Talk:Pascal's wager


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Further (hidden) mathematical assumptions
I'd like to point to http://atheism.wikia.com/wiki/Pascal's_Wager, which I partly wrote and from which I'm putting forward the following:

1) As mentioned above, the probabilties for believing in various Gods are critical here. As it stands, the formulation of the argument is insufficient as it doesn't mention these. This could be left as-is, and another "Assumption" added that says the argument assumes a finite probability for the Christian God's existence, and an infinitely small one for others.

2) Another assumption made is that a rational agent should maximize the average utility. I argue in the above that he should really follow the typical utility, which is not really affected by low-probability events.

3) The 'guillability problem' should be emphasized, too - the same argument could be used to sell snake oil, or any other 'conclusion', clearly indicating that it is not an argument that should convince a rational agent. &mdash; Unsigned, by: YR / talk / contribs

Anti-Gods
Just wanted to point out this part is wrong or poorly phrased:

"If one is willing to accept that an infinite number of deities exist, then Pascal's Wager leads to a very interesting conclusion. [...] Of the infinite set of gods that can possibly exist, there necessarily is a god that fits any and every system of rewarding/punishing people in the afterlife. This is because, in the infinite set of gods, every possible attribute of a god must occur."

This is not the logical conclusion of the assumption of an infinite number of gods at all. For example, There is an infinite amount of natural numbers (0/1 to infinity), yet there are numbers which are not natural ones (decimals, negative numbers, non-rational numbers). There could be an infinite number of gods with only one attribute differing between them, e.g. God A doesn't care about bananas while god B likes them a little and so on, since there is an infinite amount of nuances of how much someone likes bananas. However all gods could be equal in all the other (or a select few) attributes, like all of them requiring exclusiveness or belief in them for a reward. As shown in the example of natural numbers, there does not have to be an opposite/negative of each god even with the premise of an infinite amount of gods existing. --134.76.63.1 (talk) 14:57, 24 February 2016 (UTC)
 * People aren't natural numbers. That's like comparing goats and quasars.  -EmeraldCityWanderer (talk) 16:19, 24 February 2016 (UTC)
 * I disagree. The argument as it is currently in the article contains a logical fallacity, illustrated by the counterexample with the set of natural numbers.  It only requires a single logical mistake to make an argument completely invalid, so this is critical and needs fixing.  Currently, with such a blatant logical fallacy, I consider the argument to be on the same level as the arguments in favor of Pascal's wager, that is, they sound nice at first but break down on a closer look. --91.64.196.237 (talk) 11:01, 28 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Don't know what the issue is. Even if we rephrased the argument to make it sound more fuzzy the point would still stand in my opinion. Pascal's argument itself is binary/natural so it can also be easily refuted with a "natural" sounding counter-argument if you want to wrap it into more mathematically rigid conditions. 11:22, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

This section is actually an embarrassment of mathematical errors. First, a minor error: "α" is the symbol for alpha, not infinity (which is ∞). Second, the author(s) do not understand the mathematics of infinity and make three types of major errors: This is likely going to result in deletion of this section forthwith. Bongolian (talk) 07:03, 26 August 2019 (UTC) Bongolian (talk) 07:20, 26 August 2019 (UTC)
 * 1) Infinity minus infinity is not definitively zero, but is undefined.
 * 2) Zero times infinity is also undefined (not something else as is implied).
 * 3) Half of infinity is also infinity (not something else as is implied).

Evil, Children Death, Faith and Actions
So I have some responses for that three subchapters of the Evil chapter.

The moral case for dead children
Response: WTF? No, there is no reason to "kill your children while young (especially since children today are much more likely to become atheists), rather than risk them leaving the Christian faith.". First of all, if you kill your children in order to "save" him from atheism, to stop him from becoming an atheist, which is slightly improbable to happen, as Christianity is growing in Asian countries, which have most of the atheist worldwide and as atheism is declining worldwide (http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/global-study-atheists-decline-only-18-world-population-2020), you are going straight to Hell; the Churches( Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant) supports the family, not the death of it! They condemn the killers and offer to help them save their soul; what is the logic in killing your children, if you know that 1. You go to Hell if you don`t repent. 2. Even if you repent, you are never going to see him very soon, 3. Instead of killing him, you could have growth him so that he develops a critical thinking, and either you discuss with him religion and "save" him, if he becomes an atheist, or later in life he discusses religion with you and can convince you that is better to be an atheist, so he "saves" you, and you can still keep your faith in Jesus Christ, even if you are an atheist, because you follow his teachings even if you don`t consider him a God and you still can keep the traditions of the Churches and their teachings about love, human condition etc. even if you don`t believe(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_atheism.) In both cases, you get saved( if you don`t just read a paragraph from Rationalwiki about Pascal`s Wager and decide it`s time to listen to what appears like an argument).

