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RE: Pascal's Wager Revisited
April 10, 2015 at 3:20 pm
(This post was last modified: April 10, 2015 at 3:21 pm by Simon Moon.)
(April 10, 2015 at 3:09 pm)datc Wrote: You don't pretend to believe; you already actually believe or disbelief in the very process of living one way or another; your actions on Pascal's wager speak louder than words.
If you aim your actions on attaining eternal life, even if you are not sure there is one, then you end up becoming fit for it and are in the end pleasantly surprised that what you were doing turned out to have been useful.
If you concern yourself with temporal life only, and there is eternal life, then your failure to prepare yourself for it will result in disappointment.
It's up to you personally, of course, to evaluate the costs and benefits; I only point out that there are costs and benefits, and the evaluation (by the agnostic) must be attempted in practice if not speculatively, again within the assumptions of the argument.
Belief is the psychological state of being convinced that a proposition or premise is true.
How can we believe that your afterlife premise is true if we are not convinced? Why would a god, that seems to want people to join him in this afterlife, create some of us that are not convinced of its existence? Why does he fail to provide what is needed to convince us?
But I am still a bit unclear.
If there are 2 people, both lead equally moral lives, yet one believes in an afterlife, and the other does not. Does the moral person that does not believe in an afterlife have a chance of getting there?
Does an immoral person that believes in an afterlife, get one?
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.
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RE: Pascal's Wager Revisited
April 10, 2015 at 3:24 pm
(This post was last modified: April 10, 2015 at 3:25 pm by Mr.wizard.)
(April 10, 2015 at 3:09 pm)datc Wrote: (April 10, 2015 at 2:54 pm)robvalue Wrote: So... is it being suggested we pretend to believe in an afterlife, so that... we get a better afterlife?
This makes no sense to me.
You don't pretend to believe; you already actually believe or disbelief in the very process of living one way or another; your actions on Pascal's wager speak louder than words.
If you aim your actions on attaining eternal life, even if you are not sure there is one, then you end up becoming fit for it and are in the end pleasantly surprised that what you were doing turned out to have been useful.
If you concern yourself with temporal life only, and there is eternal life, then your failure to prepare yourself for it will result in disappointment.
It's up to you personally, of course, to evaluate the costs and benefits; I only point out that there are costs and benefits, and the evaluation (by the agnostic) must be attempted in practice if not speculatively, again within the assumptions of the argument.
Well what's the criteria for attaining eternal life? If I don't know that it exists how can I be sure what I am doing is leading me to eternal life?
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RE: Pascal's Wager Revisited
April 10, 2015 at 3:29 pm
Right. For all I know, thinking about eternal life is the one sure way not to get it.
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RE: Pascal's Wager Revisited
April 10, 2015 at 3:30 pm
(April 10, 2015 at 2:54 pm)SnakeOilWarrior Wrote: No, understanding and accepting that taking the tiniest portion of your finite time and giving it to someone else far surpasses the giving of any amount of time from an eternal pool is what you don't seem to understand.
An example you may understand better:
Joe earns $60,000/year and is the sole bread winner for a family of 4. Jill is a multibillionaire who can't spend all the money she earns just from the interest on her fortune. Joe donates $3,000/year to charity. Jill donates $60,000/year. Which one feels the pinch? Scarcity it what makes something valuable. To Jill, $60,000 is nothing. To Joe, it's a years labor.
This is a little more complicated than it may appear.
By donating to charity, Joe sacrifices more of his own narrow happiness for the sake of lesser happiness to another. Jill both sacrifices less and produces more good. Clearly, in terms of the happiness generated by each person's action, Jill wins heads down. Insofar as there is a distinct virtue of magnificence, Jill has it, and Joe does not.
Therefore, Joe's love for himself and his neighbor are relatively close, but absolutely weak; on the other hand, Jill seems not to love her neighbor as much as herself relatively, but her love is greater absolutely, due to the superior effect on others' welfare from the Jill's $60,000 as opposed to the Joe's $3,000.
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RE: Pascal's Wager Revisited
April 10, 2015 at 3:32 pm
(April 10, 2015 at 3:30 pm)datc Wrote: Clearly, in terms of the happiness generated by each person's action, Jill wins heads down.
That'd do it.
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.'
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RE: Pascal's Wager Revisited
April 10, 2015 at 3:35 pm
(April 10, 2015 at 3:30 pm)datc Wrote: (April 10, 2015 at 2:54 pm)SnakeOilWarrior Wrote: No, understanding and accepting that taking the tiniest portion of your finite time and giving it to someone else far surpasses the giving of any amount of time from an eternal pool is what you don't seem to understand.
