Haha… fallicious indeed. Tomorrow’s fine Tab. 
James
I think the point more lies in the basic foundation of discovering that life without God is meaningless after all. So then it doesn’t rest so much in all that you might lose in the earthly life, if you decide that the earthly life in and of itself amounts to nothing, and in the end, nothing gained or experienced here will matter at all. From there one can move toward deciding it is better to believe than not.
If you’re just concerned with placing arbitrary restrictions to get an answer, why don’t you just believe without any argument or justification whatsoever?
Damn! I was working on it for a couple months – and just when I was about ready to say that life is meaningful without god you’ve reminded me of my silliness. I better go play frisbee before I start thinking about it too much.
It’s called Ultimate, thank you very much; and it’s very meaningful. 
James
I believe there are quite a few reason why not believing in God, based on certain logical arguments, is the safer choice.
What are they?
I very strongly feel that if believing in a certain religious dogma makes life in the current world worse because we anticipate a better life in another world, we are making a mistake because we have evidence of this current life on Earth but no evidence of any kind of future life.
Consequently, it is of my opinion that we human beings need to do as much as possible to make this life on this Earth as best as possible for ourselves and for others. There isn’t necessarily a contradiction with religion here in theory, but there are many many practical examples of religious dogma doing harm on this Earth.
But then aren’t there plenty of examples of religious dogma doing good on earth? I mean the ideas of love your neighbor and doing good for God’s sake, for fear of his punishment and to gain the ultimate reward in heaven, I would imagine it would do much more good than harm. You can’t say that religious dogma causes harm and not any good, that isn’t true, it just as much might be that it does more good than harm.
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I don’t think dogma of any kind is good. An action isn’t enough to judge something good or bad. We have to look at intension, effects. causes, and other scenario factors.
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We should love our neighbor because it is the right thing to do, if we think it is the right thing to do, regardless of our religious beliefs. Insofar as a religion doesn’t cause us to do harm on Earth, religion is not a problem.
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Religion becomes a problem though, because people tend to allow evil deeds in this world. They do this because we are supposedly a fallen species and we are promised a just life in our next life. However, we have very little evidence of this. We do have evidence that we live in a world that could be a lot better. Insofar as we as a species do not make our current world better on account of hoping that in the next life we will be granted paradise, religion is doing great harm.
We might imagine that one of the things which Heaven is, is a certain turning of the soul towards God, which means a proximity. As opposed to ‘Hell’, which is an eternity of seperation from God - a turning away.
There is a resemblance of sorts between this and what you are meant to do on Earth, which for me is the meaning of faith. Faith is ‘belief in action’, which is not just a slogan but a theological formula. Faith draws you near, Sin is the caesura, the split, the break. It is overall existential, as is Christianity itself, in important senses. Remember of course that ‘Christianity’ is not itself a New Testament word - rather we find early equivalents such as ‘the Way’, or ‘the Road’, etc.
One love’s one’s neighbour because in this way we become human. God became man not so that man can become God, but so that man might become man. Thinking in terms of ‘reward’ and ‘punishment’, as if God is the divine equivalent of a parole officer, is misguided in my opinion, if not distasteful.
Regards,
James
This is why"evil deeds are allowed in this world?" This is completely unfounded but I’m glad for you that you think you have cracked the case.
Kid:
That’s fine, but when pressed, the logical reason you give is:
Your first statement gives the impression that you think there is sound evidence/argument that there isn’t a God, but your second statement makes a much weaker claim- that whether there’s a God or not, it would be best if people didn’t believe in Him. Is that your stance?
In my opinion, a perfect God is a just God and reward and punishment are neccessary. Without this, the world returns to chaos and my life returns to no purpose.
= “God has to exist, otherwise I would be unhappy. Therefore God exists.”
This reasoning leaves something to be desired. There is so much more to it than just some facile ‘logical’ deductions about the ‘purpose’, ‘meaning’, or ‘order’ of either your life, or of the world in general. In fact, as far as I can tell, these arguments are all wrongheaded, and probably all invalid. In any case, this kind of thinking strikes me as impoverished in spirit or disposition, if not in ‘rational merit’.
Please tell me some more about your religious beliefs though. What theology have you read? (etc etc)
James
No, I do not know with absolute certainty that God exists and I am not trying to assert that here. I am saying that out of all my options the best one seems to be that I should have faith and hope in God and move accordingly.
So my actual reasoning is:
God and heaven might exist. It is the best option to believe this and live accordingly in hopes of attaining this, for if it is true I gain and if it is false, I lose nothing. Therefore, I will do so and will hopefully attain it.
Good old Pascal’s Wager. I don’t really think anyone has gotten ‘into Heaven’ based on this alone, and once you go beyond ‘this alone’, it becomes redundant anyhow. I won’t push it though. I don’t really feel like pulling your position apart. Maybe some other time. Suffice to say, at this point, that it all seems very inadequate.
Best of luck, though, in any case.
James
Well, whether I get into heaven or not is a seperate issue and more about theology.
Seperate or not, it did seem to be part of your equation. In any case, it brings us back to my earlier question. Have you read a lot of theology? I guess it’s a rather open-ended question.
For now though I am going to sleep. I will take up this point with you later.
James
I like Christianity. I like Jesus Christ, what he did and that he rose from the grave. I like the idea of heaven.