if you avoid selecting any specific religion then Pascal's Wager (aka your thread) loses all meaning and has no value whatsoever. how can we live our lives like a god exists when we don't even know what this god wants from us?

if you select a religion to adhere to, then why not any other religion? you are forced to worship ALL religions in order to avoid the obvious fallacy of the argument. then of course, since some religions demand that you reject the others, well that's when i have a brain aneurysm .

This illustrates the problem as I see. This is a utility argument. You are saying that the statement I made is not useful. Before I debate that, I would ask to clarify. Are you saying that my statement as generalized is true but not useful?

your general statement has no meaning without applying it to a specific religion. it's undefinable. how can you invoke Pascal's Wager in a deistic argument?

Again a utility argument. I do not believe you can refute the opening statement without invoking selection of a specific religion. Yet I have never in all of my posts advocated that a specific religion is correct. In fact one can be a theist without holding the opinion that one specific religion is correct while others are false.

This is not deism as I understand it. It is simply a recognition of the fallibility of the human experience.

My feeling about OP is that he encountered something really ugly, and needed to vent. So, for or right now, he's not even getting a bad name all by himself.

Maybe some meditation would help us all....

thus, the argument in your thread makes no sense and can't even go past the first sentence. it's like if i were to ask you "Why not banana?" it is not even possible to comprehend such a statement because it makes no sense, and thus has no value.

Exodus 20:2-3
2 I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery;

3 Do not have any other gods before me.

i'm pretty sure that's the first commandment.

No, he's saying it is meaningless. Your op in that thread stated:

What does it mean to live one's life as if there is a god, in the absence of any particular religion? It is the religion (or other private belief system I guess) which regulates what it means to live as if there is a god.

For example, if there is a god who doesn't care about humans and what we do, then we don't change anything. If there is a god who rewards bad behaviour, we should treat each other like ****. Etc. Etc.

Given the thousands (more?) of different religions currently out there and in the past, it makes the whole concept meaningless and not useful as a guide to direct behaviour.

This is why I dropped the effort in the first place. First you claim it is Pascal's wager and refuted. When I make the distinction that I do not claim a specific religion, it turns out that you do not even know what the basis is for the refutation of Pascal's wager. I ask for the refutation of my statement and it is now meaningless, even though all of the expressions of meaningless are around utility. For the record, not useful is not the same as untrue.

There is no point to continuing. At least we can agree on that, albeit for completely different reasons.

Just please, do not ask me again what my reason is for being a theist.

Dude, you're taking this a little personal, which is your choice, but c'mon, on this forum you've got to have a bit of a thick skin. I believe once you once called me some sort of dimwitted idiot, and I'm still debating with you!

You may be right that we are using meaningless in the same way as lack of utility here. Let's accept that for the time being. I'm still curious to hear your next step. I personally have never found the wager convincing (I first heard about it many years ago). I may be unwise in this and I'll listen to counterarguments. for the record, I don't know what the 'official" argument against the wager is, I just know my own thoughts.

Doesn't living as though a God exist require utility ? How can i go about living as God wants when i dont know what God wants ?

Study religion?

Which one ? They all have different ideas of what God wants. Even within the same religion its still a fail because there are different ides of what God wants within them. So basically you're asking me to guess.

I was not offended and did not mean for my reply to seem hostile. Also I apologized for the idiot comment and let you have one free shot at me as a mea culpa so it is unfair to throw that at me again.

Maybe we can try the next step on. I have a commitment tonight so I will pick this up some time tomorrow. Nite all.

good night rlk.

Whichever one is your call. Study them all and adhere to the one that appeals to you the most. If none of them appeal to you, then you can return to any convictions held prior to learning about religion.

Wasn't throwing it back at you, I thought you were being a little defensive is all. Look forward to the next step!

Like i added. All you're doing is asking me to guess what God wants and live by those best guesses.

how much a religion appeals to you has no bearing on its validity

Any theist put up yet?

Which is why I didn't say anything about validity.

So.... You want to know the mind of God? Is that it?

meh, i think its more that for a lot of us it is absolutely incomprehensible that we have people like Aaron W around in 2009.

guess we just have to realize that until science can give us eternal life (if that ever happens), even some of the brightest humans will seek to find comfort in obviously made-up religions, because they are scared of dying. scared of ceasing to exist.

In order to live as though God exists and wants me to live, it's a must. Or i cant live as though he exists or know how he wants me to live.

Otherwise with your guess method. Im just living as i feel i should and fooling myself to believe i do know the mind of God.


Fwiw i dont know what live as though God exists really means and without RLK explaining it further and im just guessing it means live how God wants me to.

I put up fairly early, and OP shut up.

He can't even hold to his own standards, so why should anyone bother taking his challenge seriously?

OP was having a temper tantrum, thread has continued fine without him...

maybe re-read your posts like this and see how much of a tool you are?

you've ran from more threads/arguments/discussions than any regular, thiest or not (besides maybe Splendour who doesn't count) yet you still make pompous comments like this. gfy