▽;4783647 said:
@Camilo
Would you give up existance rather than suffer pain? To me the answer is clear. Besides, you seem to be sent to hell for minor things, even if you did good in your life. That's all assuming if it exists, since the way it looks now, death is the final stop, endgame.
Pascals wager: If you believe in god, two things could happen, either it's true and you'll end up in heaven, or it's not and you'll never know. If you don't, then you'll go to hell if you're wrong, or you'll never know if he isn't. The wager assumes never knowing isn't that bad, but to me it is, i don't like the thought of not existing.
You say it's better to believe in god just in case, ending up in heaven since you've done good, or yet again ceasing to exist, not making a difference. However, i've seen followers of several religions of do morally questionable things. These include insults, murder, rape and destruction of property. I've also seen them act hypocritical, arrogant and patronising. Not qualities to be proud of. So no, being religious doesn't make you a good person, it's how you act.
I also hate to fool myself, i see no reason to assume deities or other planes of existance exist. Being religious would make me fool myself, something i don't see any benefits of whatsoever.
Okay, I understand the wager now. But you never clearly answered it: if Hell were real, would you rather spend an eternity in agonizing pain, or just not exist at all? Your comparison "Would you rather have pain or give up your existence?" is a horrible understatement; you clearly do not understand Hell. We're talking about unbelievable pain and suffering that you could never feel in this life, and there would be no relief, ever. For the sake of understanding this argument just assume Hell is real. Try to think hard about how it would genuinely feel, and I think you will find that nonexistence would be much better than that kind of torment.
No, you aren't just sent to hell for just minor things, there's more to it than that. A person who lives his whole life doing good works but denies God will be sent to hell, because he rejected his creator. To an atheist, that might sound minor since that person did so much good, but in fact it's perhaps the worst sin you can commit. Yet a man who has been a criminal his whole life, who might have killed people and stolen can be saved if he simply repents and lives the rest of his life for God. So even if you do things that humans would find unforgivable, you can still be forgiven by God.
Something you have to remember when looking at what religious people have done is that all humans are sinners by nature, and can never be perfect in this life. Look at Hitler, he was a Christian but he did those unbelievably cruel things to the Jews; that was not what God wanted. The Jews were God's chosen people and he never would have wished for them to be killed like that. So even when people do things in the name of God or Allah another deity, you have to assess what they're doing and see if it's really righteous in their faith, or if they're just using their religion as an excuse.
I never once said being a religious person makes you a good person. In fact, I am constantly hearing from other Christians and pastors to avoid doing "religion." What they say is that instead of just following routines and rules, it's important that you actually put your heart into what your doing and pray to God to know what's right. You can't be a godly person by just going to church and celebrating Christmas and Easter; you have to actually read the word and apply it to yourself as well as pray to God everyday. It's very similar to how the Jews persecuted Jesus for breaking their traditional laws, when he was trying to show them that they lost themselves in their rules and forgot how God had wanted them to live.
There's a good example of this in the Bible: Jesus sees a man with a mangled hand on the Sabbath and is going to heal him. The Pharisees (Jewish leaders back then) ask him, "Is it not unlawful to heal on the Sabbath?" But he tells them, "If any of you have a sheep and it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will you not lift it out? How much more valuable is a man than a sheep? Therefore, it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath." He then tells the man to hold out his hand and it is healed.
So as you can see here the Jews, who were very religious, were scorning Jesus to heal the wounded man just because it was the Sabbath. That obviously is wrong, because you shouldn't leave an injured person when they need healing no matter what day it is. So at least in Christianity, just because Christians do bad things doesn't mean that God is cruel and evil. Those people who do the bad things are cruel and evil, and are going against the word of God.
Sorry to write so much, I just wanted to clear that last part up because I hear things like "Hell isn't that bad" or "religious people do horrible things" all too often, and most people don't fully understand those two. It's important to take a good look at each topic.