Bill grew up in Arkansas in the 1950s. He was overwhelmingly likely Christian at that point. Maybe he stopped being a believer later on. It’s a bit much to confidently proclaim that this has likely happened.
Obama was born later and spend his formative years in Hawaii, LA, NY and Chicago. I think you have a better case there but not nearly enough to speak with authority.
Nope, I’m not buying that anyone who could give this speech isn’t a believer of some kind.
This is a little bit bigoted and slightly offensive, but I’m pretty used to it, so whatever. I could make an argument that an intelligent person with good morals can certainly believe in a deity and be religious. I’ve seen too much evil in the world and seen too many bad things happen to good people to think God is in the business of answering the prayers of the most devout or most needy on a case-by-case basis, but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t a God and there isn’t some form of afterlife in which we will be judged for our moral character in this life.
The intelligent argument is this: if you’re a good person, religion is a freeroll. If I’m right and you’re wrong, that’s a very bad outcome for you. If you’re right and I’m wrong, we end up in the same place. If I believe in having good morals, treating others well, etc, then the risk-reward calculation means I should believe in a religion.
Obviously there are intelligent arguments that religion is harmful at a societal level, but that’s a different discussion in my opinion and there are also arguments for it being beneficial.
Regardless, the existence of a deity cannot be proven or disproven, so I don’t think it’s ridiculous for intelligent people to believe that there is a God.
I suggest you read the criticism section:
That’s interesting, I “came up with” the concept of Pascal’s wager on my own as a teenager in arguing with a friend who was atheist.
The only criticism that has merit to me is the inauthentic belief argument, which is valid, but then I don’t think that’s binary. Like I don’t think I’m capable of being 100% sure or 0% sure of the existence of a God, and if there is a God I don’t think there’s some arbitrary cutoff. I think it has more to do with believing as much as one is capable of and then following the teachings to the best of one’s ability.
I also think there could be an argument that many of the world’s religions actually have a ton of overlap, and some could trace back to the same deity and different interpretations, so if one believes in a loving and compassionate God, he could judge people on their adherence to what they were taught.
I have trouble squaring “loving and compassionate” with “punishes honest and genuine disbelief” but we digress…
I have trouble with that too.
If you are being religious because it’s a freeroll you aren’t a believer. That works for Judaism which is far more about practice than belief, but not for most strains of Christianity. I knew a strict practicing orthodox Jew who didn’t believe in God. (Kinda crazy in other ways too)
Pretty clearly HRC is religious. I think Obama is too, but not so clear.
I realize this and don’t mean it as offensive. But I hope you can appreciate that it’s very difficult for an atheist to argue the likelihood of god’s existence with a religious person without sounding at least a little condescending
This is basically Pascal’s wager. It would be a total derail to get into this here. Maybe in a new thread? But suffice it to say, Pascal’s wager has been torn to shreds by much better logicians than I
The existence of an invisible leprechaun living in my closet cannot be proven or disproven either, but I don’t think it’s a reasonable assumption to believe that there is
Edit: I just saw that Pascal’s wager has been linked. You should read it and get back
He was also a Rhodes Scholar. I’m just using Bayes theorem. The more educated one is, the less likely they are to be religious or believe in gods. This is does NOT mean some very intelligent people don’t believe in god. I just feel it’s a reasonable assumption to assume he’s an atheist regardless of when or where he grew up. I did say I’m pulling it out of my ass, but I’d be willing to wager on both Clintons being atheists if I could (not that they’d ever admit it if they were)
Pascal’s wager was a good argument in 17th Century France because there was only one God and one religion (Catholicism) and following God’s teachings was straightforward (do whatever the village priest told you to do).
None of this is true now.
Some problems:
Which God? There are hundreds to choose from, many with contradictory dictates, moral systems, and punishments for choosing a false God.
It’s not a free roll in the 21st century to take religious teachings seriously. Going to church, hating gays, cognitive dissonance from taking faith seriously in one and only one compartmentalized part of your life, and on and on and on. 400 years ago, telling people you were an atheist would be like posting on Facebook that you’re a pedophile. Hence the free roll to choose the religious (Catholic) life.
The problem of evil (that you alluded to). Sure, we can’t prove that there isn’t some disinterested deity out there somewhere. But it certainly seems overwhelmingly likely that an omniscient, omnipotent, all-loving God is a contradiction. The world is on fire. If there is a God, He doesn’t give a shit about us. .
There’s a reason Freshman critical thinking courses cover Pascal’s wager: many teenagers come up with this idea on their own and it’s worth walking through how it doesn’t make any sense when we get into the details.
You don’t get to both use Bayes’ Theorem and pull stuff out of your ass.
Um yeah, you kinda do. Play poker much?
And if case you’re logically challenged, which is seems you might be, what I mean by that is you’re allowed to make assumptions based on prior info even when it’s impossible to know for sure (hence, making a definitive conclusion is akin to pulling it out of your ass)
Because this is how most people will read, “pulling it out of my ass.” Fuck off.
I believe in God, consider myself a Christian, rarely if ever go to church (I’m not particularly trusting of a lot of churches/organized religion), and I do not hate gay people (nor do I think it’s a sin). I pray from time to time and try to lead a good life and care for others and treat them well.
I mean even if being a Christian is just doing whatever you would do anyway without religion, I’m not sure what you mean by calling it a free roll. In poker this means the opportunity to win something without any risk. The rest of my post that you ignored tried to show how this is not the case when there are many Gods and picking the wrong one has negative consequences.
Cmon bros. New thread for this God stuff.
You’re right. I’ll leave it alone. I’m easily triggered by “religion is a free roll.”