An example you may understand better:
Joe earns $60,000/year and is the sole bread winner for a family of 4. Jill is a multibillionaire who can't spend all the money she earns just from the interest on her fortune. Joe donates $3,000/year to charity. Jill donates $60,000/year. Which one feels the pinch? Scarcity it what makes something valuable. To Jill, $60,000 is nothing. To Joe, it's a years labor.
This is a little more complicated than it may appear.
By donating to charity, Joe sacrifices more of his own narrow happiness for the sake of lesser happiness to another. Jill both sacrifices less and produces more good. Clearly, in terms of the happiness generated by each person's action, Jill wins heads down. Insofar as there is a distinct virtue of magnificence, Jill has it, and Joe does not.
Therefore, Joe's love for himself and his neighbor are relatively close, but absolutely weak; on the other hand, Jill seems not to love her neighbor as much as herself relatively, but her love is greater absolutely, due to the superior effect on others' welfare from the Jill's $60,000 as opposed to the Joe's $3,000.
You couldn't have missed the point worse if I had deliberately hidden it...
Thief and assassin for hire. Member in good standing of the Rogues Guild.
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RE: Pascal's Wager Revisited
April 10, 2015 at 3:36 pm
(This post was last modified: April 10, 2015 at 3:36 pm by Mr.wizard.)
(April 10, 2015 at 3:35 pm)SnakeOilWarrior Wrote: (April 10, 2015 at 3:30 pm)datc Wrote: This is a little more complicated than it may appear.
By donating to charity, Joe sacrifices more of his own narrow happiness for the sake of lesser happiness to another. Jill both sacrifices less and produces more good. Clearly, in terms of the happiness generated by each person's action, Jill wins heads down. Insofar as there is a distinct virtue of magnificence, Jill has it, and Joe does not.
Therefore, Joe's love for himself and his neighbor are relatively close, but absolutely weak; on the other hand, Jill seems not to love her neighbor as much as herself relatively, but her love is greater absolutely, due to the superior effect on others' welfare from the Jill's $60,000 as opposed to the Joe's $3,000.
You couldn't have missed the point worse if I had deliberately hidden it...
I was about to say the same thing 
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RE: Pascal's Wager Revisited
April 10, 2015 at 3:37 pm
(April 10, 2015 at 3:12 pm)robvalue Wrote: And I don't want eternal life anyway. I'd like to rest in peace after this one.
I also want to rest in peace. Our difference seems to be that I desire not only peace but joy, as well. Surely, however, the step from one to the other is not that big.
Moreover, "I'd like to rest in peace" presupposes the "you" and "a conscious will no longer troubled by any worries or sorrows." It still presupposes some subject and some subjective experience. Under no-afterlife there will not be either.
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RE: Pascal's Wager Revisited
April 10, 2015 at 3:49 pm
Ok. But whether I believe in one or not has no effect on whether there is one or not. I don't know why you would think that it does.
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RE: Pascal's Wager Revisited
April 10, 2015 at 3:58 pm
(April 10, 2015 at 3:20 pm)Simon Moon Wrote: How can we believe that your afterlife premise is true if we are not convinced?
Under the version of Pascal's wager being considered, you believe by taking the risk of living a life that has is aimed at the end of eternal life.
Recall my distinction between speculative life (agnostic vs. gnostic) and active life (atheist vs. theist). An speculative agnostic may choose a "theistic" active life (on this account, a temporal life that becomes eternal) if he feels that the probabilities, costs, and benefits are such that he profits from making this choice.
(April 10, 2015 at 3:20 pm)Simon Moon Wrote: Why would a god, that seems to want people to join him in this afterlife, create some of us that are not convinced of its existence? Why does he fail to provide what is needed to convince us?
This problem is no part of the original post.
(April 10, 2015 at 3:20 pm)Simon Moon Wrote: If there are 2 people, both lead equally moral lives, yet one believes in an afterlife, and the other does not. Does the moral person that does not believe in an afterlife have a chance of getting there?
I find the premise implausible, again because "belief" is expressed in the process of living a life, not only morally but in its every other aspect (such as aesthetic). To the extent that it is granted, and both people are equally prepared, my opinion is that the unbeliever will gain eternal life.
(April 10, 2015 at 3:20 pm)Simon Moon Wrote: Does an immoral person that believes in an afterlife, get one?
No, because his actions contradict his words and mean that was not a "believer" in the first place.
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