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Pascals wager is garbage, it underestimates the time, effort and thought cost if there is no god. What sort of reflections would otherwise be meaningful? All th

Pascals wager is garbage, it underestimates the time, effort and thought cost if there is no god. What sort of reflections would otherwise be meaningful? All the regrets they have? It's a kid, he had cancer, what could he have done differently?

dkersten 7y ago
Also, if there is a god, (s)he surely knows the difference between true belief/faith and pretending just in case.
scotty79 7y ago
Also Pascal wager is wrong because it assumes that believing in god is free or almost free, but if there's no god then the only thing you have is your life and by believing in god you are giving up the only opportunity to live your life the best way you can. Instead you taint everything you got with twisted and wicked thoughts like the one user 'sdegutis' presented: "Kid should suffer more before he died. Because supernatural reasons." Cost of believing in god in Pascal's wager is infinite because you have to spoil the only thing you got.
- clmul 7y ago
  You presume that by believing in a God you're not living life in the best way you can, but is there really an objective (non-religious) "best way" to live life? I would assume that for the average religious person, the way they live their life feels just about right (barring any intrinsic human shortcomings).
  - scotty79 7y ago
    The best way to live your life is highly subjective and personal. By allowing people to instruct you on how to live your life based not on knowledge but on centuries old guesses almost inevitably prevents you from having best possible life regardless of what it might mean for you. Relying on old guesses instead of knowledge gives you objectively worse results in any kind of activity. It's not a stretch to assume it also has the same effect on your life as a whole.
    - em-bee 7y ago
      indeed, that's why it is necessary to check whether what they say still makes any sense. independent investigation (and not letting others tell you) is the only way to find out.
      - scotty79 7y ago
        > indeed, that's why it is necessary to check whether what they say still makes any sense. The never did make any sense. It's just that now we can use knowledge to point out many specific places that we know are wrong. > independent investigation (and not letting others tell you) is the only way to find out. You definitely should let others tell you about the world we are living in. But those others should be the ones that posess knowledge. And since science is the only way to get actual knowledge about reality then you should probably stick to what science says and ignore everything else. If you want to investigate religions be my guest. Just start with atheism. It will save you a lot of time and a lot of mistakes.
        em-bee 7y ago
        You definitely should let others tell you about the world we are living in oh sure, but every individual still needs to judge for themselves what they learn. science doesn't help us solve our social problems. and as far as i can tell, neither does atheism. none of the mainstream religions are capable of that either, but the answer is out there. i'll leave it at that because i don't want to promote a particular belief here. that's a topic for another time and place.
  - Retric 7y ago
    If following a religion has zero downsides in life, then it needs no justification. However, the act of trying to justify religion suggests it’s not inherently optimal. So, the actual counter argument to Pascal’s wager is this. If there are some true god(s) that care they might have an actual objective scale, but as it’s unknowable any sacrifices for a specific religion are unwise. In other words we don’t know if the objective scale is a specific belief, doing charitable works, sacrifices on a dark alter, or even maximizing the number of times we say purple on a given day. Further, without specific information you are equally likely to get the scale reversed as correct, possibly both suffering great long term harm as well as sacrifices in life. Thus, with the sum of all possible outcomes averaging to zero, the only net expected result is the sacrifice in life. PS: I am positing this as a flaw in a logical argument, don’t take it out of that context.
