Instigator / Pro
0
1483
rating
1
debates
0.0%
won
Topic
#900
Revision to Pascel's Wager is JUST AS or MORE defensible than atheism
Status
Finished
The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.
Winner & statistics
Better arguments
0
9
Better sources
0
6
Better legibility
0
3
Better conduct
0
3
After 3 votes and with 21 points ahead, the winner is...
SkepticalOne
Tags
Parameters
- Publication date
- Last updated date
- Type
- Standard
- Number of rounds
- 5
- Time for argument
- Three days
- Max argument characters
- 30,000
- Voting period
- One week
- Point system
- Multiple criterions
- Voting system
- Open
Contender / Con
21
1551
rating
9
debates
66.67%
won
Description
Pascel's Wager goes something like this. If you believe in the Christian God, than you will be better off than if you don't believe. If you don't believe, and the Christian God does exist, then you will suffer an eternity in Hell. If you do believe, and the Christian God does NOT exist, then you will have lost nothing. But if you do believe, and the Christian God DOES exist, then you will reap eternal rewards and avoid eternal punishment.
My revision is as follows. Instead of believing in a theistic God (Christian God), you believe instead in whatever God exists. You say, whatever God exists is the God I have an allegiance with. Of course, making sure to convey this idea to this God through prayer or whatever method of communication you prefer. You no longer have the problem of only pretending to believe as whoever this God is will see your genuine want to believe and communicate with whatever God actually exists. Is it really so hard to believe that this wonderful and complex universe was brought forward by some creative force or being? It won't take long to convince yourself enough for this God to see your effort.
This also deals with the problem that there different types of Hell and you may go to a different Hell than the Christian Hell. This is because you are genuinely interested in communication with a God that ACTUALLY exists. You will be on the side of any God listening, because you are trying to communicate with whatever God hears you rather than a specific God. I think that this is actually a more defensible and safer position than atheism.
I realize that I am not very concise when putting forth this philosophy, but I hope it gets across. The first couple of arguments may just be clarifications. This is why i wanted there to be 5 arguments each.
Definitions:
Atheism: A lack of belief in a god or gods.
God: A literal being with maximal power (The all powerful position is unsupported) that interacts with the inhabitants of Earth and cares about what they do.
Other definitions or clarifications may need to be made during the beginning of the argument.
Round 1
Pro
#1
It seems that everyone knows the issues with Pascel's wager, and I think that those issues completely undermine the argument. My hope is that this revision will reconcile the argument. I will keep arguments short and precise.
I will explain the problems with Pascel's Wager, followed by how my revision fixes those issues.
I will then conclude the first argument with why this revision is just as defensible a position as atheism.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
First Issue with Pascel's Wager:
If the Christian God exists, he will easily see that your belief is not a sincere one.
Revision:
It is a lot harder to believe in a specific theistic God rather than believe in some kind of maximally powerful being. With my revision, your want for communicating with this being, whoever he/she/it is, will be a lot more genuine.
Second issue with Pascel's Wager:
If any God other than the Christian God exists that punishes unbelievers with some kind of Hell, then Pascel's Wager fails.
Revision:
If you believe in whatever God exists, then you will avoid whatever Hell exists, if it does exist.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
At this point I will try and reconcile new problems brought on by my revision.
First problem with Revision:
Since you are now trying to appeal to some kind of maximally powerful being, you have no idea what else you need to do to avoid Hell. At least in Pascel's Wager you are able to find out what else you need to do since Christianity is an organized faith system.
Solution:
The hope is that the God, or maximally powerful being, will see your genuine search for truth and that will be enough to avoid whatever Hell exists. I can't prove that this will be enough, so having the hope will have to be enough.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Even though there are flaws with this revision, atheism seems to have the same flaws. It may even be worse for the atheist than for the revisionist.
As an atheist, if any of the religions that have a Hell are true, you are probably going to Hell. It could be true that whatever God exists would rather you be an atheist rather than a revisionist, but there is no way to prove this.
