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Pascal's Wager - 9/28/2009 9:14:02 PM   
Elipsis


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Elipsis
quote:

ORIGINAL: NihilusZero
quote:

ORIGINAL: Elipsis

Hmm... now can we make a thread about Pascal's wager and how ridiculous it is?  You got me thinking about it again...

It's fun to see the degree to which someone thinks it's credible since it usually demonstrates how seemingly inversely proportional it is to the person's awareness that plenty of deities have existed (and do still exist), even long prior to their personal one.

Interesting.  While I have a few criticisms of Pascal's wager... that's not one that I've ever thought of.  (I've used it as a criticism of religion in general... but since Pascal's wager is a [heavily distorted] attempt to use mathematical theory... throwing in the existence of the possibility of multiple gods that aren't yours definitely fucks up the numbers game in an interesting way.)

I think rather than derail this thread on the topic any further I'll make a thread about it over in Politics and Religion tomorrow.  I see your fondness for atheism so you'll be getting a cordial invitation.



Ohhh I told you I'd do it.

Alright guys, lets discuss Pascal's Wager.  Personally I find it flatly ridiculous.  Even if I was a Christian of some sort I would find it ridiculous.  We've already got NihilusZero's case against it and I'm going to pile on in this thread.


Even if Pascal's Wager was mathematically sound, which it isn't for both NihilusZero's reason and one of my own that I haven't even touched yet, how exactly is one supposed to cause themself to believe something that they don't believe based on mathing it out.

It's like trying to fake out God by attempting to substitute math and logic for genuine sentiment.  Lets say you are a hard atheist who knows that god does not exist and you come across Pascal's Wager and say to yourself "Wow... well this shows that statistically speaking I should believe in God!"  Now what?  How exactly do you bring yourself to believe something that you really don't believe because it's the "safe bet"?  Wouldn't any god who is worth his salt think that this is bullshit?  I mean, being a diety wouldn't he easily discern that you don't really believe in him... you're just hedging your bets cause you found this cool probability theory?  How would you believe this?



The same theory would apply if I offered you $1,000,000 but only if you believe that Lake Erie is made of ketchup and your belief turns out to be correct.  You have nothing to lose and everything to gain on this bet, but here's the catch.  You actually have to believe that Lake Erie is made of ketchup.  You can't just walk around telling people that you believe it.  You can't simply make long arguments on Internet forums arguing all the reasons that Lake Erie might be made of ketchup.  I will only give you the money if you sincerely believe that the liquid in Lake Erie is chemically indistinguishable from bottled ketchup.  How will I know?  I can see into your fucking soul.

Based on Elipsis's wager you should of course adopt this belief.  Try to imagine what that thought process would be like.
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RE: Pascal's Wager - 9/28/2009 9:40:36 PM   
Termyn8or


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Status: offline 		To believe "Justin Case" it is true ? That is an affront to my sensibilities, the epitome of cowardess, the shining beacon of capitulism. I will not nor will I ever do something like that. To me it is like selling out. Ratting out your buddies, screwing people over. It is just as bad. That is my opinion.

T

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RE: Pascal's Wager - 9/28/2009 10:51:21 PM   
DomKen


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Status: offline 		The best way to tear down Pascal's Wager is to approach it mathematically.

First we define the Wager: is faith in the Christian deity a better choice than not worshipping the christian deity.

Pascal tried to limit it to an either or proposition. That is either there is a christian deity and it cares very much about your personal faith in him or there are no supernatural entities at all. Which makes the wager true. However in reality there are more than 2 cases to be dealt with

To define the possible cases gets fairly complicated but here goes:
1) No supernatural entities
2) Supernatural entities that don't reward or punish worshippers or non worshippers.
3) Non Christian deities that reward worship but do not punish non worship*.
4) Non Christian deities that do not reward worship but do punish non worship.
5) Non Christian deities that do reward worship and do punish non worship.
6) The Christian deity.

only case 6 is really a win for the Wager and cases 1, 2 and 3 are at best draws for the Wager. Cases 4 and 5 are the spots where the Wager really collapses though.The potential number of such deities is infinite.

