Atheism is a Gamble

I get a lot of emails about my beliefs from well-meaning Christians who try to convince me of the errors of my ways and the terrible risks I am running. Here is just one:

I happened across your web site today looking on the internet for a copy of the parable of the walk on the beach with Jesus. When I read your commentary on the “lies” that the “character” of Jesus told, and his followers continue to tell, I felt sorry for you.

I am a teacher and will share one story with you of two teenagers who were in a mental hospital at which I taught. They were both involved in drugs, drinking, promiscuous sex, and a myriad of other "freedoms" that their lack of love and direction had led them into. These two also happened to be dabbling in witchcraft and other dark practices. One of them asked me if I believed in the Bible, because he had seen one on my shelf along with other famous pieces of literature. I told him that, yes, I do believe that the Bible is true and much more than a collection of fictional stories. He asked me if that didn't make me feel foolish, since there was no proof that any of the Bible is true. (I didn't go into it with him, nor will I with you, but there have been historians and archeologists that have stumbled onto pieces of proof of some of the Bible stories. And, the “character” of Jesus is mentioned in historical accounts of the day that have nothing to do with the Bible.) What I did answer him is this.

“Let's say that I am wrong, and I follow the teachings of the Bible, living a clean life, giving to the poor, and loving my neighbor more than myself. Then, I die and find out I was wrong and there is nothing more than this world and this life. What has it cost me? If you follow Biblical principles, you are more likely to have a long lasting love and relationship, a healthier body and a quality life when you are on earth. But, if you live your whole life believing, as you do, that the Bible is a lie and that you can live however you want, (remember, this had already landed them in a mental hospital in their early teens,) then you die, and you are wrong, you will spend eternity, forever, a concept that is difficult for humans to grasp, in hell. Which gamble do you want to take? I'll take believing in the Bible.”

It continues to blow my mind that people such as yourself can look at our vast universe, the makings of the human body, or simply watch a thunderstorm, use an intelligent and rational mind and believe that it all “just happened.” The fact that there is a powerful higher being that created and controls it all takes much less faith than that, if you ask me. There is no way that you nor I can prove that we are right until we die. But, I like my odds much better.

Renee Florida

This is one of the simplest ideas that an atheist ever has to deal with. It is called Pascal's Wager. Look it up, and you will see how feeble it is, unless of course you are too dumb or too brainwashed to be able to think clearly.

Yes, if you are right I lose. If any one of several thousand other god stories are right you also lose, maybe more than me, I deny all gods, without prejudice, you specifically deny every god except your own. If I was Zeus, Ganesh, Zoroastra, Mars or Odin I'd be a lot madder at Christians than I was against atheists. Sleep well.

Eternity in hell is a terrible concept isn't it? Who invented it, and why?

I do the right thing because it is what I believe is the right thing, not because I'm scared of the consequences of doing anything else. You can feel smug and self-righteous if you want, I can't stop you, but the idea that what your pappy told you about hell must be true is feeble in the extreme, especially considering it is backed up by the get out of jail free card of faith. You are not allowed to contemplate the possibility that you have been lied to, those who have lied to you have told you their word is The Truth, the very definition of the concept of truth. I sincerely pity you.

It constantly amazes me that people these days can watch a thunderstorm and think to themselves “this was made by the god that some bronze age goat herders described to my ancestors (but not to everybody of course) with tales of hell-fire to back them up, if absolute unquestioning ignorant faith is good enough for them it sure as hell is good enough for me!”

Can't you even see the basic idea that this “parable” about Jesus and the footsteps was made up by some anonymous writer who had the temerity to make up a story about Jesus? And you fall for it? Have you no shame? How can you think that you belong to an intelligent species if you continue to swallow stuff like this so uncritically? What is your brain for? Who wrote that story? Were they inspired by God, were they just trying to write something to get published? Did they believe a word of it? You don't know, do you? Ha ha! You take it as real, as valid, as evidence, but you have no idea where it comes from! (If you did you would have searched for it by the author, and not found my page instead.) You are prepared to accept (no, you long to embrace) anything that strengthens the beliefs you already hold and deny anything that sheds doubt on those beliefs. That shows the critical faculties of an intellectual whore.

Go on, waste your life spreading traditional lies backed up with the fear of eternal torture, see if I care. See if the universe cares.

Martin Willett

http://mwillett.org/

Oh, yes, have a nice day. Jesus can't love you, but I do. ;-)

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Smitecam: Challenging the gods

Pascal's Wager

Oh what the hell, I'm on a roll, here's another:

Let me start off by saying I love Jesus. All I have to say is that you have never been "touched" by God. My mother was terminally ill and did not believe in God. She was not afraid to die either, she was quite content. She had no idea that christians were praying for her. To make a long story short she was touched by the holy spirit and was healed instantly. Doctors were completely amazed. This was 25 years ago and she is still alive and well and her life has changed forever and so have the doctors lives as well as some of the medical staff. Give me your feed back on this one.

Thank you

Did you know C S Lewis was an atheist before he became a Christian? I've lost count of the number of people who I've been told were atheists and became Christians. But the funny thing is nobody I know to be atheist has ever converted. That's funny, isn't it? I know lots of atheists and none of them have become Christians but there are lots of people who claim to have been atheists who are now (over) joyously Christian.

The explanation could be that the people who converse with me know what they believe and they care about the issues. But those people who convert to Christianity never were coherent and logical atheists, they were just people who didn't believe in God. Technically they were atheists, but they didn't do anything about it and they didn't think deeply about the issue. There are plenty of “famous ex-atheist-Christians” but NO “famous atheists, now Christians”.

People get healed all the time. Diseases clear up and go away. Doctors make mistakes all the time. (Don't believe me? Ask their insurers!) A person who is no longer sick is not by definition cured by some external agency. Spontaneous remission is common. As is illogical explanation for changes in health status.

Your mother was diagnosed as terminally ill and is now well. I'm happy for you both. But don't expect me to see that as some holy sign. There are millions of people alive today who had been told that they could be dead within weeks/months. Many of those people will have edited their memories of that diagnosis to give themselves the impression that they have beaten huge odds and proved the doctors wrong. That is human nature. A positive mental attitude, self-brainwashing, helps people to pull out of ill health. Those who think the glass is half empty die before those who see it as half full, it is hardly surprising to note that those who think the glass is miraculously far from empty do better still.

Dumbo's Magic Feather wasn't magic, but his belief in it did the trick. Belief does not make the impossible possible, it helps make the possible possible. It makes no difference whether the positive thinking and self belief is logically based, feeling better about yourself helps you to do better, at least better than you would otherwise do. If faith was the whole answer then monks, nuns, preachers and priests would be immortal, it makes a difference in some cases, enough to be appreciated as a useful cure. Faith helps people, the positive mental attitude makes the difference, not the thing in which the faith is put.

Faith is a powerful force. It does not need to be based on anything real, millions of young men do amazingly brave/stupid things because they have an unshakeable faith in their own immortality. Older men slowly come to recognize the stupidity of that attitude, if they are lucky.

Martin Willett

http://mwillett.org/

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