Atheism Vs Theism & Pascal's Wager

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Muslim

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These days I am trying to figure out where I stand on this subject. I avoided it for quite some time and also regret taking this task on, because it constantly floods my thoughts now. I can easily just choose to be agnostic and save myself the headache, however this would make me feel like I've failed and I've resigned myself to defeat. I have always had an innate belief in god and tendencies towards mysticism however now I feel have to cut my emotions out and make a logical decision. I am obviously doing my own research nevertheless if anyone can give me any logical arguments supporting either side without any religious bias, you are more than welcome.

From my research I have found when one tries to look at religion and religious doctrines to form a conclusion on the existence or non-existence of god, there seems to be a problem the existence of god the conclusion is based out of emotions rather then sound logical arguments some are thus:

The Theist's arguments: ​
  • Fear - Generally you're told not to question your religion and not to question god, as this maybe reason enough for you to commit a heinous unforgivable sin in your religion which makes god "angry" who will send you to hell for eternal damnation for ever doubting him. Furthermore, if you doubt then you're not a "true" believer.
  • Biasness' - This is obvious, a person who strongly believes his faith is right and believes what ever it says in its holy books he will naturally tell you god does exist and will believe in the existence of god.
  • Monkey See Monkey Do - Father, Mother believed in god so child believes in god, due to religious indoctrination. Or other?s I know believe in a god there must be a god so I must believe in a god.
  • Some experience - Near death experience, had an image in a dream saw an Image of Jesus on my toast, I?ve found god because something happened in my life which made be believe, etc..
  • There Must be - There must be a god, we can?t just die and that?s it.
  • My region tells me - There is a god it's stated in my holy books and my holy books are true.
  • My opinion ? In my opinion there is a god.
These are some of the examples I have come across, doing my research into the existence of god. Majority of the time its some nonsensical emotional argument which most thesis present to convince you there is a god.

The Atheists argument:​
  • Pseudo Science - There is such and such scientists who propose such and such theory which disproves the existence of god.
  • The debate - I?ve had so many debates, with Theists and not even one of them could defend the existence of god.
  • Refer - See this person?s works; see this link read this book etc.
  • Religion is a tool - God was created by man as a tool to inspire men to fight in war which eventually led to organised religions.
PASCAL?s wager:
This is a pretty interesting one. I was talking to someone and he said to me: "heard of Pascal's Wager?" So I decided to look it up. Basically, it works like this I say to you I've I believe in a god, and if I am wrong then I have nothing to lose. And if you don't believe in a god and you're wrong then you're pretty much buggered as you'll probably end up on hell. So what it comes down to is, this argument can't really apply to an atheist he doesn't believe in a god, and this argument is based made upon a reward/fear system which is a logical trap, to trap the opponent into excepting the existence of god, as he has nothing to lose but all to gain. However, Pascals wager, in theory could still apply. If we are going purely based on speculation, in this case we are then there is a 50/50 chance. Even the person arguing using a pascals wager is arguing based on a probability of 50. The probability is the validity of the argument or hypothesis in this instance. If the hypothesis is fallacious the only way to validate this is to have a factual argument, two humans proposing a hypothesis which cannot be conclusively proven either way then the pascals wager argument is not debunked or refuted. The 50:50 ratio still applies.

Claiming, someone is using a pascals wager, of even if someone is using a pascals wager, is irrelevant to the premises of the debate. Even though the hypothesis of the person arguing using the pascals wager is constructed to form a logical trap for the opponent. This still doesn't refute the hypothesis, in which case the pascals wager logically can still be applied and is not necessarily based on a logical fallacy within the hypothesis, as the hypothesis is still sound. So the conclusion comes down to is we can never prove the existence of god. So any debate between an Atheist and a Theist is going to be based out of biasness so why should we expect anything comes from these people? I?ve read literature from both sides. The only way to rest my own mind is to play the devils advocate. Arguing against, an Atheist and then later arguing against a Theists and then examine the evidence from both debates and then deduce a logical conclusion from them for myself.

So what is your though on this?

P.S, I do actually ascribe my self to the Islamic ideology and generally support it its pretty "hip" and the now thing to be a Muslim or convert to Islam.
 
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Pascal's Wager has long been disregarded. Here are a number of reasons why:

1) There is more than one option within theism. Pascal arranged his math so that only Christianity was an option. So it's not true. And if all religions conform to one god and you don't need a particular belief to get into heaven, then presumably so should be a good person with theism.

2) Pascal was wrong, there are more variables than that. There can be a god with heaven, a god without heaven, a god with multiple levels of after-life, etc.

3) Giving belief because it's the most likely choice to score you a good after life is also historically way against the Church (and other institutions) reasoning.

4) In fact, in Christianity in particular, faith is one of those important attributes.