Therefore worshipping the Christian deity is a bad idea by the logic of the Wager.

*it is possible to further break down punish entities that do not punish non worshippers into those that punish those who worship rival deities but not those who worship non rival entities. which adds even more complications to the whole thing but doesn't change the result.

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RE: Pascal's Wager - 9/28/2009 11:29:51 PM   
Elipsis


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quote:

ORIGINAL: DomKen

To define the possible cases gets fairly complicated but here goes:
1) No supernatural entities
2) Supernatural entities that don't reward or punish worshippers or non worshippers.
3) Non Christian deities that reward worship but do not punish non worship*.
4) Non Christian deities that do not reward worship but do punish non worship.
5) Non Christian deities that do reward worship and do punish non worship.
6) The Christian deity.

only case 6 is really a win for the Wager and cases 1, 2 and 3 are at best draws for the Wager. Cases 4 and 5 are the spots where the Wager really collapses though.The potential number of such deities is infinite.


Interesting, I like this a lot.

The way I was thinking about multiple deities fucking up the math wasn't so categorical.  More like you must make a single choice between one of many competing dogmas / sub-sects and possibly be punished severely if you are incorrect.

1) Non-belief
a.) Atheism
b.) Agnostisism (hard)
c.) Agnostisism (soft)
2) The Christian God
a.) The Roman Catholic God
b.) Lutheran God
c.) Evangelical Christian God
d.) etc...
3) The Jewish God
a.) Orthodox Jew
b.) Jews for Jesus!
c.) Zionist Jew
d.) etc...
4) The Muslim God
a.) Wahabism
b.) oh screw it I don't know enough Islamic faith to list a bunch of these but you get my point...
5.) Hinduism
6.) Pagan
7.) Jedi, apparently is now recognized... etc... etc...

But yes, I think these many religious beliefs can be sorted into your 6 categories and how they would supposedly handle Christian worship so I do quite like the way you did it.

< Message edited by Elipsis -- 9/28/2009 11:31:03 PM >

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RE: Pascal's Wager - 9/28/2009 11:54:00 PM   
HatesParisHilton


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Status: offline 		the problem here is the flaw in the listing and the pseudo-meta-data aspect of the lists themselves and faulty categorization.

I mean, it's got "Pagan" there, right above.

and you have wankfucks like Joseph Campbell talking out of his ASS with Heroe's Journey this and Many Faced Gidget (sorry; "Goddess") that, and EVERY pantheon Jo prattled about in some way served as a shill to his own addiction to linear development.  A Road with a beginning, middle and End.

Problem is, Mr. Campbell was a hypocritical doofus sice he only cameto these "realizations" after falling in love with Indian culture, and some Indian non-Christian culture DEFIES linear time RE personal development, and guess what?

So does non-anglicized GAELIC pre-Christian belief systems, exemplified in the Tain Bo Cuailgne (it's Gaelic; ignore the spelling) which not only believed in NON LINEAR development of a soul, but also had a completely different sense of  "worth" for an individual (and/or their soul) as compared to any Vedic, Norse, Gnostic, Pre Christian Greek or even Native American belief system.

So, re Pascal?  tell me how his "wager" translates to a metaphysical game of Blackjack when you need to read the numbers on the cards to play the hand but guess what, upon sitting down to play, the opening wager demands you become DYSLEXIC and can no longer trust what way the numbers run or what in fact they even MEAN.

See, when you can play with THAT aspect of metaphysics instead of some hack-ass limp-dick Carlos Castaneda bullshit?

THEN we gots ourselves a THREAD.

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RE: Pascal's Wager - 9/29/2009 12:04:13 AM   
DomKen


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Elipsis
But yes, I think these many religious beliefs can be sorted into your 6 categories and how they would supposedly handle Christian worship so I do quite like the way you did it.

It's a set theory approach to the problem. There are an infinite number of possible supernatural entities so enumerating them simply won't work.

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RE: Pascal's Wager - 9/29/2009 12:33:03 AM   
HatesParisHilton


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Status: offline 		again, this assumes everyone's definition of "supernatural" is the same.

if one of the kids is using "Creative Math" (which is bullshit) then there's no actual agreement on the basis of the structure of the elements that form the "deities" being used in the "Wager".

as usual, it's "Children of Abraham"-centric and thus shite.