Total self-interest
Response: You are pointing a interpretation that concerns only the actions of the believer that affect only himself. However, if a believer cares about "maximizing their "own" gains" then they would consider collaboration as a strategy and, by maximizing the gains of every person, it`s gains maximize even greater. This is called Nash Equilibrium. "A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another." John 13:34.

"More troubling than this are occasions where you might theoretically be called upon to hurt someone else to advance your worship of the superior entity. This forms a flip side to the argument that Pascal's Wager emphasizes belief over worthiness in that it suggests that outright evil people can gain reward and avoid punishment simply through belief. In the Old Testament there are numerous instances when worshipers had to kill and hurt others as commanded by God. In fact, there are occasions in which God was extremely displeased that they didn't take the abuse of fellow humans far enough. Even with the Pascal's Wager metric in place, one could argue that it's more moral to resist these commands for the sake of others even if it results in an infinite loss for you."

Response: Nope. In Christianity, Jesus replaced that strategy to maximize your gains "be called upon to hurt someone else to advance your worship of the superior entity" with loving each other, understanding others and helping them too in order to maximize your gain."A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another." John 13:34. Also, considering Tomas of Aquinas philosophy regarding hell- that it isn`t a physique space that makes you suffer, but rather that sufferance in Hell comes from your bad behaviors in life- it has no logic to kill others, because you are just building your future Hell. God did an update of his laws around 2000 years ago. I recommend you his updated app.

"Again, it can be demonstrated on Earth that bad people who do bad things can still profess belief—Pascal therefore suggests they are worthy of infinite gain, and atheists cheekily suggest that being around those people in heaven isn't selling the whole belief thing to them very well. "

Response: Again, no. Bad people who do bad things and repent and change and have faith go to heaven. Bad people that don`t repent and have faith are lying themselves. Faith and doing good cannot exclude one another. That`s at least what James said. " What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? 15 If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, 16 and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good[a] is that? 17 So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead." James 2:14-26 ESV.

Problem of evil
Response: " If, as Pascal's Wager must assume, God is willing to punish good people simply for a lack of belief this would preclude God being "good" by any sense that we understand the concept of "good" — and "good" is a necessary property of God". Nope, it isn`t the case. God is not only willing to help the good people escape the evil, but he isn`t punishing the good people simply for their lack of belief. There are many paragraphs and chapters in the Bible that regard the necessary relation between having faith and doing good, so you are neither going to Heaven if you were immoral but you had faith- because that faith is false, Jameshttps://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=James+1&version=NIV, Parable of the growing seed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_Growing_Seed etc. - not if you were good and had no faith, because "faith" was always understood as a complex of qualities- having faith in God requires humility, lack of arrogance, not building an idol from your work or your personality( this can enter too in "lack of arrogance") etc. So God sees the one that does good as someone that has faith and follows the way of Jesus, strangely even if it comes from another religion, because they repeat the good Jesus and it`s followers did and the one that has faith in Jesus as someone that does good, because faith requires doing good( or true faith requires doing good, and this expression isn`t a "No true Scotsman" fallacy because it doesn`t assume the existence of an unique case in which someone has faith and still is falling to accomplish God`s new laws of loving one another- which is part of the faith in him). To get my case stronger, I quote Jesus:"I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." John 14:6. So if the theology show`s that there is no difference between true faith/ faith( take it how you want in order to avoid "No true Scotsman"), then Pascal`s Wager can "be focused on spreading good around the world" and it isn`t "favourable to disbelieve".&mdash; Unsigned, by: Denicula / talk / contribs
 * You didn't appear to address the biggest problem with Pascal's wager, why your god (I presume you're not an atheist) as opposed to any other god? Christopher (talk) 08:56, 16 April 2017 (UTC)
 * The idea is that my God is the same with Christian God, the Buddhist God etc. but we all look at them different. So they are not opposed. My God is the same with another God. So the things that opposes are the religions- but not even them. Buddhism, Islam, Christianity hold same  views over saving your soul, which is the important part in Pascal Wager. They all converge over love, not over fanatism. Thy currently all condemn fanatics and approve love. So the idea is that the scenario with more Gods or more views of God`s contradicting themselves isn`t working in this view. And if you are a Christian and say this story, and you are asked: "Why do you keep this view over God" you can anytime motivate it by your preferences of culture and mediation ways to meet God without being acused that your faith is evil because is personal.--Denicula (talk) 09:12, 16 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Since you started with some statistics, the Global Index of Religion and Atheism (p. 12) suggests that atheism rose globally from 4% in 2005 to 7% in 2012. Wikipedia why it can be difficult to measure: some people don't want the label, the size of a country affects the global statistics, etc. Anyway, non-religious people are currently a minority, but that doesn't say anything about the validity of religious systems.


