MRM

Yes guessing - the Pensees is just a collection of assumptions and double standards.

Here is the part of the pensees that deals with other religions

http://www.ccel.org/ccel/pascal/pensees.x.html

some examples

First - where are his witnesses ? All he have are claims about witnesses.
Even if you see the bible as witness - witnesses can lie. How can you figure out that a witness is unthrustworthy ? Thats not always easy but you can look for contradictions the witness makes. And the bible has contradictions. Therefore the bible is at best an unreliable untrusthworthy witness.

Second - Pascal says other religions have no witnesses - but there is no sign that he carefully studied all those several 1000s other religions. No mention of norse, egypt, greek, etc mythology ...

And then those doublestandards ...

towards koran he says

So basicly he says that one contradiction is enough to disprove Koran - right ?

In this case the bible is disproven either !

http://www.evilbible.com/Biblical%20Contradictions.htm

So you should better look for an other religion, rhutchin.

The second uncertainty proves that you can not deal with the first one - thats the point you don't understand.




No - I don't throw smokescreens - you are the one.

What you don't want to see is that it is not possible to evade a theoretical and invisable threat when you don't have the slightest idea where it might be.

No rhutchin - no labels. Labels would indicate that it is possible to verify claims about what is behind those doors without opening them. And you can't ! Or can you show me an afterlife place with an telescope ? Or can we send a probe with cameras and microphones there ?

And even if you find labels - maybe some evil minded person them to mislead others.

And those religious folk is waiting before those doors ( not behind, behind those doors is death ) and just point at those doors they believe is the right one ( better afterlife ) - but even if there is a "better" door - it is maybe one of those no one is pointing at. You have to die before you find out what is behind the door you choose. All those religous folk is telling you about what is behind those doors is not their own experiance - because they are still alive. If anyone of them enter one door he become very very silent and can not tell you anymore whether he was right or not ....

rhutchin

Good. Your complaints are against Pascal’s reasoning. However, we can both agree that Pascal provided reasons for rejecting other religions.

I didn’t see any proof. Looked more like someone who extracted verses from their context to create the impression of a problem.

The first uncertainty deals with the issue of eternal torment. The person does not know whether eternal torment is real and wants to know what action to take in the face of that uncertainty. The Wager is concerned with this.

The second uncertainty deals with the action a person will take to escape eternal torment (which god or belief system to embrace). The Wager has nothing to do with this.

How does the second uncertainty prove that one cannot deal with the first? Can you explain what you mean by this?

OK. So, if a person does have some idea where the threat comes from and how to evade that threat, would you have a problem?

The Bible provides information on both the threat and how to evade it. Absent your ability to prove that the threat does not exist, would you have a problem with a person responding to the threat in the manner described in the Bible in order to escape the threat?

Labels do not verify the claim. They only describe what is known. Uncertainty still rules.

OK. Put that in the fine print for people to consider.

In a sense, yes. They stand there because it is obvious which door people will go through. However, you are trying to label the door as “death,” and that is not what we are talking about at this point. There is a later door labeled, “death,” and it is that door which Pascal argues defines the default choice for the person if no choice is made before death.

DMW

You are changing the analogy. The original analogy with the doors involved dying being represented by going through one of the doors. Even your changed analogy doesn't work. Suppose someone who is "unsure" has entered door 1 (in your new analogy) and finds me, you, and one person from each religion. What do you suppose is going on in that room? Well... they're all arguing over who really has escaped and who hasn't.

The "unsure" guy that just walked in is no more certain that he actually has escaped than he was before walking through the door... rendering your new analogy and the wager entirely useless.

DMW

knotted paragon

Ah yes, of course, if contradictions are found in your ancient account of myths and superstitions, then they are "extracted verses from their context to create the impression of a problem." But if contradictions are pointed out in anybody else's ancient account of myths and superstitions, then they are really contradictions! At least you are dependable in your special pleading rhutchin. If there are no contradictions, why do you continue to duck, dodge, and weave around Wayne Delia's example? You have failed again rhutchin. No, the bible does no such thing. If you wish to establish that the bible provides anything, to even have it considered as hearsay on a National Enquirer level, you would have to first address the six items I listed in message #1947. If you wanted to use the bible as actual evidence in support of your assertion that eternal torment is a valid threat, then you would also have to address the five items that Sauron detailed in message #1367. Since you have failed repeatedly to provide evidence of your assertions, eternal torment remains at worst the deluded rants of superstitious lunatics from long ago, and at best a translation blunder from those same deluded lunatics. The requirement to prove eternal torment remains firmly on the claimant, and since it is an extraordinary claim, special pleading your ancient account of myths and superstitions is nothing more than a continued exercise in futility and irrationality. Cease demanding that others prove your delusion is false if you cannot prove that the perils of the afterlife described in the Book of the Dead are false. The labels on the doors are nothing but guesses - since nothing has been established about any aspect of the afterlife. They most certainly do not describe what is known. If you choose to believe the rants or blunders of ancient authors, that's your choice, but your beliefs are irrational since they are still just guesses, regardless of how long ago they were recorded. I think Thomas Paine said it best: Your fear of the monster in your fable is irrational rhutchin. Over and over and over again - no claim made about the afterlife can be anything other than Wild Ass Guessing. It is certainly not obvious what door anybody might go through, except for those who are deluded and believe they are immunized against an imaginary damnation - a WAG from long ago. Death is the only door; the other doors are nothing more than chalk outlines on blank walls rhutchin.

rhutchin

Let’s start at the beginning. A person reads the Bible (or other religious document). He is unsure whether to believe what it says about eternal torment.

