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Pascal's wager...

God is one helluva meme.

Does that mean I'm a believer? :D

Pardon me while I feed my flying pig.
 
Elixir said:
What Pascals Wager proposes is that you give God the benefit of the doubt because you have nothing to lose.
...which is a very OPEN-MINDED thing to do.
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Bad deal. I have an open mind, but I am not about to forfeit the reasoning ability that God presumably gave me in order to subscribe to any human's notions about God, i.e. any religion.
Christianity and VooDoo are indistinguishable in their level of bullshit.
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And, that is NOT what the Wager, or Lion's threat, actually proposes. In both cases, the problem is that there's this ehole 'eternity of suffering' if we lose the wager.

And infinite torture for finite sin is not what i would call open minded.

More on the lines of a twat-waffle mind.
 
Pascal's wager makes a number of assumptions about reality, and a number of theological assumptions about the god it argues for. If any of these can be shown to either be false or undesirable, then the power of the Wager for determining one's actions and beliefs is severely weakened - indeed, the argument of the Wager can be reversed in some cases and it can argue for non-belief. These mostly stem from the theological implications of applying the Wager to belief in God, rather than the Game Theory attributes and decision making process presented.
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Pascal's Wager - RationalWiki
 
DBT said:
Lion IRC said:
What Pascals Wager proposes is that you give God the benefit of the doubt because you have nothing to lose....which is a very OPEN-MINDED unbiased thing to do.
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Which still means that your fate hinges on an trivial factor, the ability to convince yourself to believe in something for which there is no evidence...which is neither fair, reasonable or unbiased.
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You say there is no no evidence.
A few billion of your fellow human beings say they have enough evidence.

Why don't you keep an open mind? Why do you say their experience of evidence is false?
 
Lion IRC said:
DBT said:
Lion IRC said:
What Pascals Wager proposes is that you give God the benefit of the doubt because you have nothing to lose....which is a very OPEN-MINDED unbiased thing to do.
Click to expand...

Which still means that your fate hinges on an trivial factor, the ability to convince yourself to believe in something for which there is no evidence...which is neither fair, reasonable or unbiased.
Click to expand...

You say there is no no evidence.
A few billion of your fellow human beings say they have enough evidence.

Why don't you keep an open mind? Why do you say their experience of evidence is false?
Click to expand...

I see a few problems with this argument.

.. "A few billion of your fellow human beings" is invoking the logical fallacy of appeal to popularity or bandwagoning. Billions of people believing something doesn't make it true - billions of people believe in a mistaken idea about the nature of time.

.. Your use of the word, "evidence", indicates a confusion over what that word actually means. Present that evidence and if it is actually evidence rather than belief then you could convert a hell of a lot of people.

.. "Open mind" does not mean accepting anything presented as true. It means considering what is offered and then accepting or rejecting it for cause or simply remaining unconvinced.
 
Eldarion Lathria said:
Either you believe in the Great Carrot or you do not
Either the Great Carrot is real or he is not.

If you believe in the Great Carrot, and he is real you get to spend all eternity in his Garden of Vitamins.
If you don't believe in the Great Carrot, and he is real, you spend all eternity being shredded for salad.
If you don't believe in the Great Carrot and he is not real, you gain nothing.
If you believe in the Great Carrot and he is not real you lose nothing.

Add to this we know CATEGORICALLY, that Hinduism, Christianity, Islam, Judaism and all the other isms are heathen superstitions invented by the Evil Weevil to lead good Carrotists astray and that no matter what they say, they REALLY worship the Evil Weevil. We know this for two reasons, 1: it says so in the Carrotistically Inspired Seed Catalog of the Great Carrot and 2: Leaders of those heathen superstitions have said so, most recently Billy Graham said so on Squaty Stoopfellers TV Show.

So belief in the Great Carrot is the safest bet.

Bugs Bunny's Wager.

Eldarion Lathria
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I refuse to be a "vegetable" and follow this doctrine. :p
 
Learner said:
Eldarion Lathria said:
Either you believe in the Great Carrot or you do not
Either the Great Carrot is real or he is not.

If you believe in the Great Carrot, and he is real you get to spend all eternity in his Garden of Vitamins.
If you don't believe in the Great Carrot, and he is real, you spend all eternity being shredded for salad.
If you don't believe in the Great Carrot and he is not real, you gain nothing.
If you believe in the Great Carrot and he is not real you lose nothing.

Add to this we know CATEGORICALLY, that Hinduism, Christianity, Islam, Judaism and all the other isms are heathen superstitions invented by the Evil Weevil to lead good Carrotists astray and that no matter what they say, they REALLY worship the Evil Weevil. We know this for two reasons, 1: it says so in the Carrotistically Inspired Seed Catalog of the Great Carrot and 2: Leaders of those heathen superstitions have said so, most recently Billy Graham said so on Squaty Stoopfellers TV Show.

So belief in the Great Carrot is the safest bet.

Bugs Bunny's Wager.

Eldarion Lathria
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I refuse to be a "vegetable" and follow this doctrine. :p
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The point is that Pascal's wager assumes a Christian god or nothing. What if both are wrong, and the Great Carrot, or Mumbo Jumbo God of the Congo, or Brahma, Siva and Vishnu, is the Big Boss. That means both atheists and Christians have lost everything. And how do you Make yourself believe something

Eldarion Lathria
 
skepticalbip said:
Lion IRC said:
You say there is no no evidence.
A few billion of your fellow human beings say they have enough evidence.