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RE: Pascal's Wager - 9/29/2009 3:56:28 AM   
SL4V3M4YB3


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Elipsis
Even if Pascal's Wager was mathematically sound, which it isn't for both NihilusZero's reason and one of my own that I haven't even touched yet, how exactly is one supposed to cause themself to believe something that they don't believe based on mathing it out.

You are correct Pascal's wager has nothing to do with proving a god exists or not (or aiding belief), it is just a way of (incorrectly IMO) saying that by following this belief you have nothing to lose. You'll find atheists always throw it into a discussion to give the perception of more weight to their argument regarding why people falsely believe in a god. Pascal’s wager has nothing to do with mathematics because belief in something can't be quantified mathematically from 1-9 (what is true belief or convenient belief: only a god would know and be able to measure). People should remember that although Pascal was a brilliant mathematician he was obviously also a lousy philosopher because anyone in philosophy knows that philosophy isn't about answering proposed questions in a finite way using mathematics, it is about exploring explanations based on the human experience and imagination.
Could you imagine the following question being answered in this way?

Q) Does a tree make a sound when it falls in the woods but nobody is around to hear it

Ans) Yes. Energy can’t be destroyed or created and as demonstrated in other tree collisions (where only sound recording equipment was present) some energy is always converted into sound energy.

Obviously the concept of Pascal's wager is flawed thinking because if you know nothing about god then you know nothing as to if following a certain belief in god would benefit you. Perhaps a god would prefer you spent your life not concerned with the creator at all but used life to discover what you are rather than what god wanted you to be. Freewill exists for a reason I presume not just for a god to dictate what to believe in? If I had created someone with three arms I’d be very disappointed in them if they only used two all their life. God may also be a bit disappointed in you if you spent your entire life following a certain established religious belief set rather than using the gift of imagination

Now however we would be getting into this 'god of special pleading' not the specific one atheists say they oppose i.e. god defined as wanting to be worshiped. It is all kind of circular nonsense, a way of posing the question 'ask me how many sides does a square have' to ensure they can be right about something. This is why we had that whole define god thread. i.e. you give your arguments about one thing and I'll refute that based on the limitation of language and what god is defined as in a dictionary because I have no imagination to bring to the table only specific established ideas.



< Message edited by SL4V3M4YB3 -- 9/29/2009 4:09:29 AM >

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RE: Pascal's Wager - 9/29/2009 8:58:09 AM   
DomKen


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Status: offline 		Actually Pascal's Wager and the thought process that underlies it is probably the most common argument used by Christians in any discussion of belief v. unbelief. As an atheist I never bring it up except when a Christian has tried to use it as an argument in favor of faith in their deity.

< Message edited by DomKen -- 9/29/2009 8:59:34 AM >

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RE: Pascal's Wager - 9/29/2009 4:36:02 PM   
Elipsis


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Status: offline 		Decided to look up some other common criticisms, and one that I didn't really see in table format was the gain and loss from the perspective of a hard atheist who (from their perspective) discounts the possibility of god entirely.  From that perspective, they don't "have nothing to gain or lose either way."

Believe in god = -1
Do not believe in god = +1

It would be drawn as a table with only one column.  The reason for the gain and loss is best summed up in this quote from Richard Dawkins:

quote:


"...it could be said that you will lead a better, fuller life if you bet on his not existing, than if you bet on his existing and therefore squander your precious time on worshipping him, sacrificing to him, fighting and dying for him, etc..."


As such with a disbelief in infinity, a person with exactly one lifetime has everything to lose dying for their god.



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RE: Pascal's Wager - 9/29/2009 8:38:41 PM   
HatesParisHilton


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Status: offline 		and as I said, Pre Christian Gaelics didn't believe in one lifetime, NOR one singular Afterlife,

in fact, UNLIKE most other religions, did not even believe that any Immortal of any kind even had a MORAL MANDATE.

the Wager is similar to other "games" that assume everyone playing has been brought up in "A", "B" or "C" scenarios.

completely ignoric Cyrrilic characters or cultural-mixed-with-spiritual-precepts founded on a pictographic base.

