How much do you really believe in God?

[Gadianton]

As a logic problem, the question becomes how trustworthy is the being based on the internal information provided? And in my opinion, this becomes a paradox. If they aren't trustworthy then there is no reason to assume they'd honor the choice to allow a person to just cease existing. And if they are trustworthy, why are they engaging in this scenario as presented?

Well, my intent is to suspend disbelief and just take the being as trustworthy. Otherwise the problem collapses into the problem of knowledge as you suggest, which I'm trying to avoid. Maybe I can't avoid it; maybe the inability to avoid it makes the scenario nonsensical. But still, my intent is to avoid it if at all possible.

There is a huge problem trusting anyone as a representative of God, it's a problem so terrible, that God ought to realize it's pointless to send emissaries. In theory, knowing what you know is a perplexing problem even for simple things. But if we suspend unbelief on simple things, it's just not possible to cover God by reasoning from what we assume for simpler components. Even a being vastly inferior to God could be so superior to us that it could deceive us about God with the greatest of ease. That's not the case with any mortal elite or secret government agency that Ajax believes in.

Theologians are on to something when they try to avoid the massive problem of representing God by confining themselves to what falls out of pure logical speculation. But as Descartes pointed out, even then we can't trust pure deduction because we can't get beyond our own brains, and our minds could wrongly misfire and think "5" as 2+2. It's easy to imagine a being far down on the totem pole from God who is still vastly far up the pole from us, who might have us trapped in a concocted reality; perhaps we die, go before the light, get sent somewhere else, and this is all a big ruse by a nefarious alien. And so even if we die and end up in heaven, we have no idea if we're really dealing with God or not, and if "heaven" has anything to do with God even in principle.

[I Have Questions]

As a logic problem, the question becomes how trustworthy is the being based on the internal information provided? And in my opinion, this becomes a paradox. If they aren't trustworthy then there is no reason to assume they'd honor the choice to allow a person to just cease existing. And if they are trustworthy, why are they engaging in this scenario as presented?

Well, my intent is to suspend disbelief and just take the being as trustworthy.

Now at that point, the choice comes down not based on your thoughts about what God may or may not be. It’s all about whether you see yourself as having lived a justifiable life. If you aren’t confident about taking your chance with a God, then that says rather a lot about how you secretly feel you’ve lived your life.

[huckelberry]

suppose you're met with a powerful being after you die who brings you good news: there is a God. The bad news is that your religion is wrong about God. If you're Mormon, for instance, you're told that Joseph Smith was a fraud. The being at this point offers you a choice. You can either proceed to stand before God and be judged, or you can opt out and have the atheist's version of death and simply cease to exist.

You will not be told a thing about the real God. If there is a hell, for instance, the possibility exists that you will find yourself burning in agony for eternity. What do you chose?

I’d like to think I’d submit myself to God, in repentance, and He could do whatever his will is for me.

If I died, then found out there was a God, and opted for death/annihilation, I’d have to physically die a second time. Not sure where spiritual death fits into the scenario you proposed. Both choices sound like rebellion toward God to me.

msnobody, I think this response you made is both simple and the best idea.