Paschal's Wager re-formulated mathematically: why being Christian is Rational.

[Angrboda]

Will be back after work to respond in more detail later on, but for those of who you know the Mathematical Theory of Expected Value, you know that the argument works when the Reward is extremely high, as Eternal Reward, unless in fact the risk outweighs the reward and the probability is exceeding low.

Let me explain Expected Value with an example. You have a 50% chance of gain $100, but a 50% chance of losing only $50 in a game. Would you play? Maths says you should, as Expected Value is positive.

1. Expected Value is calculated like this: 50%*100-50%*50=50-25=25>0. Since EV is positive, then you should play the game with these odds.

What if it was something like 40% of winning 100, 60% of losing 50. You should still play. Why? Because EV is still positive.

2. EV in this case would be: 40%*100-60%50=40-30=10. Which is a lower expected value than the above, but is still positive.

This is a well known concept in Mathematics and Probability used in various fields.

Now, do understand the argument before strawmanning. I'm not claiming, even if Christianity has no probability of being correct, we should still be Christian. Rather, if from the other arguments, Cosmology, Contingency, Fine-Tuning, the Moral Argument, Messianic Prophecies, Evidence for Christ's Resurrection, 2000 years of Miracles by Lord Jesus in scientifically documented Eucharistic Miracles, the Shroud of Turin, Mother Mary in Her Apparitions like Gaudalupe and Fatima and Medjugorje more recently witnessed by 1000s, of Christian Saints in Evangelism like St. Patrick did in Ireland etc and what's happened in more Africa more recently, if all these put together bring us to even 50% certainty that Christianity rather than Atheism could be true, it then logically follows that being a Christian is the most rational choice given the risk and reward on offer in these circumstances. For the same reason as in the above game.

This is very obvious, but jff let's plug in the figures with what I mentioned earlier to see the result:

3. EV in the case of Christianity and Atheism, where other arguments have shown each to be at least equiprobable:

And we'll continue to go with Eternal Happiness being like +1TN dollars, and leaving aside the risk of Eternal Loss, Atheism being like 1000 dollars, because of Sundays Free, or whatever else Atheists think is good about Atheism.

50%(1 TN)  - 50% (1000) = 500 BN-500 ~500 BN. So since Expected Value is positive, of course the conclusion follows. It is mathematically inescapable. If you knew what Expected Value was, you'd know this. Anyone who knows it or reads about and researches it is more than welcome to challenge me if he thinks otherwise. The conclusion is certain, dead certain.

I'm familiar with expected value. What you fail to realize is that there are more fundamental problems, the most salient being that your equation representing expected value is woefully incomplete. An actual complete equation of expected value for this would have an infinite number of terms and be incalculable. You represent the equation as simply as you do either out of incompetence or some other source of error.

[Gwaithmir]

It cannot be copied from anywhere, Militant Atheist, because a mathematical formulation of Pascal's Wager has never been made before as far as I know. I don't think Expected Value was even fully developed in his time, but it is today. You should worry not about toilets but about going to Heaven and avoiding Hell. As for me, I'll continue to work hard for temporal rewards in this life, and for spiritual rewards in Eternity to come, as everyone who is wise also should.

"The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully." (Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion)

Even a cursory reading of the Bible reveals a God who is, unquestionably, guilty of unprincipled behavior. Are you really going to trust this immoral, sadistic being to grant you eternal bliss? He's more apt to send you to Hell, simply because he wants to see that look of panic and betrayal cross your face.

[Bucky Ball]

Will be back after work to respond in more detail later on, but for those of who you know the Mathematical Theory of Expected Value, you know that the argument works when the Reward is extremely high, as Eternal Reward, unless in fact the risk outweighs the reward and the probability is exceeding low.

Let me explain Expected Value with an example. You have a 50% chance of gain $100, but a 50% chance of losing only $50 in a game. Would you play? Maths says you should, as Expected Value is positive.