 * When you say "you can still keep your faith in Jesus Christ, even if you are an atheist", maybe you don't really understand what atheism is. I reject your statement "Faith and doing good cannot exclude one another" because it is provably false. I do not advocate harming children (or anyone in general), and, in my opinion, the idea of an eternal afterlife makes life seem worthless (what is 80 years compared to 10,000? 1,000,000?).


 * There is no Buddhist god because "Frankly, in Buddhism, God has nothing to do". And then there are polytheistic religions, animism, witchcraft, and so on. Defining religion is, and trying to shoehorn various religious traditions into your personal belief system seems overly optimistic, and probably offensive to religious people who reject monotheism.


 * Ultimately, the wager itself is irrelevant since one cannot choose to be a believer, and I reject your claim that acting is equivalent to believing (a robot can "do good", will it go to robot heaven?). I agree that the language used on this website may sound a bit callous sometimes, but it is possible that you may have some misconceptions about atheism. --Cmonk (talk) 12:31, 16 April 2017 (UTC)


 * What means "faith"? If you consider Jesus Christ the truth, the way etc. you believe actively in him and his view over the world. Faith and doing good can`t exclude one another because having faith would include using your time to follow the Teacher who initiated this faith( Jesus). James argued in the Bible that faith can`t exist without actions, but actions can exist without faith, as you showed. However, the Wager implies having faith, and by James, having faith means having good actions. So, by this, there is no possibility to have faith and do bad. In fact, fanatics have no true faith. They just fit the faith in the Bed of Procust( a character that cut either the head, either the feet of the victims in order to fit them in a small bed). Acting may not be 100% equivalent to believing, but believing must be completed by acting.


 * It doesn`t matter if there is or isn`t a Buddhist God( although  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brahm%C4%81_(Buddhism)....). They also have Heaven and Hell, and the wager can still work without the first part. Also, the first part, that with the Problem of Evil and Children, works to all religions, and this is what I was counter-arguing, with the assumption there is an infinity of opposing God`s, which is a false presumption and there is a current of ideas that says every religion shows it`s view over a monotheistic God, even the polytheistic ones( there is always a Zeus or some boss that sums the powers and attributes of others).


 * No, the robot has no consciousness, so it cannot go to Heaven. Indeed, it doesn`t even require going somewhere after being deactivated, because it was never born( it`s just a set of reactions to stimuli copied from the model it human creator made for him). I agree that on this matter there is a longer discussion, but it doesn`t affect the Wager.


 * In conclusion, the language of this site is somehow insulting, but the presumptions that Christians are turned on egocentrism and killing others is appealing and has nothing to do with the teaching of Jesus, who promoted love, care and interest in another`s salvation, not death. The idea that a Christian would kill somebody to save it`s in an obvious contradiction with the fundamental teaching that you have to love and change somebody`s life and give him the chance to repent in this life in order to save him. That paragraph that accuses Christians of a tendency in killing others can work on mentally ill Christians or mentally ill atheist that are anyway going to kill or hurt somebody( if they don`t cure) no matter in what Church they were baptized. Also, by the link between faith and good, altruistic actions underlined by James in his epistle works out the impossibility of a faith without action, egocentric actions. Also, the time of a lifespan doesn`t matter- the love you spread matters. Look for example at mother Theresa( although she was accused to be a fanatic by CH, which is a pretty exaggerated conclusion over her mistakes). She helped so many( even if CH said she could help more, and CH helped no one, as I know). Her example fits the AA Wager, and Pascal`s Wager, but along with other examples of good people from other religions it shows there is a point where all religions met and look the same, and where there is no difference or contradiction, like in the example with that diagram.


