For athesits,why i believe in god.Its simply more profitable.

[antaeus]

It's hard to imagine an omniscient and omnibenevolent god would reward the kind of gamesmanship represented in Pascal's wager.

That's always been my assumption. But then it gets into the whole "true in thought" vs "true in action" debate. Different religions have different feelings about it...

Hell*, there's even a TV series on this exact dilemma.

[basics]

That's always been my assumption. But then it gets into the whole "true in thought" vs "true in action" debate. Different religions have different feelings about it...

Hell*, there's even a TV series on this exact dilemma.

antaeus,

After the crucifixion of Christ it is written that the Sanhedrin turned their minds to hunting down and killing Lazarus as he was the proof that death could be defeated, that Jesus had the power to bring people back from the dead as He had proved on other occasions. Peter, John and Paul were given that same power on certain occasions so the argument that once you were dead, you were in fact dead, full stop. Many today are recorded to have been resuscitated, some able to give an account of what they saw when they were dead which to me proves that life after death is a certainty but at what expense? We have all seen pictures from the Bible of what that amounts to and the end product can be good for some and bad for the rest so why bet on it as if one could?

[fkizz]

The thing is that Jesus Christ life had such an impact that it changed the religious-cultural landscape with a strenght to be felt 2000 years later.. Despite having been handed the death penalty to reduce his influence. That's power son.

The idea that a mere preacher to people with sheeps could have such an impact creates more questions than it answers.

So likely plenty out of ordinary things happened in Jesus life at least. Enough to shape Europe and its colonies for 2000 years. If one denies the miracles, not fair to just say "ah he was a charismatic public speaker, he liked to hang out with fisherman and sheepherds and then one day Emperor of Rome declares him officially to be the main religious/philosophical symbol of Roman Empire.

[chriscase]

That's always been my assumption. But then it gets into the whole "true in thought" vs "true in action" debate. Different religions have different feelings about it...

Hell*, there's even a TV series on this exact dilemma.

If I understand what you mean by thought vs. action, if I think about sinning - say murdering somebody - have I already sinned "in my heart" (or mind) and what does it count for (if anything) that I didn't take it farther and actually commit the act?

But Pascal's wager is treating a mental activity (belief) like an action, so I think the distinction is blurred. To some extent this idea of belief is promoting hypocrisy, where one goes through the motions of the religion, attending to its external appearance with a hidden self-awareness of disbelief or at least skepticism, in hopes of some reward after death. It's hard to see that as self restraint from sin like not committing a murder one had wished for. It's more like moral cowardice and reluctance to face the social consequences of one's true thoughts.

[Emperor Arcturus Mengsk]

Pretty sure the reason Christianity and Islam are so dominant today have something to do with gigantic empires spreading them all around the world, through conquest mostly rather than some poetic divine enlightenment, but okay whatever floats your boats

[Owlparrot3]

I liked that people like Basics and EAM are commenting here.I felt respected.They are two opposite poles,both of whom i admire.

Pascal's wager is more better for mental satisfaction,that believing in god,is better than not .But what are the exact problems you people have with it.What are the loopholes in it???

[chriscase]

Well if you are looking for logical problems outside of historical context, it's essentially an argument that we should accept something to be true because it promises us rewards that cannot be verified prior to the commitment (presumably in this case, death).

So it goes to the fundamental question what sorts of reasons we should have to accept assertions about the world. To paraphrase Bertrand Russell, the general scientific approach to this question is to accept assertions that have an adequate body of evidence to support them, to disbelieve assertions that seem unlikely or nonsensical, and to reserve judgment on assertions whose truth or falsehood are currently unknown.

Pascal's wager goes against this principle by arguing that one ought to believe something without adequate evidence because the claim itself promises something that all other evidence would convince us is impossible - so, the argument goes, what do you have to lose?

But consider whether this is a good reason to believe something. If it were, it would be a good reason to believe any and all outlandish claims about the world, the afterlife... you name it. The list of absurd and unverifiable claims one might be called upon to "believe" just because some arbitrary supernatural entity might like it is endless. So what you really have to lose in this case is your time and your mind. We have more than enough real problems to occupy our short time on Earth. We don't need made up ones to distract us.