1. Expected Value is

bla bla bla

LOL. He just wanted to find a way to list all his miracles. Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain. There are no "scientifically documented" Eucharistic miracles. 
They never proved the cracker was really Jesus. LOL. They never even attempted to prove correlation.
All the others have no evidence for them. None at all. You're selling snake oil. 
No one gives a shit about your wager. It's unnecessary. All we have to do to go to heaven (according to your cult) is live according to our consciences. 
Stop wasting our time. You're implying alll we have to do is turn around on a dime and say we believe. Pretty fucking stupid god ya got there. You're saying he wouldn't know if we jusr *say* we believe, and the implication of all this shit, is that YOU know nothing about faith, it's psychology, meaning and value to real people of faith. You're nothing but a poseur trying to impress us somehow. You failed. You think faith is about mathematics. LMFAO. What an ignorant selfish insular fool.  
LOL

Illusory truth effect
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_truth_effect

There were thousands at Fatima who claimed they saw the sun dance.
Mass hysteria is a thing.
Have you any idea what that would mean in cosmology ?

[The Grand Nudger]

He tells all his clients theres a 50/50 shot they'll lose their shirts.

[Bucky Ball]

It cannot be copied from anywhere, Militant Atheist, because a mathematical formulation of Pascal's Wager has never been made before as far as I know. I don't think Expected Value was even fully developed in his time, but it is today. You should worry not about toilets but about going to Heaven and avoiding Hell. As for me, I'll continue to work hard for temporal rewards in this life, and for spiritual rewards in Eternity to come, as everyone who is wise also should.

Your implication by using the term "militant atheist", is that YOU get to be an "evangelical" and attempt to threaten and force your beliefs onto others by threatening people with the loss of heaven, but others are not free to express their skepticism. What a hypocrite.

Also you falsely claim

2000 years of Miracles by Lord Jesus in scientifically documented Eucharistic Miracles,

Can you tell us where these are "scientifically documented" peer-reviewed, what the control groups were, and what the null hypotheses were ?
Take your time.
BTW, something that is "scientifically documented" does not meet the definition of "miracle".
Are you talking about "highly improbable" events, or events that are simply unexplained "as far as you know" ?
A single event cannot be scientifically documented as you have no data concerning occurrence frequency.
You really are a quack, scientifically, and we have multiple occurrences here to prove that.

ta ta

[GrandizerII]

There were thousands at Fatima who claimed they saw the sun dance.

That's if it's even true.

[Bucky Ball]

As Bart Ehrman schooled L'il Billy Craig about, 10 years ago, in the Resurrection debate, when Billy was doing his sleight of hand attempting to use Bayesian Probability, to prove the resurrection, a "miracle" goes to the VERY end of the line when looking at probabilities. All other explanations have to be excluded. Many of the people who claim various "miracles" were totally unsupervised and there were no controls. THAT is not science, and "scientifically documented" is simply false. Mostly not even one other explanation has been looked at. That's not science.

A good example is the Padre Pio nonsense.
https://www.thefreelibrary.com/Does+this...0272687310

[Mister Agenda]

Will be back after work to respond in more detail later on, but for those of who you know the Mathematical Theory of Expected Value, you know that the argument works when the Reward is extremely high, as Eternal Reward, unless in fact the risk outweighs the reward and the probability is exceeding low.

Let me explain Expected Value with an example. You have a 50% chance of gain $100, but a 50% chance of losing only $50 in a game. Would you play? Maths says you should, as Expected Value is positive.

1. Expected Value is calculated like this: 50%*100-50%*50=50-25=25>0. Since EV is positive, then you should play the game with these odds.

What if it was something like 40% of winning 100, 60% of losing 50. You should still play. Why? Because EV is still positive.

2. EV in this case would be: 40%*100-60%50=40-30=10. Which is a lower expected value than the above, but is still positive.

This is a well known concept in Mathematics and Probability used in various fields.

Now, do understand the argument before strawmanning. I'm not claiming, even if Christianity has no probability of being correct, we should still be Christian. Rather, if from the other arguments, Cosmology, Contingency, Fine-Tuning, the Moral Argument, Messianic Prophecies, Evidence for Christ's Resurrection, 2000 years of Miracles by Lord Jesus in scientifically documented Eucharistic Miracles, the Shroud of Turin, Mother Mary in Her Apparitions like Gaudalupe and Fatima and Medjugorje more recently witnessed by 1000s, of Christian Saints in Evangelism like St. Patrick did in Ireland etc and what's happened in more Africa more recently, if all these put together bring us to even 50% certainty that Christianity rather than Atheism could be true, it then logically follows that being a Christian is the most rational choice given the risk and reward on offer in these circumstances. For the same reason as in the above game.

