Theists: Hitchens Wager

[Catholic_Lady]

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I bought a poker book the other day, but it was old, and fucking hell was it outdated lol.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.

Let me be clear that I'm not talking about involuntary thoughts that pop into your head, nor about mental health issues. Nothing involuntary can be a sin, because it is not freely chosen. I'm talking about choosing to fantasize about scenarios where you're killing people because you hate them for their sexuality. I know I can sit and day dream and fabricate fantasies in my head for a while about stuff - or I can choose to get up and do something else. My point is, a person can be a bad person without having actually gone through with doing a very bad thing that he would otherwise have loved to do.

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Hitler had a very deep hatred for Jewish people for a long time. Do you think if he happened to have died before he was able to have millions of innocent Jewish people killed, he should have been considered a decent person just because he hadn't actually done the bad deed yet? Because it was all still just in his head? What's in your head matters.

[Jackie]

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.


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.

Let me be clear that I'm not talking about involuntary thoughts that pop into your head, nor about mental health issues. Nothing involuntary can be a sin, because it is not freely chosen. I'm talking about choosing to fantasize about scenarios where you're killing people because you hate them for their sexuality. I know I can sit and day dream and fabricate fantasies in my head for a while about stuff - or I can choose to get up and do something else. My point is, a person can be a bad person without having actually gone through with doing a very bad thing that he would otherwise have loved to do.

Nothing humans do is being handed down to us. Nothing we do is a grand manipulation coming from a divine place. Nothing we do is a result of a battle between a sky hero and ground troll. Our behaviors, good or bad, voluntary or involuntary, are simply part of a natural existence and there is nobody above helping us, or below us tempting us.

There is simply our environments, genetics, upbringing and our neurology/biology. 

If we want to do good and reduce harm we don't need old mythology to study and understand how nature and our species behave.

[Neo-Scholastic]

Any action motivated by love for the Lord.

How is an act motivated by love for the Lord different from one that is objectively moral and motivated by a love for the truth?

Not much difference. A love for the truth already acknowledges a transcendent source of value. From there is it only a hop, skip, and a jump to acknowledging God as the foundation for that transcendent Truth.

But then, Christianity is a religion based on the notion that having certain thoughts are a crime, which pretty much undermines their moral claims overall.

&

This is getting repetitive. Motivation is not an action.

Thoughts and intentions are absolutely necessary in the calculus of determining the morality of action. Steam engines lack any intention in-themselves and do what they do without moral import. They are not moral agents. Similarly, tigers are not acting immorally by eating monkeys because it is a tiger’s instinctual nature to hunt, kill, and eat other creatures. Moral responsibility depends on the agent’s capacity to weight consequences and choose between actions that may or may not conform to that agents’ nature. The cultivation of virtue, in both thought and deed, means forming mental habits of courage and caring rather than indifference and cowardice, learning the physical skills required to act on them, and building up the resources needed to do so.

[henryp]

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.

Are you dumbing down how you are talking about strategy for my sake? 

You seem really focused on the average pleb at your stakes.  Why not worry about the average pleb at higher stakes and how to beat them.  Then you'd get better at poker and if you were successful, win more money.  Winning a billion play money chips, or beating .02/.05 for 6 big blinds an hour can't be the end goal.

[Edwardo Piet]

[chimp3]

This is getting repetitive. Motivation is not an action.

Thoughts and intentions are absolutely necessary in the calculus of determining the morality of action. Steam engines lack any intention in-themselves and do what they do without moral import. They are not moral agents. Similarly, tigers are not acting immorally by eating monkeys because it is a tiger’s instinctual nature to hunt, kill, and eat other creatures. Moral responsibility depends on the agent’s capacity to weight consequences and choose between actions that may or may not conform to that agents’ nature. The cultivation of virtue, in both thought and deed, means forming mental habits of courage and caring rather than indifference and cowardice, learning the physical skills required to act on them, and building up the resources needed to do so.

Beautifully written! Aside from some believers claim to a monopoly on moral responsibility, open to the most high minded of us.

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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.

I understand what Hitchens meant and I disagree. If we include motivation in judging immoral actions then we must include motivation in moral actions and we nullify the wager.

[Catholic_Lady]

I can certainly choose to go lay in bed right now and start day dreaming about something. Or I can choose to not.

[Minimalist]

I'm not touching that line.

[chimp3]

I'm not touching that line.

I was ready to post my intention to make the same choice. Bet your not touching that line either!

[Edwardo Piet]

I can certainly choose to go lay in bed right now and start day dreaming about something. Or I can choose to not.

Well... there's the free will thread for that one! Losty asked me to make it to stop us derailing other threads hehe.

I was just saying that our morals are affected by our differences on the matter. We can debate it in the free will thread hehe.

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Thoughts and intentions are absolutely necessary in the calculus of determining the morality of action. Steam engines lack any intention in-themselves and do what they do without moral import. They are not moral agents. Similarly, tigers are not acting immorally by eating monkeys because it is a tiger’s instinctual nature to hunt, kill, and eat other creatures. Moral responsibility depends on the agent’s capacity to weight consequences and choose between actions that may or may not conform to that agents’ nature. The cultivation of virtue, in both thought and deed, means forming mental habits of courage and caring rather than indifference and cowardice, learning the physical skills required to act on them, and building up the resources needed to do so.

Beautifully written! Aside from some believers claim to a monopoly on moral responsibility, open to the most high minded of us.

It begs the question to simply assert that immoral intentions and motivations are obviously immoral because they're obviously immoral.

Because intentions and motivations aren't immoral in themselves... they're only immoral insofar as they lead to immoral actions.