 * There is the example of Job, who understood things wrong. He was good, but he did everything only to save him, and he let his children do everything they wanted and no good at all just because he thank he would save them with some sacrifices. In the end, God taken everything away from him not to see if his faith can become good( it wasn`t in the first place), but to show him and to the Devil what true faith is: loving God, till the end. At the end, he got everything back. If he would choose to die, and his example is another counter-argument to children-death argument, he would loose everything.


 * And one last question: Is a fault to help others because you were inspired by Jesus Christ and you see Jesus in others? Is a fault to love and cure the needy because you want to meet God through your love of them? There is a difference between the poet that writes inspired by the muse and the poet that writes in order to spent a night with the muse.--Denicula (talk) 08:49, 17 April 2017 (UTC)


 * The way I understand your first paragraph, it seems that you are saying that "faith implies good", in other words "faith cannot exclude good". Atheist organisations providing community service are evidence that "good can exclude faith", which is why I said earlier that it is false to claim "Faith and doing good cannot exclude one another ".


 * There is no Buddhist god in the sense of a monotheist god, like was explained in my link. Your Wikipedia link states that Brahma is a deva (one of many) and "is never depicted in early Buddhist texts as a creator god ". Whatever Brahma is, it is not equivalent to the Chritian deity. In addition, even if you want to call the various realms heaven and hell, "In Buddhist thought, this rebirth does not involve any soul, because of its doctrine of anattā (Sanskrit: anātman, no-self doctrine) which rejects the concepts of a permanent self or an unchanging, eternal soul, as it is called in Hinduism and Christianity. According to Buddhism there ultimately is no such thing as a self in any being or any essence in any thing. "


 * Anyway, my point is that you are assuming that all religions can map to Christianity, but (a) that is just your opinion and needs to be justified (in order to justify "there is always a Zeus or some boss that sums the powers and attributes of others ", you need to list all possible religions and show that to be true, or at least cite a research paper that does that); (b) wouldn't you feel offended if an animist claimed that your religion is just an an imitation of theirs? I recognize that there are similarities between religions, but I don't see why Christianity should be the model for everything else.


 * I agree that occasionally "the language of this site is somewhat insulting ", because there are multiple contributors with various personalities, and the colloquial language used by skeptics contains many pejorative terms. I do not condone that, but I think there is a trend toward rectifying this situation.


 * In addition to the language issue, please keep in mind that RationalWiki is not an encyclopedia and does not claim to be neutral. The opinion given in the main page merely exposes inconsistencies, there is no "paragraph that accuses Christians of a tendency in killing ". The paragraph "Total self-interest" merely claims to reference the bible. The paragraph "The moral case for dead children" exposes a moral conundrum that would (hypothetical) result from a strict application of the wager under some special conditions. If there is a specific sentence that makes the accusation that you claim, please explain so that we can take the appropriate actions.


 * Your reason for helping others doesn't matter much. The main issue that an atheist could have with your point of view is your previous insinuation (unless I misunderstood) that faith is required to be or do good, which is false. And the wager really has no value here: helping others is simply the right thing to do, with or without religion. --Cmonk (talk) 10:20, 17 April 2017 (UTC)


 * "If you ask most Christians whether children who die when they are very young will go to heaven, they will say yes. SO IT WOULD BE THE MOST REASONABLE to kill your children while young (especially since children today are much more likely to become atheists), rather than risk them leaving the Christian faith." I hope you see there is no cause-effect link between the idea a being without any fault is going to Heaven, held by Christians, and the reason to kill every being that has no fault so it doesn`t became an ATHEIST and goes to hell. First, 1. There is no fault in becoming an atheist. The Wager doesn`t apply for a life of faith, but mere to your final faith or your final(before death) lack of faith. Also, you can be an atheist Christian, and you can leave that child alive that you can convince it to become theist without killing him. 2. By killing him, you go to hell, if you repent, you have to regret your action, and if you justify your action, you can`t fully repent, so you anyway go to hell. If you kill him and, let`s say, repent and go anyway to Heaven, you just made your way to Heaven harder, and you have no certitude that that child would go to hell if he becomes an atheist, as it can change it`s belief trough life and you don`t know when is he going to end his life( if you don`t kill it) and in what state, so it`s not the MOST REASONABLE THING TO DO. 3. There is no link of cause-effect between your love of him and his purity and how he keeps his innocence through life and his death, done in order to "save" him. There are also more reasonable ways to save him and in no way the innocence of the children combined with the wager results in the necessity of killing him.


