Pascal's Wager (the new version)

[Question Mark]

A spherical earth had been postulated as early as that, and became generally accepted by the 3rd century BCE, and then disseminated by the end of antiquity. The claim that people believed the earth was flat is a popular myth based on the fact that the earth was not shown practically to have been spherical until the beginning of the modern era, in the 1500's I believe.
A spherical earth had been calculated long before the Qu'ran was written.

Spot on! And to think we're supposed to believe from these fundies that we need a god to tell us things we can derive on our own...

They're so sure of it though. It's difficult to phrase things in opposition sometimes when they speak things with as much conviction as they do. "God does exist, I don't know how you guys can't see it".
You can tell them the obvious, of course, that there's no proof, and that personal experiences don't count, but then they just shrug it off and come back with something like "You just don't want to see it".

That's what makes me irritable, you know, when their method fails and they resort to saying we're being disingenuous.
They do the same with this stuff. "We couldn't possibly have known the world was spherical back then, you're just twisting the facts."

It's rather galling.

[KichigaiNeko]

Can't rationalise with two year old mentality.

[CleanShavenJesus]

Muslim Scholar, you're basing a mathematical formula off of something that does a lot of assuming...sort of like believing in God.

But let's look at the second piece of your modern Wager.

(Anything is better than nothing)

There are thousands upon thousands of religions in the world history, but for the sake of argument, let's stick with the 21 major religions in the modern world. Anything is better than nothing, so you're going to choose one religion out of the twenty-one correct? Simple math tells us that only gives us a 1 in 21 chance of converting to the correct religion. But you're still assuming that there is a God...but what if there isn't? Why can't atheism be considered a belief next to the 21 major religions in this case, because it's also an opinion on the afterlife and the existence of God? If we factor atheism into this probability, that gives me a 1 out of 22 chance of converting to the correct religion. With my probability, no matter what major religion you believe in (now counting atheism as one of them), you still only have a 1in 22 chance of being part of the correct religion/ideology. Meaning that my chances are as good as yours. Neither of us has a better chance of getting it right. Because we have no knowledge and no basis to go off of. We're just shootin' in the dark. Atheism or Islam, Christian or Buddhist. Each one has the same probability of being correct - 1:22

The only way your new wager would work is if you said everything is better than nothing. That would give you a 100% chance of getting it right because you have all 22 religions covered. But unfortunately religion does not allow you to do that.

[Mystic]

I also want to put another perspective to this.

From agnostic perspective, it can very well be there is a God/Creator/Lord, but that he hasn't given us knowledge of his existence. If this is true, and we are to be honest to ourselves, then it would prefer we don't believe in him unless one day we come to realize he must exist.

In this instance, agnostics that withhold belief, are being honest to themselves. Therefore they are doing something more noble then tricking yourself into following a religion, because, there is possibly consequence if you don't.

I wouldn't wager with my honor.

[Question Mark]

I also want to put another perspective to this.

From agnostic perspective, it can very well be there is a God/Creator/Lord, but that he hasn't given us knowledge of his existence. If this is true, and we are to be honest to ourselves, then it would prefer we don't believe in him unless one day we come to realize he must exist.

In this instance, agnostics that withhold belief, are being honest to themselves. Therefore they are doing something more noble then tricking yourself into following a religion, because, there is possibly consequence if you don't.

I wouldn't wager with my honor.

A little deistic, but what if we were created by a god, and that god really didn't want anything to do with us, and just sort of went away? Didn't set up a heaven or hell, just this plane of existence, and then just left to make new ones?

As an amateur artist, I can sympathise with that kind of god.

[Mystic]

I also want to put another perspective to this.

From agnostic perspective, it can very well be there is a God/Creator/Lord, but that he hasn't given us knowledge of his existence. If this is true, and we are to be honest to ourselves, then it would prefer we don't believe in him unless one day we come to realize he must exist.

In this instance, agnostics that withhold belief, are being honest to themselves. Therefore they are doing something more noble then tricking yourself into following a religion, because, there is possibly consequence if you don't.

I wouldn't wager with my honor.

A little deistic, but what if we were created by a god, and that god really didn't want anything to do with us, and just sort of went away? Didn't set up a heaven or hell, just this plane of existence, and then just left to make new ones?

As an amateur artist, I can sympathise with that kind of god.

Sure...but we are just talking possibilities here. The OP is arguing statistics, but he left out the possibility that there is a Creator that prefers we don't believe in him if it doesn't seem like he exists and will honor those who don't believe simply because they are being honest to themselves (as far as this issue is concerned).

[Angrboda]

If we factor atheism into this probability, that gives me a 1 out of 22 chance of converting to the correct religion. With my probability, no matter what major religion you believe in (now counting atheism as one of them), you still only have a 1in 22 chance of being part of the correct religion/ideology. Meaning that my chances are as good as yours. Neither of us has a better chance of getting it right. Because we have no knowledge and no basis to go off of. We're just shootin' in the dark. Atheism or Islam, Christian or Buddhist. Each one has the same probability of being correct - 1:22

I think you may be overlooking a key element in the wager. (And, yes, I've been doing the same thing.) In any wager, the value of the prize is a critical factor in determining the worthiness of the wager, and the element of proportion with respect to how much one should wager. Economists have postulated that the value of an outcome is the product of its probability multiplied by the absolute worth of the outcome. (And again, this is an are where human reasoning departs from the rational road. An example of this would be to ask, if you have to rescue a floundering ship filled with 600 people, which should you prefer: a) a 100% chance of saving 200 people, or b) a 1/3 chance of saving all 600, with none saved otherwise. According to many theories of value, these are equivalent choices as the outcome in both is, on average, saving 200 people. Most people don't see it that way though from the standpoint of their intuitions.) When you include the possibility of an actual infinite in the equation, that term swamps the relative contribution of other terms (generally; if another term approaches zero as fast as a particular term approaches infinity, the results are less clear [forgive me, it's been 30 years since I studied this stuff]). Which I think ultimately means that it has to be attacked on grounds related to the transfinite. (Such grounds do exist, imo.) It is interesting to note, however, that many of the same people who would argue that you can't have an actual infinite when it suits them for the purpose of Kalam or other cosmological arguments, those same people are all too eager to embrace the possibility of an actual infinity when it works in their favor (as it does here).

