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Reverse Pascal's Wager
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Post by
Squishalot
I don't know what you think I'm thinking, Hyper, but I'm taking your 'benevolent god' to be one who sends believers to heaven and non-believers to hell. Was I mistaken?
My point to you is that 'not 1' has several different results that should impact your probability / decision analysis.
Post by
Deepthought
Having the disposition to do good.people still go to hell.Correct me if I'm wrong here, but when you're sent to hell, you're there for eternity, yes?
No idea what air quotes are.When you make quotes in the air with your fingers to represent that it's not your words. Usually used when you don't agree with something.When you started using benevolence differently than me? I'm not really sure why that what cause you to do that, but ok.Is my train of thought really that hard to follow.Obviously yes.
You claim that a benevolent God send everyone to "heaven."As in, a reward, a substitute for "+infinite". I didn't mean to specify a religion.
Post by
Hyperspacerebel
I don't know what you think I'm thinking, Hyper, but I'm taking your 'benevolent god' to be one who sends believers to heaven and non-believers to hell. Was I mistaken?
No you have it right, it's Deep who was taking that to mean sending everyone to heaven.
Well, you're right if by non-believer you mean someone who
chooses
not to believe.
Post by
Hyperspacerebel
Correct me if I'm wrong here, but when you're sent to hell, you're there for eternity, yes?
Hell is a state of soul achieved by
man's
actions, not God's. The disbeliever (I prefer that to Squish's
unbeliever
) has free choice to accept and follow God. God respects that and will not force the man to accept him. You so seem so adamant to not talk about Christianity, but then want me to spell it all out...not sure what you want.
When you make quotes in the air with your fingers to represent that it's not your words. Usually used when you don't agree with something.
I call those finger quotes, but whatever.
You claim that a benevolent God send everyone to "heaven."As in, a reward, a substitute for "+infinite". I didn't mean to specify a religion.
Which is why I used scare quotes again. Are you not familiar with their use?
Post by
Squishalot
I don't know what you think I'm thinking, Hyper, but I'm taking your 'benevolent god' to be one who sends believers to heaven and non-believers to hell. Was I mistaken?
No you have it right, it's Deep who was taking that to mean sending everyone to heaven.
Well, you're right if by non-believer you mean someone who
chooses
not to believe.
Then my point still stands. Your benevolent god, as a probability with payoffs in the decision matrix, is offset perfectly by the probability of a Dawkins god, which rewards people who choose not to believe and punishes believers.
Post by
Deepthought
You so seem so adamant to not talk about Christianity,It has nothing to do with any specific "God."
Post by
Hyperspacerebel
I don't know what you think I'm thinking, Hyper, but I'm taking your 'benevolent god' to be one who sends believers to heaven and non-believers to hell. Was I mistaken?
No you have it right, it's Deep who was taking that to mean sending everyone to heaven.
Well, you're right if by non-believer you mean someone who
chooses
not to believe.
Then my point still stands. Your benevolent god, as a probability with payoffs in the decision matrix, is offset perfectly by the probability of a Dawkins god, which rewards people who choose not to believe and punishes believers.
Does the Dawkins God fall under the category of "not benevolent" or not? I mean it's pretty obvious that he does, which means that he's already factored in.
I wish I could do a chart here, but it's so hard to format...
. exists doesn't exist
Believe +infinite unknown
Disbelieve -infinite unknown
So, the better wager is to believe.
We can set up a Dawkins God if you want:
. exists doesn't exist
Believe -infinite unknown
Disbelieve +infinite unknown
So it is the better wager to disbelieve the Dawkins God.
Post by
Hyperspacerebel
You so seem so adamant to not talk about Christianity,It has nothing to do with any specific "God."
ok?
I'm not the one asking about hell.
Post by
Deepthought
ok?
I'm not the one asking about hell.I'm not the one that brought hell and Christianity up, and you know it.
Post by
TheMediator
I'd rather not argue religious opinion, let's just stick to the wager.
