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Old 09-09-2005, 05:48 PM
BluffTHIS! BluffTHIS! is offline
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Join Date: Nov 2004
Posts: 375
Default Re: Poker Gaming and Life: Religion....for DS\'s playground

David's state about at least 99 being wrong is undeniably correct and that should be obvious. The only way tht OOO can be correct about all of them only possessing partial truth to some degree is if there has never been any divine revelation by God to give information, or if that has been and God did not provide so that the message is passed on incorrupt over the centuries. The 3rd logical possibility is that God has yet to reveal himself.

As a Catholic I think that my religion is the only one that is 100% correct and can make good if not conclusive arguements that it is, particularly when compared to other Christian denominations. But unlike other christians here, who have different views on free will, catholics do not believe that in general God presents men with 100% believable evidence, because to do so would effectively take away much of that free will and negate the value of faith to some degree, although we believe God has done precisely that in biblical and other times when supernatural miracles were performed. In general however, there is only partial evidence and what tips the scales of belief for most, if they have ever truly examined the religion in which they were born and practiced it whole-heartedly, is their own personal experience of that faith.

So the answer is to search. Read the bible and religious texts of other religions and pray that if there is a God that He will enable you too see Him in those writings. You could also take the wager of catholic mathematician Blaise Pascal known as Pascal's Wager, in which the payoff matrix is as follows:

If I wager for and God is -- infinite gain;
If I wager for and God is not -- no loss.
If I wager against and God is -- infinite loss;
If I wager against and God is not -- neither loss nor gain.

To do this for a limited time to evaluate, it has been suggested that you for one year read the bible and attend church and then see what you think. Logically of course this can be applied to any religion. The above matrix does assume a more harsh payoff for not believing than I believe to be correct in all cases, although many protestants will say it is exactly that. I should note in fairness, that there are more critical mathematical arguements against the wager, especially in that the matrix should have more rows and options.
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