Therefore, these two positions are equally defensible, and you may even be safer as a revisionist.
Con
#2
First, I would like to thank bloxinator for an interesting debate topic, and I look forward to discussing it with him!
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Objections to a revision of Pascal's Wager
This debate is about whether my opponent's revision of Pascal's wager or atheism is more logically justifiable. As I understand it, my opponent's argument boils down to:
"If you believe in whatever God exists, then you will avoid whatever Hell exists, if it does exist."
I believe a syllogism demonstrates this formulation much more clearly:
p1) A single god exists
p2) There is a hell associated with this god
p3) this god decides entrance into hell by non-belief in him/her/it
C) Therefore, belief in this god avoids hell (and is rational)
There are many assumptions in the argument. It could be that there is no god or there are multiple gods. It could be that multiple gods have a place of eternal torment or that there is no hell, it could be that god(s) are malevolent and entrance into hell has nothing to do with belief or occurs because of it. Anyone one of these circumstances being true makes the conclusion false. My opponent has no way to show which of these options are valid, and this leaves the conclusion, at best, dubious.
Even if everythings works as my opponent envisions it, this argument cannot sway a non-believer since it starts with the belief it hopes to instill. In this way it is circular - what it concludes (belief in god is rational) is, at least partially, built into the premises (god exists). That being the case, it requires belief before the argument even starts to in order for anyone to follow the premises to the conclusion. This is an argument FOR belief in god BY belief in god.
That brings me to my final objection: Belief is not a choice. Let's say there is a red ball. We can choose to SAY it is blue, but we cannot choose to BELIEVE it is blue. Belief is what we perceive to be true and perception necessarily comes first. So, to have a belief in the absence of perception (or contrary to it) is an absurdity. Belief is a stance taken after considering the available evidence. Arbitrarily redefining this stance can be nothing other than intellectual dishonesty.
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Defense of atheism
As for a defense of atheism (as defined), no defense is needed. To suggest otherwise is nothing more than an attempt to shift the burden of proof away from those who are making a claim. The claim being that a god exists, this god is concerned for mankind, and that this god is willing to inflict an infinite punishment for not believing in him/her/it. The burden of proof always falls to the claimant, and, in the context of this debate, atheism is not a claim. As discussed above, belief (or non-belief) is nothing more than a stance the brain has taken after considering the (lack of) available evidence. No amount of evidence is needed to rationally hold to non-belief. For instance, there is no verifiable evidence universe creating pixies spawned the cosmos, and it is reasonable to have a lack of belief in such things. The suggestion that non-belief in unsubstantiated claims needs a defense is simply incoherent.
Round 2
Pro
#3
Thank you
for the reply.
Please read the whole post as it is connected and won't make sense otherwise.
p1) A single god exists
p2) There is a hell associated with this god
p3) this god decides entrance into hell by non-belief in him/her/it
C) Therefore, belief in this god avoids hell (and is rational)
I would
make some changes to this syllogism as to be crystal clear with my position.
Revision to p1: It could be a single god or multiple gods
Revision to p2: There is POSSIBLY a hell associated with this god
Revision to p3: I am not making the assumption that the god decides entrance into hell by non-belief in him/her/it. The hope is simply that you will be better off if you made the effort to try to please whatever god(s) exist, rather than NOT make the effort
Revision to p1: It could be a single god or multiple gods
Revision to p2: There is POSSIBLY a hell associated with this god
Revision to p3: I am not making the assumption that the god decides entrance into hell by non-belief in him/her/it. The hope is simply that you will be better off if you made the effort to try to please whatever god(s) exist, rather than NOT make the effort
Revision to C: Therefore, making an effort to please this God will (hopefully) leave you better off than if you did NOT make the effort
Belief is not a choice. Let's say there is a red ball. We can choose to SAY it is blue, but we cannot choose to BELIEVE it is blue. Belief is what we perceive to be true and perception necessarily comes first. So, to have a belief in the absence of perception (or contrary to it) is an absurdity. Belief is a stance taken after considering the available evidence. Arbitrarily redefining this stance can be nothing other than intellectual dishonesty.
