Probably not. I said nothing about it being "sneaky." I'm talking about the complete lack of thought put into the idea.
What well thought out reason do most people worship God? Isn't it mostly about getting into paradise or avoiding Hell. Why would God respect such shallow motives?
It's about a genuine love for god and wanting to spend their afterlife with it. And god wouldn't respect such motives... which is exactly why Pascal's wager is so stupid. This is pretty basic shit.
Which is why people have to create fabrications that know everything in their stead. Makes them feel like part of a greater omnipotence through servitude, rather than lost and at mercy to the tides of chaos and constant change.
What part about "genuine love" did you not understand? And the location is irrelevant. Either way, Pascal's wager is still worse than genuine belief that's selfish. 1) It's not gonna get you into heaven. The Judeo-Christian god can't be duped like that. 2) How do you pick which god or gods to believe in? If you pick the wrong one you're still fucked. Polytheism is a big no-no in some faiths so worshipping every god is still just as risky as not believing. Perhaps you go with deism; then the whole fucking is even more pointless. Again, pretty basic shit if you weren't just blindly accepting of it.
I don't buy that someone can love or "genuinely" love an invisible being in the sky they never met. God is a concept. You can't love a concept like it was your wife or newborn child. People don't tell God "I love you" during prayer? Do you know why? Because it would sound mentally retarded and fake as fuck.
Some people seem to ignore how intimately our nature is tied to our culture. Our feelings, our truths, our goods and evils. Our reality is symbolized and expressed in infinite ways. What is religion? In it's essence, it is the most vital of systems. Systems of symbols that are our most idealized truths. Yet the force of time and another aspect of human nature has defeated the essence of religion. The wisdom of religion has been lost because it is no longer acknowledged. Rather we look to the negative and as such move nowhere.
Pascal's wager or blatant brown nosing to get into heaven Which would God respect more? and keep in mind God isn't some tween who melts after you proclaim your "love" for him.
It doesn't matter whether you accept it or not. Your ignorance when it comes to religious folk has no bearing on their beliefs and feelings. Yes they do and it's as sincere as if they were saying it to their family. Your close-mindedness is quite hilarious.
How is it then, that the religious seem to feel unnecessarily confident in telling us the entire direction in which the world is going to head every other day? Surely there is a genuine exchange of influence between the parties, otherwise one is hypocritical in action opposed to word. Seems to be, in many circumstances, that those who aren't religious are "crossing a line" when pushing rhetoric that's more progressive or rooted in fact, yet those who are devout, essentially get to reconstruct the fabric of the universe and alter the perceptions of millions of children who cannot think freely for themselves- basically bred into servitude to pledge to one train of thought. I would call that close-minded as well. Not only that, I'd call it breeding close-mindedness. So clearly, there's a bit of room for disagreement.
I'm closed minded because I'm skeptical about people's professed love for God? When some random person professes their love for an invisible man in the sky they never interacted with so they can go to a wonderful paradise in the clouds it's okay to be skeptical. It's called common sense. Everything these people "know" about God came from other people who can't confirm shit.
Common sense is not proclaiming yourself to be what an antagonist says you are- thus making his point, instead of validating your own.