Pretty much this. And if you want to call it lazy, so be it. But this is why I can't bring myself to participate here much anymore. There are only so many ways of banging your head against a wall and saying the same things over and over again. I've said all I have to say about everything that gets brought up here. I peek in every couple of months or so and it's the the same old same old. There is really nothing new that is being discussed.

He is basically saying (from the way I understood it), that he doesn't care how long the odds are, only that the possibility of something being true exists. While I can agree with his bridge example even though I know nothing about the game, it is not analogous to theistic beliefs.

For one thing, the bridge play is correct because the alternative represents a 100% probability of loss. So the play has infinite odds, so to speak. However, it has nothing to do with holding a false belief. You do not make the play because you either believe or disbelieve the opponent is holding the exact two cards necessary to win. You make the play because it's correct whether he does or doesn't. The same cannot be said for gods and religion. Here, you knowingly acknowledge the prospect of holding a false belief for the sake of preference and because you don't like the alternative. And this is before we even get into the harm that holding a false belief can cause.

Again, this topic has been discussed ad nauseam. I see no reason to re-hash it again.

The older you get, the more true this is in everything. Luckily you start to forget that you've already said it, so it becomes fine. Roll on dementia..
RLK's view is that, if materialism is true, it represents 0% gain as well (viewed in some sort of "cosmic" sense - we dont matter to a materialistic universe which will be as if we never existed once we are dead).

It's not quite Pascal's wager (although he has provided another formulation which is, in my view) - one distinguishing feature being he isnt actually choosing a specific God, for example, but merely going looking for one as basically a freeroll. If there's none there (or a malicious one) then it doesnt matter what he does. If there turns out to be a nice god who provides clues, hopefully he'll find what they are and potentially win.

My criticism of this argument is that an honest, sincere search for god is not, in fact, no effort - if all we have is our own, short lives we may be of the view that effort spent on meditation/prayer/reading might have been better spent feeding the third world or playing on the xbox. One can do these "calculations" even in a materialistic world and how I spend my leisure time may not matter to the universe, but it matters to the part of the universe making the choice.

I also dispute the "afterlife = infinite value, cessation of life = zero value" metric (or any metric which adopts either of those).

First, I would say that taking this approach as a counter to my point completely convinces me that you fully understand it. Full stop.

Second, I never said that an honest search for God is no effort. I said there was no ultimate cost. I did characterize the possible benefit as potentially infinite, at least in comparison to a finite life. I still think that cost/benefit analysis is valid and nothing in your post changes my opinion.

I think your position represents an error in judgment with all due respect, but it is not an error due to incomplete understanding. There is not much more to say, I think.

Yeah, I think pretty much the same.

(Though I am going to go quote mining, since I love the last word... )

I am fine with letting this drop, but the bold statement is incorrect. That is not a part of anything I have said and again with all due respect is a statement that shows you do not understand my point accurately. If you did, you could not say that.

I know many believers who accept religion without giving it any deep thought at all.

One thing I do know, is that you guys think and discuss this stuff on a much higher intellectual level than I do. So in that sense, you're right that I'm overly simplistic. I just don't think it's all that complicated.

It seems you guys put forth all these subtleties that I don't have the patience to follow. That, plus the fact I'm not convinced they mean anything but to serve as a diversion.

You, OrP, and bunny, feel that you're not *quite* putting forth a Pascal's Wager argument. But whatever subtle difference there may be, I don't see how it's important. You're basically implying a free roll and that's close enough to Pascal's Wager as I understand it. I'm not going to get diverted into following every new path and refuting them separately. Again, I just don't have the patience anymore for this. I only jumped into the thread because I was curious how someone whom I consider a logical thinking person could think an eternal afterlife presents a more meaningful time spent on earth, than if one doesn't exist. Either way, it's much less than a blink of an eye from an eternal standpoint. Nevertheless, a finite life represents all the atheist has. 100% of his existence! How can it NOT be more meaningful to the atheist?

This is another thing I never understood. What do you mean, "WE don't matter"? Of course we do! If nothing else, I matter to me. My loved ones matter to me. I matter to my loved ones, and so forth.

I guess it stems from some people's (erroneous in my view) stance that the universe owes them an explanation and ultimate meaning. Why? How do these people come to consider themselves so self-important? I don't get it.

Jib gets some credit too but i dont think im thinking about in the way you want me to. To me the statement "living as if God exist" is meaningless without adding to God. Does a deists live as if God exists? If so how does it differ form an atheist? Because i see no difference in how a deist and an atheist lives (except for belief). You need to add to God to live as if he exists otherwise for all i know living as an atheist (or deist) is living as if God exists. Which means there is nothing really meaningful to "living as if God exists". I need to know what God wants of me to give it meaning. And since i dont i cant.

Well I agree with you, of course, but I think it's a common intuition that if god exists in the way most theistic religions portray him, then we matter in a qualitatively different way (and an additional way that we don't matter in an atheistic universe).

I don't share that intuition, but several atheists in this thread have said they do. Presumably, RLK considers that second form of "extreme long term mattering" to be more valuable than the "short term" kind.

I'm not trying to persuade you to chase rabbits, but I think new arguments (or adjustments to old arguments are interesting).

Don't argue if you don't enjoy it, but don't consider it because you can't follow it. RLK's argument isn't complicated, it's just a little off the beaten track.

//doublepost//

It seems like rlk's position is more like 'there is no such thing as short term mattering'.

That's why I asked. So, the second someone said 'there are gods', it became the safer bet to believe in them. Since I'm pretty sure you won't decide to believe in a greater god than the one you worship simply because I tell you one exists, what does it take to create the belief? Is there a critical mass that needs to be achieved before it's safer to believe than not? How does it work?