 * My reason for helping others truly matters. If they ask me why I am doing this, I can convince them to do like me. My insinuation that faith requires doing good is based on the example of Job, on what James said in his epistle and on what Jesus Christ said. They prove the contrary of your insinuation that is false to say faith requires doing good by their examples or the bad examples they show and by the correlation between what you do and what you think and your state of mind: you have to prove to yourself what you think in order to verify it, and you do this by actions. That`s one point of view. Also, there is the fact that faith without actions produces fanatics, Pharisees, hypocrisy, which is shown all along the New Testament. Also, "helping others is simply the right thing to do, with or without religion" is pretty much contradicted by history: Nazis had no regret for what they did. They thank is the right thing to do to kill jews, they believed is the best way to help others. Communist did the same when killing the ones that are against the regime, the Pharisees thank it`s the only way to kill Jesus, one person, in order to save the jews( Caiafa told it). If you could ask any genocide-maker  that lived through history why they did what they did, they would justify it using "the right thing to do":"It was what I believed, with or without religion, that is the right way to do". Religion underline a method to help the others; the fact there are atheist that do good doesn`t imply faith do not require actions. There are atheist that steal or murder just because they are powerful or intelligent enough to escape the legal consequences of  their actions, and they don`t do good, and they fear no one. There are two cases: atheist killers that understand the possibility of going to hell and repent, and start doing good without faith and atheist killers that start having faith, but realize it`s not enough. Are good actions requiring faith? Sometimes, I would say, is too hard to decide between two actions and you would need a communion with God or his advice. So good actions require sometimes faith and the contact with God( I would say faith requires always the contact with God), but faith always requires doing good. It`s the way you`re sure you don`t lie yourself( I can tell myself "I believe in God" but when I am about to make a choice inspired by my faith, let`s say to do good because Jesus told me so and I say "Nah, another time", can I call me anything else than a liar?).


 * About Christianity and other religions, you understood me wrong: I never suggested other religions are imitations after Christianity( I never suggested I am a Christian. Just check my previous comments), but the contrary: they are unique views of the same God. Every religion watches upon the same God or the features of the same God they divide into more little God. As I know, there is a greater God in Buddhism, some kind of God of one thousand things, but anyway, if Buddhism is greately atheistic, I cane use my view only on monotheistic and polytheistic religions. So there is this one interpretation of the commandment saying you are forbidden to make another Gods and you have only a God: that it says, by the fact you have only one God, that in fact every God from another religion is just the same God you have, but dressed by man with another clothes. Maybe it fails for polytheism... anyway, that counter argument with multi-gods assumes they are opposed and they require you to reject others, which, as I said, isn`t the case. And it`s not even the case for not respecting others way of salvation. And with the fact they are opposed, on this I hold the position that looking upon religions that exist now, they do not contradict one another in the matter of saving yourself. They all say: have faith, do good, OK, then we meet 70 years from now ). So that counter-argument doesn`t looks, in this view, less valid than the more aggressive view held by Jews for example, and it`s even held by the Churches, as I said, Churches that try to make dialogue one with another - Pope Francis made a call for prayer last year, in January, so that there is understanding between Judaism-Islam-Buddhism-Christianity.-. Even Buddhism has it`s fanatics, but they are less known by us- just an example:https://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/03/opinion/sri-lankas-violent-buddhists.html?_r=0.


 * I hope you understood me. Pascal Wager shouldn`t create fanatism, but should make a path for rational believing( it sounds a little self-contradicting, until you hear of Christian Meditation, hesychasm)--Denicula (talk) 12:27, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

Before I address the rest: I did not say a word, or try to imply anything, regarding fanaticism, you are talking to yourself here, please stop doing that.

The specific paragraph looks to me like a restricted version of "kill everyone so that only the killer goes to hell". That being said, I did not contribute to the main page and I don't feel comfortable with the subject of harming children. I suggest you create a new section on this talk page for this specific paragraph and ask/wait for another opinion.

"If they ask me why I am doing this, I can convince them to do like me. " You are assuming that people need a reason to do good. Even if that were true, baiting people with unverifiable claims about a hypothetical afterlife doesn't seem very honest to me.

"They prove the contrary of your insinuation that is false to say faith requires doing good ": I did not say that, please re-read my sentence carefully. "My insinuation that faith requires doing good etc. ": I did not say anything against that, please re-read my sentence carefully. If you really think I said what you claim, please quote me properly so that I can understand my mistake.

