Essay talk:Why Pascal's Wager is stupid and I hate it

Delete this blasphemy or I will send you to work in the broccoli mines on Mercury. Fonzie (talk) 23:11, 3 January 2015 (UTC)
 * k 23:30, 3 January 2015 (UTC)
 * As a logical refutation I suppose this works. But does anybody actually believe in the existence of God/s because of Pascal's wager?--Bob"I think you'll find it's more complicated than that." 19:35, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Probably very few people do. But it's not uncommon in one-on-one evangelism, where it's usually tacked on to other claims. 20:16, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Sure. But people usually believe in some God/s or other because that's what their parents' taught them. Later they look for some justification for their beliefs and this is one of the ones that some people find attractive. So this one is usually used to give some kind of support to people who already believe or it's used to try to suggest to other people that they should believe.  But no believer believes because of it and no non-believer is ever persuaded.  So, as I said, your argument is sound - but I don't think it's going to change the opinion of anybody.--Bob"I think you'll find it's more complicated than that." 21:47, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I found one person, Sylvan D. Therefore, I "win" this conversation. 22:22, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I don't actually see him on that link - but I'm prepared to believe he exists. :-)--Bob"I think you'll find it's more complicated than that." 08:16, 5 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I don't see that person saying they were convinced by Pascal's Wager. They say "God loves me anyway". 08:26, 5 January 2015 (UTC)
 * It's hard to find anyone explicitly stating that they are a theist because of Pascal's Wager. Instead, the ideas behind Pascal's Wager (fear of hell, want of heaven) tend to reinforce people's beliefs -- because, even if your faith is wavering, or if other supports of your faith have been rebutted, fear is a powerful motivator. Rebutting Pascal's Wager helps remove this support. plus i just wanted to debunk something, and it's not done yet 16:31, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

Why do we never address anti-god?
That's always my favorite counter-supposition. If we assume an intelligent(yet malevolent) entity created the bible to explicitly troll humanity, and following it results in a hell-like situation and disobeying it results in a heaven-like one, you can fully balance the tables. As long as we are addressing strict hypotheticals, it's always possible to conjecture alternate gods that explicitly balance whatever the Pascal de Jure has proposed. Ikanreed (talk) 16:37, 5 January 2015 (UTC)
 * The WIP is for exactly that reason. For every God n, there must be (because of the infinite set of possible gods) an anti-God n. 17:39, 5 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Deceptive gods can't really be relied on to grant you a desirable eternal afterlife, can they? Unless there's strong evidence showing that the only afterlife-granting deity available is a huge troll, I wouldn't waste any effort on pointing my prayers at it. 141.134.75.236 (talk) 20:27, 6 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Deceptive gods probably look very much like honest ones. Fonzie (talk) 22:54, 6 January 2015 (UTC)
 * You're not relying on deceptive gods, but anti-gods. 22:56, 6 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Well, Ikanreed was talking about a god trolling humanity with the Bible. So you mean a god that does the exact opposite of another god then? If a god, whether or not it's the anti-god to some other god, is irrational, deceptive or malevolent, it's pretty obvious not to rely on it for a desirable afterlife. If the anti-god is benevolent and reliable, on the other hand, feel free to worship it. 141.134.75.236 (talk) 23:27, 6 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Why would you worship any of them?--Bob"I think you'll find it's more complicated than that." 07:41, 7 January 2015 (UTC)
 * To hopefully increase the odds of ending up in a desirable afterlife? 141.134.75.236 (talk) 19:35, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
 * True, but the liklihood of getting to a better afterlife is nearly zero anyways. You would need to find the right god and not get deceived into worshipping the wrong one.  Then find the right steps to worship/believe that hasn't been changed or deleted in translations.  -EmeraldCityWanderer (talk) 20:08, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Why would worshipping a god make your likely to have an afterlife? Perhaps the god doesn't like sycophants and punishes them. Perhaps he'll punish you for trying to game the system. Perhaps he's not so insecure that he needs worship and rewards independence or common sense instead. Worshipping some random god on the off-chance that he'll rearward you could just as easily reduce your chances of an afterlife.--Bob"I think you'll find it's more complicated than that." 12:18, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