Do you believe in your god solely because being wrong would be the less desirable state?

Can you rewrite this to make a coherent point related to the exchange we were having? This just seems like random nonsense.

This is not a bad restatement in some sense. I would expand on it a bit because I acknowledge that I experience the effects that would cause me to make similar statements about "the short term". But when you die it is not that the short term is taken away from you. It is wiped out. It no longer exists. For you, the situation is totally and completely indistinguishable from that in which you had never existed. So ultimately, there is no such thing as "short term mattering".

I mean no disrespect, but this seems obvious to me. But I do want to make one clear point. I am not a theist because this makes me uncomfortable or because I do not want this to be true. My theism and my desires have no effect on whether this is true or not. When I fully formulated this realization in my mind its effect was to provide an input into the decision making around questions of spirituality and God, but not to specify the outcome.

I am a theist because my experience with prayer and its effects on my life have convinced me that there is a God.

I think it was Bertrand Russell who said that his answer to God if he should find Him there when he dies would be "Not enough evidence". That's fine for him, but I could not use that. If I tried that line He could say "When you asked for help, didn't I guide you?" "Didn't I answer all of your prayers?" And I would have to say "Yes". Because that is basically true. I have all the evidence I need to conclude that there is a God. I simply do not have the evidence to convince anyone else that there must be a God. That may be a reason for you not to believe, but it is not an excuse for me not to believe.

I do not differentiate between the belief in a small possibility like God/s or the belief in a small possibility like the Flying Spaghetti Monster. To me there is no evidence-based method that can measure the likelihood of the God possibility being true vs the likelihood of the FSM possibility being true. This means that until such a time arrives that I can measure their likelihood of existence, they are both equally likely to be true, and equally unimportant for my day-to-day life.

And if God wants me to have faith.........then I do not wish to worship a God who values faith over evidence.

I'll try....

Before anyone suggested that their might be gods, no one would have felt that it was the 'safer bet' to believe in them rather than be Atheist. The choice didn't exist until the idea that there are gods existed. Once the idea existed, the gods don't actually have to exist, just the possibility is enough to cause the wager and to force the choice of believing over not believing.

However, that was only something that Pascal would even have wasted time coming up with if the idea of there being gods was worthy of attention, which in the 17th century and in a society heavily influenced by Christianity, it was.

If Pascal couldn't take seriously the idea of there being a god, he wouldn't have bothered coming up with the wager. So my question is, for Pascal, or anyone else, to take seriously enough an idea for which there's no proof, does there have to be a critical mass reached? For example, if I said to you that actually there's an even more powerful god than the one you follow, would you automatically believe in it because of Pascal's wager? Or would you not give the idea any credibility because I'm a lone voice and simply ignore it?

I want to start at the first bold, because there is an error there. Pascal's wager is not about believing versus not believing. Pascal wrote that one should behave as if there was a God, whether one believed or not. He felt that the result of living as if there was a God would result eventually in belief, but the wager is not about belief per se.

With that, do you leave the rest of your argument unchanged?

On the second bold, God requires a little definition. God is the ultimate creator. If you propose a greater God, that was simply the one I was already talking about. You just mistakenly thought I meant something less.

The bold is simply a statement of your inability to reason effectively. With that kind of mental flaw you could end up anywhere and no one can help you.

As one of the few deists on here (I think), I can say I live my life exactly like I would if I were atheist. Whether or not some form of god exists, I've learned that doing (objectively) good things for others, my family, etc, bring me joy, and give me a greater sense of purpose (whether that purpose is ultimately meaningful or not I am not sure). I've decided that I do care about the outcome of the human race, and life on Earth in general, and that I wish for it to thrive. At an earlier point in my life, I had reasoned that I didn't care much about said outcome, but after having a child I changed my mind.

So yes, I think you are correct here from our shared perspective. I would personally replace the statement "living as if god exists" with "acting in a way that you think is (objectively) moral, even when presented with the opportunity/urge to do otherwise".

Do you think that god would be right to consign him to the flames for his inability to reason effectively, given that god gave him his reasoning ability in the first place? ( I think you dont believe in the usual idea of hell, but you know what Im getting at). He can only use the abilities he has. Why is it that god rewards only the ones that can reason effectively?

I agree. I find it impossible to imagine that God would doom someone to eternal torment for a reasoning error. As you say, there are few (maybe no) transgressions in this life that seem worthy of eternal punishment so I am quite skeptical of the concept.

The only way I can possibly rationalize the concept of Hell as presented in Judeo-Christian tradition is if we did something before this life for which we are being given the chance to atone, or some such (an original sin analog but assuming the apple was allegorical, and Adam and Eve represent our actual involvement). Obviously the memory would also have been removed. Totally speculative and without a shred of evidence, but theoretically possible under the assumption of God.

Yes, I don't think it really changes what I'm saying. Whether the behaviour is 'Act as if' or 'believe', I'd still ask the same question.

Yeah I anticipated this but don't really have a solution. What if I suggested 'something' that I currently can't imagine but that would be an far superior alternative to your god, then would you switch your beliefs as the safer way to act based on my word alone?

If not, how many people suggesting it would it take before it became the safer bet?

Ok, so where does that leave your "living life as if god exists" then? You appear to believe that doing so may have an effect on your existence after death. But, as you have just admitted, its not anyones fault if they cant do it, or cant reason their way into it, they can only work with what they are given. Is it that you are one of the lucky ones? Or is it only the ones who do have sufficient reasoning power, but for some reason dont make the connection, that get obliterated? Not making the connection is still to do with the faculties and abilities that you were given, so even in that case, there is nowhere to lay the blame



if we are being given the chance to atone, how do we do that? We still have only the faculties given us, and they might not be enough to atone.