Pascal comes along and says, “Let me help you decide what to do.” Pascal then walks the man through the Wager. As they go through the methodology of the Wager, Pascal shows the person that he has two choices (the two doors): (1) seek to escape eternal torment (Door 1) and (2) do not seek to escape eternal torment (Door 2). [The original analogy was confused with respect to the Wager and is corrected here.]

The person chooses Door 1 and walks through. After he walks through he is confronted with many people telling him how to escape eternal torment. Ahead of him is another door (a door labeled “death”). He finds that he will be forced to go through that door and must make a decision before that time. Pascal offers the person his thoughts on this as listed in the Pensees (outside the Wager) to help the person make a decision.

You are half correct about the people behind Door 1. They are arguing but about who will escape eternal torment and not about who has escaped. The final outcome is determined when they walk through the door labeled “death.”

rhutchin

I don't follow this.

Let's start with an example. We have a lottery. The prize is $50. A person can pick a number between 1 and 100. If he selects the right number he gets the $50.

Following your methodology above, we do the following--

1/100 x $50.00 = $0.50

That number, $0.50, means something. What does it mean? It is not the actual reward because the person either gets $50.00 or he gets nothing. It must have to do with a person's expectations and whether he should invest in the lottery. In a large lottery where millions of numbers can be chosen and the likelihood of winning are essentially infinitesimal (but the reward is not infinite), the rational person should not participate.

Back to your example. Your ∞/∞ is trying to tell us something. What is it trying to tell us? What is unresolved? If this were a lottery and the reward is infinite and the chances of winning are infinitesimal, then what is your formula telling the person. Does the person participate in the lottery or not and why?

[An aside: How do you get the ∞ symbol to print? I copy and paste here. I use a Mac. What key combination gets ∞ to print?]

enemigo

see Dlx2's clarification of that post here:
http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.p...97#post3306897

Dlx2

Clearly.

Not entirely. It's the average reward considering all possible outcomes.

Right. You'll always on average lose money by gambling, because the house always makes an average profit. Thus, one should only enter a lottery if they're comfortable throwing that money away entirely.

It's telling us that Pascal's Wager, when the math properly models the philosophical proposition, cannot give an answer. Even if you believe that escaping eternal damnation is important, Pascal's Wager (when corrected) states that betting on the existence of any specific God is not even a rational decision to accomplish these ends.

I copy and paste from MS Word mostly. Sorry to disappoint.

DMW

Already, this isn't working. There are many religious texts that claim eternal torment is the fate of people who are not in that religion. How does the "unsure" guy even determine which "eternal torment" exists (and which ones don't), let alone if there is one, at all?

This makes even less sense. Suppose the man reads a bunch of religious books and concludes - because they contradict themselves and one another - that there is no "eternal torment." He obviously wouldn't seek to escape that which he doesn't think is there.

According to Pascal's wager, as I understand it, this is the wrong choice because if you're wrong, you lose everything. The problem is that those who seek the wrong path to escape "eternal torment" are just as damned as those who said it wasn't there... rendering the wager entirely useless.

Hence, a further reason to reject the wager. If the wager fails to address an issue that is more important than itself (yet is crucial to the wager), we have to address the issue first, before deciding whether or not the wager is even meaningful.

Well, the reason I put "has" is because many religions say you know immediately (fundamentalist Christianity is the first to come to mind). I suppose the others would fall under "will."

DMW

Johnny Skeptic

You have proven that logic and reason are not really what you are interested in, and that the sole basis for your belief in Christianity is emotional self-interest. Logic and reason reach the same conclusions based on the same quality of evidence regardless of what the evidence promises. On the other hand, emotional, illogical self-interest reaches different conclusions based upon the same quality of evidence depending upon what the evidence promises.

Exodus 4:11 says "And the Lord said unto him, Who hath made man's mouth? or who maketh the dumb, or deaf, or the seeing, or the blind? have not I the Lord?" Your suggestion that people love such a God is preposterous and outlandish.

Calvinism is patently absurd. If God chooses who will be saved, what people wager is meaningless. Hundreds of millions of people have died without ever having heard the Gospel message, so how in the world could they have made a wager?

You have mentioned that Jesus performed miracles, but your claim is not convincing. Today, millions of Christians disagree as to what constitutes a miracle healing. Why do you believe that it was any different back then?

What do you believe that the God of the Bible did for countless trillions of years before he created humans? If he exists, there has never been anything for him to learn or to consider because he knows everything. Since he obviously got along just fine without creating humans for countless trillions of years, why do you believe that he created humans? If he loves people, does he do so because he chooses to love them or because he does not have free will and can't help himself?