Posts: 13051
Threads: 66
Joined: February 7, 2011
Reputation:
92
RE: Pascal's Wager Revisited
April 10, 2015 at 1:01 pm
(April 10, 2015 at 12:32 am)Rhythm Wrote: We also discuss their failings, their misdeeds, their mistakes. Nobel was a weapons manufacturer, for example. The prizes were initially (so the story is told) a way to diminish personal regret.
Do you really want to consider a god as you consider a man....have you thought this through?
Not to nitpick, but Nobel was the creator of dynamite for use in mining. The story goes that he felt regret that because it was unstable and was responsible for so many deaths that he felt the need to start the prize.
Even if the open windows of science at first make us shiver after the cozy indoor warmth of traditional humanizing myths, in the end the fresh air brings vigor, and the great spaces have a splendor of their own - Bertrand Russell
Posts: 25314
Threads: 239
Joined: August 26, 2010
Reputation:
155
RE: Pascal's Wager Revisited
April 10, 2015 at 1:06 pm
Including his brother, iirc.
At the age of five, Skagra decided emphatically that God did not exist. This revelation tends to make most people in the universe who have it react in one of two ways - with relief or with despair. Only Skagra responded to it by thinking, 'Wait a second. That means there's a situation vacant.'
Posts: 13901
Threads: 263
Joined: January 11, 2009
Reputation:
82
RE: Pascal's Wager Revisited
April 10, 2015 at 1:11 pm
(April 10, 2015 at 1:06 pm)Stimbo Wrote: Including his brother, iirc.
His brother Napoleon...Napoleon Blownapart.
Too soon?
You can fix ignorance, you can't fix stupid.
Tinkety Tonk and down with the Nazis.
Posts: 122
Threads: 5
Joined: October 22, 2014
Reputation:
1
RE: Pascal's Wager Revisited
April 10, 2015 at 1:45 pm
(April 10, 2015 at 9:52 am)SnakeOilWarrior Wrote: People are born ignorant. That is not the same as stupid. Please educate yourself so you don't look stupid.
Very well, ignorant (and innocent). The need for wising up remains.
(April 10, 2015 at 9:52 am)SnakeOilWarrior Wrote: (April 9, 2015 at 11:43 pm)datc Wrote: Because making yourself or another happy for eternity feels more valuable that for a finite number of years.
Boy, have you got that backwards. The limited number of years we have make every one of them more precious, not less. Helping someone in this world is a far better thing than you would ever be able to do in an eternal existence.
Any pleasure can be experienced only in the now, the present. To that extent, there is a parity between a mortal and immortal being. However, the now cannot be enjoyed in complete isolation from the other 3 time periods (past, future, and timelessness). Those three are felt with greater poignancy by an immortal being, because he not only apprehends all time but always will and with considerably greater clarity .
The fact that under no-afterlife, all are made equal in death seems to take the zest and energy out of the now, because one knows that his experiences will disappear like tears in the rain. He will forget all of his present (and now past) pleasures in death.
You may be thinking that what gives a temporal pleasure its taste is that it was fought, struggled for and bought at a heavy price. An inhabitant of heaven is a "passive consumer." But that need not be so. We know little about the heavenly life, and if struggle is the force that gives life meaning, it may exist in some form even in heaven, as well. I trust whoever's in charge of the afterlife to have arranged matters competently.
Posts: 3022
Threads: 34
Joined: May 11, 2013
Reputation:
30
RE: Pascal's Wager Revisited
April 10, 2015 at 1:47 pm
Is it just me or is he getting less and less coherent?
'The more I learn about people the more I like my dog'- Mark Twain
'You can have all the faith you want in spirits, and the afterlife, and heaven and hell, but when it comes to this world, don't be an idiot. Cause you can tell me you put your faith in God to put you through the day, but when it comes time to cross the road, I know you look both ways.' - Dr House
“Young earth creationism is essentially the position that all of modern science, 90% of living scientists and 98% of living biologists, all major university biology departments, every major science journal, the American Academy of Sciences, and every major science organization in the world, are all wrong regarding the origins and development of life….but one particular tribe of uneducated, bronze aged, goat herders got it exactly right.” - Chuck Easttom
"If my good friend Doctor Gasparri speaks badly of my mother, he can expect to get punched.....You cannot provoke. You cannot insult the faith of others. You cannot make fun of the faith of others. There is a limit." - Pope Francis on freedom of speech
Posts: 122
Threads: 5
Joined: October 22, 2014
Reputation:
1
RE: Pascal's Wager Revisited
April 10, 2015 at 1:52 pm
(April 10, 2015 at 12:56 pm)Faith No More Wrote: There is no dignity in believing in nonsense just because you find reality harsh. Dignity lies in accepting that reality is not ideal. Nearly every statement you've made here has been an appeal to consequence, which has no bearing on what truly is. Just because you find the idea of this life being the one and only abhorrent, doesn't mean there is a magical paradise awaiting you after you die. It's time to admit to yourself that you need the belief of an afterlife to cope with your fear of reality and that there is no dignity in clinging to an invisible security blanket as an adult.
Recall that we are dealing with a version of the Pascal's wager. The argument is that practical living as if there was an afterlife even if you are not sure of it makes sense.
