TheMindRapist wrote: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. ...
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.
I wasn't aware what I had posted was called Pascal's wager. Thanks for bringing that to my attention. But, I believe that living a life believing in God and worshiping him is not loss at all. But rather, I see it as gain. Because I believe in God I have hope. Hope that there is something out there that is better than all the bad news we hear about everyday. Hope that there is good in this world. Because I believe in God, I work harder, I keep my body healither, and I do good things. That's not to say that people who do not believe in God don't work hard, are unhealthy, or don't do good things because there are plenty of people in the world who do not believe in God and do all of those things. But, believing in God motivates me to do those things. Yes, I do act quite a bit differently because I believe in God but I do not count that as loss. Because I believe in God I've never done drugs or cheated on my wife. Now, I know this is not a very strong argument for why or why not to believe in God. I guess what I'm trying to say is that by believing in God I don't think I'm loosing out on anything. But by believing in Him I have peace, hope, and love. (I just realized I sound a lot like a hippie LOL trust me I'm not.)
In response to everyone who says this conversation is going to go nowhere you're probably right. If by some means I or anyone else can come up with an argument convincing enough to make anyone believe in God, there is someone out there with an argument that is just as strong to the contrary. But like someone else posted it is foolish not to listen to both sides. Discussions like this test what we believe and what we stand for. I believe in God and I will stand by that but this discussion will test my beliefs and make me think about why I believe what I believe.