I agree
that belief is not a choice, and I don't expect the non-believer to believe. As
in your example, I am simply saying you make the effort to please whatever
god(s) exist by actions such as praying.
There is a problem with my view, and it's this. You have to have at least SOME belief in order for an action such as praying to be meaningful. I would argue that there are many atheists who have some measure of openness to belief. I don't have any statistics to back this up, but I think you will agree with me. If atheists do have some measure of openness to belief, they is it really so absurd to use that openness to pray? Since beliefs are not a choice, then you will not choose if you are a person who has NO openness to belief. In the case of this person, the revision of Pascel's Wager fails. But I think that this person very likely does not exist.
Here is a link to a video that seems to prove that most, if not all, people have an openness in a belief in God.
Basically this guy talks about experiments he did with split brained patients. When a person has the connection severed between their two hemispheres, they essentially become two people in one skull. You can ask one hemisphere a question, and then ask the other hemisphere a question, and they can come up with two different answers. In this case, they asked the right hemisphere if it believed in god, and it said YES. They then asked the left hemisphere if it believed in god, and it said NO.
Now I'm not sure if this person was religious or non religious, but I think my point still stands. As long as a human has their right hemisphere intact, they will likely have an openness to belief.
This brings me back to my previous point. Is it so absurd to use this openness to belief as a reason to pray or otherwise attempt to please whatever god(s) exist?
There are many assumptions in the argument. It could be that there is no god or there are multiple gods. It could be that multiple gods have a place of eternal torment or that there is no hell, it could be that god(s) are malevolent and entrance into hell has nothing to do with belief or occurs because of it. Anyone one of these circumstances being true makes the conclusion false. My opponent has no way to show which of these options are valid, and this leaves the conclusion, at best, dubious.
You are right. It seems that there are too many possible scenarios, and that my revision is NOT useful. Well let's compare a couple of the scenarios you have presented.
Scenario 1) God(s) exist that are malevolent, and they don't care whether you attempt to appease them. They are God and you can do nothing for them.
In this scenario, my revision to Pascal's Wager FAILS. You won't be better off using my revision.
The thing is, you wouldn't be better off lacking a position (atheism) either.
Both the revision (an active position) and atheism (lacking a position) are equally useless.
Scenario 2) There is no Hell and no God
In this case, atheism is slightly more useful as you won't have to spend the time trying to appease whatever god(s) exist.
Scenario 3) God exists. He/she/it likes it when the humans he/she/it created try to appease him/she/it.
In this case, my revision to Pascel's Wager is slightly more useful as you will be scoring brownie points with God.
I could go on and on with scenarios, but I think I will stop there. In some scenarios, it is more beneficial to lack a position (atheism). In other scenarios, however, it is more beneficial to hold the position of the revision to Pascel's Wager. In the rest of the scenarios, it seems that both could be equally useful, or equally useless.
Conclusion:
My revision to Pascel's Wager can be just as useful, or even more useful (sometimes less useful), as lacking a position (atheism).
Con
#4
Thank you for your thoughtful reply and for the clarifications, Pro.
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Syllogistic revisions
I would make some changes to this syllogism as to be crystal clear with my position.Revision to p1: It could be a single god or multiple gods
To have multiple gods does not necessarily make the situation better. If one or more gods consider divided allegiance to be an insult, an individual would be no better off feigning belief and could be drawing the ire of multiple powerful beings.
Additionally, the possibility of no god has been overlooked. This is worth mentioning since the (presumably) lifelong efforts to appease a god are, at least, a waste of time, and, at worst, lead to a life of poor decisions based on a superstitious notions.