I apologize if I misunderstood your religious affiliation (you wrote so much, I can't find it). For the rest, I lost the plot, and the expression "rational believing " doesn't make sense to me. --Cmonk (talk) 13:21, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
 * I spotted a few mentions of Jesus in there so probably a Christian? Christopher (talk) 13:40, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
 * I don't know, (s)he said "I never suggested I am a Christian. Just check my previous comments". What do you think about their point regarding "The moral case for dead children"? --Cmonk (talk) 13:58, 17 April 2017 (UTC)


 * "The main issue that an atheist could have with your point of view is your previous insinuation (unless I misunderstood) that faith is required to be or do good, which is false."[Cmonk] Also, I don`t recommend( and I am glad you don`t do it) "baiting people with unverifiable claims about a hypothetical afterlife doesn't seem very honest to me". I just talk about Jesus`s impact on people and his model.--Denicula (talk) 18:34, 17 April 2017 (UTC)


 * So are you saying that Christians who follow the teachings of Jesus are better than us godless heathen pagan pinko commie atheists or not? Christopher (talk) 18:40, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Christopher, NO.--Denicula (talk) 19:02, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
 * So what are you saying? Christopher (talk) 19:10, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

@Denicula You are confusing me here. You quoted me saying that you insinuated "faith is required to be or do good". Did you or did you not mean that at some point in this discussion? If you didn't, then I misunderstood. If you did, what I am saying is "faith is required to be or do good" is false ; in other words, I am saying that "faith is not required/needed to be or do good". Could you please address this in an short but unambiguous way?

Regarding Jesus and his "model": some historians question the existence or influence of Jesus (I don't have an opinion), and, as I understand, what he may or may not have said or done comes from second hand accounts at best. But none of that is relevant to the wager which is about an unproven unseen unknowable magical being, and has nothing to do with Jesus unless you are arguing that Jesus is actually this magical being, which is still dishonest. --Cmonk (talk) 21:58, 17 April 2017 (UTC)


 * In order to prove there cannot be faith without( edit: I was referring at good actions) action:1. I cited James and Jesus on this matter. 2. I discussed the case of faith without actions, like fanatism, and I shown their supposed faith is not truly faith and is criticized by Jesus, 3. I also brought the importance of good actions,of implication and of respecting the laws of Jesus in order to check you own "faith"/what you think, and to complete it with what you do.


 * Secondly, the matter of Jesus`s existence is quite solved in terms that there are events in Jesus`s life that are strongly accepted to be real events, which imply his existence, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baptism_of_Jesus and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crucifixion_of_Jesus, and there are some writers that mention him, and he is as mentioned as other great figures in history, and there was a censorship on eachings in his time, and there are vestiges of Christianity destroyed in that time, and it is accepted any myth has a core of truth, and the guys that don`t think he existed offer some strange, strange alternatives( R.Carrier says that the apostles smoke some weed and danced mumba while speaking with Jesus who was a beast made of stars in their vision. WTF...), and the written word had another status than this today, being considered somehow eternal and sacred even by greeks.

Jesus is the one with the Christian God, this is why I mention him.


 * It is also mysterious how artifacts regarding Christianity disappear or are stolen, like one of the ossuaries in the Talpiot Tomb or like a version of the ark of the covenant and the mystery or interest in destroying or keeping out of public sight these artifacts.--Denicula (talk) 05:15, 18 April 2017 (UTC)


 * "In order to prove there cannot be faith without action": this doesn't answer what I asked. Please read carefully what I wrote (the first paragraph of my previous message, from "You quoted..." to "...unambiguous way?") and try to stay on topic, otherwise it looks like you are avoiding the question. (edit: this whole conversation has been off-topic for a while now, so let's just wrap it up) --Cmonk (talk) 06:04, 18 April 2017 (UTC)
 * What I said referred to good actions; all that points, 1,2,3, referred to good actions( I believed it is obvious, as 2 and the previous arguments dealing it referred to the bad example of the fanatics, who had faith but didn`t what was good, pretty much walking over the rules of their own religion). In this conversation I hoped there is going to be made a change on that section on evil with that problems and on the section with multi-gods(I offered a view in which the gods do not contradict one another by reinterpreting the commands that demand this war between religions in a way that considers complementarity and dialogue, thus solving the multi-gods problem. Also, I shown this view has a correspondence with reality, referring to the greatest religions and their projects on dialogue and complementarity, like, for example, Pope Francis call for peace between religions. I don`t consider utile to take all death or minor religions and shown they do not contradict. Indeed, without that demand that "you should have one God, which is me'' interpreted just in one violent, fundamentalist way, the problem is solved.). I hope I made myself clear.--Denicula (talk) 07:52, 18 April 2017 (UTC)
 * You still haven't solved the multiple gods problem. Nearly all religions are very clear that they're the One True Religion™. Christopher (talk) 08:00, 18 April 2017 (UTC)
 * They use an interpretation on that commandment about God in order to say they all hold the truth. If you just compare them, you can also accept elements from one another and keep the basic faith of your religion. So if they all orbit around the same god but present him different, you don`t have to jump from a religion to another, until you compare and verify them. And the wager worked by assuming they all hold the truth and another god. As they all have in fact the same god.... and what I said before, is just your ration that dictates what to choose. This reduces to theology and does not affect the wager, as in any religion X, in his eyes you, the religious X, are well understood and forgiven. So, basically, they all hold a truth but not the complete truth, which reduces to revelation, meditation or ration.--Denicula (talk) 08:16, 18 April 2017 (UTC)
 * You're not really answering the "question", fundamentalist Muslims (for example) insist everyone who isn't a Muslim is going to hell, why is your religion where everybody is saved or something (presumably not including Hitler) more likely to be true than Islam? Christopher (talk) 08:25, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

