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Post by Deleted on Mar 20, 2018 23:29:59 GMT
What is your view on Pascal's wager?
If you believe in God and God does exist, you will be rewarded with eternal life in heaven: thus an infinite gain.
If you do not believe in God and God does exist, you will be condemned to remain in hell forever: thus an infinite loss.
If you believe in God and God does not exist, you will not be rewarded: thus an insignificant loss.
If you do not believe in God and God does not exist, you will not be rewarded, but you have lived your own life: thus an insignificant gain.
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Post by lowtacks86 on Mar 20, 2018 23:38:57 GMT
It's not a very good argument mainly because it gives an A vs B comparison, when considering the different religions/gods out there, it should be more like A vs B vs C vs D..., and it only becomes even more complicated when you consider the different sects within a religion (many Christians don't consider Catholics, Mormons, or JWs to be "true" Christians)
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Post by gadreel on Mar 20, 2018 23:52:29 GMT
even with the point made by lowstack aside, the general consensus of pascal's wager is that you should believe in God to get to the afterlife (assuming the argument works), but God would have to be pretty gullible for that to work, meaning he should be able to see into your heart and determine that you simply believe to hedge your bets.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 21, 2018 0:03:45 GMT
What is your view on Pascal's wager? If you believe in God and God does exist, you will be rewarded with eternal life in heaven: thus an infinite gain. If you do not believe in God and God does exist, you will be condemned to remain in hell forever: thus an infinite loss. If you believe in God and God does not exist, you will not be rewarded: thus an insignificant loss. If you do not believe in God and God does not exist, you will not be rewarded, but you have lived your own life: thus an insignificant gain. Of the many, many flaws in it, the simplest is this : How do you know that god sends non-believers to hell? It is a major presumption of the argument, and is, as far as I can see, entirely without support.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 21, 2018 0:06:54 GMT
Oh, I also enjoy the fact that you can make the same argument for believing in Santa. If you believe in Santa (and are a good boy/girl as a consequence) and he exists, presents. If you believe and he does not exist, nothing happens. If you don't believe (and are a bad boy/girl as a consequence) and he exists, you get a nasty lump of coal! But if you don't believe and he doesn't exist, nothing happens.
So clearly, one should believe in Santa and be a good boy or girl for him.
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Post by rizdek on Mar 21, 2018 0:11:14 GMT
What is your view on Pascal's wager? If you believe in God and God does exist, you will be rewarded with eternal life in heaven: thus an infinite gain. If you do not believe in God and God does exist, you will be condemned to remain in hell forever: thus an infinite loss. If you believe in God and God does not exist, you will not be rewarded: thus an insignificant loss. If you do not believe in God and God does not exist, you will not be rewarded, but you have lived your own life: thus an insignificant gain. The first premise isn't believed by many...that simply believing in God, in and of itself, will result in eternal reward. As others have pointed out, the vast majority of people in the world believe in some kind of God or gods, yet religions and sects all point fingers at the others claiming they're not gonna receive the reward because they believe in the wrong God or worship the right God in the wrong way. The second premise isn't at all convincing. WHY must we think that a God actually cares what we believe vs what we to/try to do with what we have. I could make a case that perhaps I, as a nonbeliever in any God, might be better off with a jealous God who might be more pissed at someone who "whores after false gods" than someone who simply isn't convinced there is a God.
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Post by dividavi on Mar 21, 2018 8:40:13 GMT
What is your view on Pascal's wager? The argument most probably predates Blaise Pascal by quite a bit and it's more in the nature of a baseless threat than a real argument. Actually that's not accurate. You have to believe in a particular view of God and accept Him totally. It's insufficient to merely say "There's a God" and go to Heaven. There's a New Testament passage that goes something like this: Even the demons believe there's a God. People can believe in God without accepting Jesus and those people go to Hell if standard Christian beliefs are true. So Muslims, Mormons, Jews and Hindus go to a painful afterlife. Of course it could be that the Muslim or Mormon religion is true. It could be that there is a God who judges folks and He really hates Christianity so much that he consigns believers to Hell. Anyway, eternal life in Heaven might be boring after a few Googolplex of years. It must get very depressing for some souls to know that their friends have been in eternal torment. But hey, maybe there are divine anti-depressants? That assumes that God is not only a total asshole but an asshole dedicated completely to the beliefs of a few denominations. It might be that God sends only non-believers to Heaven while He dispatches believers to the Hell that they wish on others. That sounds good but is it necessarily correct? If there is no God does that necessarily negate the existence of Heaven and Hell? That sounds good but is it necessarily correct? If there is no God does that necessarily negate the existence of Heaven and Hell?
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Post by phludowin on Mar 21, 2018 9:20:49 GMT
What is your view on Pascal's wager? If you believe in God and God does exist, you will be rewarded with eternal life in heaven: thus an infinite gain. If you do not believe in God and God does exist, you will be condemned to remain in hell forever: thus an infinite loss. If you believe in God and God does not exist, you will not be rewarded: thus an insignificant loss. If you do not believe in God and God does not exist, you will not be rewarded, but you have lived your own life: thus an insignificant gain. Of the many, many flaws in it, the simplest is this : How do you know that god sends non-believers to hell? It is a major presumption of the argument, and is, as far as I can see, entirely without support. There's an even simpler flaw: How do we know there is an afterlife at all? Today we know there isn't, even if some people refuse to accept the evidence. Those people are vulnerable to fall prey to religion.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 21, 2018 11:43:12 GMT
Of the many, many flaws in it, the simplest is this : How do you know that god sends non-believers to hell? It is a major presumption of the argument, and is, as far as I can see, entirely without support. Today we know there isn't, even if some people refuse to accept the evidence. Those people are vulnerable to fall prey to religion. No we don`t know that. There are no evidence either way. Most likley there is not but to say that we know is a well frankly its a lie because we don`t know.
