Home insurance – what’s the point ?

[wit]

hi dave

some (admittedly agnostics/atheists) argue that gambling is actually at the heart of the Christian message:

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Christianity is often based upon the idea that people should be gambling when it comes to cosmic issues.

Christianity is predicated upon faith, not proof, that the Christian message is true.

Traditional Christianity teaches that if you have this faith (that is, if you bet correctly), then you will be saved and spend eternity in heaven with God, while those who don’t have this faith (bet incorrectly) will spend eternity suffering in hell.

Achieving this salvation is, moreover, unearned – there is nothing a person can do to "earn" or "deserve" a place in heaven.

Instead, salvation is achieved one way or another through God’s grace as a free, unearned gift.

The entire context is an artificial system set up by God so that there must necessarily be winners and losers, such that the existence of losers going to hell becomes a necessary precondition for winners going to heaven.

After all, if no one lost then there would be no value in faith in the Christian message. Thomas Aquinas took this even a step further when he wrote in Summa Theologica:

"That the saints may enjoy their beatitude and the grace of God more abundantly, they are permitted to see the punishment of the damned in hell."

Gambling is such a fundamental aspect of Christianity that one philosopher, Blaise Pascal, even concocted an argument in defense of theism based explicitly on that – today it is known as Pascal’s Wager.

Simply stated, it is safer to bet on God and Christianity and be wrong than to bet on anything else and be right, so why not become a Christian "just in case" – that way, even if you are wrong, you won’t come out a big loser.

People are expected to pray to God for the gift of faith that will allow them to become Christians, even if there is no good evidence or arguments in defense of Christianity.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that Christians would also pray for many other things – peace in the Middle East, the election of a Christian president… or even a winning roll of the dice at the craps table.

One quickly leads to another without there being any clear and unambiguous means to hold the line and prevent people from going further.

For some…praying to God for success at gambling cheapens religion and God – but they already did that by telling people to pray to God for other things instead of putting in the effort to gain them by the sweat of their brow.

Praying for more mundane issues that people face on a daily basis is nothing more than the logical and expected conclusion of a process that started when people were asked to have faith in God rather than in themselves and their own hard work.
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http://atheism.about.com/library/FAQs/c … ingsin.htm

mind you, that agnostic/atheist view itself seems to support the sociological desirable that success comes by sweat of the brow rather than just happening to be in the right place at the right time….

…which makes that kind of anti-religion the same as religion in terms of positive social impact.

all very confusing. maybe the fatalists have a point?

best regards

wit

[Kebab]

Pompete,

‘Uninsured single mother’ ?

You mean a devious wee tramp that couldn’t keep her legs shut, and has been poncing off us ever since ?

Spent her plethora of benefits on crack and bacardi breezers, hence no spare for insurance ?

[Meshaheer]

I live on a hill.

Simple

[dave jay]

Wit .. the points made about Christianity versus faith/fact are fair enough but the same logic could be applied to evolution, glaciation and alien abductions .. none of which have sufficient scientific proof either way to prove or disprove their existence .. surely to choose to believe one fallacy is correct and another is not does not constitute a gamble for personal gain, more like a comfortable guess ?

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