I would tell them:" Ok, my God is equivalent to Allah and is Allah for you, X for me. Problem solved! And about the way I worship him, I also show him my respect as you do, and I behave as you behave, and I do think he`s going far madder on me if I kill people or enslave others than if I pray in the day of 2 instead in the day of 3, or at hour 2 instead at 3 etc. But I still have the ways to respect you do and it is the way I choose to honor him.". If they tell me I am not worshiping him well, I would say is just another way I show my humbleness on him and is like another language, different from that of them, but that says the same thing.--Denicula (talk) 08:31, 18 April 2017 (UTC)
 * According to the Qur'an, if you do that you'll burn in hell. Why are you right and they're wrong? Christopher

(talk) 08:40, 18 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Please tell me why the Qur`an tells I burn in hell if I harm no one and just serve Allah(or what they consider Allah and I consider both Allah and Jehovah?--Denicula (talk) 09:29, 18 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Because it was written by ignorant savages and you're not serving allah just a god that's similar to allah. Christopher (talk) 09:35, 18 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Off, I am "serving" in a sense I am applying his law in my life. The hole idea was they are the same god, but with two names. Just the names of the gods and the way others perceive them hold similarities; muslims consider Jehovah of the jews to be Allah and Jesus his prophet, not Allah part of a trinity; Christians responded to them that the trinity is part of Allah and the Christians hold esteem over mulsims, hm:" The Church regards with esteem also the Moslems. They adore the one God, living and subsisting in Himself; merciful and all- powerful, the Creator of heaven and earth, who has spoken to men; they take pains to submit wholeheartedly to even His inscrutable decrees, just as Abraham, with whom the faith of Islam takes pleasure in linking itself, submitted to God. Though they do not acknowledge Jesus as God, they revere Him as a prophet. They also honor Mary, His virgin Mother; at times they even call on her with devotion. In addition, they await the day of judgment when God will render their deserts to all those who have been raised up from the dead. Finally, they value the moral life and worship God especially through prayer, almsgiving and fasting. "Pope Paul VI, October28, 1965, Holy See.--Denicula (talk) 09:41, 18 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Have you ever eaten pork? Drank alcohol? Christopher (talk) 09:44, 18 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Never drank alcohol. I eat pork 10, 11 times a year. Also, I can repent from this: Holy Qur`an, Chapter 3, Surah Ali Imraan verse 135-136:"Allah likes such good people very much, who,  if ever they commit a base deed or wrong their own soul by the commission of a sin,  remember Allah instantly,  and ask for forgiveness from Him for their shortcomings.  For who,  but Allah, can forgive sins?   (And Allah loves those) who do not knowingly persist in the wrongs they did.   These will be rewarded with forgiveness from Allah,  and with Gardens beneath which canals flow,  and they will reside therein forever!   How excellent is the reward of those who do good deeds!". Is this truly the most important?--Denicula (talk) 09:53, 18 April 2017 (UTC)
 * You could repent, according to some Muslims. There will be many Muslims who ignore that verse, why is your religion more likely than what they believe? Because their beliefs aren't backed up completely by some 1000 year old book "written" by an illiterate ? Christopher (talk) 10:03, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

Since the problem of evil is, centrally, a question of moral seriousness, please allow me to insert the following points:

