian god. Feel free to conventiently neglect that the same reasoning can be applied for any god.

If you want to go statistical on me... there are an infinite number of possible gods, this is a mathematical certainty, so your probability range goes from 0 to 0

infinity isn't a real number homeskillet.

1/infinity is undefined.

I'll deal with the rest when I'm sober.

im only useing blaise pascal as bit of an example,
besides i dont worship God becouse im takeing the safer bet im doing it becouse i "Love Him" becouse of what he has done for me
and all of humanity. how you might ask,
1:
he sent his only beloved son to die for US,

2:
why do you think it is allways the christians that are getting persecuted except where there is a muslim goverment persecuteing the
hindus or vice versa,

3:
here is en exert from a song ive been listing to,

the bible was inscribed over a perioid of over 2000 years in time of war and in days of peace by kings
physicians tax collectors farmers, fisherman singers and sheeperds the marvel is that a library so perfetly
cohesive couldve bean produced by such a diverse crowd over a period of time that stagerd the imaginaition,
jesus and his grand subject are good a design as the glory of god is its end.

also the bible was written a individual books and ownly in the last cuople of hundrid years has it been put into one big book
called the bible,
when each book was written thay did not have the other books as reference,
for example the book of Revelations was written by Pual (i think) on the isle of pattamose.

now are there any other religins that have something like that (i AM NOT trying to start a flame war about religian, just try to prove my point)
ok .

'SamLowry' said:

If you want to go statistical on me… there are an infinite number of possible gods, this is a mathematical certainty, so your probability range goes from 0 to 0

infinity isn't a real number homeskillet.

1/infinity is undefined.

I'll deal with the rest when I'm sober.

*sigh* While N grows large, 1/N goes to 0. And there actually is an infinite number of possible deities. If you want to debate whether it's a countable or uncountable infinite amount, I suggest you make sure you're sobered up.

im only useing blaise pascal as bit of an example,

Don't, because it is a bad example and undermines your credibility.

To illustrate, let me do the same: How does one judge how impressive an accomplishment is? Two factors: the difficulty of the task, and the "handicap" of the performer. For example, me solving a quadratic equation isn't going to impress anyone, but if a one year old manages to do it, it's quite a feat. So, impressiveness == difficulty - handicap. God is known for its infinites, who he knows everything, and can do everything, and is just so infinitely super. Thus, his accomplishments must also be infinitely impressive, otherwise we'd say we could have done a better job ourselves. Creating a possibly infinite universe must be hard, and let's say it's infinitely hard. Now we need to combine this with an infinite handicap. Hmm... not existing is quite a handicap, the worst I can think of. This shows that god created the universe, but does not exist. See, a full proof.

But it's just an example, of course.

besides i dont worship God becouse im takeing the safer bet im doing it becouse i "Love Him" becouse of what he has done for me and all of humanity.

Some nice circular reasoning.

how you might ask,


1:
he sent his only beloved son to die for US,

Some more nice circular reasoning. You're on a roll.

2:


why do you think it is allways the christians that are getting persecuted except where there is a muslim goverment persecuteing the
hindus or vice versa,

... That's not really reasoning. The christians are the fallback victims for prosecution when there is a lack of hindus for muslims to harass, therefore god exists?

3:
here is en exert from a song ive been listing to,

the bible was inscribed over a perioid of over 2000 years in time of war and in days of peace by kings
physicians tax collectors farmers, fisherman singers and sheeperds the marvel is that a library so perfetly
cohesive couldve bean produced by such a diverse crowd over a period of time that stagerd the imaginaition,
jesus and his grand subject are good a design as the glory of god is its end.

Quite a song. Is it rap?

You're very good at repeating what others told you. Do you really think it is that hard to produce a coherent work over such a long period of times? And are you sure it is cohesive? Lots of changes have been made, lots of things have been added and removed. It is actually surprising it is still as incoherent as it is.

Mathematicians have been at it for thousands of years too, and they've produced a new body of knowledge. Plus, there's no-one around questioning it as much (except of course when the Monty Hall problem pops up, then it's chaos all over again, not their proudest moment). Must mean something, but can't put my finger on it.

now are there any other religins that have something like that (i AM NOT trying to start a flame war about religian, just try to prove my point)
ok .

Yes there are other religions indeed. Yours may have some guy who died at a cross, but the muslims actually have a holy text, the word of god, dictated to them by an angel! How do you beat that? That's a whole lot better than some texts written by humans bundled into a book called the 'bible'. You're obviously not a muslim, are you saying they are lying about this angel?

2:
why do you think it is allways the christians that are getting persecuted except where there is a muslim goverment persecuteing the
hindus or vice versa,

Do you honestly think that Christians are the group that is most targeted for persecution based on religion? If you do, I suggest you read up a bit on history, and reflect on the political climate in the US concerning non-Christians these days, among other things.