This is very obvious, but jff let's plug in the figures with what I mentioned earlier to see the result:

3. EV in the case of Christianity and Atheism, where other arguments have shown each to be at least equiprobable:

And we'll continue to go with Eternal Happiness being like +1TN dollars, and leaving aside the risk of Eternal Loss, Atheism being like 1000 dollars, because of Sundays Free, or whatever else Atheists think is good about Atheism.

50%(1 TN)  - 50% (1000) = 500 BN-500 ~500 BN. So since Expected Value is positive, of course the conclusion follows. It is mathematically inescapable. If you knew what Expected Value was, you'd know this. Anyone who knows it or reads about and researches it is more than welcome to challenge me if he thinks otherwise. The conclusion is certain, dead certain.

Would you convert to Zoroastrianism right now for a trillion dollars?

[Anomalocaris]

Will be back after work to respond in more detail later on, but for those of who you know the Mathematical Theory of Expected Value, you know that the argument works when the Reward is extremely high, as Eternal Reward, unless in fact the risk outweighs the reward and the probability is exceeding low.

Let me explain Expected Value with an example. You have a 50% chance of gain $100, but a 50% chance of losing only $50 in a game. Would you play? Maths says you should, as Expected Value is positive.

1. Expected Value is calculated like this: 50%*100-50%*50=50-25=25>0. Since EV is positive, then you should play the game with these odds.

What if it was something like 40% of winning 100, 60% of losing 50. You should still play. Why? Because EV is still positive.

2. EV in this case would be: 40%*100-60%50=40-30=10. Which is a lower expected value than the above, but is still positive.

This is a well known concept in Mathematics and Probability used in various fields.

Now, do understand the argument before strawmanning. I'm not claiming, even if Christianity has no probability of being correct, we should still be Christian. Rather, if from the other arguments, Cosmology, Contingency, Fine-Tuning, the Moral Argument, Messianic Prophecies, Evidence for Christ's Resurrection, 2000 years of Miracles by Lord Jesus in scientifically documented Eucharistic Miracles, the Shroud of Turin, Mother Mary in Her Apparitions like Gaudalupe and Fatima and Medjugorje more recently witnessed by 1000s, of Christian Saints in Evangelism like St. Patrick did in Ireland etc and what's happened in more Africa more recently, if all these put together bring us to even 50% certainty that Christianity rather than Atheism could be true, it then logically follows that being a Christian is the most rational choice given the risk and reward on offer in these circumstances. For the same reason as in the above game.

This is very obvious, but jff let's plug in the figures with what I mentioned earlier to see the result:

3. EV in the case of Christianity and Atheism, where other arguments have shown each to be at least equiprobable:

And we'll continue to go with Eternal Happiness being like +1TN dollars, and leaving aside the risk of Eternal Loss, Atheism being like 1000 dollars, because of Sundays Free, or whatever else Atheists think is good about Atheism.

50%(1 TN)  - 50% (1000) = 500 BN-500 ~500 BN. So since Expected Value is positive, of course the conclusion follows. It is mathematically inescapable. If you knew what Expected Value was, you'd know this. Anyone who knows it or reads about and researches it is more than welcome to challenge me if he thinks otherwise. The conclusion is certain, dead certain.

Would you convert to Zoroastrianism right now for a trillion dollars?

Whatever Jesus offers, Zoroastrianism will double it, but also only To be disbursed to him and not his heirs after he dies.

[LinuxGal]

Given the above, if Christian Theism vis-a-vis Marxist (or other) Atheism is even 50-50, i.e. Christianity has a 50% probability of being true, and 50% one of being false, it in fact logically follows that being a Christian is the more rational choice. [

God, on Judgment Day: "Why shouldn't I send your ass straight to hell?"

Xavier: "Because I believe in the death and resurrection of Your Son Jesus Christ."

God: "Did you come to believe in this by your free will cooperating with the grace of justification bestowed by My Holy Spirit?"

Xavier: "Actually, Lord, I ran the counterfactuals through a weighting process using game theory and settled on this as the optimal position."