Morality and Subjectivity

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All it would take is for God to make himself known to a person in a way that made them certain he existed.

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You can get that effect with mental illness or drugs or just by tricking people in the right way.

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it follows that certainty about Gods existance IS a possibility.

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It follows that an entirely subjective and individual certainty about God's existance is a possibility.Edited by CK, : No reason given.Edited by CK, : No reason given.

Yes and?Many suicide bombers swear they are going to get their legover with 40 lovely virgins when they get to heaven. Are you claiming this is true?

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I see your reverting to your two line sniping again. Pity. You wrote a post of some length yesterday and had something to actually say.

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You clearly never read that post properly - go back and read it again, you are even mentioned by name!

here's the key bit - just for you.

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We keep talking about how scientists doing their debate via peer review rather than internet forum, it's true and it's also an illustration that science is a complex business and one that the average man in the street will struggle to get a grasp of without a significant investment of time. It's why the creationists are so effective on the internet - they pitch their material at the right level (it's irrelevant to an extent that it's made-up!).

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Therefore there needs to be a level of discourse on those boards pitched at people with little or no experience or understanding of the sciences or the atheist/theist debate. Iano always digs me for my relatively short posts - but it's entirely intentional, I occassionally write long posts but will delete them and replace them with something much shorter.

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The truth of the matter is that most of the lurkers will skip straight past the long posts for a varity of reasons (This is not off the top of my head, my real-world "expertise" is around the information-seeking behaviour of individuals and organizations. Therefore I have a fair idea of the process and the best mechanisms to attract attention). It's at this problem perpection level that I am trying to reach the lurkers - when they are still trying to define their source selection criteria.

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All I'm doing is adapting a creationist tactic.

I mentioned it somewhere else - christian pleading generally consists of needy pleading (God loves you and he wants you to love him - it's great really) and vague threats (but remember if you don't love him in time baaaaaaad things will happen).In some respects it's a low-rent version of Pascal's gambit and indeed the critism of such an approach is generally discussed when discussing Pascal's gambit. Edited by CK, : No reason given.Edited by CK, : fix db code.

So anyone can add to wiki - what like those people?

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You probably have purchased some sort of insurance--first, theft, car or personal liability--you name it. Insurance is a multibillion dollar business. But have you ever stopped to think that the whole business is built on the one word--MAYBE. I get my car insured. I'm not looking for an accident. I don't expect one. I'm going to try not to have one, but maybe I will, and it would be awfully nice to be covered. Hospitilizations? You don't expect to be sick, you're not planning to be sick, but maybe you will be, and boy, the hospital will take you to the cleaner if you're not ready.
To the person who finds the whole subject of Hell and judgment distasteful, and who refuses to believe it, even if Jesus Christ taught it, I ask the question: What about that little word "maybe"? Maybe there is a Hell.

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"Maybe" your car will have a wreck, and because of the little word "maybe" you'll spend hundreds of dollars on car insurance. And yet you'll walk around town without ETERNAL life insurance. You walk the street, cross the highways, in a world of crime and terrorism and potential accidents all over the place, yet you gamble with eternity! You are living one big risk 24 hours a day! It just doesn't make much sense, does it?

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Or are those not true christians....HELL - What if I don't believe in Hell? - ChristianAnswers.Net

Pascal’s Wager (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy) This is a pretty good resource on his position.As for the bored and contextment - I think it's more than likely he's right. Always something over the hill isn't there? Something good or something bad? and who knows?You know I'd love to chat more about nihilism and how you came to such a position - is there a suitable thread available? By chat, I really mean chat - not try and catch you out or anything like that. I'm just interested to know more.Edited by CK, : No reason given.

That he tentatively identifies himself as a nihilist.Is that wrong Robin?Are you feeling frustrated again Iano? I'm certainly getting that "why don't those people listen/convert" vibe off you?Edited by CK, : No reason given.

Before we get too carried away with that flight of fantasy - it's really none of my business how Robin comes to his conclusions or my place to "convert" him.I'm not even sure what it is that I'd be preaching in this "fight" I've said it before and I'll say it again - everyone we have here is generally pretty convinced of their position. I actually don't know very much about the position that Robin takes and I don't think than a desire to know more has to take place in the normal pointscoring manner we have around here. I think we could do with a few more threads where we just chat.

yeah but his gambit was flawed from the outset - so it only gives you a "better" change if you don't take that into account.The problems with his gambit are explained in great detail here: Pascal’s Wager (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)