Revision to p2: There is POSSIBLY a hell associated with this god
This means there is a possibly NO hell, in which case, eternal punishment is not an option for believer and non-believer alike. This leaves us with a scenario where believing to avoid negative consequences in an after life is unnecessary, a waste of resources, and/or harmful (as mentioned above).
At this point, I would like to turn to some of the scenarios berrybloxinator has provided:
Scenario 1 - Malevolent gods:
In this scenario, my revision to Pascal's Wager FAILS. [...] Both the revision (an active position) and atheism (lacking a position) are equally useless.
A false belief and no-belief are not equally useless in this scenario. If an individual thinks they have a powerful ally, when in fact they do not, they might be more inclined to take risks where the non-believer would not. This scenario is functionally identical to scenario 2 in which Pro agreed atheism is a superior view if there were no god and no hell.
Scenario 3 - Usefulness of pacified god(s):
God exists. He/she/it likes it when the humans he/she/it created try to appease him/she/it.
Given that my opponent has allowed there could be no hell, I'm not certain how "brownie points" could be beneficial unless he is abandoning Pascal's wager completely. Pascal crafted this argument with the afterlife in mind, and it seems as though Pro may be subtly suggesting god-given benefits within our shared reality due to belief. I find no merit in this view as it cannot be objectively verified - this calls into question the 'usefulness' of the view. Ultimately, this strikes me as moving the goalposts.
On the other hand, an evidenced-based understanding of reality (something rigourous non-believers tend to prefer exclusively) is without a doubt quite useful and something that most everyone relies on strongly regardless of religious views.
Openness to belief in god:
Berrybloxinator has provided an interesting video discussing the religious views of a split-brained individual. One side of this person's brain believed in a god and the other side did not. From this Pro extrapolates everyone has an "openness to god" in which it seems he defines as 'belief in god'. It is true there are atheists with an openness to belief in god. By this I mean, atheists do not necessarily reject the possibility of believing in a god should verifiable evidence of god be presented and no corpus calloscotomy is necessary! On this, I assume Pro and I can agree.
However, the conception that there is some type of hidden belief revealed by split-brained individuals is to go far beyond what the evidence can tell us. Not to mention, it is cherry picking the evidence - after all, perhaps split brained people reveal hidden atheism! Of course, this last part is said with tongue firmly in cheek. In all seriousness, (not being an expert in neurology, psychology, or any relevant fields) I think it is quite safe to say the example my opponent provides is nothing more than a glimpse into how our brains work and not that we each have an atheist and a believer duking it out within our skulls!
Is it so absurd to use this openness to belief as a reason to pray or otherwise attempt to please whatever god(s) exist?
In short: yes. Openness to belief is NOT belief. Prayer to a deity generally requires belief in a deity. On this, Berrybloxinator and I agree:
You have to have at least SOME belief in order for an action such as praying to be meaningful.
Round 3
Pro
#5
To have multiple gods does not necessarily make the situation better. If one or more gods consider divided allegiance to be an insult, an individual would be no better off feigning belief and could be drawing the ire of multiple powerful beings.
Additionally, the possibility of no god has been overlooked. This is worth mentioning since the (presumably) lifelong efforts to appease a god are, at least, a waste of time, and, at worst, lead to a life of poor decisions based on a superstitious notions.
I agree. These scenarios doesn't bode well for those using the revision.
If an individual thinks they have a powerful ally, when in fact they do not, they might be more inclined to take risks where the non-believer would not.
My revision to Pascel's Wager is more of a way to cover all possible grounds. It is only necessary to try and appease whatever god(s) exist, if one does exist. At no point in my revision says that you should go as far as taking risks in the gods name. It is simply realizing the possibility of a God and then covering that possible ground.
I do see the possibility of the believer being more reckless than the non-believer. What I do not see is what relevance a persons recklessness has to do with my revision. As we have discussed before, belief is not a choice. I would not expect to change the belief of the person willing to take on the philosophy of the revision. Therefore it seems reasonable that the level of recklessness of any given person would be the same before and after taking on the philosophy of the revision.