Why don't you keep an open mind? Why do you say their experience of evidence is false?
Click to expand...

I see a few problems with this argument.

.. "A few billion of your fellow human beings" is invoking the logical fallacy of appeal to popularity or bandwagoning. Billions of people believing something doesn't make it true - billions of people believe in a mistaken idea about the nature of time.

.. Your use of the word, "evidence", indicates a confusion over what that word actually means. Present that evidence and if it is actually evidence rather than belief then you could convert a hell of a lot of people.

.. "Open mind" does not mean accepting anything presented as true. It means considering what is offered and then accepting or rejecting it for cause or simply remaining unconvinced.
Click to expand...

One would think, after all these years, that the religion would have a body of evidence cataloged and searchable and verifiable by now. If there was any evidence other than "personal experience" and " personal testimony". Granted that religionists appear to find "personal experience" to be infallible, so to them this may seem done. But nowhere else is personal experience considered infallible, so it is not, indeed, done.

Why do we say their "experience of evidence" is false? Same reason we said it about Stanley Pons. That is, "experience of evidence" is not reliable. It never has been. We don't know why you would think it was.
 
Also, you have to wonder, if a million people thought vaccines caused lycanthropy, would you think that was credible? Based only on the opinion and the number of adherents?
Or if 1 mil is insufficient, how about five million? Twenty?
Or if it was never more than half a million at any time, but someone thought that for a thousand years? Two thousand?

When does the total collected otherwise-baseless opinion of others shift from pop culture/fad to evidence, in your mind?
Or would you maybe ask for some sort of objective evidence?

Would you accept bullshit claims like, 'they're SPIRITUALLY eerehyenas, so you can only tell if you already believe in WereHyena Spirits?'
 
Eldarion Lathria said:
The point is that Pascal's wager assumes a Christian god or nothing.
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Yes the philosphy does seem likely, from this philosopher, mathematician , physicist and theologian.


What if both are wrong, and the Great Carrot, or Mumbo Jumbo God of the Congo, or Brahma, Siva and Vishnu, is the Big Boss. That means both atheists and Christians have lost everything. And how do you Make yourself believe something.
Eldarion Lathria
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I suppose you could make an argument here, in terms of "various beliefs and only one is right".

In context to Pascals wager , what if we adapted Pascals wager for each religion (for those believers) and ask : "would it be better to act out the belief of the Great Carrot , Mumbo Jumbo god or Siva and Vishnu ... just in case?"

Edit: Kudos.. you have done in post#20
 
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Learner said:
I suppose you could make an argument here, in terms of "various beliefs and only one is right".
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The problem, though, is not that only one can be right, it is that more than a few are actually mutually exclusive.
The Wager can suggest 'living a virtuous life' but is shite at identifying actual virtues.

Like, is wine a sacrament or a sin?
 
Lion IRC said:
DBT said:
Lion IRC said:
What Pascals Wager proposes is that you give God the benefit of the doubt because you have nothing to lose....which is a very OPEN-MINDED unbiased thing to do.
Click to expand...

Which still means that your fate hinges on an trivial factor, the ability to convince yourself to believe in something for which there is no evidence...which is neither fair, reasonable or unbiased.
Click to expand...

You say there is no no evidence.
A few billion of your fellow human beings say they have enough evidence.

Why don't you keep an open mind? Why do you say their experience of evidence is false?
Click to expand...

Saying or believing that you have evidence does not mean that you actually have evidence. Some folk assume that what it says in their holy book is evidence for the claims being made in these books.

Some folk assume that their personal subjective experience, their dreams and visions and interpretation of events is a example of evidence that supports their beliefs.

They are wrong because their definition of evidence is not valid...for obvious reasons.
 
Pascal's Wager is a desperate attempt to make something out of nothing, owing to the fact that no gods are to be found. Better we call it Pascal's Bluff.
 
Lots of people say they have enough evidence for Santa Claus.

Surely not all of them can be wrong. We'd better believe in Santa Claus too, just in case.
 
Keith&Co. said:
The problem, though, is not that only one can be right, it is that more than a few are actually mutually exclusive.
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The bible acknowledges other gods, not that its what you mean't , in which case its just another option to make an argument for.

The Wager can suggest 'living a virtuous life' but is shite at identifying actual virtues.

Like, is wine a sacrament or a sin?
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I suppose it depends. What if there was a person who's leading that virtuous life, who actually "enjoys" treating others compassionately?

- - - Updated - - -

DBT said:
Learner said:
I suppose you could make an argument here, in terms of "various beliefs and only one is right".
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All of them could be wrong.
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Argument option 3.
 
Learner said:
T.G.G. Moogly said:
Pascal's Wager is a desperate attempt to make something out of nothing, owing to the fact that no gods are to be found. Better we call it Pascal's Bluff.
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He does seem to find out things. ;) Lets not be too harsh , not forgetting his many contributions to science.

https://www.famousscientists.org/blaise-pascal/
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Pardon me for overlooking the argument from association.

A friend just got back from Israel and was telling me how he was right there standing on the shores of Galilee standing right there where the multitudes listened. So I told him how excited I was when I was five years old knowing that Santa was actually in my living room walking around leaving me presents.
 
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