    - rubinelli 7y ago
      We promote and justify all kinds of actions and attitudes that are not immediately beneficial, like eating properly and exercising. For the religious person, a virtuous life is in itself a reward.
      - Retric 7y ago
        That’s orthogonal to Pascal’s wager. Various religions all have tangible costs and rewards. Pascal’s wager is essentially trying to decide how valuable the rewards after death offered by each religion are when you can’t verify if they exist. My point is the availability heuristic makes biases people to overestimate how likely each religion is to be true. (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Availability_heuristic https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Availability_heuristic) The set of all possible religions would first need to be limited before that specific line of thinking becomes relevant. Which essentially means the argument is meaningless as you must first assume a religion is likely before it would tell you to follow it.
        em-bee 7y ago
        or rather, you need to investigate for yourself if a religion makes sense before you decide to follow it.
- inflatableDodo 7y ago
  There's also the point that to play a cynical game with religious belief in order to maximise your outcome, would probably annoy most so-far posited gods a lot more than an honest skeptic. edit - there would be much variation in approach however. The Greek gods would tend towards maximising poetic irony and unusual animal husbandry practices, whereas Jehova would probably just smite Pascal with boils.
- hobs 7y ago
  It's not "wrong" its literally a foil to respond to logical reasoning of religious belief(and establish rational approaches generally ended in madness.) Pascal was trying to show other ways to christian faith, and how absurd dealing with infinities of uncertainties were. The wager has had many criticisms over the years, but I would say misunderstanding it as a logical and faithful argument for the existence of god is the most prominent one.
- em-bee 7y ago
  that assumes that those twisted and wicket thoughts are actually the right interpretation of the word of god. i'd be just as skeptical as you are. but that doesn't invalidate the idea. there are other interpretations that make a lot more sense and are actually helpful.
- Stratoscope 7y ago
  Whatever anyone thinks of sdegutis's comment (and I didn't like it much either), what they actually wrote bears no resemblance to the "twisted and wicked thoughts" that you made up and put in their mouth. From the HN guidelines: Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.
  - scotty79 7y ago
    I understand your point but what I wrote is the strongest possible interpretation of his comment that is possible for an atheist like me. That's exactly what he said for me. That the terminally ill child should avoid distractions that lessen his suffering just to have time to reflect on his short and troubled life because death might not be the end and there might be some consequences after that which is completely supernatural reason flying in the face of all available evidence.
- JonathanMerklin 7y ago
  I am of the opinion that Pascal's wager is mostly wrong because it's a false dilemma. For each diety/religion R that you're considering, simply construct a diety that will punish you for believing in R and reward you otherwise. Alternatively, construct dieties that reward you for atheism. The point is that it's not a 2x2 matrix of (Atheism, Theism) x (God is real, God is not real).
  - em-bee 7y ago
    that assumes that the deity of each religion is distinct from the others. this is not necessarily the case.