Ah, I see where you're going with the anti-gods now
Except that most of your assumptions, including the assumption that all gods are equally likely, are completely unfounded. For starters, it's totally possible for multiple gods to exist at the same time. Even if you start out with just 1, why wouldn't that god create more gods if it so pleases? Also, potentially noteworthy, if the main condition for an entity being considered a god relevant to the equation is that it can provide you with an afterlife, it doesn't even need to be supernatural per se. Also, it's totally possible to worship/believe in multiple gods at the same time. Even if you claim to worship just one god, if you're vague enough about it, you could still satisfy an infinite number of possible gods' conditions for being allowed into their afterlife. 141.134.75.236 (talk) 21:59, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Ah, but now we're getting into territory where Pascal's wager is no longer about believing without evidence. When you start talking about what's likely and what's reasonable, well, that's the atheists path, my friend.  The whole point of Pascal's wager is that the subject isn't convinced of the existence of god and is to be convinced to believe in spite of it.  Ikanreed (talk) 22:03, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
 * There are three big issues I see with this idea.
 * If the rest were all the same god why would other gods and differences in worship exist? A number are mutually exclusive.
 * Why would condemation of other faiths exist if they were all the same? Such as the first commandment.
 * If they are all the same wouldn't an all knowing compassionate creator realize these differences would cause religious wars and suffering for thousands of years?
 * -EmeraldCityWanderer (talk) 22:41, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Now that satisfying an infinite number of gods' conditions has been brought up, is it possible that you could satisfy an infinite number of gods and still offend "nearly all" of the gods? Fonzie (talk) 22:53, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
 * To be honest, it's likely "nearly all" gods won't care about you, your beliefs or what you do with your life. We're talking about the subset that does care about either of these things. Then if we're talking about what subset of that subset to direct your worship at, you should be aiming for benevolent, reliable (not irrational or deceptive) afterlife-providing deities with a similar concept of morality as we do (if they lack the latter property, their heaven might be a hell to us). It can be pretty safely assumed that these don't form the majority out of all possibilities, but directing worship at any others is more likely to be a waste. 141.134.75.236 (talk) 23:13, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
 * The whole point of "anti-gods" to me is that literally any god you can propose that judges people, I can propose its moral antithesis, and lacking substantive reason to believe in any given one, games about possibilities are zero sum. Ikanreed (talk) 23:15, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
 * That's assuming gods and their anti-gods are equally likely, though. I think that's a pretty consequential assumption to make. 141.134.75.236 (talk) 02:22, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

Yeah I don't see how you can "aim" at certain gods without there being another god that you inadvertantly piss off which turns out to be the only one watching anyway. 94.3.16.153 (talk) 23:35, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Well, there are an infinite amount of possibilities for gods that'll be pretty easily pissed off by stuff you do, and the same goes for gods that love you no matter what you do and gods that don't care about you no matter what you do. Trying to influence these gods is a waste of time. The general idea is to try to get any nice gods out there whose opinion of you is influencable on your side. Say you try to live your life the way you think is right and you regularly make vague prayers to a mostly nondescript god (e.g. "Oh Most Merciful One, please guide this humble mortal to act in accordance to your wishes and forgive him his ignorance, truly your wisdom knows no bounds.") who is assumed to grant you an afterlife after you die. Would your life be considerably worse compared to just living your life as you see fit without the latter addendum? 141.134.75.236 (talk) 01:52, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