And by the way, this is not about which religious group killed more people in genocide or anything. It's about recognizing that people of all sorts commit horrible crimes that are rationalized by arbitrary identifications, whether by religion, by ethnic background, by race, it doesn't really matter. If you as a Christian believe that your personal group is somehow exceptionally targeted (i.e. a kind of Christian exceptionalism), you really need to get some perspective.

*sigh* While N grows large, 1/N goes to 0. And there actually is an infinite number of possible deities. If you want to debate whether it's a countable or uncountable infinite amount, I suggest you make sure you're sobered up.

It's not a limit problem though. There is some X number of possible dieties. That X may be uncountably large and increasing, but it is a positive real number.

For all positive real numbers n, 0/n<1/n. It might become infinitesimally small, but it is still greater than 0 chance.

There is something to be said for how different gods might reward or punish atheists or people who believe in different gods, but if we are working in a system that assumes that gods will punish you for denying their existence, which is what atheism is, then you will still have a chance vs no chance.

[size=2]Mathematicians have been at it for thousands of years too, and they&#39;ve produced a new body of knowledge…<br /> [size=2]<br /> [size=2]<br /> <br /> [size=2]And yet noone has ever been able to provide any kind of proof for say, the 4 axioms that Euclidean geometry is based on. They are taken as true.<br /> [size=2]<br /> <br /> [size=2]So what do you say, Euclidean geometry is illogical, seeing as is it based, as a whole, on statements that cannot be proven?<br /> [size=2]<br /> <br /> [size=2]Can you prove the parallel postulate? Or any other of the axioms? What&#39;s the difference between an axiom and a theorem?<br /> [size=2]<br /> <br /> [size=2]I&#39;m not implying anything about religion here, just playing a bit with the &#39;logic&#39; notion that some seem to misunderstand here.

Mathematicians have been at it for thousands of years too, and they&#39;ve produced a new body of knowledge…<br /> <br /> <br /> And yet noone has ever been able to provide any kind of proof for say, the 4(+1) axioms that Euclidean geometry is based on(although attempts have been made, similar to, for example, squaring the circle or constructing a perpetual motion machine). Still, no deductible proof. They are taken as true and the whole &#39;Euclidean Geometry&#39; construct is built on them as such.<br /> <br /> So what do you say, Euclidean geometry is illogical, seeing as is it based, as a whole, on statements that cannot be proven? Is it circular? Or just axiomatic? As in, choose those axioms, you get Euclidean, choose others, you get hyperbolic geometry? <br /> <br /> Can you prove the parallel postulate? Or any other of the axioms? What&#39;s the difference between an <a href='&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axiom&quot;'>Axiom</a> and a theorem? Notice this?<br /> <br /> <blockquote><br /> [font=&quot;sans-serif&quot;]Almost every modern <a href='&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_theory&quot;'>mathematical theory</a> starts from a given set of non-logical axioms…<br /> [font=&quot;sans-serif&quot;]<br /> <br /> I&#39;m not implying anything about God&#39;s existence as such here, just playing a bit with the &#39;logic&#39; notion that some seem to misunderstand here, and the notion that &#39;religion&#39; is, necessarily, &#39;illogical&#39;. It might not fit a certain individual&#39;s beliefs or desires, but it can be quite rational, logical, and self-consistent. If some parot established dogmas without questioning or thinking about them, they don&#39;t really have much difference than some so-called &#39;scientific minds&#39; that do the same in their fields. And vice versa.<br /> <br /> Shall we bring Goedel to the table too while we&#39;re at it, or something?<br /> <br /> Some people ask &#39;proof&#39; of God when there&#39;s no proof for some very simple geometric axioms that most of geometry is based on. Just think about that for a second. I&#39;m not saying one should believe in God based on those thoughts(it wouldn&#39;t be a belief anyway), but it&#39;s interesting nonetheless. Is the 5th postulate a magic pink flying hippo?

'SamLowry' said:

*sigh* While N grows large, 1/N goes to 0. And there actually is an infinite number of possible deities. If you want to debate whether it's a countable or uncountable infinite amount, I suggest you make sure you're sobered up.

It's not a limit problem though. There is some X number of possible dieties. That X may be uncountably large and increasing, but it is a positive real number.

For all positive real numbers n, 0/n<1/n. It might become infinitesimally small, but it is still greater than 0 chance.

I feel stupid responding to this, but I assure you, the number of possible gods is infinite. Not just some large number.

There is something to be said for how different gods might reward or punish atheists or people who believe in different gods, but if we are working in a system that assumes that gods will punish you for denying their existence, which is what atheism is, then you will still have a chance vs no chance.

Look, thinking statistically about this is sheer idiocy, which is what I'm trying to say all the time. You don't seem to get my point.

But let me make you happy by proving that god exists. There are an infinite number of gods. There being no god represents just one possibility. So, let's say N is the number of gods and let's make it grow. The chance that there is a god is N / (N + 1) (the +1 being the case that there is no god), and the chance that there is no god is 1 / (N + 1). So, by making N grow infinite, the probability of god is 1, and the probability for no-god is 0. There you go. Aren't statistics great?