5) Giving belief to a proposition just because it will serve you the best in long run is not even rational choice - Pascal lived before game theory so he wouldn't have known this.

I could go on if you like?
 
There is such and such scientists who propose such and such theory which disproves the existence of god.
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You cannot prove the contrapositive on this. To use the tired old example - I cannot prove there is no giant space monkey living on a distant planet in a distant solar system. I cannot disprove ghosts. I cannot disprove spirit world giant space monkeys that like to throw their spirit poop at my face.

The point is that the burden of proof is on those asserting a new entity. In science, if I say "There is a thing X which exists" then it is up to me to prove that claim. We don't accept it exists until others disprove that proposition.
 
Ok, you really need to actually read Pascal's own text on his "wager". I'm sure you could find it online.
Muslim said:
Basically, it works like this I say to you I've I believe in a god, and if I am wrong then I have nothing to lose. And if you don't believe in a god and you're wrong then you're pretty much buggered as you'll probably end up on hell.
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One could argue that your one chance to lead a life free of superstition and needless fear is a valuable thing that one could lose if you believe in god.

Indeed, Pascal himself admitted that by "betting on god" you are not making a wager in which you stand to lose nothing. When describing his wager he wrote:
"You have two things to lose, the true and the good; and two things to stake, your reason and your will, your knowledge and your happiness; and your nature has two things to shun, error and misery."
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Religious people who make Pascal's argument and say "If I'm right I have nothing to lose" annoy me because they clearly have never actually read Pascal's own text on his wager.

However, Pascals wager, in theory could still apply. If we are going purely based on speculation, in this case we are then there is a 50/50 chance. Even the person arguing using a pascals wager is arguing based on a probability of 50. The probability is the validity of the argument or hypothesis in this instance. If the hypothesis is fallacious the only way to validate this is to have a factual argument, two humans proposing a hypothesis which cannot be conclusively proven either way then the pascals wager argument is not debunked or refuted. The 50:50 ratio still applies.
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Obviously the odds of a proposition being true are not 50/50 simply because there are two choices. Suppose I claimed to be a vampire. Either I am a vampire, or I am not - two choices. Would you seriously believe that there was a 50% chance that my claim of being a vampire was true?

These are just a few problems with the wager - there are others, but they get a bit more technical because they deal with the mathematical idea of expected value, which Pascal actually incorporated into his argument.
 
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pudendum
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holy shit, I never heard that word until a month ago when I was reading a book on Shinto (for my class) from the 1920s. isn't it strange how that stuff works?

like modernity, I had never heard that until about a month ago also, and I have already heard it 3 times since! strange =]
 
cato said:
holy shit, I never heard that word until a month ago when I was reading a book on Shinto (for my class) from the 1920s. isn't it strange how that stuff works?

like modernity, I had never heard that until about a month ago also, and I have already heard it 3 times since! strange =]
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Its not a coincidence. This actually happens to me, majority of the time its happened so many times, that I can't even dismiss it as a coincidence. I created a thread about menarche a while back. Then all of a sudden I started noticing adverts on TV about menopause pills or something. Which I had never ever seen in my life before.

Another time, I was reading about bap tests, and it said about virginal deodorants, which I never know even existed the same day I go shopping in the evening and I see virginal deodorants.

Another example is, when me and my friend were talking and I said a sentence, and not even 10 seconds later the same sentence in the exact order is repeated by the DJ on the radio.

But the one that really freaked me out was, my friend was saying something is wrong with his TV it keeps flicking channel, and we thought it maybe to do with microwaves or rediowaves. About two days later I was alone in my bedroom watching TV, and the same things started happening to my TV it started flicking through channels. That didn't freak me out, but what did freaked my out was the channel it kept flipping to. the Channel was called the "God" channel or something. Then from that it flicked on to the "Islam" channel! I was shit scared! at that point, something happened to my head inside my brain, it kind of felt like an you know electrical shot to the brain and it felt like is wasn't in my body. And I was like trying to think logically, telling myself am being really stupid, its nothing. And then I just got up off my bed and turned the TV off, and then turned it back on and it was back to normal. But all that night I coulden't go to sleep.

I bet you really strange things will start happening to you from now on, especially when you start to notice it. Its Jinns they fuck with you.
 
Muslim:

Really, the problem with Pascal's wager is this: Would you be willing to put the same faith in something utterly absurd? The "invisible pink unicorn" of Atheist fame is a good example. What if I told you that if you didn't believe in the "invisible pink unicorn" and his Divine Mandates exclusively or face hellfire? Would you be willing to do that?

If not, are you not then relying on reason? And therefore letting yourself be okay with a chance at eternal hellfire?

Ultimately, Pascal's Wager would us crippled to make decisions. We cannot accept it without being intellectually castrated.
 
