What "if" you are wrong

[Trailblazer]

if I am wrong then it seems 99.9 % of believers are also going to be wrong. In that light, if I am wrong it will make no difference.

Depending upon what you mean by wrong, I agree that most believers are going to be wrong, since they are not going to be right about many things that they believe, but why won't it matter if you are wrong?

 

[Revoltingest]

The only way to find out is not by dying. By then it will be too late.
There is something you can do NOW, before it's too late.

How is that known?

 

[Trailblazer]

If someone after death somehow has the ability to recognize that they were wrong or experience consequences, why wouldn't they have the ability to correct their views?

According to my beliefs, there will be no free will to choose in the afterlife. Free will is only available in this life.

 

[Trailblazer]

Yet when we "I don't knowers" call ourselves atheist the religious seem to take issue with that.

I take no issue with that... If you don't know, you don't know.
It would be dishonest to say you know if you don't know. That is why agnosticism is a respectable position.

 

[Trailblazer]

Nope it won't matter, I'll be dead.

It will only matter if you are not dead.

 

[Trailblazer]

If the atheists are wrong about the existence of gods but we haven't been able to tell that we're wrong, then it means those gods are generally irrelevant.

No, it only means that you have not recognized the evidence for God's existence.

It also means that most if not all religions are wrong.

Why wold it mean that?

 

[Trailblazer]

the big G God and many of the other claimed gods are depicted as genocidal maniacs.

Only in the OT, but who said you have to believe those stories that men wrote about God? I don't.

 

[We Never Know]

Once I'm dead it won't matter any more.

I see where you're going with this thread, of course. You're trying to insinuate a Pascal's wager argument into an apparently casual chat.

Not really. Pascal's wager was more than just "what if you're wrong".

Pascal's wager also included living a certain way just in case.

What if you're wrong has nothing to do with changing the way anyone lives. Its simply "what if you're wrong".

 

[Trailblazer]

A god who chooses to hide then penalizes those who can't find him... what are we to make of that?

Do you expect to locate God with a GPS tracker?

All of God is not hiding.
According to Baha'u'llah, God is "the most manifest of the manifest and the most hidden of the hidden.”
Manifest Yet Hidden

 

[Trailblazer]

I take it that I won't need my big coat?

No, you won't need it, and you won't need your flak jacket either, since you will no longer be getting any flak from believers, since they will all be in heaven.

 

[ChristineM]

It will only matter if you are not dead.

Then it doesn't matter either way

 

[Trailblazer]

Given is about 42 degrees latitude, you would need it when Hell freezes over.

but if Hell never freezes over he will need a good air conditioner.

 

[Balthazzar]

If we knew we were wrong wouldn't we seek to know what is right?

Typically

 

[Altfish]

No, you won't need it, and you won't need your flak jacket either, since you will no longer be getting any flak from believers, since they will all be in heaven.

Thank god for that; I can mix with George Best, Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, Jerry Garcia, Mark E Smith, etc.

 

[Trailblazer]

From my perspective, all of these other worries are worth more of my concern than the worry that gods might be real and might want to hurt me.

I believe that God is real but I don't believe that God wants to hurt anyone. God is the All-Merciful.

 

[Trailblazer]

On the other hand if you can prove that God exists, you will get a Nobel prize. Worth a try you think?

I do not believe that God can ever be proven to exist since God wants our faith, not blind faith, but evidence-based faith.

 

[Trailblazer]

I can observe and reasonably predict the consequences of my actions during my life so I choose to focus on that. After all, for all we know, that could be the key to whatever happens afterwards anyway.

That's one key.

 

[Trailblazer]

If I'm wrong we are all at the mercy of a ridiculously insane, and evil God.

No, if you're wrong, you will be at the mercy of the All-Merciful God, according to Baha'i beliefs.

 

[Trailblazer]

It matters because I'm sacrificing a lot for my viewpoint.

Me too.

 

[Trailblazer]

I assume I am but then it is not my fault since I lacked information.
Will it matter? Probably but since I didn't have the information needed to make the right decisions no one can blame me for the decisions I did make based on the information that was available to me.

Then why not look for the information?