The bribe.

Picture it, you are offered two doors to choose from, behind one door is all the wealth you could ever desire, an operation that will make your body & mind perfectly well & whole, things to do that will fill you with purpose, music of all kinds, DNA splicing that will make you young again, the romance of your dreams. Everything you could ever want and more. The other door is simply a room with a wooden chair to sit on, a wooden slab to lay upon, some water to drink, and some dry bread to consume.

What door would you choose?

In fact - at this moment do you really have a choice anymore?

The bribe an appeal to motive - appeal to bribery. This logical fallacy seeks to overwhelm your logical motive with an emotional one.

So, do you really  have a choice at this point?

The flip side of this is much easier to understand, intuitively. Argumentum ad baculum.

We understand that a threat to our life, safety, or lives / safety of those we care about forces us to do what the person making the threat (or implied threat) wants to do, but a bribe seems less harsh - more alluring.

The positive seeming bribe is appealing to our carnal tastes, its good smell drags us forward towards the pie that we know we should not eat. Its overwhelms our intellect with desires.

Its just as sinister as its flip side, perhaps more so because we do not necessary see the bribe as a bad thing in this case - "bribe" seems like it should only be used in the context of paying off someone to get away with something - that sort of bribe we see as wrong or illegal, we can picture easily a person offering a police officer money to not write a ticket for example, to "look the other way" - we can understand that it is bad when a judge takes a bribe because justice is then tainted.

However if someone offered us such a "choice" of two rooms with "no strings attached" we might be hard pressed to see the evil of it, or the harm of it, there is no reason to NOT take the thing I most desire is there?

One might argue, of course that getting everything you ever wanted would not feel good - but that is overridden by the thought experiment in that you would in fact feel fulfilled as that is part of the thing you are getting. The point of course is not to try to dismantle the thought experiment but to flow with it, to answer the question of "Do I REALLY have a choice?"

We can understand we do not REALLY have a choice when someone threatens us - then why does it seem hard to see we do not REALLY have a choice when someone bribes us? Perhaps it is just me.

Regardless if the bribe is there, then it is a logical fallacy. 

Yet one could make excuses for taking the room filled with your hearts desires, and a logical process to take that room - of course, yet this does not, and can not negate the fact that it is still not an argument being made by the person/group that is offering the "choice" of the rooms in the first place.

So, a boring dull room behind door number one, or everything you ever could want behind door number two.

Do you really have a choice?

Or is it that choice in this case, is pure illusion?

I leave it to you, dear reader, to decide.

A post exchange on youtube reposted here in case it gets deleted or something

 From this video (click)

Algoma Baptist

 @Deconverted Man  Thank you for sharing your thoughts on these matters. You have obviously spent a lot of time thinking through these things. I am wondering a couple of things. You seem to be actively on the lookout for ways to lead people out of belief in God. Why is it that belief in God is such a hot topic for you? Did you have some kind of negative experience with it? If you did, I am very sorry for that. Sometimes Christians are not very good at living out their faith. My second question is based on this thought. Christianity is not just about whether or not I believe that there is a God. It is a framework for living a life that is loving, meaningful and sacrificial which I believe our world would agree is a positive ideal. The framework that I am using now gives me all those things. So, if a person would believe what you are saying, you would in fact be leading them away from that particular framework for living. My question then is, what alternate framework for living do you offer? What do you offer a person on the verge of divorce, or the parent whose child was born with Down Syndrome, or the person who received a diagnosis of cancer, or the person on the verge of death? What help do you give the person who suffers from injustice or anxiety or fear? If I am to leave one framework, I must have another that is proven to work. Otherwise, why would I leave it? What do you offer? Christianity is not just about whether God exists, it is also is about how to live a life with all the struggles that exist in it. I have never heard such an atheistic framework presented. I have only heard discussions about whether God exists and the validity of evolution. If there is such a framework, how do you live it out each day and what do you offer people in the struggles of life? I would be interested to hear your answers to these questions. Thank you

Deconverted Man

 @Algoma Baptist  Responding to your comments/questions: "...ways to lead people out of belief in God." I can not lead anyone out of belief per say - as the journey of each person is there own to make. My goal, broadly speaking is to educate on logic - the arguments that have the most logical errors are typically those made by apologists/religious people. I value the truth. I want people to use good reason & logic. Here is a bit of knowledge I've gained thanks to logic. There is a difference between a belief statement and a regular statement, "I believe in (X)" has no burden to prove it, after all we can not read minds - and thus we grant that most likely, the person / group that said the statement does in fact believe in (X). This also applies to not believing in (X). No proof need be offered. no defense need be given. Joe says "I believe in leprechauns." I just shrug and say "Okay." However saying that leprechauns exist - well now, there is a whole other matter. The person that makes the claim has the burden of proof. So (X) is true, prove it! ~ "Why is it that belief in God is such a hot topic for you?" Its a great topic to talk about even if there is no "God" thing out there. I enjoy talking about that, and other beliefs people have. ~ " some kind of negative experience with it?" Nope. In my book "Caught Between An Infinite Hope And A Finite Despair" (available on amazon! self plug!) I write in detail about my experience of religion. I also speak about it on my channel in my video "My deconversion story and some mussing" but the book goes into greater detail. ~ "...My question then is, what alternate framework for living do you offer? " That is not something I or anyone can provide for you, in fact I would say that it is part of why I object to religion - it tells people (or tries to tell people) how to live. This is up to you to learn for yourself. Its up to you to learn about ethical systems, logic, science, history - you give your live value and meaning, not anyone else. You are the one who works hard, and you are the one to thank or blame for what you do or do not do. Sometimes random things happen to you or people you know. Sometimes events are out of our control, sometimes we try to do good and get bad as a result, sometimes we do something bad and get a good result, this is life, and it is your life that we are speaking of, you must assume full control of it, you have the wheel, Jesus doesn't know how to drive so why give it to him? Why give it to anyone else? You know things I do not, you have ideas I do not, those ideas can be shared with others, your friendship, your hopes, your dreams, your love - you are the master of yourself and no one should ever take that from you. ~ "What do you offer a person on the verge of divorce? or the parent whose child was born with Down Syndrome, or the person who received a diagnosis of cancer, or the person on the verge of death? What help do you give the person who suffers from injustice or anxiety or fear?" Logic & reason. Also: A good lawyer. Medical science x2 Mortality sucks. Many good lawyers. A therapist. ~ Atheism / skepticism is not a world view. It does not offer a "way to live" This is why perhaps it has been called "Free thinker" as you are free to develop your own way to do such things.

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