141, how it works is this: I worship God A. If God A exists, I get a good afterlife. God -A can possibly exist. If God -A exists, then God -A will punish those who worship God A with a punishment that is equal to the benefit that I would have gotten from God A. Thus, God A and God -A balance out. It's not about how it affects your life -- it's about the existence (possibly) of anti-gods. 02:31, 9 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, but that hinges on their likelihood being equal. Are you really sure that a god that rewards the people that do offensive things towards it and condemns the people that are respectful towards it is equally likely as the opposite? 141.134.75.236 (talk) 02:46, 9 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Pascal's Wager presupposes that the two are equally likely to exist (ie, no evidence exists for one or the other). Through Pascal's Wager, this is the correct conclusion. Furthermore, in real life, if you truly believe that there is no evidence for a god, then its anti-god partner is just as likely. 02:51, 9 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Why would Pascal's Wager presuppose that? There's only one god in his wager. A lack of evidence for both gods and anti-gods doesn't mean that both are equally likely. The existence of unicorns and fairies isn't as likely as the existence of matter beyond the observable universe. 141.134.75.236 (talk) 03:01, 9 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Compare the liklihood of a fairy existing to the liklihood of a unicorn existing. The ratio should be 1:1, given that both have equal (0) evidence for existence. The ratio 0:0 is, for evidential purposes, 1:1. 03:59, 9 January 2015 (UTC)
 * A horse-like creature with a horn on its forehead existing is considerably more likely than a magical winged humanoid existing, because while there is a precedent for humanoids, horses, wings and horns, magic is not known to exist in reality. 141.134.75.236 (talk) 04:14, 9 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Fine. Alternate example:
 * God A has qualities bloorp, gloop, and swoog.
 * God B has qualities glerp, flersh, and bing.
 * Which is more likely to exist? 04:20, 9 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Clearly God B, since their qualities sound less gross.


 * Okay, here's what you're actually trying to argue:
 * God A has the qualities that it provides a desirable afterlife to people who do X and that it provides an undesirable afterlife to people who don't do X. That God A requires X for desirable-afterlife-eligibility seems somewhat logical.
 * God -A has the qualities that it provides an undesirable afterlife to people who do X and that it provides a desirable afterlife to people who don't do X. That God -A demands the non-execution of X to be eligible for its desirable afterlife seems very counter-intuitive.
 * God A and God -A are equally likely as we have evidence of neither's existence.
 * Now, I'm not saying that God -A is actually impossible, but given our extant knowledge of reasoning entities, it would seem less likely to exist. It's certainly possible that that knowledge isn't applicable for gods; maybe most gods are entities of the kind whose reasonings seem very counter-intuitive to us. Just assuming that the odds must be equal and going with whatever (convenient) consequences follow from that doesn't seem right, though. 141.134.75.236 (talk) 04:24, 9 January 2015 (UTC)
 * No, sorry. Our knowledge of reasoning entities has a number of problems beyond "doesn't punish people for no reason" being a complete bullshit attribute(have you looked at humans recently?).  Our familiarity with reasoning creatures says all of the following from 100% of evidence: they're alive, they evolved from non-reasoning creatures, they're shaped like humans, they live on earth, they eat food, they're limited in the ways they can interact with the universe.  Many of these universally observed characteristics are at odds with any definition I've ever heard of for any god.  Ikanreed (talk) 14:59, 9 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Fair enough. But what you've just presented is an argument in favor of the prevalence of counter-intuitive anti-gods, not their equal likelihood. 141.134.75.236 (talk) 00:54, 10 January 2015 (UTC)
 * "Just assuming that the odds must be equal and going with whatever (convenient) consequences follow from that doesn't seem right, though." -BoN
 * It is right though. Assuming the odds are equal is actually the same as assuming you don't know the odds at all, in practice. Pascal assumes far more by excluding almost everything. It's the only way to imagine there is a Relatively Safe Option. Fonzie (talk) 19:08, 9 January 2015 (UTC)
 * And yet assuming that they're equal versus also taking into account the other possibilities leads to notably different conclusions. That would seem to indicate to me that it's not the same. 141.134.75.236 (talk) 00:54, 10 January 2015 (UTC)