You're spot on with #5 and #9 -- assuming I accepted Pascal's wager at face value, I still couldn't really make myself believe in a god on the grounds that I'd face better odds in an afterlife I don't believe in. Whatever faith is, I don't think it's about Return Over Investment!

God may or may not exist beyond our perspective and understanding. and that's probably the truth. any honest christian will have doubts as much as any honest atheist will not always be perfectly doubting. we will all die just as we were all born, so how different are our fates? believers, how dare you have the audacity to believe in a hell beyond "a place where God is not", if that's what you believe. and hard-nosed non-believers, how dare you have the audacity to discount a possibility that cannot be refuted as much as it cannot be proved, if that's what you believe.

when it comes down to it, we are simply dissonant and inconsistent, and we'll fail to succeed in any algorithm we set for ourselves to follow, unless we're a little bit too inhuman. we have the ability to do some pretty miraculous things as much as we are able to wreck the natural world or our unnatural relationships. how about we, in spite of our destructive prowess, go and love a little those around us and see where that takes us instead of discussing bayesian probability or ontological arguments. because chances are, we're infinitely wrong and will always fail to create an isomorphism between our beliefs about the world and what is true about the world. just as much as, if God indeed exists, we'll always fall short in defining anything about him. all we can do is entertain snippets of his character, and we'll still probably be wrong about that. I'm assuming God is much more complex and incomparable to anything we can muster ourselves to believe about him. after all, we're frail, limited, wondrous creatures.

@pnrj - You make a really good point.  The thing about all those parallels that you mentioned is that so many of them pre-date the birth of Christ, some of them by quite a bit.  If Christianity was first, then I could understand the argument that others were just "copying" from Christianity, but since it was not the first it only makes sense that Christianity was just another "copy."  If it really did copy off of another religion, I think the religion it copied from has more validity than Christianity does.

@soccerdadforlife - The "fool's gold fallacy" really doesn't apply to those parallels.  Christianity was not the first one to use all these different ideas, so it seems to be the one that was "copying" off of other religions.  So if we use your argument of the "fool's gold," Christianity seems to be one of the pieces of "fool's gold" and the original religion (or myth) it copied off of would seem to be more true.  In this case, we should most likely turn to Egyptian polytheism, which predated Christ by millennia.

@BergerWasTaken - I'll elaborate then. The argument is meant to demonstrate that there is a pragmatic reason to believe in one particular conception of God. This is quite clear from the context of the argument. However in virtue of the fact that the argument itself provides no basis for favoring Pascal's favorite conception over any other conception, it fails at even this very modest aim. Since a similar argument could be run for any number of conceptions of God - and in not mentioning the other possible conceptions, Pascal gives us no reason to think otherwise - we are left with no pragmatic reason to believe in any particular one of them. 

@chaospet - Well that's a good point but Pascal himself was a Christian and the rest of the book is devoted to examining many other forms of faiths and religions and he concludes that Christianity is the right path. 

Besides I think there are quite a number of theists out there who say "it does really matter what God you believe, just so long as you have faith."  If there is only one God and he is as Pascal believes then it is a pragmatic argument. 

@BergerWasTaken - If there is only one God and he is as Pascal believes, then it is true that Pascal, as well as those who believe as Pascal does, reap a benefit. But it doesn't follow that Pascal's Wager actually gives us any pragmatic reason to believe as Pascal does. From the standpoint of the non-believer (who is the target of the Wager, after all) the various conceptions of God are all equally viable, and a number of them punish you for not believing in just the right God. And indeed, it is a tenet of a number of religions (including Christianity) that believing in false gods is especially sinful. So if anything, the Wager - once we take into consideration the various possibilities - gives us some pragmatic reason to believe in no particular God.

I'm aware the Pascal offers a lot more than the Wager in support of his faith. But his other arguments are beside the point - my point was only that as far as the Wager itself goes, the fact that it does not address the issue of other possible conceptions of God is a serious shortcoming.

Great post! :]

I agree with pretty much all of the points-though I'm more agnostic than athiest.

I'm willing to take the risk of being wrong in exchange for the feeling of freedom I have now that wouldn't exist if there were and I had no doubts about an omnipotent (a creepy concept imo) being constantly judging my life and pulling the strings from the shadows. And meh, if your only goal in life is to minimize risks then you aren't really living hehe.  

I think belief is for the most part a choice.
Basing your beliefs on reason definitely doesn't happen naturally. It takes effort and rechecking of your beliefs. You have to want to be proven wrong if you are to be a reasonable person.

This reminds me of the ghost topic: If someone doesn't believe in ghosts, fairies or vampires there is no word for it. There is no group for them to gather and talk about how how they don't believe in those silly things and how everyone else is wrong, and yet, there is "atheism."

If you don't believe in a god, why do you let it bother you? I don't believe in fairies or vampires, and I don't really care if someone else does. I might, of course, limit my discussions with that person.

@soccerdadforlife - "In the case of the supposed invention of Christ, one would have to explain Clement of Rome, who was a disciple of the apostle John, as well as 1st century Jewish and pagan references to Christ and Christians."

If you are referring to Tacitus, Suetonius, and Pliny the Younger, they were referring to "Chrestus" or "Christ," which is not a name at all, it is just a title meaning "Messiah."  It gives no credence to the existence of Jesus at all; all it means is that people were worshipping some Messiah figure, who may have been completely symbolic and not a real person.  And the passage in Josephus's writings was proven to be a forgery centuries ago.  Plus, if something so radical did happen in Judea, you would think historians (and more of them) would go into much greater detail than just a casual reference or two.  As far as references to early Christians, yes there were people from that time period who believed something similar to what we now call Christianity.  But once again, it doesn't say that they were worshipping a certain person, just a figure that could have been completely symbolic.  There is very little proof that a person named Jesus even existed at all.  Even the Bible authors couldn't seem to get their stories straight about who he was or where he came from, and there are other writings not included in the Bible which differ even more greatly.  There are so many mythological elements in the story of Jesus.  I think it is very possible that someone named Jesus (or many someones - that name was very common at the time) may have existed, but his deeds were greatly embellished to conform to other religious elements, many of which trace their roots back to early Egyptian.  Seriously, just sit down and compare the ancient Egyptian myth of Horace with the accounts of Jesus; the similarities are staggering.  It's not just "some" similarities.

"For example, consider the argument: 'Julius Caesar didn't really exist. Augustus invented a composite of Marius (the property of pro-plebeianism, the property of emperorship, the prior-ness property, and the property of nearness in time) and Gaius Julius Caesar (the name property, social status property of patricianship, the prior-ness property, and the property of nearness in time) in order to strengthen his rule.'"

First of all, Gaius Marius was never emperor (nor was Julius Caesar, for that matter).  So you can cross off the "property of emperorship" right of the bat.  But you seriously want to use this one?  Many historical writers of the era (from all over the Mediterranean area) wrote about Julius Caesar in great detail, and Suetonius even had an entire section devoted to him in his work about the seven emperors.  We have much archaeological evidence attesting to his existence, including mosaics, architecture, busts, and coins with his picture on them, all dating to the time period during which he lived.  We even have written works attributed to Julius Caesar himself.  His name was well-known all throughout the Western World.  All of this is much more than can be said about Jesus until Constantine got ahold of the story.  There really is no comparison between the two.

I think that the worst part of the argument is the "Believe just in case" mentality; they are really downplaying their own beliefs by saying that.