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Pascal's wager redux.....
#1
Pascal's wager redux.....
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.
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#2
RE: Pascal's wager redux.....
Eh. This is fun and all, but given that the real odds are one in infinity- after all, once we've detached ourselves from logic by accepting that a religion might be true, then literally any form of silly practice can be attached to any made up deity we want as a criterion for getting into any number of made up heavens- I'll just continue doing what I'm doing.

I've got an exactly equal, statistically insignificant chance of going to the "correct" afterlife when I die, so why should I worry?
"YOU take the hard look in the mirror. You are everything that is wrong with this world. The only thing important to you, is you." - ronedee

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#3
RE: Pascal's wager redux.....
(September 13, 2013 at 5:19 am)Esquilax Wrote: Eh. This is fun and all, but given that the real odds are one in infinity- after all, once we've detached ourselves from logic by accepting that a religion might be true, then literally any form of silly practice can be attached to any made up deity we want as a criterion for getting into any number of made up heavens- I'll just continue doing what I'm doing.

I've got an exactly equal, statistically insignificant chance of going to the "correct" afterlife when I die, so why should I worry?

Well you're just not playing the game properly and I want my ball back.Tongue
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#4
RE: Pascal's wager redux.....
Pascal wager, not a wager I would take. You should worship pectora, the goddess of boobs, what do you have to lose?
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#5
RE: Pascal's wager redux.....
(September 13, 2013 at 5:24 am)LastPoet Wrote: Pascal wager, not a wager I would take. You should worship pectora, the goddess of boobs, what do you have to lose?

Was she in Total Recall?
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#6
RE: Pascal's wager redux.....
(September 13, 2013 at 5:30 am)Fidel_Castronaut Wrote:
(September 13, 2013 at 5:24 am)LastPoet Wrote: Pascal wager, not a wager I would take. You should worship pectora, the goddess of boobs, what do you have to lose?

Was she in Total Recall?

Ironically I don't remember.
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#7
RE: Pascal's wager redux.....
(September 13, 2013 at 5:24 am)LastPoet Wrote: pectora, the goddess of boobs

First, why is her name not capitalized?

Secondly, why when mentioning pectorals, it is in reference to the male muscular chest? I have never heard female mammary glands referred to as pectorals.
"Never trust a fox. Looks like a dog, behaves like a cat."
~ Erin Hunter
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#8
RE: Pascal's wager redux.....
That's Latin for ya.
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#9
RE: Pascal's wager redux.....
Yes, the number of crazy rituals one could come up with in order to get into a mythical heaven is infinite. If someone claimed that you had to jump up & down on a pogo stick for 5 minutes every day in order to get into heaven, there would be another person claiming that you have to jump up & down on a pogo stick for 10 minutes every day and those 5 minute pogo stick jumpers are all heretics.

Pascal's Wager is not a good reason to believe anyway, because it automatically assumes that the religion the person proposing it is the one true religion, and believing "just in case" is not true devotion to a religion. I could pretend to go through all the rituals involved in the Christian religion, but my heart wouldn't be into it because in the back of my mind I'd still be believing that it's all a bunch of hocus pocus.
Christian apologetics is the art of rolling a dog turd in sugar and selling it as a donut.
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#10
RE: Pascal's wager redux.....
(September 13, 2013 at 9:18 am)Doubting Thomas Wrote: Pascal's Wager is not a good reason to believe anyway, because it automatically assumes that the religion the person proposing it is the one true religion, and believing "just in case" is not true devotion to a religion. I could pretend to go through all the rituals involved in the Christian religion, but my heart wouldn't be into it because in the back of my mind I'd still be believing that it's all a bunch of hocus pocus.

I agree, God in this case the God of Christianity is not selling an insurance policy, Christianity doesn't work that way. Salvation is through grace by faith, this is a gift of real belief, so banking on an insurance policy will only get you a disappointing result, in this life and the next.

Smile GC
God loves those who believe and those who do not and the same goes for me, you have no choice in this matter. That puts the matter of total free will to rest.
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