As I discussed in my previous post, I am relying on the openness to belief, not belief itself.
Given that my opponent has allowed there could be no hell, I'm not certain how "brownie points" could be beneficial unless he is abandoning Pascal's wager completely. Pascal crafted this argument with the afterlife in mind, and it seems as though Pro may be subtly suggesting god-given benefits within our shared reality due to belief. I find no merit in this view as it cannot be objectively verified - this calls into question the 'usefulness' of the view. Ultimately, this strikes me as moving the goalposts.
Let's say there are god(s) and an afterlife, but no Hell. This could still mean that these god(s) reward those who put forth effort to please them, and ignore those who don't. In this scenario, those using the revision will be better off.
Let's now say that there are god(s), a Heaven, and a Hell. It is unsure, in this scenario, what rubric the God uses to separate the people who go to Hell and those who go to Heaven. The revision simply says that you hope your effort will be enough to convince the god to send you to Heaven. It doesn't pretend to know if this is actually the case.
However, the conception that there is some type of hidden belief revealed by split-brained individuals is to go far beyond what the evidence can tell us. Not to mention, it is cherry picking the evidence - after all, perhaps split brained people reveal hidden atheism! Of course, this last part is said with tongue firmly in cheek. In all seriousness, (not being an expert in neurology, psychology, or any relevant fields) I think it is quite safe to say the example my opponent provides is nothing more than a glimpse into how our brains work and not that we each have an atheist and a believer duking it out within our skulls!
I realize that you can't hold two contradicting beliefs. A person is either believes in god(s), or doesn't believe. It can't be both.
Berrybloxinator has provided an interesting video discussing the religious views of a split-brained individual. One side of this person's brain believed in a god and the other side did not. From this Pro extrapolates everyone has an "openness to god" in which it seems he defines as 'belief in god'. It is true there are atheists with an openness to belief in god. By this I mean, atheists do not necessarily reject the possibility of believing in a god should verifiable evidence of god be presented and no corpus calloscotomy is necessary! On this, I assume Pro and I can agree.
I did not mean for it to come across that I equated openness to belief as belief itself. I understand that it is not the same thing. I am simply saying that openness to belief is enough, and belief itself is not necessary for the revision.
Prayer to a deity generally requires belief in a deity.
I would agree with this change: Prayer to a deity requires an openness to belief in a deity. Nothing is stopping you from physically praying.
Con
#6
Thanks, Pro. It seems we have a few areas of agreement!
I do see the possibility of the believer being more reckless than the non-believer. What I do not see is what relevance a persons recklessness has to do with my revision.
If we are attempting to determine the usefulness of a view, then we must consider what ways it can be harmful. "Usefulness" was the context to which I was responding. If a view can make a person reckless (unnecessarily and unjustifiably willing to put themselves in risky situations) then that needs to be factored into the defense.
As I discussed in my previous post, I am relying on the openness to belief, not belief itself.
I did not mean for it to come across that I equated openness to belief as belief itself. I understand that it is not the same thing. I am simply saying that openness to belief is enough, and belief itself is not necessary for the revision.
I would agree with this change: Prayer to a deity requires an openness to belief in a deity. Nothing is stopping you from physically praying.
I accept my opponent does not intend to equate an openness to belief and belief itself. However, I believe there is a miscommunication. Perhaps he is advocating going through the motions of belief just in case there is any truth to them. I have no doubt atheists (and theists) have done such things. If this is the case, I wonder if a deity would be impressed and/or swayed by insincere piety?
Let's say there are god(s) and an afterlife, but no Hell. This could still mean that these god(s) reward those who put forth effort to please them, and ignore those who don't. In this scenario, those using the revision will be better off.Let's now say that there are god(s), a Heaven, and a Hell. It is unsure, in this scenario, what rubric the God uses to separate the people who go to Hell and those who go to Heaven. The revision simply says that you hope your effort will be enough to convince the god to send you to Heaven. It doesn't pretend to know if this is actually the case.