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RE: Pascal's Wager - 9/29/2009 8:57:43 PM   
Musicmystery


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quote:

You actually have to believe that Lake Erie is made of ketchup. 


I believe Lake Erie would be cleaner and healthier if it were made of ketchup. Does that count?

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RE: Pascal's Wager - 9/29/2009 11:54:15 PM   
GotSteel


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Status: offline 		The other flaw in it is that it asserts that there aren't negative consequences for believing in god. A position which isn't neccassarly true:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/aug/02/us-daughter-pray-death
"A man in the US accused of killing his 11-year-old diabetic daughter by praying instead of seeking medical care has been found guilty of second-degree reckless homicide."

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RE: Pascal's Wager - 9/30/2009 3:27:30 AM   
SL4V3M4YB3


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quote:

ORIGINAL: DomKen
Actually Pascal's Wager and the thought process that underlies it is probably the most common argument used by Christians in any discussion of belief v. unbelief. As an atheist I never bring it up except when a Christian has tried to use it as an argument in favor of faith in their deity.

I've only typically had the experience of atheists use it as an argument as to what is wrong with me being agnostic. i.e. that I am just hedging my bets.

Although I can recognise that what you say about it is also true.

< Message edited by SL4V3M4YB3 -- 9/30/2009 3:32:51 AM >

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RE: Pascal's Wager - 9/30/2009 3:58:41 AM   
RCdc


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Status: offline 		Pascals wager is usually thrown out by both sides to anyone who they think remotely fits the criteria.
Anyway, it simply doesn't hold up from a christian standpoint.  I have never understood it as causing someone to believe, but simply playing it safe.  You don't play it safe in christianity and win the jackpot, in fact I don't know any belief where you do.

quote:

I believe Lake Erie would be cleaner and healthier if it were made of ketchup. Does that count?


I thought everyone knew that it would best if it were custard.  You can walk on custard.  Maybe that is what Jesus was thinking at the time...
See how faith works?

the.dark.

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RE: Pascal's Wager - 9/30/2009 8:49:51 AM   
Rule


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Elipsis
The same theory would apply if I offered you $1,000,000 but only if you believe that Lake Erie is made of ketchup and your belief turns out to be correct.

I note that you do not offer the money, that you do not specify what constitutes ketchup, and that in my opinion it is impossible to empty Lake Erie of all water and pour a couple of drops of ketchup on the dry lake bed instead.

That being said, I know that there are people / incarnate gods who do not know what a lie is. Such a person can convince himself to believe that Lake Erie is indeed made of ketchup: it is true; anything that he believes is true, for he does not know what a lie is.

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RE: Pascal's Wager - 9/30/2009 9:55:15 AM   
NihilusZero


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quote:

ORIGINAL: HatesParisHilton

the Wager is similar to other "games" that assume everyone playing has been brought up in "A", "B" or "C" scenarios.

Not at all. The wager functions under variables of any kind with the only fixed element would be the dogmatic devotion to one concept in an attempt to avoid negative metaphysical consequences.

The "scenarios" begin with the theistic individuals who construct the parameters of their god.


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RE: Pascal's Wager - 9/30/2009 9:09:03 PM   
HatesParisHilton


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Status: offline 		"Not at all. The wager functions under variables of any kind with the only fixed element would be the dogmatic devotion to one concept in an attempt to avoid negative metaphysical consequences. "

uh, duh.

that's the problem and the conceptual BUBBLE I'm talking about.

Pre Christian Gaelic does NOT have that, in fact in many of the "canons" of that religion (which the Papacy ITSELF stated was one of the HARDEST to extirpate, and in fact said "Ireland has never been properly or thoroughly converted"), DEMAND that if a GOD fucks up, the MORTAL has the right to punich or even KILL the god in question.  and should be REWARDED for so.

The wager does not count unless religions like this are included, such a religion NEGATES the very idea that such dogma is even VALID.  A major character in said religion is still in the window of the National Post in Ireland, btw.



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