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Post by Eva Yojimbo on Mar 21, 2018 13:56:46 GMT
The way you definitively defeat this argument is to posit a deity that rewards non-belief. Say this deity values rational thinking and that, due to the lack of evidence for its existence, will only reward the people that DON'T believe in it and punish all those that irrationally believe in (other) god(s). Suddenly, you're left with no good reason to believe in any god since this "Rational God" is just as likely to exist as any other god(s) that's ever been proposed.
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Post by CoolJGS☺ on Mar 21, 2018 14:03:18 GMT
I think there is too much weight placed on it.
It's not that big of a deal nor should it be used as some kind of universal truth.
It's simply something an individual works through their own minds and especially if they are paranoid.
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Post by captainbryce on Mar 21, 2018 14:13:23 GMT
What is your view on Pascal's wager? If you believe in God and God does exist, you will be rewarded with eternal life in heaven: thus an infinite gain. If you do not believe in God and God does exist, you will be condemned to remain in hell forever: thus an infinite loss. If you believe in God and God does not exist, you will not be rewarded: thus an insignificant loss. If you do not believe in God and God does not exist, you will not be rewarded, but you have lived your own life: thus an insignificant gain. I think that even IF we accepted the validity of the premise at face value (which I don’t as it has numerous, obvious flaws) what is or isn’t “significant” is ultimately subjective. So the concept is based on a subjective determination about what qualifies as an insignificant gain or loss.
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Post by koskiewicz on Mar 21, 2018 15:52:24 GMT
...what, exactly, was Pascal's definition of God?
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Post by phludowin on Mar 21, 2018 18:15:37 GMT
Today we know there isn't, even if some people refuse to accept the evidence. Those people are vulnerable to fall prey to religion. No we don`t know that. There are no evidence either way. Most likley there is not but to say that we know is a well frankly its a lie because we don`t know. Thanks for proving my point. de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libet-Experiment
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Post by Deleted on Mar 21, 2018 18:25:25 GMT
No we don`t know that. There are no evidence either way. Most likley there is not but to say that we know is a well frankly its a lie because we don`t know. Thanks for proving my point. de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libet-ExperimentI don't believe in an afterlife but i am sorry to break this to you. The Libet Experiment does not prove anyhting about it being an after life or not.
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Post by phludowin on Mar 21, 2018 19:40:22 GMT
I don't believe in an afterlife but i am sorry to break this to you. The Libet Experiment does not prove anyhting about it being an after life or not. It's good enough evidence for me. If you, or anyone else, has more convincing evidence in favor of an afterlife, feel free to share it. I'm not holding my breath, of course. In all those years afterlife has been discussed on IMDb or here, no one provided convincing evidence. A 23 minutes hallucination is less convincing than a scientific experiment.
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Post by general313 on Mar 21, 2018 21:44:18 GMT
Of the many, many flaws in it, the simplest is this : How do you know that god sends non-believers to hell? It is a major presumption of the argument, and is, as far as I can see, entirely without support. There's an even simpler flaw: How do we know there is an afterlife at all? Today we know there isn't, even if some people refuse to accept the evidence. Those people are vulnerable to fall prey to religion. Although I agree that there's no evidence for an afterlife, I don't agree that it's been proven that there is none. Proving a negative is basically impossible: Evidence of absence
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Post by phludowin on Mar 21, 2018 22:35:40 GMT
There's an even simpler flaw: How do we know there is an afterlife at all? Today we know there isn't, even if some people refuse to accept the evidence. Those people are vulnerable to fall prey to religion. Although I agree that there's no evidence for an afterlife, I don't agree that it's been proven that there is none. Proving a negative is basically impossible: Evidence of absenceI believe in Occam's Razor, so absence of evidence is evidence of absence. But in this case the evidence against afterlife exists. It's indirect evidence. You don't have to prove that there is no afterlife; you just have to prove that body and "soul" are a unit, and that there is no dualism. Libet proved that. Meaning: When the body dies, so does the "soul".
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Post by dividavi on Mar 21, 2018 22:50:32 GMT
...what, exactly, was Pascal's definition of God? The Christian Catholic deity, nobody else
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Post by general313 on Mar 22, 2018 0:21:36 GMT
Although I agree that there's no evidence for an afterlife, I don't agree that it's been proven that there is none. Proving a negative is basically impossible: Evidence of absenceI believe in Occam's Razor, so absence of evidence is evidence of absence. But in this case the evidence against afterlife exists. It's indirect evidence. You don't have to prove that there is no afterlife; you just have to prove that body and "soul" are a unit, and that there is no dualism. Libet proved that. Meaning: When the body dies, so does the "soul". Occam's Razor is useful and quite valuable as a guiding principle, but it should not be confused with actual evidence. Occam's Razor is useful in choosing between two competing theories with equal support from experimental evidence (where the preferred one is whichever is simplest). I often see people referring to Occam's Razor as though it is on an equal footing with evidence, and it certainly is not; it is clearly weaker, and by itself is insufficient for the purposes of science. I firmly believe that body and "soul" are a unit, and it may be that Libet made a demonstration that that is the case. But even if he proved a monist model of body and soul, it doesn't necessarily follow that there is no afterlife. To shed more light on that would require a better understanding of what consciousness is and the "binding problem" - why is my consciousness bound to me and not someone else? If I got duplicated in a Transporter Room-like contraption, which copy of me is me? If in the future someone with advanced technology were able to perfectly recreate my brain and have it functioning, including all the details of my synaptic weights that encode my memories, would I then regain consciousness as myself? We can theorize about what is likely the case, but at this point it is speculation, not anything proven by science.
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