John Page

I decline the wager - disavowing a form of monotheism leaves one more free to seek and better understand the nature of reality. (and if god is the "nature of reality" for some strange reason then I don't lose).

Cheers, John

Tercel

~snigger~
As a skeptical theist and someone who would say that I'm a theist *because* they are too skeptical to be an atheist and as someone who would highly values *consistency* of belief, I find his conclusion quite amusing:
Hence, a logically consistent skeptic should be either an atheist or, at most, an agnostic.

It's kind of ironic in that at the beginning of the article he actually spends some time expounding the brilliance of some of the more famous skeptical theists such as Pascal, Newton, Descartes, Copernicus and Galileo only to later accuse them of having inconsistent beliefs.

His main problem seems to be his faulty assumption (which he is inconsistent in the application of) that the status of Skeptic/Gullible is a fundamental one as opposed to derived. Probably no one understood that, so allow me to illustrate:
He envisages a situation where there are two people, a skeptic and a gullible. The skeptic says "I want to minimise type two errors" (ie never believe something true that is in fact false), the gullible says "I want to minimise type one errors" (ie never believe something false that is in fact true). Thus given a situation where the truth of something is uncertain, the skeptic disbelieves while the gullible believes. Hence pascal's wager (where we are being asked to make a decision given uncertainty) would not convince the skeptic.

His logic is accurate, insofar as I see no problems with the conclusion given his premises. However built into his premises is the implicit assumption that to be a skeptic or a gullible is what matters most to that person. He assumes they have ZERO conflict of interest. But that hardly reflects reality. In order to be sure of no conflict the decision that "I want to be a skeptic" must be the most fundamental premise that the person is making - or at least the most fundamental of the conflicting ones.
But obviously this is not the case. No one goes out and says "My ultimate goal in life is to be a skeptic!". The writer himself seems to recognise this when he discusses whether it is better to be a skeptic or a gullible. (No doubt he wants to feel superior to the "gullible theists" out there) He argues that it is better to be a skeptic because that reduces the overall likelihood of error. With which I would have to agree. But in doing so, he has granted that his ultimate goal is not "to be a skeptic" but rather something else - "to reduced the overall likelihood of error". His skepticism is hence derived, not fundamental.

And so the writer wants to be a skeptic because he sees it as probably reducing his overall likelihood of being in error, which (I presume) he wants to do because he thinks being in error is not something benificial for him. So really, the writers fundamental premise appears to be: "My ultimate goal in life is to do that which is most likely to be benificial!". Sound like the logic of Pascal's Wager anyone?

Thus, I conclude that the writer is himself INCONSISTENT in his beliefs as he seems to be getting confused as to which one is the more important. Yes, if one were a through and through skeptic presuppositionalist (presupposing that commiting type 2 errors is the worst thing that can ever be done), then one would reject Pascal's wager. But as soon as you try and rationally defend skepticism or say that skepticism is 'better' than gullibility, then it creates a conflict of interest between skepticism and the "do what's most likely to be benificial" premise it is being derived from, in which skepticism (as the less fundamental premise) cannot possibly win.

In a nutshell:

Person A:
1. "I never want to commit type two errors"

Person B:
1. "I want to do what's most likely to be most benificial".
2. "Most of the time, being skeptical will be more benificial".
3. "Hence lacking any exempting circumstances which suggest that being skeptical might not be benificial in the given circumstances, I will act skeptically".

Both person A and B are skeptics. Person A is the example person that the writer uses. In reality, Person A, does not exist - the writer, like me, is person B. The writer is forgetting that premise B3 must give way to B1 and hence, if acting consistently person B will NOT reject Pascal's Wager based on B3 since B1 overrides it / is the cause of the qualification on it. (Although of course they may still reject it on other grounds... wrong hell problem, other religions etc)

Have a nice day,
Tercel

[ October 10, 2002: Message edited by: Tercel ]</p>

galiel

~double snigger~

You either only skimmed the article in order to pull a few items to make it appear that you read it, or you are deliberately misrepresenting his argument. Either way you are wrong.

It is not Pigliucci's argument at all that given any uncertain outcome the skeptic disbelieves, nor does he offer that as a rationale for declining the Wager. In fact, he states quite clearly that, were the odds 50-50, a skeptic would be a fool not to accept the Wager and bet on a god. It is his argument that, just like the odds of winning the lottery, the odds of there existing a god are vanishingly small, and thus the smart bet is on disbelief--and the heart of the article is devoted to explaining precisely why that is so.

Read it again. And before you assert yourself so *emphatically* as a skeptical theist, therefore seeking to head off any challenge to your logic, explain your rather counter-intuitive claim that the *reason* you a theist is *because* you are too skeptical to be an atheist.

As for foolish *consistency* at the expense of following the evidence, I have a hobgoblin or two that would like to make your acquaintance.

John Page

Tercel:

I am skeptical of your argument.

It is not reasonable to say that B3 must be discarded by a consistent person, rather, one should correlate skepticism/belief against "beneficial" outcomes. Even so, where the benefit accrues from a "social" outcome (e.g. it is beneficial for me to believe 'cos the vicar will give me a good job reference) this is convention only and has nothing to do with reason per se.

Try reversing the wager to be in favor of disbelief = I think you'll find the conclusion remains subjectively based on what you believe might be beneficial.

CHeers, John

[ October 11, 2002: Message edited by: John Page ]</p>

Goliath

Tercel,

Since you are trying to defend Pascal's Wager, I must ask: Have you proven the lemma that I mentioned above?

Sincerely,

Goliath

K

By the way, using the same logic as the OP, you should alway play the lottery because there is a 50 percent chance of winning.

When you buy the ticket, there are two possible outcomes: the ticket is a winner or the ticket is a loser. One ticket, two possible outcomes = 50/50 odds.

xeren

I know this is a discussion, and not a contest, but...

You lose Seraphim. Didn't you read the guidelines that say not to post Pascal's wager for the umpteenth time? That is posted there because it is the most easily destroyed argument a Christian can bring up, and people are getting tired of it.

Kama

An atheist made seraphim mad.I blame that mentally unstable atheist



<a href="http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/theism/wager.html" target="_blank">http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/theism/wager.html</a>


ps:im a religious newbie, dont hit me

Tercel

I'm sorry you think that. I think the article presents two, quite separate complaints about PW. The first being the idea that it is analogous to a lottery with "vanishingly small" odds, to defend which he presents a couple of the oft-argued standard arguments and seems convinced they prove these vanishingly small odds. Well if he thinks that, fine, I disagree, but really have no interest in arguing these things for the umpteenth time. So I ignored that part and discussed his second argument that we should take the skeptical viewpoint because it is intrinsically better than the gullible viewpoint.

Tercel

Don't you get rather bored of saying the same thing every time PW is mentioned? I know I get bored of reading it.

Since the versions of PW that are shown problematic by your unproved-lemma correlate fairly well with the ones subject to the wrong-hell problem, I see no point in even attempting to prove your lemma (especially since I can't, of course) since it's redundant anyway. I'd personally be more interested in looking at a version of PW that isn't subject to those sort of objections... but last time I did that (with my argument that it was the better bet to believe in a continuation of existence after physical death) it didn't go down very well!