Quote Originally Posted by Hardcore Newbie
Again, that's assuming that God wants or requires your worship. What if God despised your worship? It's not such a definite "yes or no" gamble, as you're trying to state. Believing that there is a God, is completely different than saying that you believe God has an afterlife for people who worship It.

God does want us to worship him, why would God despise someone worshipping him? It would be the opposite. If you beleive in God then it follows that you believe in the afterlife. It follows that if you worship God then you become one with God in the afterlife.

If there is a God, that doesn't automatically mean that you get to heaven, even assuming that you've met what you perceive as the requirements. What you perceive as requirements may in reality be quite different to what the actual requirements are, again assuming It's set up such an afterlife in the first place.

No, it doesn't. You have to believe in God and praise him to get in heaven. You can't just claim to believe in God, you must practise your faith to be recognized. What i percieve as the requirements are layed out in the bible and the teachings of Jesus Christ.

Just to be clear, I'm not an atheist. I'm agnostic. I'm claiming ignorance. I'm not betting at all, I refused to play the game in the first place. Now that in itself may be a bet at the wheel, but it's got the exact same odds as the bet that you're making.

If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.

Who knows, maybe you get to place your bet after the wheel has been spun (after death, in case that wasn't clear), so to speak. So "rationally", as you like to put it, I may actually have the best chance of receiving a good afterlife.

Maybes and mays aren't the best terms for rationality. Fundamentally, we should work with facts, or logical conclusions.

If you believe the world was created, so be it. I've wouldn't want to argue that viewpoint. It's when you go beyond that single viewpoint that I call things into question. I hope you can see in this post that I'm arguing the philosophies you present that you believe this creator would posses, and saying that you have the rational conclusion, when it seems you haven't thought things out nearly enough.
I go beyond that single viewpoint because there are many views from different people about the origins of God, so i made some available in this thread. Are they infallible? No. Do they make you think? Yes. And this my friend is all we can do and all we can know, that we are thinking, all the time. How we recieved this power is up to ponder.