Do you guys/girls beleve in god?

[jschmidt]

I believe in God. I believe in Heaven and Hell. Given those assumptions let's be logical about this. Either there is a God and a Heaven and a Hell or there's not. If there is no Heaven and no Hell and no life after death then when I die I will have gone through life enjoying my time here doing relatively good things. If there is Heaven and a Hell then when I die I and everyone else who believes in Jesus Christ as their Savior, will go to Heaven. And everyone who does not believe in Jesus Christ as their Savior will go to Hell (I'm not trying to offend anyone I'm just trying to think this through logically). That being said I (we) have a few options.

1) Believe in God and Jesus Christ and die if we're wrong end of story.
2) Believe in God and Jesus Christ and raise to eternal life in Heaven if we're right.
3) Don't believe in God and Jesus Christ and die end of story.
4) Don't believe in God and Jesus Christ and die and spend eternal life in Hell.

I like my odds.

-- Mathematics is the language by which God created the Universe.

[TheMindRapist]

I believe in God. I believe in Heaven and Hell. Given those assumptions let's be logical about this. Either there is a God and a Heaven and a Hell or there's not. If there is no Heaven and no Hell and no life after death then when I die I will have gone through life enjoying my time here doing relatively good things. If there is Heaven and a Hell then when I die I and everyone else who believes in Jesus Christ as their Savior, will go to Heaven. And everyone who does not believe in Jesus Christ as their Savior will go to Hell (I'm not trying to offend anyone I'm just trying to think this through logically). That being said I (we) have a few options.

1) Believe in God and Jesus Christ and die if we're wrong end of story.
2) Believe in God and Jesus Christ and raise to eternal life in Heaven if we're right.
3) Don't believe in God and Jesus Christ and die end of story.
4) Don't believe in God and Jesus Christ and die and spend eternal life in Hell.

I like my odds.

-- Mathematics is the language by which God created the Universe.

As I predicted this thread will go nowhere.
And here is how I think of your argument, Pascal's wager, you didn't come up with it...
3) Don't believe in God and Jesus Christ and die end of story.
No, not end of story.
You spent your entire life believing something that wasn't true. And it probably affected how you acted quite a lot, probably kept you from doing things you wanted to do. Your whole life is your entire existence in this case. In the other scenario, god exists, you believe, you go to Heaven. Now, you get an entire existence, or basically so because proportionally the time you spent here was nothing. So basically, believing and being right has the same reward as not believing and being correct. Now, if hell exists, I don't believe and go there and it really is eternal pain or whatever. (For me this would be complete boredom with nothing to do, pain doesn't really scare me.) So I have a choice between taking something guaranteed (not believing, if I am right I get the most out of life) or believing and hoping I get something that will only be bigger if I am right. If I believe and am wrong I get nothing, if I don't believe and am wrong I lose everything.
Imagine this:
You have 100 dollars.
A guy tells you to give him 100 dollars, he will pay you back as much as you want tomorrow, if you don't give it to him he will beat you up tomorrow.
Are you going to believe him and give him all the money you have?
Or are you going to think he is lying and assume he won't really be there to beat you up?
Hopefully I expressed my ideas fairly well, I wrote this very fast, I'll look it over later and make changes if needed.

[PC_MAGAS]

I believe in God. I believe in Heaven and Hell. Given those assumptions let's be logical about this. Either there is a God and a Heaven and a Hell or there's not. If there is no Heaven and no Hell and no life after death then when I die I will have gone through life enjoying my time here doing relatively good things. If there is Heaven and a Hell then when I die I and everyone else who believes in Jesus Christ as their Savior, will go to Heaven. And everyone who does not believe in Jesus Christ as their Savior will go to Hell (I'm not trying to offend anyone I'm just trying to think this through logically). That being said I (we) have a few options.

1) Believe in God and Jesus Christ and die if we're wrong end of story.
2) Believe in God and Jesus Christ and raise to eternal life in Heaven if we're right.
3) Don't believe in God and Jesus Christ and die end of story.
4) Don't believe in God and Jesus Christ and die and spend eternal life in Hell.

I like my odds.

-- Mathematics is the language by which God created the Universe.

Hey Heaven is a way of life close to the god and hell is the life without god.

[ScrAm]

I don't believe in god, and I see no reason to.

[bornagainst777]

TheMindRapist brings up one of the problems of Pascal's wager, but here's another:
All of those assumptions rely upon JESUS being god. But there are thousands of other gods to pick from: how do we know we shouldn't believe in Allah? What about Vishnu, Shiva, Thor, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, Mithras, etc.? If you believe Jesus is God, but you're wrong, you have the possibility of burning in another hell. Belief in Jesus, or any other god, just gives you one more hope than no beliefs whatsoever, and only one less possible danger.

[TheMindRapist]

Invisible Pink Unicorn FTW
Non-believer's will be persecuted

[blackprince491]

One of the books that has had the largest impact on my beliefs(or lack thereof) is "the god delusion" by Richard Dawkins. It argues a lot of the topics we have on this little discussion. But thats neither here nor their on what i really wanted to post about. For the most part i just wanted to say arguing about religion although it may seem futile, is for me more enlightening than anything else. I am an atheist but i like to also think of my self as a free thinker and if i really want to be able to claim to be one thou i need to say iv listened to all sides and yes some people will say you can never hear all sides. That just means i can never stop listening. So as long as we all don't regress into slinging insults at each other then i think this post is very valid.


also i think its fascinating to see where atheists are concentrated. (ex. are there more atheist hackers than not?)

[CrA2Y]

I believe in myself.
do you believe in me?

[blackprince491]

I believe in myself.
do you believe in me?

i do

[cthulhu666]

TheMindRapist brings up one of the problems of Pascal's wager, but here's another:
All of those assumptions rely upon JESUS being god. But there are thousands of other gods to pick from: how do we know we shouldn't believe in Allah? What about Vishnu, Shiva, Thor, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, Mithras, etc.? If you believe Jesus is God, but you're wrong, you have the possibility of burning in another hell. Belief in Jesus, or any other god, just gives you one more hope than no beliefs whatsoever, and only one less possible danger.

Thats because ALL(except flying spaghetti monster ) of these gods are just very old personifications of the sun told through different cultures. So pray to whichever god you please but in the meantime, I'll be doing something worthwhile.