dkersten 7y ago

Also, if there is a god, (s)he surely knows the difference between true belief/faith and pretending just in case.

scotty79 7y ago

Also Pascal wager is wrong because it assumes that believing in god is free or almost free, but if there's no god then the only thing you have is your life and by believing in god you are giving up the only opportunity to live your life the best way you can. Instead you taint everything you got with twisted and wicked thoughts like the one user 'sdegutis' presented: "Kid should suffer more before he died. Because supernatural reasons." Cost of believing in god in Pascal's wager is infinite because you have to spoil the only thing you got.

clmul 7y ago
You presume that by believing in a God you're not living life in the best way you can, but is there really an objective (non-religious) "best way" to live life? I would assume that for the average religious person, the way they live their life feels just about right (barring any intrinsic human shortcomings).
- scotty79 7y ago
  The best way to live your life is highly subjective and personal. By allowing people to instruct you on how to live your life based not on knowledge but on centuries old guesses almost inevitably prevents you from having best possible life regardless of what it might mean for you. Relying on old guesses instead of knowledge gives you objectively worse results in any kind of activity. It's not a stretch to assume it also has the same effect on your life as a whole.
  - em-bee 7y ago
    indeed, that's why it is necessary to check whether what they say still makes any sense. independent investigation (and not letting others tell you) is the only way to find out.
    - scotty79 7y ago
      > indeed, that's why it is necessary to check whether what they say still makes any sense. The never did make any sense. It's just that now we can use knowledge to point out many specific places that we know are wrong. > independent investigation (and not letting others tell you) is the only way to find out. You definitely should let others tell you about the world we are living in. But those others should be the ones that posess knowledge. And since science is the only way to get actual knowledge about reality then you should probably stick to what science says and ignore everything else. If you want to investigate religions be my guest. Just start with atheism. It will save you a lot of time and a lot of mistakes.
      - em-bee 7y ago
        You definitely should let others tell you about the world we are living in oh sure, but every individual still needs to judge for themselves what they learn. science doesn't help us solve our social problems. and as far as i can tell, neither does atheism. none of the mainstream religions are capable of that either, but the answer is out there. i'll leave it at that because i don't want to promote a particular belief here. that's a topic for another time and place.
- Retric 7y ago
  If following a religion has zero downsides in life, then it needs no justification. However, the act of trying to justify religion suggests it’s not inherently optimal. So, the actual counter argument to Pascal’s wager is this. If there are some true god(s) that care they might have an actual objective scale, but as it’s unknowable any sacrifices for a specific religion are unwise. In other words we don’t know if the objective scale is a specific belief, doing charitable works, sacrifices on a dark alter, or even maximizing the number of times we say purple on a given day. Further, without specific information you are equally likely to get the scale reversed as correct, possibly both suffering great long term harm as well as sacrifices in life. Thus, with the sum of all possible outcomes averaging to zero, the only net expected result is the sacrifice in life. PS: I am positing this as a flaw in a logical argument, don’t take it out of that context.
  - rubinelli 7y ago
    We promote and justify all kinds of actions and attitudes that are not immediately beneficial, like eating properly and exercising. For the religious person, a virtuous life is in itself a reward.
    - Retric 7y ago
      That’s orthogonal to Pascal’s wager. Various religions all have tangible costs and rewards. Pascal’s wager is essentially trying to decide how valuable the rewards after death offered by each religion are when you can’t verify if they exist. My point is the availability heuristic makes biases people to overestimate how likely each religion is to be true. (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Availability_heuristic https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Availability_heuristic) The set of all possible religions would first need to be limited before that specific line of thinking becomes relevant. Which essentially means the argument is meaningless as you must first assume a religion is likely before it would tell you to follow it.
      - em-bee 7y ago
        or rather, you need to investigate for yourself if a religion makes sense before you decide to follow it.
inflatableDodo 7y ago
There's also the point that to play a cynical game with religious belief in order to maximise your outcome, would probably annoy most so-far posited gods a lot more than an honest skeptic. edit - there would be much variation in approach however. The Greek gods would tend towards maximising poetic irony and unusual animal husbandry practices, whereas Jehova would probably just smite Pascal with boils.
hobs 7y ago
It's not "wrong" its literally a foil to respond to logical reasoning of religious belief(and establish rational approaches generally ended in madness.) Pascal was trying to show other ways to christian faith, and how absurd dealing with infinities of uncertainties were. The wager has had many criticisms over the years, but I would say misunderstanding it as a logical and faithful argument for the existence of god is the most prominent one.
em-bee 7y ago
that assumes that those twisted and wicket thoughts are actually the right interpretation of the word of god. i'd be just as skeptical as you are. but that doesn't invalidate the idea. there are other interpretations that make a lot more sense and are actually helpful.
Stratoscope 7y ago
Whatever anyone thinks of sdegutis's comment (and I didn't like it much either), what they actually wrote bears no resemblance to the "twisted and wicked thoughts" that you made up and put in their mouth. From the HN guidelines: Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.
- scotty79 7y ago
  I understand your point but what I wrote is the strongest possible interpretation of his comment that is possible for an atheist like me. That's exactly what he said for me. That the terminally ill child should avoid distractions that lessen his suffering just to have time to reflect on his short and troubled life because death might not be the end and there might be some consequences after that which is completely supernatural reason flying in the face of all available evidence.
JonathanMerklin 7y ago
I am of the opinion that Pascal's wager is mostly wrong because it's a false dilemma. For each diety/religion R that you're considering, simply construct a diety that will punish you for believing in R and reward you otherwise. Alternatively, construct dieties that reward you for atheism. The point is that it's not a 2x2 matrix of (Atheism, Theism) x (God is real, God is not real).
- em-bee 7y ago
  that assumes that the deity of each religion is distinct from the others. this is not necessarily the case.