Prince_James said:
Muslim:

Really, the problem with Pascal's wager is this: Would you be willing to put the same faith in something utterly absurd? The "invisible pink unicorn" of Atheist fame is a good example. What if I told you that if you didn't believe in the "invisible pink unicorn" and his Divine Mandates exclusively or face hellfire? Would you be willing to do that?

If not, are you not then relying on reason? And therefore letting yourself be okay with a chance at eternal hellfire?

Ultimately, Pascal's Wager would us crippled to make decisions. We cannot accept it without being intellectually castrated.
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But thats not the same. You don't get loads of books and works calming pink flying unicorns exist. Where are they supposed to be? on earth presumably. But we haven't seen them. God on the other hand cold be anywhere in the universe or beyond. Until the whole universe and "beyond" is explored you can dismiss it.

It would be light picking up a medical book reading a few pages and then saying right I'm a doctor now, I know everything about medicine. Shit doesn't work like that, scientists haven't explored the whole universe of the universe. At one time, my dad said in school he was taught that the sun didn't rotate, but he always used to read in the Qu'ran the sun rotates, and then some years later scientists worked out the sun dose actually rotate.

You can't just dismiss something, like the existence of god, because it seems illogical. To me it seems illogical the goddamn universe exist while outside of earth there is no life its baron. So where the hell did life from from? how is earth in the right place for humans to exist.

We are just so tiny little humans on the grand scale of things we actually don't know shit. We are just little being in the massive universe. Yet we act like we know everything.

And after the big bang the planets aligned up into a nice equilibrium, I mean I'm not no astrophysicist, but I am sure as hell if you blow shit it, doesn't randomly join up and from into things. Cos if that did happen Iraq would be a fucking paradise by now or something.

Thats just crazy, its like saying lets get a rock form space, blow it up in 0 gravity hand around for a few billion years and eventually there be some kind of life on them.

If there is life on earth, then it didn't just randomly from. There must have been something that created it.

Saying big bang happened, planets liked up due to gravity and shit, and billions of years carbon life forms, formed and eventually evolved into humans. :bugeye:
 
Muslim said:
At one time, my dad said in school he was taught that the sun didn't rotate, but he always used to read in the Qu'ran the sun rotates, and then some years later scientists worked out the sun dose actually rotate.
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I'm curious where in the koran this is written, but I *can* tell you where it is written that the sun moves around the earth and "goes down into a muddy spring" at night (18:36). I somehow doubt that science will show this one to be true someday.

The point is, there are a lot of words in texts like the koran, the torah, the bible, the popol vuh, etc. Some of them are bound to be true, even if the authors original intent isn't what's currently known.
 
But Muslim...you're doing exactly the same thing.

You are expressing an objection to people "saying the big bang happened". However you are "saying that Allah created all". With no proof. Simply saying it does not make it true. Conversely it doesn't make it untrue either.

That said, Big Bang theory, evolution theory and Darwinism etc are scientific postulations that have evidentiary support. They are not conclusive with finality, however they are logical processes that match the facts and findings as we see them. Creationism in any faith is illogical and has no proof whatsoever.

Evolution and Darwinism for example has nothing to do with randomization (research it).

With respect to probability of life emergent, google it...I'm sure Dawkins doesn't own that information solely for his latest book.

(etc etc arguments done to death in other threads)


Side point: dude...how old are you? I asked because you say your dad was taught that the sun doesn't rotate. Richard Carrington identified a rotational axis for the sun in the mid 19th century. Who knows if/when the Quran was updated to include the sun's rotation?

_____

Edit: evidently Muslim is mistaken slightly, once Skinwalker - the professional anthropologist - is accurate :) but i'll leave my original post as is above the line
 
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SkinWalker said:
I'm curious where in the koran this is written, but I *can* tell you where it is written that the sun moves around the earth and "goes down into a muddy spring" at night (18:36). I somehow doubt that science will show this one to be true someday.

The point is, there are a lot of words in texts like the koran, the torah, the bible, the popol vuh, etc. Some of them are bound to be true, even if the authors original intent isn't what's currently known.
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Two verses in the Quran refer to the orbits of the sun and moon. After mentioning the sun and the moon, Allah says:

“Each one is traveling in an orbit with its own motion” (Quran, 21:33; 36:40).

You're are misconstruing the verse which you have mentioned:

They say laughter is good for you, but this is becoming extremely unhealthy. These people go to such lengths in their attempts at highlighting the alleged contradictions or scientific fallacies in the Quran, it's shocking to witness how desperate some people have become. They will twist translations, invent false ideas and inject them into the mind of the new reader in the most rapid way possible.

They try to make the claim that the author of the Quran was scientifically challenged, that he was oblivious to the fact that the sun never actually sets. They also make the savage claim that the same set of verses "prove" that the Earth is flat!

