Theists: Hitchens Wager

[Edwardo Piet]

If you're really serious/interested in the game, you should look into what people are doing in no limit poker now.  You're still using no limit strategy from like 2006.

No I already updated my game a lot a few months back. I did exactly that. Looked up on the newer strategy.

I bought a poker book the other day, but it was old, and fucking hell was it outdated lol. The best new strategy is on the internet.

Of course, it doesn't take rocket science to defeat the average plebs.  The fish are still the same, they're just more maniac loose aggressive fish instead of loose passive fish. So that means stuff like check raising becomes more powerful. The advanced poker strategy has changed over the years, and the ABC game has a little bit (as I said, the fish are different now) but the players are just so god awful on the low levels that it doesn't really take much to defeat them lol.

But I did look up on newer stuff just to help maximize my wins and cut some losses, because despite being really godawful on average, they're still not quite as bad as they used to be. And dealing with aggressive idiots is slightly trickier than dealing with passive idiots.

I see talk of "thought crime" here all the time and I dont understamd why people take issue with it. Don't you think a person's thoughts, intentions, etc, says something about their character? Or so you think they are completely irrelevant?

There are no bad thoughts if those thoughts are just random thoughts. The idea of bad thoughts can lead to O.C.D.

The thought in itself isn't bad, I mean. Intention is different. If you are thinking something and planning on acting on it, then that's bad. Intention is different.

Someone with severe O.C.D. can randomly have violent thoughts and thoughts involving rape and thoughts involving hurting people they care about, and they and their conscience react in disgust and hate those thoughts.... and that gives the thoughts attention and actually makes the scary thoughts worse. It's not just that they are suffering from mental illness, it's also that the idea of thoughts being bad can make O.C.D. and stuff worse, or even lead to it.

I agree with you that intentions are bad, but thoughts themselves aren't. I could think the most horrible thought in the world right now, and as long as I know it's just a meaningless thought, and I don't actually mean it, it's okay. I can also think the thought "I believe in God" in my head. But it doesn't mean I actually mean that. You can think in your head "I am an atheist", but it doesn't mean you're an atheist, and you shouldn't feel like that's a blasphemous thought or something. It's just a thought. Intention is different.

I think bad intentions are ultimately bad because they can lead to bad actions, but still, that gives intentions a moral weight. They can be good or bad. It matters not that it's because they lead to actions... I agree with you that intentions can be good or bad. But automatic thoughts that pop into your head and aren't thought intentionally at all, just random thoughts, however bad in content are scary, that's all fine and just thoughts... and trying to rid yourself of them could actually make them worse. Because the brain feeds you more of what you pay attention to, whether it's negative or positive. That's what happens with suffers of O.C.D.

Like for instance, imagine an obsessive hand washer. Even that involves 'bad' thoughts about unclean hands, and they can't stop thinking about it, so they try to relieve that by washing their hands. But then because they gave that negative thought attention, it pops into their head more often, so they wash their hands even more often, and even more obsessively until their hands become really sore. Does that make sense?

And the key point here is, the brain works that way for everyone...  that's what negative thoughts are like... it's just more extreme in people with O.C.D.

[chimp3]

Motivation! Still , not a moral action.

Wouldn't it be more accurate, then, to say that you're looking for some superhuman ability that believers have?  Obviously there's no action that a believers body is solely capable of engaging in..nor is there any string of words that only a believers mouth can form.

That's not hitchens wager, at all..though.....?  It's closely approaching a trivially meaningless question with no point..or, at least, the only possible point allowed as a credible answer would have to be superhuman abilities....which none of us possess.  Meanwhile, there are things that believers do that atheists don't, and vv, on account of differences in their respective position on gods.  This much is self evidently true...classifying every difference as a motivation means that there is no answer you'd accept, not because there is no meaningful or valid answer.....but because you've constrained the field of answers you'd accept to inanity.

I disagree. Hitchens wager is concise, not constrained to inanity. It opens the field of answers to all moral actions and statements. The fact that there is no valid response is not the fault of the questioner. Perhaps constraining the question of morality to human thought.

[Edwardo Piet]

The whole point of it is that there's no valid response. It's rhetorical.

Believe it or not, Hitchens was making a point!

