This topic has, as you all know, been debated by many people. It is impossible to prove either possibilities. Hence, us christians litterally do live "by faith". Without going into any detail why I chose to believe "by faith", I can tell u Athiests are pretty much also living "by faith". With the athiesm mentality, it is self contradticting for them to claim the validity of their own logic which no "higher being" has designed. Which also really self placing themself in a position of a god. I've tried to prove my own logic. Using various sources the furthest i can get is "I think therefore I am" (quote from some dude back in the days).
Also, no-god = believe in no salvation, God = believe in some sort of salvation.
Now imagine urself in a death bed. The existance of god will remain independant of ones beliefs. soo lets go through the 2 scenarios when u die.
#1 : Aethiest scenario
Possibility (a): There is no god.
Ending: Game over, ur nothing.
Possiblity (b): There is a god but no afterlife
Ending: game over, ur nothing again.
Possibility (c): There is a god and afterlife and god is not generous coz u didn't meet the requirements.
Ending : Either game over again, or eternal pain in hell.
Possibility (d): There is a god and afterlife and god enjoys watching peopel suffer.
Ending : Eternal pain in hell.
Possibility (e): There is a god and afterlife and god is generous.
Ending : welcome to heaven.
If we take the possibilities of each being the same. chances of a good ending will be 20%.
#2 Believer
Possibility (a): There is no god.
Ending: Game over, ur nothing.
Possiblity (b): There is a god but no afterlife
Ending: game over, ur nothing again.
Possibility (c): There is a god and afterlife and god is not generous coz u didn't meet the requirements or wrong religion.
Ending : Either game over again, or eternal pain in hell.
Possibility (d): There is a god and afterlife and god enjoys watching people suffer regardless of religion.
Ending : Eternal pain in hell.
Possibility (e): There is a god and afterlife and god is generous.
Ending : welcome to heaven.
Possibility (g): There is a god and afterlife and ur in the right religion and met the requirements.
Ending : welcome to heaven.
now... happy ending is 2/6 which simplifies to 1/3. a nice 13.33(repeating) percentage boost in happy ending.
Now tell me with our common logic, Which path will be the safer path.
hell, heaven and god are just images and doesn't hold any christian or muslim allusions.
Ofcourse the whole %age thing is completely inaccurate, taking each possibility with the same weighting and didn't consider the amount of religion that exists. Also ofcourse theres numerous ways to counter this, and i can think of about 3 ways by now but does ur heart really tell u to not take a chance.
P.S btw there aren't many "real" religions out there. some pretty big ones that make no sense is this ten-do-5-way thingy. Basically saying. buhdism, christian, muslim, hindu, (someother religion). are all real and path ways to heaven, but u see muslim, christian claims there is only ONE god and hindu is like god for everything. Self contraditory religions has no credibility and can be ignored. Religions with definate bad endings which hold true for all isn't worth believing (if its the truth, then bad luck its the same for the believers anyway). I would say theres not more than 5 Reliable religions (grouping similar ones together e.g Catholic/christian, YES i know they are heaps different but they still believe in teh same God).
I also found logic is very dynamic. factors effecting include education, country and age. A 5 year old doesn't give the crap whether or not its possible to be goku, they try thinking it is when they grow they will stop trying. things that might be convincing to some is as worthy as a skadi on a drow.
I see there are alof of arguments in thsi thread (271 pages =.=) about stuff like.... "soo if I've never had the opportunity, heard of or believe in Suzumiya harhuri then ill be in hell, isn't that unfair!" well these statements are already on assumption that Hell, heaven, God is existing. so maybe a god isn't really concerned with whats unfair, evil, or absurd from a sane human.
As far as I learnt in my severely catholic and christian upbringings, those who were unexposed to Christianity must have at one stage in their life had God expose himself to them, apparently usually at the time of death, where they must convert.
If this is the case, the institutional aspect of religion might be pointless.
Im not trying to be rude or anything but I dont think theres a single line in the bible that supports this (bible says we will all be judged in front of him but not some time where u convert. Besides if u see jesus after ur dead, I dont think any sane human will reject his existance.). If there isn't then what on earth are ur religion teachers teaching.