In other cases, a religious experience can be triggered by any number of
outside forces, including drug use or mental illness. Indeed, many people in
multiple cultures have experienced similar symptoms but variously
attributed them to a variety of different sources, both religious and secular.
8. "It's safer to believe in God than be wrong and go to Hell."
This concept, called Pascal's Wager, does not actually support religious
beliefs. Instead, it acts as a way to coerce belief out of unwilling
participants. The logic goes something like this: if I believe in God and am
wrong, then nothing bad will happen. But if I renounce God and am wrong, I
will be punished in Hell. There are several problems with this line of
reasoning:
-- Religions are inconsistent. In order for Pascal's Wager to work, the
believer would need some assurance that believing in God would, in
fact, save him from punishment. When multiple religions exist with
conflicting messages, however, this is impossible. What if you choose
to believe in the wrong God and go to Hell anyway?
-- A truly benevolent God would not punish his creations simply
because they did not believe in him. God could just as easily reward
his creations for being skeptical. Because there is no way to ascertain
what a deity's motives might be, there's no way to know that Pascal's
Wager would even work.
-- If a person believes in God only out of fear of punishment, that
belief would be thin and false. Surely an omniscient deity could see
through that act and choose to reward only true believers.
9. "I have faith; I don't need facts. I just want to believe."
This argument would be perfectly valid if the believer was willing to concede
that their God is a social construction or metaphorical concept. Most
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