So, just what are we talking about?

[Occhidiangela]

For Pete.

When taken at face value and unadroned with deceit, the wager makes a measure of sense, but only if one posits gambling as the framework for decision making (which to a certain extent all risk based decisions are), one assumes one cares what happens in the eternity after your mortal life ends, and one makes the statement without "mental reservation or purpose of evasion."

b= belief g = god y =yes n = no
b/g

1. yy = good outcome: harps, coffee, guinness, no slow cooker

2. ny = bad outcome: no coffee, no guinness, yes slow cooker

3. nn= good (or good enough) outcome: proven correct, no coffee, no guinness, worms chow down, finis

4. yn= good outcome (or is it neutral outcome? Is eternal disappointment a bad outcome?) No coffee, No guinness, worms chow down, No Harps but felt good about the Faith?

We may be at a batting .500 position more than the batting .750 suggested.

If one is faking it, per your comment, the first outcome is negated, since the "Omniscient Almighty" knows the truth, and sends the liar, the faker, to the slow cooker. That takes one to at best batting .500, and at worst .250, based on the ambiguity of item 4.

Thus Pascal's god cares more for the form than the function -- he rewards believers and hypocrites alike. Interesting concept, a god who allows himself to be fooled and a heaven that can be entered by ass kissing.

Which is why Pascal's god is not Pascal's God. The faking it solution ignores the Omniscient, Omnipresent, and Omnipotent assumptions of the deity in question, and the premise of belief as a sincere act of volition. I don't recall if Pascal was around before or after the issues of Faith and Free Will were being kicked around, I think it was after. If one tries to hedge one's bets by breaking a Commandment . . . hmmmmmmm, methinks that dog don't hunt.


For Jester: If you believe and are wrong, wrong is wrong. The idea is that of "Is or Isn't" not what flavor.

If Allah = God, then I infer that both the Muslim and the Christian show up and eat yogurt together, in some fine setting, per CS Lewis' suggestion, and the second bit is a "y" even if it is loaded with sruprises in the afterlife.

*flash to an afterlife scene, where Francois and Achmed find one another wearing ethereala flip flops, blue jeans, and checkered shirts:*

"What, we now eat communion dates? Angels don't shave their armpits? We drink wine?"

[--Pete]

Hi,

When taken at face value and unadroned with deceit, the wager makes a measure of sense, but only if one posits gambling as the framework for decision making (which to a certain extent all risk based decisions are), one assumes one cares what happens in the eternity after your mortal life ends, and one makes the statement without "mental reservation or purpose of evasion."

All true, but there is a more fundamental assumption one must make. For the question "should I believe in god" to make sense, I must first assume I have a control over my beliefs. I must believe that I can *will* faith.

Pascal was a pretty bright guy. His Pensees indicate that he was probably well aware of the difference between going through the motions of Christianity and actually believing. And they also indicate that he has a pretty good appreciation of the difference between having faith and wanting to have faith.

If someone asks, "should I believe in God", then it is safe to assume that he doesn't. To reply "yes, you should" knowing that it is not in the questioner's power is pretty cynical.

In the words of Clay Jenkinson: "I can make you a hypocrite, but I can't make you a Lutheran"

--Pete

[Taem]

But also, correlation does not indicate causality.  "Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely".  When I look in the history books I see that most often when coalitions of humans wield power, they use it against their opposition minority.  This was also true in ancient Chinese, and Indian histories that predate western histories by thousands of years.  Sometimes the coalition is based on a common religion, but more often it is based on racial, geographic, or secular rule.  So, I think that persecution occurs in the enforcement of morality, or the enforcement of a philosophy, or the enforcement of unjust laws.  The common ground is the enforcement of "The Majority" beliefs upon the minority individual.

