For people who use Pascal's wager....?

Good point ... and wouldn't god feel the same towards people who only did 'good' things for the selfish reason of wanting to get into heaven. If there were a god, would she prefer people who voluntarily lived a good and moral life or people who did things and said empty words as a way of covering their @rse ?

People who use pascal's wager to subscribe to their religion are really Atheists who just can't seem to come to grips with their Atheism yet.

Pascal's wager is meaningless because the person doesn't do the right thing for the right reasons. You don't hedge bets with God or with anything about God. And, yes, God knows our thoughts and attitudes and is not mocked.

The only way to salvation is to Love God and Our Fellow Humans, and Put Faith in Jesus Christ.

Mark 12:28-31

28 One of the scribes who had come up and heard them disputing, knowing that he had answered them in a fine way, asked him: “Which commandment is first* of all?”+ 29 Jesus answered: “The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel, Jehovah* our God is one Jehovah,* 30 and you must love Jehovah* your God with your whole heart and with your whole soul* and with your whole mind and with your whole strength.’+ 31 The second is this, ‘You must love your neighbor as yourself.’+ There is no other commandment greater than these.”

John 3:16

16 “For God loved the world so much that he gave his only-begotten Son,+ so that everyone exercising faith in him might not be destroyed but have everlasting life.

If we "believe in God" in order to avoid being tortured in a fire forever, then we are not doing it out of love for God, but by a morbid fear of the punishment that we imagine that he will give us if we don't.

As it is, God puts life or death before us,and wants us to choose life. The "lake of fire" in the Bible means the second death- not everlasting torture.

Deuteronomy 30:19

19 I take the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you today that I have put life and death before you, the blessing and the curse;+ and you must choose life so that you may live,+ you and your descendants,

Revelation 21:8

8 But as for the cowards and those without faith+ and those who are disgusting in their filth and murderers+ and the sexually immoral*+ and those practicing spiritism and idolaters and all the liars,+ their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur.+ This means the second death.”

If we should see being "a church member" or say "I believe in God and Jesus" as some kind of insurance against going to everlasting torture in fire, we really haven't gotten the point. Most of all, our relationship with our Creator may need reexamination.

he is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.

John 14:11 Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; OR AT LEAST believe on the evidence of the works themselves!

what you say would be true, IF God were looking for any excuse to condemn you to hell. God is not. He died on a roman cross in judea sum 2000 years ago in order to barricade the mouth of hell and place the cosmic focal point on the Redeemer.

In that case the person would not have begun believing in God. You can't con God. However, the original and true Christian Church, to which Jesus Christ promised the fullness of truth, does not teach that all non-believers necessarily go to Hell. Salvation is through Jesus Christ alone, but His Church doesn't try to dictate to Him whom He may save.

A belief in a god or gods is a sign of limited intelligence and courage.

Since gods are imaginary, it hardly matters *why* anyone might believe in them.

Thinking like a caveman, when you live in the 21st century, is nothing to be proud of.

It doesn't matter whether or not you believe in God. Satan is going to burn in hell forever and he believes in God. Having FAITH is the importance of the matter.

of course but withholding well worn skepticism for a while might open you up to a saving faith