Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Devilnaut · 08-18-2002, 02:12 AM

Quote:

Icb:
excellent question.
i'll keep it very simple though. lets forget about pascal for a moment. Lets talk about "risk averse Lorenz" strategy: l.game player (GP) wants to play to win desirable things, but also wants to avoid the worse case scenario of the game.
2. lets play green light/red light God/no God: GP looks at the game board, Gp knows he doesnt have "perfect knowledge" of God/no God...but he does know that on the board "God" is represented by several possible analogs loosely grouped into "religions"..
3. GP studies the religions, he sees that most of the religions' worst case scenarios can be avoided by doing good works and refraining from abject evil (Hinduism, Islam,Budhism ,Deism,etc), but then he studies Christianity, Christianity requires accepting Jesus Christ as savior, to avoid the worse case scenario.
4. So Gp determines that he can manuever through the game board(life) and gain things he desires, while doing good works and refraining from abject evil and accepting Jesus Christ as savior, thus avoiding all the worst case scenarios with the possible exception of "outland" ones such as (RA, the Egyptian Sun God who requires sacrifice of an umblemished cat to get into Ra heaven and avoid RA hell..etc)....
5. with this strategy, GP has maximized his chances of getting desirable things, while minimizing his chances of getting the worse case scenario...within the level of knowledge he has of the game, and "amortizes" his risk of unknown consequences in that "set" of consequences only an entity with "perfect knowledge" could know.

I dunno, I tend to think that the chances of actually receiving a benefit in the situation you present wouldn't be worth all the trouble I'd have convincing myself to believe in something that I didn't actually think was true..

[ August 18, 2002: Message edited by: Devilnaut ]</p>

excreationist · 08-18-2002, 02:37 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by bd-from-kg:
<strong>...Now to make this test interesting, God has arranged things so that we have no evidence that there even is such a thing as life after death. Thus if you believe that there is, you have based a belief about something really important on irrational grounds, and God wants no part of you...</strong>

bd-from-kg, do you believe in life after death then?

Your profile says you are interested in Bible inerrancy....

phlebas · 08-18-2002, 08:23 AM

Pascal's Wager = express line to RRP

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08-18-2002, 08:23 AM	#23
phlebas Senior Member Join Date: Aug 2000 Location: Metropolis Posts: 916	Pascal's Wager = express line to RRP

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