The logic of choosing Atheism?

[Hmmm]

I'm just curious as to what your thoughts are on this idea.

Recently I kind of went through a mini conversation with myself. I played both sides to the conversation and the topic was Christianity and Atheism.


Anyways, half way through the conversation, I ended up having to introduce the concept of "a correct answer". This is something I knew all along but simulating a convo in my head brought it up.

So the "correct answer" idea is pretty simple. And all of you should agree about this. At least I hope, and the idea is this:

At the end of the day, when you've lived your life and finally died, there will be a correct answer. There either will be a God or there won't be. One religion might get it right or none of them (depending on how bad we messed up in the process of editing religion). There's again no guarantee that if a God exists anything will happen since the God(s) could be apathetic. But nevertheless, either we rot in the ground or we awake to find ourselves somewhere else be it Heaven, Hell, Valhalla, whatever.

anyways, there's the concept. Upon death, somebody may be right(assuming any current and future religion is correct), somebody most definitely will be wrong.

So after bringing that up, my atheist side logically wondered whether or not it was a silly idea staying atheist. After all, if being atheist is correct, nothing happens after death. So what is there to lose? Wouldn't it be logically wiser to search for the logically next best answer and take up that religion instead? Even if it was under false pretense?

Because the way I saw it, it's a sound logical choice. Even if it's a gamble(since your faith in the religion might not be sincere). It's like being able to choose an extra card in poker is it not? You get an extra guess in the slight off-chance that religion is right.



anyways, let me know if you agree with the "correct answer" idea and then let me know what you think about the second idea.

[Cephus]

"Atheist" isn't something you choose, it's something you are. It signifies the lack of belief in god(s), nothing more. Non-stamp-collector simply signifies the lack of collecting stamps, nothing more. It's not a position you adopt, it's a description of your state of mind.

I will take some exception with your "there will be an answer" though, it's entirely possible that one, some, all or none of the theist ideas about god(s) might be right, but that's entirely irrelevant to whether or not we, as humans, ought to believe that these entities exist. We ought only believe based on evidence and since there is no evidence, we ought not believe regardless of whatever may be demonstrated to be true after we're dead. If no evidence is ever presented while I'm alive, I will never believe while I'm alive, I don't worry about what might happen after I'm dead, when all evidence strongly suggests I'll just rot in the grave.

Atheism is the only logical position one can have, barring actual, objective evidence to the contrary.

[Furrowed Brow]

At the end of the day, when you've lived your life and finally died, there will be a correct answer

What happens if there is life after death but no God and no heaven or there is a God but no life after death, or on the moment of death consciousness begins to dismantle an infinite fractal from which was built its subjective experience of space and time. To the external observer the body dead and buried but the individuals subjective consciousness hangs around forever just fading away. There may be some other answers that means there is no correct answer or no correct answer is ever reached.

[Tiberius47]

What you're talking about is Pascal's Wager. It's not a convincing argument for belief...

[Tails]

The moral reason to be a Christian would be that your reason lead you to its truth, and that you are convinced that it is beneficial to the advancement and betterment of you and your fellow humans, not because belief comes with special perks and prizes. I am reminded of what Karim Temple, someone I work with, said to someone who told him it is better to be Christian because if you are right you get eternity at best, and cease to exist at worst, but if you are an atheist and are right you cease to exist at best, and go to Hell at worst. Instead of responding to that with the more popular counterarguments, such as that claim being a false dilemma, he instead cut right to the moral heart of it:

What kind of spiritual philosophy is process-of-elimination? Are you kidding me? What do you look like telling someone that 'You have nothing to lose!' You know? lol It's like, '6 months no payments! No risk! No obligation! Buy Jesus now!' That, to me, is pathetic, and I'm sorry, but I'm not sorry. I can't apologize for calling out something that poor.

There was a Christian fundamentalist who has often railed against the supposed immorality of heretics such as myself and the person I quoted above, but one day I asked him if he would save a woman who was drowning if it was shown beyond a reasonable doubt that the afterlife does not exist, and he, astonishingly enough, told me that it would depend on how pretty she looked. Christians often warn against and lecture on selfishness, but was this not the height of it? He way saying that if he did not get his super special awesome afterlife prize, there was no reason to be good. Do people stop being worth your sympathy when your hopes and dreams have expired?

