Now go give me 1mil cRPG gold because Mork the goat god might reward you.
Cool. Thanks for the quote. Now I know exactly the part you are misunderstanding. I'll by happy to explain myself since you asked so nicely to clarify instead of assuming what I meant and insulting me based on those assumptions. This is how mature discussion is held and I am glad to partake.
Nowhere in that quote did I imply that Pascals Wager determins we should go to church or worship. In fact, I did not use the words "church" or "worship" anywhere in any of my posts here. What I DID do was clarify
exactly why I brought up Pascals Wager -- that is the post you are quoting. I gave a string of questions that I hoped OP might think about based on Pascal's Wager. Please note, these are questions -- no where did I put the answers to those questions. Nowhere did I imply what those answers might be. I simply said, here is one train of thought that a person might go through when they seriously think about dying and possible after-effects.
OP assumed the same thing you did though, probably based on stuff he's read online about what Pascals Wager
doesn't work for. Nowhere did I say fear or selfishness is
the reason to believe. Nowhere did I say that self-interest was the
best or only reason to think about these things. At the same time, to claim that no one has ever had self-interest or made a decision based on self interest -- or that self-interest is somehow bad or of no importance in making decisions whatsoever -- is either crazy, a liar, or some kind of holy saint already. It is merely a starting point to begin thinking about these things. Why start here though? Well if someone doesn't believe in God, you can't well say "believe in God because of God." That won't work. However everyone has an interest in their own well being -- so this is a common ground from which to start a discussion. Why should you eat well? Because it's good for you! Why should you believe? Well that
may be good for you. That's all I'm saying here, and that's what Pascals' Wager is good for.
Am I some kind of egotistical selfish lunatic because eating well may be good for me and I want you to think about that possibility? Is all diet advice some kind of selfish pursuit that disgusts you so much because it is anti-truth and terrible? Get real man! You are taking my modest conclusion and humble reason for thinking about believing waaaay too far. (before you say science says diet is good, so it's not purely self-interest, there is also science saying faith is good for you).
That reminds me of a story that happened to me the other day, actually. I was working on a small building project in my garage. I read the instructions just the day before and it said that screwdrivers were terrible tools for hammering in nails. Sure you
could use the handle of the screwdriver to drive a nail, but it sucks. Well anyways, I was working away so proud of this knowledge when I see something crazy. My cousin, who was helping me, was reaching for a screwdriver. He was holding it in his hands! "OMG" I said to him, "That's so fucked up, that's totally the wrong tool! You can't use a screwdriver on a nail it's so wrong and it doesn't work! You disgust me!" Then he looked at me. He was hurt. He was wearing a cross on his necklace too, to make my allegory more complete. He said, "I know that, I knew that without having to read the instructions. But it's works pretty well for prying open this can of paint." Then I was sad and went away.
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