Two Plus Two Older Archives - The Prisoner's Dilemma and Religion

Two Plus Two Older Archives (http://archives2.twoplustwo.com/index.php)

- Psychology (http://archives2.twoplustwo.com/forumdisplay.php?f=24)

- - The Prisoner's Dilemma and Religion (http://archives2.twoplustwo.com/showthread.php?t=116945)

Re: what sort of an ass makes this post?

Keep in mind that this post actually represents the middle of a discussion rather than the beginning. This is an offshoot from the Science and Faith post by him, which itself comes from the middle of a poker mentality post.

And yes, the concepts in here are fairly elementary (though as I said before they are used in a very novel manner to give a lot of credit to a religious figure from a philosophical and logical standpoint - he's getting credit as a thinker that even most religious people don't grant him, albeit sidestepping or negating the religious portion)

Re: The Prisoner\'s Dilemma and Religion

Unfortunately no-one alive at the time the Jesus was preaching bothered to write down what he said.

Re: The Prisoner\'s Dilemma and Religion

[ QUOTE ]
How can it be worth it to you? It has to make you happy in some way, and since you say it's worth it, I'd wager you are happier now than you were then. IMO, doing all the partying and chasing girls is a very empty happiness.

Justin A

[/ QUOTE ]

How can it be worth it?
Well happiness isn't my guide for life, I don't only do what makes me happy at the moment.
You're probably right though, I am happier now than if I never became a Christian. I'm just saying thats not why you're supposed to do it. Take up your cross and follow Him. Before my youth pastor became a pastor he was in medical school. Late in his studies he felt God was telling him to quit what he loved to do and instead become a youth pastor. He did it. He gave up the chance for a big house, big car, all that crap(not to mention it was what he loved to do). Now he makes $100 a week and lives off of what his wife makes.

Re: The Prisoner\'s Dilemma and Religion

[ QUOTE ]
Just a thought, as mentioned previously nobody really questions the credibility of the illiad or other ancient works which have FRAGMENTS of their original texts pieced together from here and there. While the Bible has literally hundreds of near original copies spread all over the middle east. It is probably one of the most accurately preserved of all ancient texts. The question is not "Is what's written down what Jesus said?", but rather "How do I deal with what is written down?".

[/ QUOTE ]

1. The Iliad is fiction. If we've gotten it wrong, it doesn't matter; there is no credibility issue to worry about. The Bible (or, more accurately, those who believe in it) claims to be the Word of God, and that anyone who disregards its teachings is doomed to eternal torture with no escape. But Jesus loves the people He's sending to Hell, just the same. "Sorry, you goofed on the What To Believe quiz, gotta torture you forever for that, no matter how decent you were and how well you behaved toward your fellow human beings!"

2. The Bible isn't quite so accurate a depiction of Jesus' words as you think. There are several contemporaneous texts which relate the same events in many different ways (in fact, there are some serious discrepancies in the events as related by the different Gospels), and which claim to have originated in Jesus' words and teachings, but which were not included in the Bible (see #3). I'd suggest you read "Lost Christianities" (can't remember the author offhand) and "The Dead Sea Scrolls" (Elaine Pagels) for some real eye-openers.

3. The Bible was assembled in ~300 CE, by a group of men who used their own beliefs as a guide for figuring out what should go into it and what shouldn't. They claimed "inspiration", but it really amounted to a circular argument: "These texts are correct because they conform to our beliefs, and the texts support our beliefs, so they are the correct beliefs." They casually ignored and did their level best to eradicate any texts which did not fit in with what they had already decided was True Doctrine(tm). What we know as modern Christianity (in its many splinters) is derived from the surviving opinions of people who argued, fought, and even killed over differences in doctrine. In essence, that version of Christianity ended up with the Royal Flush, and eliminated every other version which wound up with lesser hands. And even at that, there was a great schism between the Eastern and Western churches (call it a split pot; maybe one got the Royal in [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] and the other in [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]); to this day, each considers the other wrong, even though they may be polite about it.

How I deal with what is written down is, "That's nice, but what evidence do you have that it's not fiction or the babblings of fanatics, rather than the Word of God?" Despite considerable searching, I have yet to find anyone who can give me satisfactory reasons to believe. Losing my religious faith was a gut-wrenching experience, and I spent a lot of time trying to get it back in some form; I used to be a Mormon, and my first thought when I discovered I couldn't believe in that any longer was, "Well, that's a load of crap, but there has to be a God somewhere!" But nothing measured up, once I determined to examine the claims carefully and reason them out. Mere self-induced warm fuzzy feelings didn't cut it anymore. I tried, and I continue to search for truth. If there is a God who is going to condemn me to everlasting torture solely because I couldn't find Him, despite my best efforts, then He is not the loving and omnibenevolent being that Christians and other religionists make Him out to be.

-Mike