If we look at the wager from perspective of HSR's God-
_______________________HSR God exists_______HSR God doesn't exist
Belief in HSR God A B
No belief in HSR God C D
We can assign +infinity to A, and either 0 or -infinity depending on how you feel about non-believers to C, but that leaves B and D unknown. It is impossible to know what to do in this situation. The wager is entirely useless to us in this context.
However, if we are able to negate all the Gods who reward something with all the Gods who reward with the opposite behavior, we are left with only Gods who reward you or punish you regardless of your conduct. Considering that, our actions are meaningless in terms of divine rewards and the only thing to wager on is our own happiness if no God were to exist at all.
Post by
Hyperspacerebel
Little chart for you, Squish, just to make sure you see it:
. exists doesn't exist
Believe +infinite unknown
Disbelieve -infinite unknown
So, the better wager is to believe in the benevolent (just) God.
We can set up a Dawkins God if you want:
. exists doesn't exist
Believe -infinite unknown
Disbelieve +infinite unknown
So it is the better wager to disbelieve the Dawkins God.
Edit: And just for good measure, we can throw in two more.
God who sends everyone to heaven:
. exists doesn't exist
Believe +infinite unknown
Disbelieve +infinite unknown
So both wagers are equal.
God who sends everyone to hell:
. exists doesn't exist
Believe -infinite unknown
Disbelieve -infinite unknown
So both wagers are equal.
Anyways, with these beautiful pieces of textual engineering done, I have to go.
Post by
Squishalot
That assumes that there are only two possibilities - 'X god exists, or X god doesn't exist'. That's a simplistic view of the universe. In reality, I'm trying to suggest that we can try to expand the chart, so that we have:
. 'Just' exists Dawkins exists Malevolent exists Omni-benevolent exists Nothing exists
Believe +infinite -infinite -infinite +infinite unknown
Disbelieve -infinite +infinite -infinite +infinite unknown
It would be illogical to take the 4 decision matrices you've presented and have them work independently of each other. By definition, if the 'Just' god exists, the Dawkins god does not exist (if we make the assumption that there is only one god that determines your fate). So to have two separate matrices examining each case is flawed from a probabilistic point of view.
Post by
204878
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Squishalot
There are an infinite number of possibilities for any deities that may exist, and in any scenario you can name there will be at least one possible deity that would punish that behaviour and one who would reward it.
Indeed, which represents the true problem with Pascal's wager.
But certainly, Mediator's approach is flawed, because it relies on assumptions limiting the possibilities.
Post by
MyTie
@OP
Why does the lack of God's existance mean we should lead good lives? Why? What reasoning led you to that conclusion?
Why does the existance of God mean that everyone gets into paradise? Why? What reasoning led you to that conclusion?
Post by
135207
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Squishalot
I prefer a vastly more simple approach. First, determine whether or not (g)od exists. Then and only then should you determine the malevolence and/or benevolence of the (g)od in question.
That defeats the entire purpose of the question. The purpose of Pascal's Wager is to determine an optimal strategy without that information.
And it's not unnecessarily complicated. DoctorLore makes the point quite well - any possibility will have an equal counter-possibility that will negate it as far as outcomes go.
Simply stating that an argument is flawed because it has initial assumptions is a poor critique of an argument.
It is in this case. The objective of the argument is to make a conclusion about how to live your life in the absence of knowledge. Making an assumption about god makes your argument flawed, by definition.
Descartes concluded his famous "
cogito ergo sum
" by the absence of assumptions. He then assumed the presence of an omnibenevolent God which wouldn't deceive him, and concluded that everything he perceived was real. Was his first conclusion without assumption great? Yes. Was his second conclusion a complete letdown? Absolutely.
Post by
375923
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
104658
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
MyTie
Simply stating that an argument is flawed because it has initial assumptions is a poor critique of an argument.
I disagree. If I told my wife that we should burn down our house to make room for the new house we are going to build with the money that is going to fall out of the sky tommorrow, she would question my assumption that money is going to fall out of the sky. If I told her it was a "poor critique" to think my argument is flawed because of my initial assumption that it was going to rain money, she would seek therapy for me.
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