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Originally Posted by Wax Frog  To elaborate, the beauty of the metaphysical-vs-material argument is that there truly can be only one winner - I seriously doubt I'll be getting a see-I-told-you-so from Mr. Freestone post-mortem  |
Oh Waxy, I do dislike your answer! I know it's probably something of a side issue and you have positive reasons for your beliefs. I hope so, at least. This argument does strike me as a rather 'hedge your bets' kind of spirituality. If that were all there was to it, the argument wouldn't persuade me to change. I don't want to believe in God (or magic) because it's the opportunity of a lifetime or I'm frightened to contemplate other cosmologies. I would rather believe what I believe because it makes the most rational sense (or just possibly because I feel compelled to believe it by some urgent positive intuition). I could then lie on my deathbed and, if God existed and I had not been wise enough to see Him, He would respect my commitment to truth and courage. Like in a math exam, getting the wrong answer if your working out leads to it - not brilliant, but an honest mistake. Getting the right answer with the right working out - that's best of all. Having my working out lead to a wrong answer and then just putting the answer I think teacher wants to see - that's cheating.
I should be more interested in what is good and true than what I might gain in an afterlife. If I live a life designed to get me into Heaven, I don't deserve to get there. That's the point of Heaven: it's for the true and the selfless.