[robvalue]

I can posit objective morality very easily. Everything is totally evil. There you go. Anyone can use that moral system, and it doesn't rely on anyone's opinion, not even mine. It's not my opinion that everything is evil, I just wrote it down so that I can point to it as an objective moral system.

The next question is why anyone should care about this objective system. I don't think they should, I think they should ignore it and think for themselves. Having it be objective doesn't make it useful or desirable. Even if I happened to agree with it that everything is evil, that makes it no more valid for anyone else.

[ignoramus]

Rob, this is where the theists get it all wrong.
The laws of physics and maths are objective truths. The word objective doesn't really belong in any other context. Especially a religious one! It's all semantics.

[The Grand Nudger]

Wouldn't it be more accurate, then, to say that you're looking for some superhuman ability that believers have?  Obviously there's no action that a believers body is solely capable of engaging in..nor is there any string of words that only a believers mouth can form.

That's not hitchens wager, at all..though.....?  It's closely approaching a trivially meaningless question with no point..or, at least, the only possible point allowed as a credible answer would have to be superhuman abilities....which none of us possess.  Meanwhile, there are things that believers do that atheists don't, and vv, on account of differences in their respective position on gods.  This much is self evidently true...classifying every difference as a motivation means that there is no answer you'd accept, not because there is no meaningful or valid answer.....but because you've constrained the field of answers you'd accept to inanity.

I disagree. Hitchens wager is concise, not constrained to inanity. It opens the field of answers to all moral actions and statements. The fact that there is no valid response is not the fault of the questioner. Perhaps constraining the question of morality to human thought.

I didn't say his was, I'm pointing out that yours is.  He had no problem conceiving of immoral things uniquely owned by the faithful (and I doubt he was thinking of some superhuman ability), and entreated the audience to think of them..laughing as they laughed, pointing out that even though the first question stumped everyone, the second could be answered almost immediately.





He at least allowed for their to -be- an act owned by the faithful, and specifically one solely reducible to their motivation by god beliefs. If there is no such thing..or we won't allow it, then the question is rhetorical inanity.

[chimp3]

I disagree. Hitchens wager is concise, not constrained to inanity. It opens the field of answers to all moral actions and statements. The fact that there is no valid response is not the fault of the questioner. Perhaps constraining the question of morality to human thought.

I didn't say his was, I'm pointing out that yours is.  He had no problem conceiving of immoral things uniquely owned by the faithful (and I doubt he was thinking of some superhuman ability), and entreated the audience to think of them..laughing as they laughed, pointing out that even though the first question stumped everyone, the second could be answered almost immediately.





He at least allowed for their to -be- an act owned by  the faithful, and specifically one solely reducible to their motivation by god beliefs.  If there is no such thing..or we won't allow it,  then the question is rhetorical inanity.

What is an immoral action commitable only by the faithful?

[The Grand Nudger]

Ask hitchens, or his audience. I proposed the sort of martrydom we commonly consider terrorism (and proposed that it may be a counterfactual, as well). It was probably on their minds too. The point is that people can immediately think of all sorts of bad shit specifically associated with religion even if they stutter when asked for the good shit so specifically associated.

[chimp3]

Ask hitchens, or his audience.  I proposed the sort of martrydom we commonly consider terrorism (and proposed that it may be a counterfactual, as well).  It was probably on their minds too.  The point is that people can immediately think of all sorts of bad shit specifically associated with religion even if they stutter when asked for the good shit so specifically associated.

I have been arguing that motivation is not an action. Atheists are also capable of murder and misguided self sacrifice.

[The Grand Nudger]

Yeah, I know..but...again, barring motivations, there is nothing that an atheist or believer could do that the other could not because the only possible answer to that question would amount to superhuman abilities.  This was absolutely -not- the question hitchens was asking, or the thrust of that wager or it's rejoinder.  It's not even a meaningful question.

It was formulated in the way that it was expliitly to point out that while it;s difficult to think of something roundly considered to be moral being the sole possession of believers, it's blissfully easy to come up with examples of immorality thusly possessed. This furthers the notion, in the subtitle of his book...that religion poisons everything.

His formulation at least allows for conceptual space in which an answer can be given. Your's doesn't. Even explicitly religious acts will be reclassified as "motivations", good or bad.