I suppose the problem I have with this is that it gives credit where none is due. If the existence of hell (or heaven; or an afterlife) could be shown true, then the thought that *maybe* we should take up some sort of 'metaphysical fire insurance' would be an extreme understatement! If we *knew* hell existed, then we would not be discussing belief because the possibility of eternal torment would be undeniable. Hell in this hypothetical world is indisputably knowledge and not unsubstantiated belief. How different that is from the world we live in where hell is not a demonstrable fact, and we can't be sure belief is warranted. To let our understanding of existence be informed by what we don't know is to treat ignorance as if it were co-equal with truth while diminishing knowledge itself.
Round 4
Pro
#7
I concede.
At the third argument I realize I was playing devils advocate. It is a position that I don't actually believe in.
Thanks for debating!
Criterion
Pro
Tie
Con
Points
Better arguments
3 point(s)
Better sources
2 point(s)
Better legibility
1 point(s)
Better conduct
1 point(s)
Reason:
C
Criterion
Pro
Tie
Con
Points
Better arguments
3 point(s)
Better sources
2 point(s)
Better legibility
1 point(s)
Better conduct
1 point(s)
Reason:
Concession
I must continue as though the debate is on until you forfeit or concede within the debate.
Ok. We'll see what happens.
I could be wrong about this, but I think you have to concede within the debate or the voters are not allowed to count it. So until you do that, your opponent is forced to act as if the debate is still on.
I don't know if you saw my conversation with Wrick-It-Ralph in the comments, but I will tell you what I told him.
Even though I am putting this idea forward, I am an atheist.
When I first thought of this revision to Pascel's Wager, it sounded reasonable. But I knew that I needed to put up to the scrutiny of others before I even considered adopting it. That is basically what I am doing on this website. I thought that I would attempt to defend this position. I figured that if others were unable to find flaws with it, then I would adopt the philosophy.
At the current point in our debate, it seems my objections are weak. What you are saying makes sense, and what Wrick-It-Ralph has said makes sense. The revision to Pascel's Wager has been completely undermined for me.
I thought that I should still continue with the debate to hone my argumentative skills, but it feels dishonest.
For these reasons I concede.
If you are currently working on a response to my last argument, I would be fine if you posted it as I'm sure I would find it interesting. It's your choice.
DART=Debate Art.
There's no forfeit button, if you feel dishonest arguing, then you can either mention in the debate that you're playing the devil's advocate or you can concede via text. I tend to concede if I change my mind mid debate. Although it's rare for me because I'm so stubborn.
I think the biggest critique of pascal's wager is given by Matt Dillahunty. He cuts right past the probability end of it and just points out that no God is going to let you in heaven simply because you pretend to believe for the sake of getting into heaven. Put simply, religion is an all or nothing thing. You have to believe it whole heartedly or not at all.
My science teacher presented pascal's wager to me in Junior high and I found it convincing until after I became an atheist. I think a lot of it comes down to one's state of mind.
Makes sense.
Let me explain a few things.
Even though I am putting this idea forward, I am an atheist.
When I first thought of this revision to Pascel's Wager, it sounded reasonable. But I knew that I needed to put up to the scrutiny of others before I even considered adopting it. That is basically what I am doing on this website. I thought that I would attempt to defend this position. I figured that if others were unable to find flaws with it, then I would adopt the philosophy.
At the current point in the actual debate, it seems my objections are weak. What my opponent is saying makes sense, and what you have said makes sense. The revision to Pascel's Wager has been completely undermined for me.
I thought that I should still continue with the debate to hone my argumentative skills, but it feels dishonest.
Funny enough, this is my first argument on this website and have no idea how to forfeit.
In fact. At my level of play, there is no strategy that my opponent could ever adopt that I haven't seen before. I have spent years studying different openings and studying how to judge an opening that I've never seen before using the tactical fundamentals of a game. The most they could do is deviate from a line that I already know. (I know all of the starting lines) at which point, I only have to calculate the deviation. Now if my opponent was magnus Carlson. Then this deviation might destroy me from lack of knowledge. But a gambler doing it with no knowledge of chess fundamentals is just going to be entering into a sideline that is weak and I would crush it with ease.