Tis true. I'm not arguing that most historical incidents occurred to oppress a minority or were using religion as a facade. I'm trying to point out that people who claim to be doing things “in the name of god” aren't always holy. This original thread was started on the premise of two friends bickering over The Passion of the Christ, and I thought to myself, how foolish is it that a movie made by a man, not god himself, causes people to fight over what is right and what is wrong with the movie. If they want truth to their own belief, they can pick up their own bibles, read them, and formulate their own thoughts on what happened, not argue over someone else’s viewpoint. I used the “science” and “historical reference” bit to point out that even if Mel Gibson claimed god himself handed him the script, it doesn’t make it holy if he couldn’t prove it because there are plenty of things done in gods name that aren’t holy.

[kandrathe]

I can accept that.

I was walking across a bridge one day, and I saw a man standing on the edge, about to jump off. So I ran over and said "Stop! don't do it!"
"Why shouldn't I?" he said.
I said, "Well, there's so much to live for!"
He said, "Like what?"
I said, "Well...are you religious or atheist?"
He said, "Religious."
I said, "Me too! Are you christian or buddhist?"
He said,"Christian."
I said, "Me too! Are you catholic or protestant?"
He said, "Protestant."
I said, "Me too! Are you episcopalian or baptist?"
He said, "Baptist!"
I said,"Wow! Me too! Are you baptist church of god or baptist church of the lord?"
He said, "Baptist church of god!"
I said, "Me too! Are you original baptist church of god, or are you reformed baptist church of god?"
He said,"Reformed Baptist church of god!"
I said, "Me too! Are you reformed baptist church of god, reformation of 1879, or reformed baptist church of god, reformation of 1915?"
He said, "Reformed baptist church of god, reformation of 1915!"
I said, "Die, heretic scum", and pushed him off.

Same problem with religious persons trying to discuss something like "The Passion of Christ", or most anything about which they have deeply held beliefs. :D

[Taem]

"I think that if I am wrong about this, then nothing will happen to me, but if I am right, then I am saved, so better safe than sorry."

That would be Pascal's Wager. Unfortunately, it is fallacious. What if Islam is correct, and you're pretty much going to hell, not for disbelief, but for wrong belief? Or Zoroastrianism? Or a God who resembles the christian god in all aspects, but has reversed the heaven/hell entrance requirements?

There's no evidence whatsoever that you're "better safe than sorry".

Jester

Yes, indeed you have a good point, however I came to what I feel is a solid structure for my beliefs (as I'm sure all people do). In the following text, I am in no way trying to discount what your saying and am not including the following list to seem in any way "superiour" in my religious studies; I want to make a point that all religions are, after all, man made based on what their conception is of god, and that I choose my path after doing the following:

1.) A religious studies class
2.) In-depth study/research on the standardized Christian Bible
3.) In-depth study on the fine points of Mormonism (had a friend that went to a Mormon church and talked to the pastor about what Mormons believed)
4.) In-depth study on the fine points of Jehovah’s Witness (had a friend that went to a Jehovah’s Witness church and talked to the pastor about what Jehovah’s Witnesses believed)
5.) Researched the fine and minute differences between the many different Christian religions starting with Catholicism, Baptist, first baptism, Prespeterian, Christian science, and Lucern.
6.) Attended a lecture on the differences between Islam, Muslim, and the Christian world
7.) Read the entire Buddhism philosophy, including Tibetan Book of Life and Death

After lots of different lectures, sermons, reading tons of material, books, pamphlets, and personal reflection, I came to a place in my life where I feel comfortable with my religious beliefs. It is my opinion that Christ is the correct path, although I'm not discounting other avenues, as all religions are, in essence, man made. Until any one religion can prove beyond the shadow of a doubt the existence of a god, then I take ALL religions with a grain of salt.

[Cryptic]

I would like to go on the record as saying that I will irrevocably convert to the first religion that provides a physical manifestation of a deity, any deity, that I can test with scientific instruments.

A face-to-face interview is preferred, but fingernail clippings and a Polaroid will suffice if necessary.
:P

[Jester]

And I'm perfectly fine with that. Please, read as much as you can. I've spent plenty of time wandering through holy text, and thoroughly enjoyed most of it. Your religion is your own business.

