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If one of you fell off a bridge into a river, would anyone from that point on be able to tell you it hadn't happened? No? Why not? Isn't it because you experienced it? Well it's the same way with us. We've experienced Him in so many ways up close and personal beginning with the first, for some like myself, earth shattering, that no one on the face of the earth can dissuade me He is not real and active because I've experienced Him and His presence by now probably thousands of times, counting revelations. That's the bottom line, from this former agnostic. Peace
Bc they base their lives around something they dont know for sure they exists.
They may suspect it exists, but they dont know for sure.
Yet some of these said religions are against gambling. Lmao.
Ironic much?
Well, people like you who shut yourselves off to the possibilities of a higher power (or powers), have blocked your awareness to point that you won't see or sense anything. You're gambling stakes are infinitely higher. If what we believe turns out true, you're gambling your life away. If what we believe turns out to be false, we haven't lost anything.
You're basically living a fraction of possible life. And by rejecting God, you've cut even more than if you were just not certain. Have fun with the primitive slug-like existence.
Last edited by Thoreau424; 09-11-2017 at 03:42 PM..
If one of you fell off a bridge into a river, would anyone from that point on be able to tell you it hadn't happened? No? Why not? Isn't it because you experienced it? Well it's the same way with us. We've experienced Him in so many ways up close and personal beginning with the first, for some like myself, earth shattering, that no one on the face of the earth can dissuade me He is not real and active because I've experienced Him and His presence by now probably thousands of times, counting revelations. That's the bottom line, from this former agnostic. Peace
The same thing that happened to you happened to my dad. And all three of his children are now atheists / agnostics, because we want nothing to do with the resulting craziness. I'll spare you the details.
"God" is a great drug; I have seen people "high on God" during church services. But like any great drug, it can destroy lives.
If one of you fell off a bridge into a river, would anyone from that point on be able to tell you it hadn't happened? No? Why not? Isn't it because you experienced it? Well it's the same way with us. We've experienced Him in so many ways up close and personal beginning with the first, for some like myself, earth shattering, that no one on the face of the earth can dissuade me He is not real and active because I've experienced Him and His presence by now probably thousands of times, counting revelations. That's the bottom line, from this former agnostic. Peace
How do you know that what you have experienced is "Him" and not one of the properties of existing as a human in this Universe?
What you call "Him" is a subjective term and there are plenty of other's (myself included), who have experienced "earth shattering" events over our lifetime. I don't see myself as a special snowflake because of my experiences nor do I think there is a "Him" that pays special attention to little ole me in this great big Universe.
What you and everyone else who's experienced something that seems to be, "not of this world" or "earth shattering", could be something completely separate from what you refer to as "Him".
All life is a terrible gamble if it was a bet you wouldn't take it.
Lol, now there is a person after my own heart. You get it.
The way I put it is, life is not a rational proposition. No sane person would take it up if somehow you could have it pitched to you in advance.
"How would you like to go live on this planet called Earth, born on a date not of your choosing, to parents not of your choosing, in a culture and socio-economic situation not of your choosing, with a constitution and health and government system not of your choosing?"
"Are there any other catches?"
"Oh, they're endless. On earth, some races and creeds and professions are privileged and others are underclasses. You might be one or the other. That thing about health? You might be born without defects and with perfect health, but it could disappear at any time. There are random accidents that can maim or kill you ... but we need to talk about the BENEFITS."
"What are those you ask? Well, you will know love. Or you might, we can't help it if your parents don't love you. That would mess up your head so that you potentially can't enjoy love for the rest of your life because you'll be afraid of it and think yourself unworthy of it and will self-sabotage around it in a hundred ways ... what? Oh yes, there is mental illness, personality disorders, all of it ... but about the benefits again. You'll see blue skies, gentle breezes ... well, unless you are born to Eskimos ... but then you won't know what those even are, and you'll know a hundred words for snow. Wait, come back ..."
How probable is it that your particular deity (Allah) just happens to exist, versus all the others, and that you just happen to have the correct beliefs about Allah and his claims on you?
I don't know but I have hope.