Excuse me for being out of the loop but what is DART?
Even if the gambler did luck out and pick a good philosophy. (I'm granting a lot of allowances by saying this because, as an experienced chess player myself, I know for a fact that no person can win against a competitive chess player simply by adopting one idea. this is a fact.) The thing you don't understand is that the experienced chess player would see the strategy after the first game and figure out how to beat it with ease. so the gambler would only win maybe 1 game off of this at the most. But like I said. I'm making a lot of allowances for this because chess in not a game that you can win simply by adopting a random philosophy. It requires knowing dozens of fundamentals and memorizing strings of moves. There's no shortcuts.
Your example is unrealistic. There is no way to gamble in chess. It's a perfect information game. If the gambler does win. It's not because he gambled, it's because he had a better chess strategy.
If we're assuming that the gambler doesn't have as much chess knowledge as the chess player, then the chess player would win most, if not all of the games.
Ok. So let's say that two people are playing a chess game. One of them is a gambler and makes his chess moves based on one philosophy and no others. The other is an experienced chess player. If they both play 500 games and the gambler wins the majority, would it not be reasonable to say you should emulate the gambler rather than the experienced chess player?
When taken to it's logical conclusion, pascal's wager suggest that atheism is the best bet. Also, it's a category error to compare a gamble to a logical proposition. It's like comparing the world's best Yahtzee player to the world's best chess player. you can't say one is better than the other unless they're playing in the same category.
Thanks! Let's see if I can keep it up...
Very nice debate structure!
This is the 900th debate on DART.
I have not read the Pensées. I only knew about Pascel's Wager from what I have read and seen online. In fact I didn't know the Pensées even existed.
It's a shame people isolate Pascal's Wager and all but ignore the entire rest of the Pensées.
It makes sense that some faith systems require more than simple belief for salvation. It also makes sense that if you aren't sincere to a specific faith system then you aren't sincere to any of them. It would be hard to please a God when you have no sense of what he/she/it wants you to do. Since you don't know what he/she/it wants you to do, I guess the hope is that a genuine seeking for the truth will be enough to avoid the punishment of Hell. Problem with this is that maybe the God would rather you be an atheist before you can come to a solid conclusion rather using this revision.
Another issue with all this is that doing things like upholding the five pillars of faith is unequivocally tied to the concept of Hell. I don't know of any faith system that lets you avoid Hell just by hoping to communicate with whatever God exists.
Even with these issues my original thesis still stands. Atheism seems to have the same problems as this revision. So it stands to reason that they are equally defensible positions.
I would say that there are faith systems where a simple faith in the deity won't yeild a salvation from that faith systems hell. Take Islam for example. It wouldn't be enough to simply believe in Allah. You'd have to acknowledge Muhammad as his prophet and then uphold the five pillars of faith. Even then your salvation is not a guarantee.
Christianity would have a similar issue, sure one could believe in God, but you would have to go a step further and have faith in the death, burial and resurrection of Christ. In which case you are now a Christian, not just a seeker.
The problem becomes more exacerbated when you aren't trying to communicate with any particular God, just a vague creator, because now what you're saying is yeah all that stuff might be false. There might not even be a Jesus or a Muhammed. Or a Bahuallah or a Krishna
So in other words, I do believe the honest seeker is a good attempt, and a good model of sincerity, the problem is that you can only be sincere to one faith systems at a time. If not, then you're not sincere to any of them.
Am I making sense?
The philosophy still takes care of Hell. If you believe in whatever God exists, then you will automatically avoid whatever Hell exists. Does this make sense or have I misunderstood?
I would say it's more rational than atheism, but the revision you propose kind of negates the idea of hell to begin with. Was that your intention?