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From: za56@sdcc3.ucsd.EDU (Brian McNeill)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Shove over and make room for God!
Message-ID: <3575@sdcc3.ucsd.EDU>
Date: Wed, 10-Sep-86 14:05:38 EDT
Article-I.D.: sdcc3.3575
Posted: Wed Sep 10 14:05:38 1986
Date-Received: Mon, 15-Sep-86 03:23:30 EDT
References: <5160@decwrl.DEC.COM> <3566@sdcc3.ucsd.EDU> <194@BMS-AT.UUCP>
Reply-To: za56@sdcc3.UUCP (Brian McNeill)
Followup-To: talk.origins
Distribution: na
Organization: U.C. San Diego, Academic Computer Center
Lines: 58
Keywords: Logical fallacy in Pascal's wager

In article <194@BMS-AT.UUCP> stuart@BMS-AT.UUCP (Stuart D. Gathman) writes:
>In article <3566@sdcc3.ucsd.EDU>, za56@sdcc3.ucsd.EDU (Brian McNeill) writes:
>
>> This is because many people have always felt insecure without final
>> meaning to their life.  . . .
>> . . .           People have invented religion to give their lives
>> meaning, to assuage their fear of death.
>
>Finally we have a statement from a consistent atheist.  There is just no
>way to poke holes in a position that denies real meaning.  This
>outlook is even Biblical!  In the book Ecclesiastes, the teacher 
>concludes after extensive observation costing his nation billions 
>of equivalent dollars that either
>
>a)	God does not exist and everything is meaningless.
>
>b)	God does exist and it is best to seek Him early in life.
>

I would like to see somebody prove that God implies "real meaning".
To my way of thinking, God would just be yet another set of
arbitrary "meanings"...after all...he defines them, and if he
does, they are arbitrary...if he does not define them, then
something exists apart from God, and you don't have much of a 
God then, do you...same argument also applies to the moral
argument for the Diety...

>Actually, Pascal's argument can be used here:  If life is meaningless,
>why not obey God just in case it isn't?  Because, man, there are things
>I wanna do...[more bunk deleted]

I would have thought that no INTELLIGENT Xian would have attempted
to use Pascal's wager, but then SDG is a special case.  Pascal's
wager ASSUMES there are only 2 choices...(a) belief in the Xian God
or (b) disbelief in the above...having only 2 choices, it is easy
to see that one should believe (a) because it does not hurt you,
and if you believe (b) it will possibly hurt you...this is
a VERY fallacious argument...there are MANY MORE THAN TWO choices..
for instance...(a) belief in the Xian God, (b) disbelief in the
Xian God, (c) belief in the Judaic God, (d) belief in the All-Father
Odin, (e) belief in the Sky-Father Zeus (Jove), (f) belief in
Quetzalcoatl, (g) belief in Shintoistic reincarnation....etc...you
get the picture...SDG would have us believe everything is in 
black&white, where everything, at least to my eye, seems to be
shades of grey!  Pascal's wager is an overquoted maxim which is a
favorite of those Xians who refuse to think things thru, and is 
easily debunked by a 3 year old, with half a mind of his own...

>-- 
>Stuart D. Gathman	<..!seismo!{vrdxhq|dgis}!BMS-AT!stuart>

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