(September 13, 2013 at 3:08 am)max-greece Wrote: Just a bit of fun....
Pascal's wager is essentially either there is a God or there isn't a God. If there isn't and you worship you lose a bit of time from your life but overall - not much harm done. If, however, there is a God and you reject him (her/them) then you get to burn in eternity.
Why take the risk?
Well lets look at the size of the risk - or rather lets look at your chances of getting into heaven, accepting God:
According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rel...traditions there are some 4,200 religions in the world. The one common element amongst them is that they all believe they are right AND that therefore all other religions are wrong.
If we accept that only one religion can be right then we have to conclude immediately that, even if there is a God(s) your chances of getting into heaven is 1 in 4200.
Actually we have to make that 4201 immediately because there is a finite chance that none of the religions around today are right, that there is, however, a right one waiting to be discovered.
Further - very few people would actually argue that God is an absolute certainty. If we put an arbitrary factor on God at 50% then you chance of going to heaven becomes one in (4200+1)*2 or one in 8402.
So it may be only a few hours a week that is needed - but that's gonna add up over my lifetime and for a long-shot with odds at 1 in 8402 I'll risk it.
And, to build on this, in Christianity alone there are over 41,000 denominations who all believe each other to be incorrect interpretations of the texts and therefore likely to displease god and lead to a somewhat toasty afterlife, so, for Christianity alone the odds are 1 in 41,000.
Personally I'd rather buy a lottery scratchcard, the odds are better.
MM
"The greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions" - Leonardo da Vinci
"I think I use the term “radical” rather loosely, just for emphasis. If you describe yourself as “atheist,” some people will say, “Don’t you mean ‘agnostic’?” I have to reply that I really do mean atheist, I really do not believe that there is a god; in fact, I am convinced that there is not a god (a subtle difference). I see not a shred of evidence to suggest that there is one ... etc., etc. It’s easier to say that I am a radical atheist, just to signal that I really mean it, have thought about it a great deal, and that it’s an opinion I hold seriously." - Douglas Adams (and I echo the sentiment)
"I think I use the term “radical” rather loosely, just for emphasis. If you describe yourself as “atheist,” some people will say, “Don’t you mean ‘agnostic’?” I have to reply that I really do mean atheist, I really do not believe that there is a god; in fact, I am convinced that there is not a god (a subtle difference). I see not a shred of evidence to suggest that there is one ... etc., etc. It’s easier to say that I am a radical atheist, just to signal that I really mean it, have thought about it a great deal, and that it’s an opinion I hold seriously." - Douglas Adams (and I echo the sentiment)