Here is the story of Zul-Qarnain from the Holy Quran verse 18:83-101

They ask thee concerning Zul-Qarnain. Say, "I will rehearse to you something of his story." Verily We established his power on earth, and We gave him the ways and the means to all ends. One (such) way he followed, Until, when he reached the setting of the sun, he found it set in a spring of murky water: Near it he found a People: We said: "O Zul-Qarnain! (thou hast authority,) either to punish them, or to treat them with kindness." He said: "Whoever doth wrong, him shall we punish; then shall he be sent back to his Lord; and He will punish him with a punishment unheard-of (before). "But whoever believes, and works righteousness,- he shall have a goodly reward, and easy will be his task as We order it by our Command."

Then followed he (another) way, Until, when he came to the rising of the sun, he found it rising on a people for whom We had provided no covering protection against the sun. He left them as they were: We completely understood what was before him. Then followed he (another) way, Until, when he reached (a tract) between two mountains, he found, beneath them, a people who scarcely understood a word. They said: "O Zul-Qarnain! the Gog and Magog (People) do great mischief on earth: shall we then render thee tribute in order that thou mightest erect a barrier between us and them? He said: "(The power) in which my Lord has established me is better (than tribute): Help me therefore with strength (and labour): I will erect a strong barrier between you and them: "Bring me blocks of iron." At length, when he had filled up the space between the two steep mountain-sides, He said, "Blow (with your bellows)" Then, when he had made it (red) as fire, he said: "Bring me, that I may pour over it, molten lead."

Thus were they made powerless to scale it or to dig through it. He said: "This is a mercy from my Lord: But when the promise of my Lord comes to pass, He will make it into dust; and the promise of my Lord is true." On that day We shall leave them to surge like waves on one another: the trumpet will be blown, and We shall collect them all together. And We shall present Hell that day for Unbelievers to see, all spread out,- (Unbelievers) whose eyes had been under a veil from remembrance of Me, and who had been unable even to hear.

Lets analyse the two verses put forward:

Until, when he reached the setting of the sun, he found it set in a spring of murky water: Near it he found a People: We said: "O Zul-Qarnain! (thou hast authority,) either to punish them, or to treat them with kindness". [18:86]

Until, when he came to the rising of the sun, he found it rising on a people for whom We had provided no covering protection against the sun. [18:90]

The verses narrate part of the story of Zul-Qarnain. Being a great traveller Prophet Zul-Qarnain eventually, at sun set, arrived at a place where there were springs of vast murky waters. He found around it tribes of people, some righteous and some malign. The narration goes on to describe how Zul-Qarnain was given authority to rule over them as a just king. It narrates the version of events as he, Zul-Qarnain saw them – he saw the sun set in a murky water, nothing wrong with that. The second verse narrates that Zul-Qarnain turned another direction and travelled on until he saw the sun rise and it just so happens that he saw it rise on a people who were without shade. Again, a very simple narration, no claim of being scientific fact.

The idiotic critics who raise this issue and claim that the God of the Quran does not know the simple scientific that the sun never actually sets are barking up the wrong tree. The above verses in no way make the claim of being scientific fact as God sees it. We don’t see God making the claim that the sun sets into murky waters! Or rises on a certain group of people. We simply see God describing things as witnessed by Zul-Qarnain - "They ask thee concerning Zul-Qarnain. Say, "I will rehearse to you something of his story". The sun sets wherever you see it set. If you are on a beach you will see it set into the ocean. If you are on a hill, you will see it set behind the hill.

“Secondly, this seems to presuppose a FLAT Earth, otherwise how can there be an extreme point in the West or in the East? A sunrise there would be basically just the same as at any other place on this earth, at land or sea. It would still look as if it is setting “far away”. It does say, that he reached THE PLACE where the Sun sets and in his second Journey the place where it rises.”

This is classical anti-Islam rhetoric; putting words into verses in order to support other claims. The gentlemen writes “this seems to presuppose a flat Earth, otherwise how can there be an extreme point in the West or in the East?”. The only translation which narrowly supports his conjecture is the one by Yusuf Ali. The other two main translations are pasted alongside below.

Pickthall Yusufali Shakir
18:85 And he followed a road One (such) way he followed, So he followed a course.
18:89 Then he followed a road Then followed he (another) way, Then he followed (another) course.
18:92 Then he followed a road Then followed he (another) way, Then he followed (another) course.

Figurative reading was never designed for our Atheistic friends, therefore we should pardon them for their ignorance. The narration is pasted above for all to see, nowhere within it is their a reference to an extreme East or West. How these people come to such conclusions really baffles me! It seems that the decision to ridicule Islam is made up long before they go into the Quran looking for supposed incongruities, or do they leave their atheistic tendencies behind? Who knows. They hasten to find something they can please the masses with. The above claim is simply fruitless.
 
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