What if we are wrong?

[John Dibble]

Every now and then I think about it, but it's not worth thinking about too hard. You can't decide your beliefs on fallacies like Pascal's Wager which are based on false dichotomies. All anyone can do is examine the evidence they have available and come to their beliefs based on that.

[John Dibble]

Someone mentioned Pascal's Wager, but it is such an obvious point to make in this thread that I still feel obliged.

The basic point of it is that there are four possible outcomes:

A: You believe in God, God exists
B: You believe in God, God doesn't exist
C: You don't believe in God, God exists
D: You don't believe in God, God doesn't exist

Outcome A is eternal glory in paradise
Outcome B may be a small loss of comfort in life due to following religious rules, but on the other sense of purpose and all that may provide you with a boost as well.
Outcome C is eternel torture in hell or something along those lines.
Outcome D is the opposite of outcome B.

Pascal then argues that given the infinite good of outcome A and the infinite bad of outcome C, even assigning a very small probability to God existing speaks in favour of believing in Him.

The standard counter is of course that the choice might not be between God and atheism but between a multitude of religions. Even so it would seem that one would be better off picking a religion at random than going with atheism.

That is once again a fallacy because it presupposes that if a god exists it wouldn't prefer atheists. But what if it does? What if there is a god but it prefers the skeptics, atheists, and agnostics, rewarding them for whatever reason and giving nothing to or outright condemning the believers?

[John Dibble]

Someone mentioned Pascal's Wager, but it is such an obvious point to make in this thread that I still feel obliged.

The basic point of it is that there are four possible outcomes:

A: You believe in God, God exists
B: You believe in God, God doesn't exist
C: You don't believe in God, God exists
D: You don't believe in God, God doesn't exist

Outcome A is eternal glory in paradise
Outcome B may be a small loss of comfort in life due to following religious rules, but on the other sense of purpose and all that may provide you with a boost as well.
Outcome C is eternel torture in hell or something along those lines.
Outcome D is the opposite of outcome B.

Pascal then argues that given the infinite good of outcome A and the infinite bad of outcome C, even assigning a very small probability to God existing speaks in favour of believing in Him.

The standard counter is of course that the choice might not be between God and atheism but between a multitude of religions. Even so it would seem that one would be better off picking a religion at random than going with atheism.

That is once again a fallacy because it presupposes that if a god exists it wouldn't prefer atheists. But what if it does? What if there is a god but it prefers the skeptics, atheists, and agnostics, rewarding them for whatever reason and giving nothing to or outright condemning the believers?

I suppose, but it seems to be a bit of a stretch.

How is it any more of a stretch to think that god exists and prefers anyone in particular?

[John Dibble]

Well...no one believes in this atheist-loving God.

Isn't that how an atheist-loving god would want it?

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Can we really say that other gods people worship aren't the same?

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None of which can actually be considered evidence by itself. It's all contradicted by other religions, and the people in those religions who claim to have had experiences with their own God. If I have to consider that evidence for one religion, I have to consider it evidence for all religions, and since that means it's pretty much all contradictory it has no value in determining truth.

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The existence or non-existence of things does not change just because nobody believes in them. Nobody believed in black holes 1000 years ago, and nobody had any reason to. Does that mean black holes didn't exist until someone thought them up? No, of course not.

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Why is that odd? Maybe the universe is some grand experiment to such a god, and interfering in any way would ruin the experiment. I could think of any number of other reasons why a god might not interfere. It seems to me that you are thinking it's odd because you are humanizing this god thing - you seem to expect it to behave something like a human might behave, but that's entirely baseless.

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Which does not tell us anything about whether or not those claims are true.

[John Dibble]

I understand what you're saying, but I still think you're being a bit ridiculous here. Do you actually believe what you're saying here?

Do I believe it? No, but it's as much of a possibility as any other suggestion for god.

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Whether it can be discovered scientifically or not again does not change whether or not it exists. Also, it is an assumption that God can't be discovered scientifically. It may very well be possible. We may simply lack the tools right now. Then again it might not be possible, but we don't know for sure.

