gambling

Part three. Check out my previous posts for a bit of background.

Thought Three: “We're both betting. He's betting his life that he's right. I'm betting my life that Jesus was not a liar. When we die, if he's right, I've lost nothing. If I'm right, he's lost everything. I'm not willing to make that gamble.” Implication: This life is not what matters, only the next. The ultimate motivation to have a faith in God is to avoid inevitable eternal damnation.

I cannot even believe he used Pascal's Gambit as his final thought. Seriously. There has to be about a jillion better things to say in the last-thoughts part of a debate. Though I guess to be fair, I really don't know, I'm not debater. But it certainly seems like there should be.

Here's the thing. The very suggestion that we could spend our entire life chasing something, only to find that it wasn't really there, and NOT feel like we have lost something quite profound is preposterous. By the same token, the implication that it is at all worthy or honorable to follow God for the mere purpose of avoiding hellfire and damnation is equally detestable.

I think Richard Carrier makes some interesting comments on this line of thinking:

"Suppose there is a God who is watching us and choosing which souls of the deceased to bring to heaven, and this god really does want only the morally good to populate heaven. He will probably select from only those who made a significant and responsible effort to discover the truth. For all others are untrustworthy, being cognitively or morally inferior, or both. They will also be less likely ever to discover and commit to true beliefs about right and wrong. That is, if they have a significant and trustworthy concern for doing right and avoiding wrong, it follows necessarily that they must have a significant and trustworthy concern for knowing right and wrong. Since this knowledge requires knowledge about many fundamental facts of the universe (such as whether there is a god), it follows necessarily that such people must have a significant and trustworthy concern for always seeking out, testing, and confirming that their beliefs about such things are probably correct. Therefore, only such people can be sufficiently moral and trustworthy to deserve a place in heaven — unless god wishes to fill heaven with the morally lazy, irresponsible, or untrustworthy."

It's a bit harsh. And I'm not saying I agree with everything Carrier has to say. But it certainly offers some good things to think about.

And with that, my rant (at least this particular one) is now officially over.