[Himster]

Pascal's wager is more better for mental satisfaction,that believing in god,is better than not .But what are the exact problems you people have with it.What are the loopholes in it???

My main problem is: it cannot lead to sincere belief and therefore doesn't qualify as belief. It is in actuality the performance of belief for profit, it is spiritual prostitution.

The reality of Pascal's wager is, it's never used in the sense "this is why I believe", it is used "this is why you should believe." It is a manner of convincing the other, not the self. Belief in the matter of spiritual issues (similar to love) are inherently non-rational, some might say (more generously) they are pre-rational. Pascal's Wager is an attempt to rationalize beliefs after the fact (the action of belief), not as a reason for belief. Never as a reason for belief.

If one were to claim that their beliefs are derived from Pascal's Wager: it would be impossible for this claim to be believed.

[Sir Adrian]

Pretty much hit the nail on the head there

Pretty sure the reason Christianity and Islam are so dominant today have something to do with gigantic empires spreading them all around the world, through conquest mostly rather than some poetic divine enlightenment, but okay whatever floats your boats

Rome was already a gigantic empire when Christianity appeared and they didn't do much spreading of it. For ex Christianity was already strong in Dacia when it was conquered by Rome.

[fkizz]

Pretty sure the reason Christianity and Islam are so dominant today have something to do with gigantic empires spreading them all around the world, through conquest mostly rather than some poetic divine enlightenment, but okay whatever floats your boats

Christianity was brutally persecuted in Roman Empire for 300 years before being the Empire's religion. You don't simply last 300 years of persecution with routine killings of christians and then "accidentally" become the Empire's religion. Saul (St. Paul) for example was a former Roman Officer in charge of persecuting and killing christians. After a vision, one day he converted.

A lot must have had happened before the religion reached Constantine.

[chriscase]

A hundred spiders fall on a city street; only one survives. Shall we pore over its features, wondering what made it so special? Or perhaps it's just the one that landed on the stop sign.

[fkizz]

A hundred spiders fall on a city street; only one survives. Shall we pore over its features, wondering what made it so special? Or perhaps it's just the one that landed on the stop sign.

A hundred conquerors try glory, only Alexander the Great, Hannibal, Napoleon and Caesar make it very big. Shall we ponder what were their perks as commanders that differentiated them and what made their strategies special?

Or perhaps just it's simply conquereros who managed a lot of glory and nothing to learn about that. Nothing to see there military academies, move along.

[chriscase]

Exactly. If, given the nature of those societies, it was inevitable (or highly likely) that some individual/s would be conqueror/s, what is more significant - the personal attributes of whatever individuals ended up in the pocket or the overall circumstances that lead to the existence of the pocket in the first place?

[fkizz]

Military Academies curriculum say that you should study the Conqueror strategies. They do study Hannibal and several others for a reason.
To explain everything by "luck" and "circunstancial determinism" is over-simplifying things.

On Alexander's case, you don't simply/accidentally conquer the whole Persian Empire because "overall circunstances". No history book will seriously explain it that way.

To make a point on Christ, you don't simply become the philosophical/religious reference of the west for 2000 years simply by preaching on fishermen and shepherds. On Christianity you don't "accidentally" become the religion of the Empire after 300 years of persecution. It's 2 very very very unlikely events in a row to be explained by luck and "circunstances".

I mean, how much ridiculously high amounts of luck are even needed? Isn't relying on such colossal luck amounts to happen from time to time to explain historical evnets kinda supersticious, ironically?
Something more is needed for the puzzle make minimal sense.

[chriscase]

Spiders don't land on stop signs instead of getting crushed under car tires for no sensible reason at all; there are aerodynamics, color and/or shape sensitivities, and of course initial position, velocity, and wind resistance. All of these things can factor in to the success of the spider that doesn't die.

I'm not saying individual attributes are entirely irrelevant - I'm saying that, if the historical context dictates there will be *something* that fills a certain role, we shouldn't assign too much significance to the attributes of the thing that actually ended up in that role.

