Jesus as a Hedging for Afterlife

[emulio]

Hello guys, this is my first post here.

First, I must confess that atheists' attack on Christianity is not baseless. It is not at all.
Old Testament DID really have some nasty stuff and weird rules. And Yahweh isn't as good as I have been taught to.

However, while I admit that maybe Yahweh isn't all-powerful and not omni-benevolent , it is still a possibility that we live in the world that he created. Therefore, we are also bound by his rules, no matter how strange it is.

So, isn't it safer to hedge your afterlife by accepting Jesus?
I mean, is there any person in the history who had boldly guaranteed your afterlife like Jesus did?

Please give me your thought about this.

[Poison Tree]

While it may be technically possible that Yahweh created the world, the available evidence, including the bible, would discount the possibility as being practically impossible.

If you are suggesting that we should bet on Jesus because there maybe a chance that he was telling the truth, you must also realize that there may be a chance that Muhammad and Allah could be the correct bet (isn't it safer to hedge your 72 virgins by blowing yourself up for Allah?). Or maybe Yahweh created the world and he's supper pissed at people breaking the first commandment with this Jesus fellow. Maybe the Japanese tsunami was Poseidon's wake-up call to a world that has turned its back on him.

[Solitary]

Welcome aboard emulio! Your hedging (It's called Pascal's wager.) has been refuted by logicians as a fallacy in logic. Solitary

[Hydra009]

However, while I admit that maybe Yahweh isn't all-powerful and not omni-benevolent , it is still a possibility that we live in the world that he created.

A practically nonexistent possibility, and offered more out of tact than evidence.  And simply one belief among many.

Therefore, we are also bound by his rules, no matter how strange it is.

Does not follow.  You'll have to make separate cases for the existence of God and why we ought to follow his rules.

So, isn't it safer to hedge your afterlife by accepting Jesus?

I don't believe in believing "just in case".

I mean, is there any person in the history who had boldly guaranteed your afterlife like Jesus did?

Countless.

[Plu]

I mean, is there any person in the history who had boldly guaranteed your afterlife like Jesus did?

Countless.

This.

[Fidel_Castronaut]

The only way that atheists attack Christianity is by existing in the first place.

I personally have nothing against Christianity, but it has a thing against me, so all its problems are its own.

Anyway, it is a fallacy to believe that becuase someone has offered the chance of redemption that one should take it up as a 'win win' scenario.

As above, countless people have given promises of life ever after, so the idea of 'better safe than sorry' (a 50:50 chance) is totally off the mark.

Someone posted a graph here a while back (years ago) calculating the odds of believing in the 'right' afterlife taking into account all the Claims. It was a lot less than 50:50.

[_Xenu_]

I've had the same thought, but the above reasoning re: the number of gods stands.

[Johan]

So, isn't it safer to hedge your afterlife by accepting Jesus?

To accept Jesus strictly as a hedge is the same as saying that you don't really believe in Jesus but you're willing to follow the rules and go through the motions just in case you're wrong. The problem here is that if Jesus is real, then we also have to assume that he is all knowing and all powerful or whatever else people claim him to be. And if he's all knowing, then he's going to know that you didn't believe and you were only going through the motions so you could fake your way into a getting a ticket.

Kind of like the guys who aren't feminists or supportive of feminists, but they go to Lilith Fair because it chock full of girls and they figure they'll get laid if they just put on a feminist t-shirt and drop the right buzz words. I mean if the feminists can see right through these guys (and they can), I gotta figure this Jesus dude ought to be able to see the hedgers from a mile away.

[SGOS]

Maybe the universe was created by Stanley Kubrick, who for reasons unknown to us, refused to tell us he was the real God, and will grant us eternal life only if we figure it out on our own.

There is no end to the what-if scenarios to bet on, here.  The fact that there is an equal amount of evidence for any of them (specifically zero), creates fertile ground for all mutually exclusive religious claims about entry into the after-life to compete with each other on an equal footing.  Not only are your chances of guessing right less than 50-50 (more like 1 out of a thousand), the "zero evidence for any of them" factor makes the whole thing rather pointless.

[aitm]

H
Old Testament DID really have some nasty stuff

Nasty stuff? The thing is a piece or cracker stupidity. The sky is water? The earth was made before the sun? The sun was made after all plants on earth? There was light before the sun? The sky can be rolled up like a scroll? One third of the stars already fell to earth? A dragon lives inside the earth capable of ensnaring a third of the stars and then throwing them to earth? WTF?

[Youssuf Ramadan]

Hello guys, this is my first post here.

First, I must confess that atheists' attack on Christianity is not baseless. It is not at all.
Old Testament DID really have some nasty stuff and weird rules. And Yahweh isn't as good as I have been taught to.

However, while I admit that maybe Yahweh isn't all-powerful and not omni-benevolent , it is still a possibility that we live in the world that he created. Therefore, we are also bound by his rules, no matter how strange it is.

So, isn't it safer to hedge your afterlife by accepting Jesus?
I mean, is there any person in the history who had boldly guaranteed your afterlife like Jesus did?

Please give me your thought about this.

Welcome, emulio!

If the bible is correct then Jesus was a jewish teacher teaching the jewish law to his fellow jews.  He'd have wanted you to be jewish.  Accepting Jesus as the messiah owes more to the ideas of Paul than anything else.  And that's in addition to all the above posts too.

[Krisyork2008]

Jesus actually goes by John Oldman now. Most recently he spent a decade teaching history at some college, and when he tried to peace out really quick fast his fellow teachers we're like "whaaaat" and the black dude from final destination was like "hell no!"

[Bibliofagus]

I wonder if Christianity would be as popular if jebus died peacefully in his sleep for my sins.
But no. Newtestamentgod needed to see someone suffer for a few days.

[SGOS]

I wonder if Christianity would be as popular if jebus died peacefully in his sleep for my sins.
But no. Newtestamentgod needed to see someone suffer for a few days.

His violent painful death is supposed to underscore how much he loved us.  Yeah, it was an ugly affair for sure, but then he doesn't really die.  He gets back up, walks around, and then lives forever.  So did he die for us or not?  Apparently, it was just a temporary death, as opposed to a permanent one.  I'm not sure how much that counts.

[Plu]