Also, it's a perfect analogy - the entire crux of your argument is because nobody believes in it makes the idea less likely to be true! Nobody has to believe in something to make it exist. Not one single person. There was zero evidence for black holes 1000 years ago, and not one person believed it. How is that any different from anything else there is no evidence for that nobody believes?

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No, it's just as good as nothing. If it's worthless as evidence to show the truth of the claim then you might as well have nothing. So yes it does weaken your case, and no it doesn't make it more far-fetched.

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People believing in something, regardless of their number, does not make something more true.

But if this is the logic by which you live, then know that while I did think up this idea independently (quite a while ago) I am not the only one to think of it. Does the fact that I'm not the only person who thinks of it as a possibility make it any more or less likely to be true? No, of course not, and that applies to every other claim.

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Again, how is it any more far-fetched than any of the other god claims?

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You're missing the point.

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No, it's not a decent case. Do you think any god that actually cares about faith would accept faith based on what is essentially a gamble rather than a deeply held real belief? That's not faith, it's an out and out lie.

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Again, the number of people who believe or don't believe in something does not affect it's actual truth status.

Also, believers aren't necessarily idiots - I know quite a few are quite intelligent. Even smart people can be wrong, including atheists and agnostics.

[John Dibble]

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And that's perfectly rational, but doesn't really apply to the God argument. We have evidence that fire exists, that can and does burn down buildings, and that one can avoid being hurt by the fire by getting out of a burning building. Jumping out the window might be an option for that. Unless I have a reason to believe the person is lying about there being a fire, I would be inclined to believe him since his claim is grounded in verifiable reality.

On the other hand the god argument has no evidence. No god has even been shown to exist, much less be inclined to favor some over others and punish those it dislikes. Until evidence for those exist I have no reason to take action.

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And that's exactly what Pascal's Wager is! "You should believe in God because there might be a God who will punish you if you don't, even though I can't give you any evidence that it might be true aside from my completely unverified beliefs."

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There isn't a basis for belief, but I wouldn't go so far as to call people mad for believing it. Humans are not perfectly rational creatures and will often believe things that aren't true for a variety of reasons.

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Except I have evidence that suggests that lightbulbs, broken or not, aren't edible. I have no evidence for the existence of a god, much less its nature. I accept the possibility of such a thing's existence, but I can't discount possibilities for it as absurd since I don't have any reason to do so.

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As I've demonstrated Pascal's Wager isn't a pragmatic argument, it's a fallacious one.

But really this isn't that absurd of a possibility. Let me argue a logical way that this atheist-favoring deity might be a possible consideration:

Premise 1: The universe exists and was designed and created by God.
Premise 2: The universe behaves by what appear to be consistent rules that don't change.
Premise 3: Through rational thinking and empirical analysis one can determine what these rules are.
Premise 4: Through determining these rules people can develop technology and whatnot that increase their lifespan and overall quality of life.
Premise 5: Because the universe was designed in such a way that rational thinking reaps benefits, God as the designer may prefer rational thinkers over non-rational thinkers.

So why would the benefits suddenly cease in the afterlife? Why would God suddenly change to prefer faith, a definitively non-rational way of thinking that favors belief in the absence of evidence, over determining beliefs through evidence gathering by rational thinking and empirical analysis? If anything this makes the faith preferring God seem more absurd.

[John Dibble]

I think your atheist-God is more far-fetched than the deities of mainstream religions and you think they are equally ludicrous. I don't think there is anything we can say to change each others' minds there, since we seem to simply interpret information differently there.

Just to clarify, I don't think they are all equally ludicrous, just equally without evidence. As a general rule the more specific you get into describing a god, what it wants, what it acts like, what it looks like, etc. the more ludicrous I find the belief. For instance deists believe in a god, but generally speaking their deity exists but they wouldn't claim to know a whole lot about it other than perhaps a few vague things. It's still a claim without evidence, but it's a claim that makes far fewer leaps of faith due to lack of evidence.