[fkizz]

I'm not saying individual attributes are entirely irrelevant - I'm saying that, if the historical context dictates there will be *something* that fills a certain role, we shouldn't assign too much significance to the attributes of the thing that actually ended up in that role.

Using collision physics to make an analogy to very uncertain phenomena of human behaviour?

Well your point rests on the absolute certainty that reality is utterly deterministic. If it's deterministic or not has been part of thousands of years of philosophical debate with no clear conclusion for there is no evidence!
There you go, seems even a sceptic holds beliefs without proof.

[chriscase]

I'd say it's clear that my interest in historical determinism pales in comparison to your desire to attribute special characteristics to a particular lucky spider. You'll note I did say "if" above - whereas you are all in on your "there's no way Christianity could have happened without divine influence".

So for the entire history of the species it's CE 0 - 1500 that really tell us about what's special I suppose.

[fkizz]

Where is your proof that History is in fact, deterministic? That's your personal belief that has no evidence. Many non deterministic historians and sociologists have existed.
Where is the Evidence that they are incorrect in not being deterministic?
Simply you believe things happened by luck because "historical determinism" despite no evidence for that.

Christianity is a religion, but I did mention Napoleon, Hannibal, Caesar and Alexander as out of ordinary effects that don't invoke divine intervention or not.

My point was, what is the theory on how christianity spreads to such colossal amounts to the Empire if Christ was a mere person that had a few talks with some fisherman and shepherds?
There is nothing asides from "Colossal Luck happened, because Historical Determinism". Unsatisfying explanation!

Downplaying almost the most famous commanders achievemnts as "huh, they were very very lucky guys supported by historical determinism" is a very lazy post/explanation!

[chriscase]

Well I don't think it takes too much for us to agree that history is determined from the perspective of the future, right? That is, now that the past has already happened, wouldn't you agree it is now determined?

I don't have the expertise in history to claim it would be 100% determined given some set of circumstances. Given some extinction-level geological or cosmological event, of course whatever developments might have been underway on the planet would obviously be interrupted. So any prediction based on socio-historical trends would of course be contingent and expressed more as high likelihoods than absolute certainties.

That said, I think it's an obviously erroneous tendency to attribute special status to something whose only distinction is having been the thing that history happens to have preserved. It's highly likely that the middle ages in Europe would produce an overarching religion. It's highly likely that warlike state level cultures would produce extremely skilled warlords. The individuals are of course worthy of study but it's an avoidable falsehood to parlay their historical dominance directly to an attestation of extraordinary individual virtue.

[Himster]

Where is your proof that History is in fact, deterministic?

It's pretty obvious that the universe is deterministic, as in subject to the laws of cause and effect. We can predict solar eclipses, calculate rocket trajectories to the moon and build cars. It'd be a superfluous conjecture to hypothesize that human activity is somehow magically exempt, would it not?

Simply you believe things happened by luck because "historical determinism" despite no evidence for that.

If it's determined then luck plays absolutely no role at all by definition.

Christianity is a religion, but I did mention Napoleon, Hannibal, Caesar and Alexander as out of ordinary effects that don't invoke divine intervention or not.

They each invoked an absurd quantity of divine intervention and explanation for their right of dominance, manifest destiny and incredible achievements. Well I don't know about Hannibal, but the others unquestionably invoked such gibberish.

My point was, what is the theory on how christianity spreads to such colossal amounts to the Empire if Christ was a mere person that had a few talks with some fisherman and shepherds?
There is nothing asides from "Colossal Luck happened, because Historical Determinism". Unsatisfying explanation!

Determinism is the opposite of luck: they are incompatible concepts.
But even if luck were the explanation, that would be no less satisfactory than: a magic sky man intervened in order to "save" the souls of a small percentage of souls which he had previously condemned to infinite torture.

Downplaying almost the most famous commanders achievemnts as "huh, they were very very lucky guys supported by historical determinism" is a very lazy post/explanation!

I'm going to assume that you mean luck and not determinism...
It's better than divine intervention.