Silly video title aside — everyone needs to consider the gravity of what is being said here. Reverend Black Percy (talk) 10:20, 18 April 2017 (UTC)
 * We're not really discussing the problem of evil, it just happens to be the bottom sub section. Christopher (talk) 10:25, 18 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Oh, based on what I've read in this thread, the points made in the video apply powerfully Watch it! Reverend Black Percy (talk) 10:37, 18 April 2017 (UTC)
 * I discussed the problem of evil in the sense it`s evil to follow a faith mutilated so that you do not evolve and just follow your deeds. Also, as a response to Christopher`s previous questions, I believe the moment religious people start cherry picking verses in order they ignore the priorities of the message their prophet transmits and just fulfill some deeds, we can`t talk of Muslims, Christians, etc. A belief based 100% on a book is better than one based only in 99%, 95% or lesser and with a selection made by a suspicious sect ruler.--Denicula (talk) 10:35, 18 April 2017 (UTC)
 * The problem of evil has a well defined meaning. I think that a belief based on 100% of any holy book would be awful (and impossible when they contradict each other) just Google the bible and slavery, or the Qur'an and homosexuality. Christopher (talk) 10:45, 18 April 2017 (UTC)
 * No need to Google it. Reverend Black Percy (talk) 11:04, 18 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Forgot we had that article, shouldn't we have a similar article for the Qur'an? I'll put it on the to do list. Christopher (talk) 11:20, 18 April 2017 (UTC)
 * We certainly should! Good idea Reverend Black Percy (talk) 13:21, 18 April 2017 (UTC)
 * What would've been better is if I wrote the article, I've never read the Qur'an though. Christopher (talk) 13:33, 18 April 2017 (UTC)
 * I've trouble understanding the wage but at least I've quite clear that Sci-Fi writers have no sense of scale eternity is a whole lotta more than what certain people say, and the article has nailed that part as well as the implications. --Panzerfaust (talk) 22:47, 3 May 2017 (UTC)

Pascal's wager (Expanded version)
I don't know how Fair Use works, but do you think this expanded version is worth of being added?. --Panzerfaust (talk) 13:46, 25 November 2017 (UTC)
 * It is on wikimedia commons as one Aokegbile's own work (shared under CC4.0). Assuming that action was valid fair use isn't an issue.
 * Edit: it is a different size to the version to which you linked, which would affect attribution details though. Couldn't figure out which actual blog the linked version is from.
 * Edit2: Never mind, looks like it was originally from theofrak. Daev (talk) 16:23, 25 November 2017 (UTC)
 * OK, I'll see if I can adapt it for this site one of these days (sorry for not logging in). 80.38.38.134 (talk) 17:09, 26 November 2017 (UTC)

Best hell for an athiest
If you think about it to punish an atheist for disbelief, God won't send the atheist to hell but to heaven. Highboi ♟ When the king and the pawn are in the same box ♚  12:06, 13 May 2022 (UTC)
 * "God Bro listen, I'm like an athiest so I kinda like super hate you and everything and love satan y'know? So like wouldnt my best hell be just if you let me through those super scary looking golden gates over there? Rockin' dude!" Stingraey (talk) 14:34, 13 May 2022 (UTC)
 * https://youtu.be/iAJAQenJeKI Highboi  ♟ When the king and the pawn are in the same box ♚  15:57, 13 May 2022 (UTC)
 * So, is this arguing in favour of that Pasqual's' wager nonsense? Or not?Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 16:48, 13 May 2022 (UTC)
 * It's more of a parody. Highboi  ♟ When the king and the pawn are in the same box ♚  18:23, 13 May 2022 (UTC)

Outcomes 3 & 4
I don't think that Pascal makes the case that:


 * If you believe in God and God does not exist, you will not be rewarded: thus a finite loss.
 * If you do not believe in God and God does not exist, you will not be rewarded, but you have lived your own life: thus a finite gain.

He writes:


 * Now what harm will befall you in taking this side? You will be faithful, honest, humble, grateful, generous, a sincere friend, truthful. Certainly you will not have those poisonous pleasures, glory and luxury; but will you not have others? I will tell you that you will thereby gain in this life, and that, at each step you take on this road, you will see so great certainty of gain, so much nothingness in what you risk, that you will at last recognize that you have wagered for something certain and infinite, for which you have given nothing.

Therefore, to more accurately summarize Pascal's argument, outcome 3 should not be described as a loss, not even an insignificant or finite loss, and outcome 4 should not be described as a gain, not even an insignificant or finite gain. 17:35, 26 February 2023 (UTC)