___

I remembered a post I made about this with select quotations:

I'm annoyed by that, too. People who consider themselves True Believers often make the case popularized by Blaise Pascal that it's better to believe in God just in case.

"Is your religion real when it costs you nothing and carries no risk? Is your religion real when you fatten upon it? Is your religion real when you commit atrocities in its name? Whence comes your downward degeneration from the original revelation?"

— Paul Atreides, in Children of Dune by Frank Herbert

"...shake off all the fears and servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear."

— Thomas Jefferson, letter to Peter Carr, August 10, 1787

"The overwhelming impression when you deal with the really devout believer is that he honestly feels sorry for all of these people who don't have what he thinks he has. After all, he's got a First Class Ticket On Afterlife Airlines, while you threw away your chance at first class seating by pissing off the ticket agent with all of your cavorting around and pot smoking and premarital sex. So you may be laughing now, but you'll be sorry when you show up at the Boarding Call and you're told that they lost your reservation. So you're clearly an idiot for not apologizing to the ticket agent and begging for your seat assignment, and he feels sorry for you because he knows you'll be booted off the plane.

Of course, it doesn't occur to them that this entire intellectual framework has a foundation of thin air. There might be no Afterlife Airlines, or they could have gone to the wrong ticket desk, or maybe it turns out that the whole airport is a sham and they should be waiting on the riverbanks of the River Styx with coins on their eyes for the boatman."

-- Michael Wong, posting under the alias "Darth Wong" at his forum, StarDestroyer.net

Emphasis added.

I'd rather hold the position I do because my reason lead me to it. My position may be wrong, and I may change my views, but if I do, it will not be because of threats of Hellfire.

I am still amused over the memory of watching Pat Robertson's The 700 Club and hearing him inform one of his callers, who's a devout Christian like him, that if she can't "reach" her friend, who is a devout Muslim, she should "remind her where she's going".

[Nilloc James]

That is pascals wager at its finest.

Usually the christain who inserts that.

What about a god that only allows those who didn't beleive in him to enter heaven?

That one question shoots pascals wager.

[BwhoUR]

At the end of the day, when you've lived your life and finally died, there will be a correct answer. There either will be a God or there won't be. One religion might get it right or none of them (depending on how bad we messed up in the process of editing religion). There's again no guarantee that if a God exists anything will happen since the God(s) could be apathetic. But nevertheless, either we rot in the ground or we awake to find ourselves somewhere else be it Heaven, Hell, Valhalla, whatever.
.

First off, from a mother, you need to get some sleep. Second, the thought of trying to "trick" god by behaving like you believe in him but in your heart you really don't is amusing. Won't god know? It's part of the hypocrasy in religion that I loathe. I'd rather stand before the god of the bible (hypothetically) and say, "Was that the best you could do? Couldn't you have at least put a vision of the holy mary on all the toast and not just one piece?"

[Atlantius]

My problems with Pascal's Wager

How do you know which god or gods to follow? The world has many religions which teach that they are right and everyone else is wrong. Look at it from outside the Christian-Atheist scope.

It is hypocrisy and is bound to create internal conflicts.

Religions can have negative effects, so buying into one only to be on the safe side isn't worth the support you give it. The very concept of the divine is in my view one of humanity's biggest flaws. It has caused violence, sacrifice, fear, etc. Also, unproven ideas can block advancements in science, claiming heresy (i.e. early astronomy). Religion can become political, which never ends well. At least have spiritual reasons you are sure of if you join a religion.

[SithDoughnut]

My main problem with this argument is that I did not actively choose my beliefs - I only chose to voice them out loud. I became an atheist pretty unwillingly to start with, but I could not fool myself into believing something that I didn't think was true. Just as I cannot truly believe that 1+1=3, I cannot truly believe in gods. I can pretend, but any omniscient being would see right through that. So if I'm wrong, I'm wrong - there's nothing I can do about it, short of aversion therapy or something like that.