Posts: 25314
Threads: 239
Joined: August 26, 2010
Reputation:
155
RE: Pascal's Wager Revisited
April 10, 2015 at 1:56 pm
What's practical about wasting your life kissing up to a model of a god that someone told you is real, just to stock up brownie points for a cushier afterlife that you cannot possibly know is even going to be a thing? That way madness lies.
At the age of five, Skagra decided emphatically that God did not exist. This revelation tends to make most people in the universe who have it react in one of two ways - with relief or with despair. Only Skagra responded to it by thinking, 'Wait a second. That means there's a situation vacant.'
Posts: 3022
Threads: 34
Joined: May 11, 2013
Reputation:
30
RE: Pascal's Wager Revisited
April 10, 2015 at 1:57 pm
(April 10, 2015 at 1:52 pm)datc Wrote: Recall that we are dealing with a version of the Pascal's wager. The argument is that practical living as if there was an afterlife even if you are not sure of it makes sense.
No it really doesn't make sense. Assuming you are talking about a christian afterlife. You just fail to take into consideration every other religion, every other god and every other afterlife. What if you are wrong? What if, Norse mythology is the true religion and because you failed to worship Odin or kill any frost giants, you're going to get sent to the opposite of Vallaha, whatever that may be. What if the ancient greeks had it right, and because you failed to give offerings to zeus, you'll spend the rest of eternity having your nuts chewed off by cerberus while Hades is sitting there watching you and jerking off.
You haven't even thought about the possibility that you could be wrong. You haven't spent any time worrying about any other religions hells, and it's for the same reason we don't believe in yours.
'The more I learn about people the more I like my dog'- Mark Twain
'You can have all the faith you want in spirits, and the afterlife, and heaven and hell, but when it comes to this world, don't be an idiot. Cause you can tell me you put your faith in God to put you through the day, but when it comes time to cross the road, I know you look both ways.' - Dr House
“Young earth creationism is essentially the position that all of modern science, 90% of living scientists and 98% of living biologists, all major university biology departments, every major science journal, the American Academy of Sciences, and every major science organization in the world, are all wrong regarding the origins and development of life….but one particular tribe of uneducated, bronze aged, goat herders got it exactly right.” - Chuck Easttom
"If my good friend Doctor Gasparri speaks badly of my mother, he can expect to get punched.....You cannot provoke. You cannot insult the faith of others. You cannot make fun of the faith of others. There is a limit." - Pope Francis on freedom of speech
Posts: 3638
Threads: 20
Joined: July 20, 2011
Reputation:
47
RE: Pascal's Wager Revisited
April 10, 2015 at 1:58 pm
(This post was last modified: April 10, 2015 at 2:00 pm by Simon Moon.)
(April 10, 2015 at 1:52 pm)datc Wrote: (April 10, 2015 at 12:56 pm)Faith No More Wrote: There is no dignity in believing in nonsense just because you find reality harsh. Dignity lies in accepting that reality is not ideal. Nearly every statement you've made here has been an appeal to consequence, which has no bearing on what truly is. Just because you find the idea of this life being the one and only abhorrent, doesn't mean there is a magical paradise awaiting you after you die. It's time to admit to yourself that you need the belief of an afterlife to cope with your fear of reality and that there is no dignity in clinging to an invisible security blanket as an adult.
Recall that we are dealing with a version of the Pascal's wager. The argument is that practical living as if there was an afterlife even if you are not sure of it makes sense.
So are you saying that all that is necessary to get into your proposed afterlife is just believe there is an afterlife? I don't have to believe in a specific afterlife?
Muslims, Hindus, Christians are going to end up in an afterlife. Do they end up in the same afterlife?
You'd believe if you just opened your heart" is a terrible argument for religion. It's basically saying, "If you bias yourself enough, you can convince yourself that this is true." If religion were true, people wouldn't need faith to believe it -- it would be supported by good evidence.
Posts: 122
Threads: 5
Joined: October 22, 2014
Reputation:
1
RE: Pascal's Wager Revisited
April 10, 2015 at 2:13 pm
(April 10, 2015 at 1:56 pm)Stimbo Wrote: What's practical about wasting your life kissing up to a model of a god that someone told you is real, just to stock up brownie points for a cushier afterlife that you cannot possibly know is even going to be a thing? That way madness lies.
No kissing up to anyone is entailed; only, during this life, becoming the sort of person who will enjoy eternal life to the fullest.
Why aren't you asking the interesting questions? For example:
1. On this story, namely the inference from the ubiquity of temporal struggle and improvement to eternal improvement, why won't non-human animals qualify for heaven? Don't they struggle all their lives, too?
In the words of Thomas Aquinas,
Quote:Moreover, we may take a sign of [the incorruptibility of the human soul] from the fact that everything naturally aspires to existence after its own manner. Now in things that have knowledge, desire ensues upon knowledge.
The senses, indeed, do not know existence, except under the conditions of "here" and "now," whereas the intellect apprehends existence absolutely, and for all time; so that everything that has an intellect naturally desires always to exist.
But a natural desire cannot be in vain. Therefore, every intellectual substance is incorruptible.
2. Just as there is a "many gods" problem for the original Pascal's wager, there is a "many afterlives" problem for this version of it. How do I know that the afterlife, assuming it exists, will be pleasant and not hellish at all?
The argument proposes the idea that temporal improvement is such a fundamental feature of human life as be part of human nature; and human nature must be at the very least preserved (and perhaps to an extent also transcended) after death, or else the next life is in no sense a continuation of this one.
|