Pascal's Wager specifically, however, is no reasonable basis for picking christianity (or any other religion). That was my only point.

Jester

[LiquidDamage]

b= belief g = god y =yes  n = no
b/g

1.  yy = good outcome:  harps, coffee, guinness, no slow cooker

2.  ny = bad outcome:   no coffee, no guinness, yes slow cooker

3.  nn= good (or good enough) outcome: proven correct, no coffee, no guinness, worms chow down, finis

4.  yn= good outcome (or is it neutral outcome?  Is eternal disappointment a bad outcome?)  No coffee, No guinness, worms chow down, No Harps but felt good about the Faith?

Sorry, this is still a fallacy. From lemming's site:

From A Handbook of Logical Fallacies:
FALSE ALTERNATIVE
   Assuming that only one alternative exists in a given situation, when in
fact, other and usually more fundamental alternatives exist also. This is
frequently expressed by the question, "What other explanation could there
be?"

There are an extremely large number of possibilities that should also be accepted as possible truths, if you are going to accept any particular god as a possibility. The options are not "believe in God" and "don't believe in God", with truth possibilities being far more than "God exists" and "God doesn't exist".

Under the current existing religions, I don't believe there is a single one that says "believe in God and go to heaven". The most common version I have heard of Christianity requires that you believe that Jesus is God and your savior, and that he died for your sins. If this is true, then mere belief in God isn't going to get you into heaven. So, adherence to a particular religion's requirements for getting in to heaven should be what you replace "belief in god" with. If we do this, you aren't batting anywhere near .500. I don't think you need me to come up with a list of current religions, or the incompatible denominations in each, in order to show that there aren't only two options, or two results. There are a heck of a lot of possibilities and options, and our odds of meeting the right one aren't very good.

Furthermore, it is entirely possible (and I think very likely) that not one of the current religions is remotely correct, and "the truth" is something we may not even be able to comprehend.

For all I know, I might go to hell because God is a member of some powerful extra-dimensional race that makes universes for fun, and he really, really hates people that argue religion and politics on message boards. Hell may also consist of a planet entirely made of ice cream, because said race views being forced to eat ice cream as a horrible torture. Silly, yes, but I don't see it as any less silly than the options presented by any current religion regarding heaven, hell, and how to get in to each.

[Jester]

"For Jester: If you believe and are wrong, wrong is wrong. The idea is that of "Is or Isn't" not what flavor."

The problems with the Wager are even deeper than "the incorrects vastly outnumber the corrects".

We don't even know if there's only one correct answer, or three thousand, or whether the outer heavens are a many tiered place, as Dante envisioned. We don't know if belief is the required entrance pass, or if it can be entered at all. Maybe only one single geisha is getting into heaven. Perhaps only cats who aspire to write poetry will go to hell. Or maybe only three of them will, and hell is a cube filled with lemon custard.

We don't know anything about this topic. All we have is complete, shot-in-the-dark guesses. Feel free to make one, but I give predicitions or game theory models exactly no value in this context.

Jester

[Yrrek]

Lemming and Quark both summed up my thoughts very nicely. While being an atheist though, I have no problem with most people that have a religion, in fact I think it can be good, it *usually* brings out better qualities in people. It's when they start impressing their views onto me I get angry, I don't do it to anyone, they shouldn't do it to me. :blink:

[Professor Frink]

I would like to go on the record as saying that I will irrevocably convert to the first religion that provides a physical manifestation of a deity, any deity, that I can test with scientific instruments.

That's easy, let me introduce you to earth-worhsip, the monotheistic religion that holds the planet underneath you as the all-providing (if non-personal) God.

You should have no difficulty determining the existence of this religion's diety, and measuring it's various properties.

It does require regular payments to the missionary fund, when can I expect your check?

-- frink

[Cryptic]

:lol:

Well, the earth in itself is not a lifeform, so it's removed from the running - it doesn't fit the definition of being a god. The earth did not create the universe.

