I think we're all familiar with Pascal's famous wager. Believe in God = either heaven or non existance. Non believe = either hell or non existance. Therefore belief is better since non existance is the best the non believer has to hope for. Of course this ignores several other religions which all claim similar things and we're not even going into possibilities outside of religion (ghosts). Personally, I always saw it as how much you want to invest in potential afterlife. You can wager a few hours of going to mass and helping at soup kitchens or you can try to become the next Jesus Christ and basically bet your whole life on an afterlife. Nice idea in theory but it still has flaws.
1. It ignores the one life we know for the focus of an unknown.
2. It implies that it would be better to never have been born, making life into more of a curse.
I think the second one really shows in
this article written by Christian none the less. Fair warning, the article is long, depressing, and is
not something you want to read before you go to bed.Basically, the author saw one of those "anyone can die" movies and realized that according to his beliefs, everyone went to hell.
The ad goes on to say "Grab all the gusto you can." And frankly, if there is no God, if there are no consequences to the choices we make in this life, then this is good council. "Eat drink and be merry for tomorrow we die...." And I understand entirely any non-Christian who would live this way. I'd live that way too. Why not? If there's no God, no transcendent values, why live as if there were? Why should I? Party hearty.
Of course the bad news is that people who live this way hope this is true, they don't know this is true. And it's not true. These are people who think they're safe, who think there are no eternal consequences to their decisions--and even if there were they think they'll end up on God's good side. You know people like this who don't give much thought to it, who think that it's all just a big party anyway, there's nothing beyond the grave. They hope that this is the case and, even if there is a God out there kind of making a list and checking it twice, well, we're basically good people, aren't we? We'll end up on God's good side because, in fact, some are people who, in Paul's words, have "a zeal for God, but not in accordance with knowledge" (Rom 10:2).
All of these people, rudely interrupted by death, will find themselves caught by surprise, consciously aware after death that their fate is forever cast in iron. They were wrong and now they're lost.
So god's the boogieman? I mean, who would want such a being to exist if all it means is that he's going to condemn people to an
and I must scream type of fate for enjoying the life he gave them? What an asshole.
Now, consider for a moment the thought that someone you're endeared to, someone who has admirable qualities and in the great scheme of things seems rather harmless, consider the thought that they are going to hell. You're forced to say that for what are theologically sound reasons, that this unbeliever who you've become attached to, who you "love" will undergo the greatest torment conceivable for a duration of time that is not conceivable: eternity. Let's be honest. That bothers you somehow. It bothers me.
Ladies and gentlemen, our god of love!
Which brings us to my greatest fear. My greatest fear is that I will be among that number. Just as millions of others who thought they were safe will be caught by surprise, just as Captain Augustus MacRae would be caught by surprise, so might I.
"But you're a Christian!" Sure, but that doesn't always rescue me from the terrible thought that I could be right about God's judgment, but wrong about His mercy.
I admire his honesty. I don't know how anyone with such depressing beliefs can not have doubts and think "oh crap, what if I'm damned anyway?".
This is why I'm so adamant about the notion that there is no neutral ground. There is no fence for you to sit on. There is no "undecided" or "none of the above" categories. You've got to place your bet. Everyone antes up. Everyone's in the game. And at any given time your money is either on red or on black. And that, by the way, is what faith is: it's placing your bet; it's putting it all on the line for what you believe is true--not what I wish is true, not what I'd like to be true, not what I'm trying to conjure up or squeeze out a lot of religious feeling to support, but what I believe to be what the preponderance of evidence points to. That's faith. Placing my bet.
2 things.
1. One is extremely dickish of God to force us into a game where we have to bet the one life we have on faulty information simply to escape eternal torment. God created us, you'd think he'd be more understanding.
2. The "preponderance of evidence" doesn't point to the existance of any god. Sure, we have theories, but that's what they are, theories. Theories which assume the unknown but do not necessarly prove it.
Now the problem with my gambling metaphor is that it may give the mistaken idea that faith is just a roll of the dice. I don't believe that. It's not pure chance and it's not a leap of faith, but it is a risk--I can't pretend otherwise--you could lose everything. It's the most terrible thing anyone could ever fear, to fall into the hands of an angry God.
Wow, an all powerful being is going to be raging pissed because a not so powerful human picked the wrong religion? Since God is all powerful yet fails to give any acknowlagement of his existance, he's basically getting pissed because we pick the wrong number out of a hat. God is sounding more and more like an abusive parent here...
But, what if I am mistaken about God's mercy? Well, I really don't know what other view would work, frankly. Or maybe I should say, I really don't know what other view wouldn't work. It seems that with just about any other alternative view at death I'm either wiped from existence--annihilated--or whisked into heaven. If the atheists or the Arians--like Jehovah's Witnesses--are right I just get blasted into nothingness--no pain, no problem. It's over. If human assessment of righteousness is what matters, well, I've led a pretty righteous life. If it was a matter of relative goodness, and that's the perspective of most other religions in the world, or the Arains on the other side, it seems like I'm covered. That was Paschal's point in his famous wager--if you're a good Christian and you're wrong, you've really lost nothing; if you're right you've gained everything. If you're an atheist, however, and you're right, you've gained nothing, but if you're wrong you've lost everything. The Christian, it seems to me, has everything to gain and nothing to lose.
And this shows the problem with this kind of thinking. You're living the one life you know you have for an afterlife you don't know you have. Or in this case, you're trying to cover all your bases to make sure you don't get a
fate worse than death. Instead of living and enjoying life, you're fearing it, almost wanting it to end. It's extremely depressing and almost nihilistic, something that several years ago, I would have never suspected I hear from a Christian.
Personally, I'd rather just enjoy my life instead of worrying about what any God's gonna do to me.