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You have never demonstrated substantiation for your truth-claims about Allah, you have simply asserted truth about him.
I don't need to. It's a personal journey.
Anyone who wants to take this journey should use their own intelligence, logic and research to find out whether they believe in Allah or not or any other God. Everyone is responsible for his own choice and should do his own research.
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Finally: do you think Allah would not know that I was just hedging my bets to believe in him "just in case"? Would he consider that "genuine" faith, and honor it as such?
Faith is supported by action. There are certain rules and moral obligations plus worship that comes as an action to support your faith. If you have TRIED to do so with honesty, then you should have hope. If you think you can play games - then good luck to you.
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No, I think all the Abrahamic faiths DEMAND blind faith and assert the right to demand it on behalf of their deity.
So you think "seeing is believing"?
Hindu Religion does not demand a blind faith. You should have no problem in believing a statue with 6 arms and 12 legs to be god.
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And then they advance silly, fundamentally flawed non-arguments like Pascal's Wager.
No. Faith does not advance Pascal's Wager on anyone. It's an opinion based knowledge that some people may consider to look into to arrive at a conclusion and a course of action that they may or may not take.
Mordant you left out this: Once you are here, you will watch as the world becomes overpopulated with humans driving other species into extinction and warming up the Earth's atmosphere with human consumption. You will see humans in denial of it.
You will find yourself on a planet full of zombies who have an attention span of 5 seconds. You will also see and hear of the horrors humans do to each other, and to other animal species from the time you are able to understand this until the day you no longer exist here.
You will watch your family, friends and pets suffer, succumb to illness and die if you survive the normal course of your existence.
Well picked up, Cardinals, mate. I wondered whether anyone would see that.
It was obvious really, as it is a sort of reverse of Pascal's wager.
However, you are overlooking two things -
(1) an informed wager - not 'believe or not'
(2) which God?
The religious gambler has to get these things right:
(s) there is a personal god
(b) this personal god has something worthwhile to offer. Promise of heaven; threat of hell
(c) it has not only to be the god of the religion you believe, but perhaps the sect or denomination.
(d) of course, that you are living up to its' requirements, though that's a problem rather than making the right bet.
The atheist on the other hand has odds on:
(w ) there is as likely a natural cause of everything rather than a god (evidence is not for a designed universe)
(x) if there is a god, that it has no interest in us (evidence indicates it does not intervene in human affairs)
(y ) if there is an afterlife, it is not within the remit of any particular religion (no reliable messages have come back that there even is one)
(z ) even if one of the religions is the true one, the chances of getting it right are impossible to judge, so the best thing is to make the most honest and informed judgement one can. If any God has a problem with that, it is such a psychotic bully that nobody is safe.
Do you see where the smart money goes?
Again, not all 7 billion on the planet earth will think alike.
Intelligence, logic and intuition may vary from person to person.
My opinion on the w, x, y and z is (and again, that's only an opinion) that, IF you don't want to gamble on faith then you should have had a control on your own birth - and you should have stopped being born.
But since we are here, we gotta deal with it.
If there is a God out there which is NOT the god that I believe in, then my logic tells me that I will still stand a better chance if I tell him, "Oh God, I tried my best to find you and I tried to live a peaceful and morally conscious life" in contrast to saying .... "Yo, I denied your existence outright"
The non-religious might be gambling, but they are gambling in the exact same manner that you are gambling by not reinforcing your basement floor against that man-eating dragon that *might* exist in a cave a few inches below your foundation.
Again, IF the man-eating dragon that might exist in a cave a few inches below my foundation or the Santa Clause or the Leprechaun or the flying spaghetti monster had sent me a message in the form of a holy text, I would have used my intelligence and logic to read and understand that piece of text, did my resarch and arrived at a conclusion to whether believe in them or not.
Let them send me a message first and then I will let you know.
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Originally Posted by Freak80
So it is obvious to assume that conscious agents are the cause of everything we don't understand. Right?
"We don't understand X, therefore the Invisible Man did X."
Perhaps we will NEVER understand EVERYTHING - I mean, you don't even understand how to stop your eyes from blinking for half an hour. Do you?
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