God: A being conceived as the perfect, omnipotent, omniscient originator and ruler of the universe, the principal object of faith and worship in monotheistic religions. The force, effect, or a manifestation or aspect of this being.

Also, I asked the earth it's name, and it didn't answer. I tried to check its heartbeat and only detected an iron core. It didn't have life in and of itself, but it had plenty of life on and inside it; it appears to be a habitat, not a creature or a god.

You can expect your check when my challenge is met and overcome.
:rolleyes:

Nice try, though! I like the world, the world is good to me.

[Freepaperclips]

Does anyone else find it amusing that in this of all conversations people get into the semantics and "Catholic definitions?"

For those who don't know: a "Catholic definition" is a term derived from the days when all the best schools were Catholic or otherwise religious institutions. Thus, those technical defintions they learned in school were"Catholic definitions."

[Freepaperclips]

experienced lots of persecution (I'm a goth)

In my experience, those who claim the title rarely deserve it. Then again, I'm a purist: if you don't know that the Punk style is based off Mad Max, you're not Punk. If you don't listen to Massive Attack you're not Goth. And if you can't sing Superfly you're hopeless (a joke, but at least try B) ).

[Freepaperclips]

It goes back further then that. It started in the 1880's by an old count (who's name escapes me, I'll look it up) that decided to make fun of peoples fears. Ironicly, it then spiraled out of his control when young people started to take it seriously. It then devolved into the smallish, cultish groups until revived as you mentioned near the middle of the century.

[Professor Frink]

God:  A being conceived as the perfect, omnipotent, omniscient originator and ruler of the universe, the principal object of faith and worship in monotheistic religions.

That's a pretty much just the Jewish/Christian definiton of God, but by no means the only one.

It's by no means a universal belief among those that believe in a God that He be perfect, omnipotent, omniscient, the creator of the universe, a "person", alive, knowable in any way, or communicative.

Many (most?) currently practiced religions have deities without some or any of those features. I don't know if anyone worships the Earth in particular, but the Sun has quite a few followers.

-- frink

[eppie]

I know that can be annoying, but if you are truely a believer you probably also want other people to know what you think is right. I' am an atheist and when I talk with christians about these things I also try to convince them God does not exist.
(I'm not walking up to people in the street to give them my opinion by the way :D )

Ussually when Jehova's witnesses cam to my door I spent talking with them for quite some time, till the point they had enough and left. I found it always really enjoyable to talk aboiut these things, and I did not blame them for ringing my bel.

[Occhidiangela]

I probably need to crack open my book on Pascal and sort it out, but:

If someone asks, "should I believe in God", then it is safe to assume that he doesn't. To reply "yes, you should" knowing that it is not in the questioner's power is pretty cynical.

I realize I am post Pascal, and many ideas have come along since his thoughts hit the foolscap, but "yes you should" strikes me as an answer that leaves in the power of the original questioner the option to "take that leap of Faith." However, the "yes you should" reply is, to me incomplete, since the reply needs more than a yes to take the person who has not yet adopted the belief to where the Faith becomes real versus erzatz. I think I read the cynicism as being "yes, because I said so and for not other reason, trust me" but I may have missed a subtler point.

[Occhidiangela]

You have a point, but you are ignoring context. Pascal's question is of course based on the unwritten assumption, that the God in question is the God known to the Christians. That frames the question, so no, I disagree with you, the question is NOT an open ended one.

Yes, the truth table is quite simplistic, and of course it ignores "what if there is a third thing" but given the bounds of the question, it makes sufficient sense. It can indeed, for the choice considered, be boiled down to a digital on/off case of existence or not existence.

Your assertion that about what the question is not is a red herring. You can apply paralysis via analysis to any question by adding to it.

[Occhidiangela]

Which is why it can go no further than being a gamble, a wager, to make such a decision in the first place. :) When making risk based decisions, you NEVER have perfect or whole information to go from, ask anyone who has ever tried to pick a stock or who has been in combat.