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[CleanShavenJesus]

If we factor atheism into this probability, that gives me a 1 out of 22 chance of converting to the correct religion. With my probability, no matter what major religion you believe in (now counting atheism as one of them), you still only have a 1in 22 chance of being part of the correct religion/ideology. Meaning that my chances are as good as yours. Neither of us has a better chance of getting it right. Because we have no knowledge and no basis to go off of. We're just shootin' in the dark. Atheism or Islam, Christian or Buddhist. Each one has the same probability of being correct - 1:22

I think you may be overlooking a key element in the wager. (And, yes, I've been doing the same thing.) In any wager, the value of the prize is a critical factor in determining the worthiness of the wager, and the element of proportion with respect to how much one should wager. Economists have postulated that the value of an outcome is the product of its probability multiplied by the absolute worth of the outcome. (And again, this is an are where human reasoning departs from the rational road. An example of this would be to ask, if you have to rescue a floundering ship filled with 600 people, which should you prefer: a) a 100% chance of saving 200 people, or b) a 1/3 chance of saving all 600, with none saved otherwise. According to many theories of value, these are equivalent choices as the outcome in both is, on average, saving 200 people. Most people don't see it that way though from the standpoint of their intuitions.) When you include the possibility of an actual infinite in the equation, that term swamps the relative contribution of other terms (generally; if another term approaches zero as fast as a particular term approaches infinity, the results are less clear [forgive me, it's been 30 years since I studied this stuff]). Which I think ultimately means that it has to be attacked on grounds related to the transfinite. (Such grounds do exist, imo.) It is interesting to note, however, that many of the same people who would argue that you can't have an actual infinite when it suits them for the purpose of Kalam or other cosmological arguments, those same people are all too eager to embrace the possibility of an actual infinity when it works in their favor (as it does here).

To be perfectly honest (since I'd just make a fool of myself if I didn't admit it), your post kind of went over my head. You're saying that the value of an afterlife and what you receive by believing in the correct God affects the formula/wager? And if there is a God, the value of life increases if my belief is correct? I just want to make sure I understand you.

If that is what you're saying, I do not see how it would affect what I said. Pascal's Wager does a lot of assuming. Like you said (or I think you said) at the end of your post, the idea of an actual infinity works more in the favor of the ones supporting Pascal's Wager. But my theory states that the belief in no God, atheism, can also be factored into the wager because it's just as much a belief in a higher entity (in being that it is a lack of belief, so it is still a point of view/belief), as any religion.

Atheism and any theism have equal worth here because the probability of one of them being true is exactly the same. The Wagerer might say "it's better to believe in God because it is something, and atheism claims that there is nothing." No matter what religion you choose to believe in, atheism now included, if you're wrong, you're pissing the real God off either way.

I'm seeing this more from a probability standpoint and trying to drift away from the "worth" argument because I don't see how that argument can hold water in a rational thinking process. But you did say that this is where the human reasoning and rational road split.

[CapnAwesome]

If we are going to assume that there is a possibility for God, even if it is very low, that doesn't give us any clue that believing in him is more likely to give you eternal life. Maybe God loves Atheists. Pascal's wager gives no more reason to believe in God then to not believe in God because it starts with the assumption that anything has the possibility of being true, even if the percentage is low. That means an Atheist loving Muslim hating God has no less credence than your Allah.

[Angrboda]

I think you may be overlooking a key element in the wager. (And, yes, I've been doing the same thing.) In any wager, the value of the prize is a critical factor in determining the worthiness of the wager, and the element of proportion with respect to how much one should wager....

To be perfectly honest (since I'd just make a fool of myself if I didn't admit it), your post kind of went over my head. You're saying that the value of an afterlife and what you receive by believing in the correct God affects the formula/wager? And if there is a God, the value of life increases if my belief is correct? I just want to make sure I understand you.

Let me give you a simple example. Suppose there is a lottery in which the prize is $100, and a lottery ticket costs $2, and you have a 1 in 1,000 chance of winning. You probably would have a hard time persuading those 1,000 people to participate, and if you succeeded, then something is probably messed up. The prize of $100 is simply not commensurate with the risk and the cost of playing. Now on the other hand, if you increased the prize to $100,000,000 ($100 million dollars), and kept the cost of the tickets and odds of winning the same, you'll find a lot more people who are eager and willing to participate. (I could also adjust the odds so that the risk/reward is relatively the same, which is really fun in terms of watching people's intuitions, but that's another matter entirely.) The simple point is, the bigger the prize, the more you're willing to risk for it.

Now, as this relates to Pascal's wager, if the prize is actually infinite, then by the same logic, any finite amount of risk (the $2 cost of a ticket, or a life spent worshipping a god) becomes insignificant in comparison. That's the appeal of Pascal's wager. The prize is so ginormous, and the risk so small, that only a fool wouldn't take that bet.

(As you and I and others have pointed out, there are likely other relevant issues, but this seems to be the fulcrum. I will note that I have a life long aversion to gambling, so I can't suggest what an experienced gambler or book maker might say on the matter. For whatever reason, I have always found gambling, as anything more than a social pastime, to be something that I can readily do without.)