I am a christian, i and i strongly belive in my lord jesus christ, and i also belive that if you belive in him and except him as your savior, u will go to heaven. and i also believe that he created the world, not the big bang, or that we came from stupid apes.
You could argue Pascal's wager, but do you think that anyone is really convinced by it? If someone were to truly convert to Christianity because they did not want to "risk it," would they be a devout follower? Or would they just show up to church every once in a while, say they're a Christian, and then continue with their old lifestyle, other than those changes?
In general studies (anyone who has been forced to take it knows how haunting these word are) we were looking at differant aspects of faith. A study at Cambridge University ,if I recall correctly, observed the differences in the responce to stimulus in participants. The people were split in to two groups depending on whether they were atheist or Catholic. The Catholics were given icons to look at. Each participant were taken individualy and administered shocks. There responces were recorded as well as each being quizzed afterwards on what they felt. The resukts showed that the Catholics felt less pain than atheists. Is this just be individual differences or god watching over his children?
And also morals can be easily instilled in a culture. Many psychologist (most famously Bandura) believe that children observe role models (e.g. parents) and behave how they learn from them. This goes quite far to explain the "Mortal Kombat" killing thread that has been hanging around the last through days. Morals are pretty simple "don't kill2 don't steal" especially in comparison to all the other wonders humans are capable of.
In general studies (anyone who has been forced to take it knows how haunting these word are) we were looking at differant aspects of faith. A study at Cambridge University ,if I recall correctly, observed the differences in the responce to stimulus in participants. The people were split in to two groups depending on whether they were atheist or Catholic. The Catholics were given icons to look at. Each participant were taken individualy and administered shocks. There responces were recorded as well as each being quizzed afterwards on what they felt. The resukts showed that the Catholics felt less pain than atheists. Is this just be individual differences or god watching over his children?
And also morals can be easily instilled in a culture. Many psychologist (most famously Bandura) believe that children observe role models (e.g. parents) and behave how they learn from them. This goes quite far to explain the "Mortal Kombat" killing thread that has been hanging around the last through days. The child felt the characters were a role model and imitated their behaviour. Morals are pretty simple "don't kill", don't steal" especially in comparison to all the other wonders humans are capable of.
In a world where dualism is natural and a part of the cycle of life, something had to offset the idea of religion. God is an idea created by humans. It doesn't matter what religion you are talking about, or what culture you are in, there are going to be people who don't believe.
i am a Christian but one of my friends is an atheist it does not mater what you believe in is or do not believe in what does mater is that we all are humans and should be treaded as such
*Grumble* Pascal's wager utterly fails. How about this? '"IF YOU DON'T BELIEVE THAT THERE IS A MONSTER IN YOUR COMPUTER IT WILL COME OUT AND EAT YOU. SUBMIT TO ITS WILL. He'll only spare you if you worship him for an hour each week for the rest of your life." After all... Why take the risk?' If you can use someone's argument to come to an obviously false conclusion, that argument is probably wrong. There's a name for that, but I forgot it. I do remember the fallacy, though. Argumentum ad consequentiam.
If the idea of God did not exist, there would be no atheists.
It depends how you define atheists. If it's "one who rejects the idea of God", then yeah. If it's "one who doesn't believe in God", then it would be : If the idea of God did not exist, everyone would be an atheist.
Pixie, no. There are so many factors there that it's wrong to jump to a conclusion like that. What do you mean by "The Catholics were given icons to look at."?
Pascal's wager is not a proof of the existence of God. Unfortunately it's been played enough that people on both sides think it is, but it isn't. Nevertheless it's a useful starting point, and frankly better than the so-called "atheist's wager."
