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These are very different. There is evidence for the possibility of future catastrophic climate change. There is no evidence for the existence of hell. There ar

These are very different. There is evidence for the possibility of future catastrophic climate change. There is no evidence for the existence of hell. There are also arguments against Pascal's wager that do not apply to climate change. For example, you can postulate an anti-Christianity Hell, where only non-Christians are spared. This poses a new Pascal wager. There's no reason to think this wager has any different odds than the original: they have the same prior, hence cancel out in an expected value calculation.

nickff 13y ago
>"There are also arguments against Pascal's wager that do not apply to climate change. For example, you can postulate an anti-Christianity Hell, where only non-Christians are spared. " Could one not also postulate that we are approaching a new ice age, and that carbon emissions are keeping the world from freezing over?
- TheEzEzz 13y ago
  Definitely, although the evidence seems to point to warming as a greater risk than cooling. In addition, there is little evidence for the possibility of a catastrophic cooling capable of making the planet uninhabitable (and not just less ideal), whereas there is evidence that a runaway greenhouse effect could actually make the planet uninhabitable for humans (Venus).
yummyfajitas 13y ago
Sure there is some evidence - the existence of a guy claiming to be god's son, a bunch of people claiming miracles occurred, etc. These things are weak evidence in favor of christianity - similarly, there is weak evidence in favor of islam, mormonism, etc. Given that there is no similar evidence for the Anti-Christianity you postulate, the odds don't cancel. Another interesting result of this line of thinking: a rational Buddhist/Hindu should convert to Islam/Christianity. If Christianity is correct then you avoid burning in hell forever. If Buddhism is correct you reincarnate and get another shot at enlightenment.
- d4vlx 13y ago
  > the existence of a guy claiming to be god's son Why doesn't such a person show up in Roman records or any one else's records besides Christians then? This is not evidence. http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Evidence_for_the_historical_existence_of_Jesus_Christ http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Evidence_for_the_historical_exi...
- TheEzEzz 13y ago
  > These things are weak evidence in favor of christianity I'm not convinced this is true. Certainly the story of Jesus is evidence, but it's not clear which direction the evidence should push us. Someone making a claim does not always mean our posterior estimate on the claim should increase. Here's a simple example: I hand you a small bottle filled with medical-looking pills and a nice label. I ask you, "What's the chance these pills cure malignant melanoma cancer?" You think for a moment, then answer, "Very small. There may be a cure eventually, but I've never seen evidence. I'm not on the cutting edge of research though, so perhaps this is a new breakthrough I haven't heard of. Plausible, but unlikely." I then say, "Well, let me reassure you by showing you the website I ordered the pills from." I bring up the website, which shows testimonial after testimonial of people claiming the pills cure malignant melanoma cancer. You then respond (correctly), "I've decreased my estimate. There is still a chance, of course, that the pills work, but I now know these pills are not from a legitimate medical breakthrough I hadn't heard of yet. In fact, this website pattern matches as a scam, so I'm decreasing my posterior to an estimate even lower than my completely uninformed prior." P(Pills work | testimonials) < P(Pills are a scam | testimonials) Of course, the testimonials would be positive evidence if the pills had passed clinical trials. Now, which is bigger: P(Jesus is the son of God | Jesus said he is the son of God) or P(Jesus is was just a guy | Jesus said he is the son of God) ? Honestly, this is not clear to me at all. But I think once we start taking in all the other evidence related to (but not necessarily in favor of) Christianity things become more clear. Just like the pill's website pattern matched for a scammy website, it seems to me that the evidence related to Christianity pattern matches to the evidence related to other man made religions. So I conclude: P(Christianity is man-made | evidence) > P(Christianity is correct | evidence) Hence P(Christianity is correct | evidence) may very well be less than the uniform prior that a particular god exists. Edit: The above symbols aren't right, as yummy points out below, but the argument and analogy is sound. What we care about is the change in probability of each possibility. If P(Christianity is man-made | evidence) > P(Christianity is man-made) then we can conclude that Christianity is less likely due to the evidence.

nickff 13y ago

>"There are also arguments against Pascal's wager that do not apply to climate change. For example, you can postulate an anti-Christianity Hell, where only non-Christians are spared. " Could one not also postulate that we are approaching a new ice age, and that carbon emissions are keeping the world from freezing over?

TheEzEzz 13y ago
Definitely, although the evidence seems to point to warming as a greater risk than cooling. In addition, there is little evidence for the possibility of a catastrophic cooling capable of making the planet uninhabitable (and not just less ideal), whereas there is evidence that a runaway greenhouse effect could actually make the planet uninhabitable for humans (Venus).

yummyfajitas 13y ago

Sure there is some evidence - the existence of a guy claiming to be god's son, a bunch of people claiming miracles occurred, etc. These things are weak evidence in favor of christianity - similarly, there is weak evidence in favor of islam, mormonism, etc. Given that there is no similar evidence for the Anti-Christianity you postulate, the odds don't cancel. Another interesting result of this line of thinking: a rational Buddhist/Hindu should convert to Islam/Christianity. If Christianity is correct then you avoid burning in hell forever. If Buddhism is correct you reincarnate and get another shot at enlightenment.

d4vlx 13y ago
> the existence of a guy claiming to be god's son Why doesn't such a person show up in Roman records or any one else's records besides Christians then? This is not evidence. http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Evidence_for_the_historical_existence_of_Jesus_Christ http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Evidence_for_the_historical_exi...
TheEzEzz 13y ago
> These things are weak evidence in favor of christianity I'm not convinced this is true. Certainly the story of Jesus is evidence, but it's not clear which direction the evidence should push us. Someone making a claim does not always mean our posterior estimate on the claim should increase. Here's a simple example: I hand you a small bottle filled with medical-looking pills and a nice label. I ask you, "What's the chance these pills cure malignant melanoma cancer?" You think for a moment, then answer, "Very small. There may be a cure eventually, but I've never seen evidence. I'm not on the cutting edge of research though, so perhaps this is a new breakthrough I haven't heard of. Plausible, but unlikely." I then say, "Well, let me reassure you by showing you the website I ordered the pills from." I bring up the website, which shows testimonial after testimonial of people claiming the pills cure malignant melanoma cancer. You then respond (correctly), "I've decreased my estimate. There is still a chance, of course, that the pills work, but I now know these pills are not from a legitimate medical breakthrough I hadn't heard of yet. In fact, this website pattern matches as a scam, so I'm decreasing my posterior to an estimate even lower than my completely uninformed prior." P(Pills work | testimonials) < P(Pills are a scam | testimonials) Of course, the testimonials would be positive evidence if the pills had passed clinical trials. Now, which is bigger: P(Jesus is the son of God | Jesus said he is the son of God) or P(Jesus is was just a guy | Jesus said he is the son of God) ? Honestly, this is not clear to me at all. But I think once we start taking in all the other evidence related to (but not necessarily in favor of) Christianity things become more clear. Just like the pill's website pattern matched for a scammy website, it seems to me that the evidence related to Christianity pattern matches to the evidence related to other man made religions. So I conclude: P(Christianity is man-made | evidence) > P(Christianity is correct | evidence) Hence P(Christianity is correct | evidence) may very well be less than the uniform prior that a particular god exists. Edit: The above symbols aren't right, as yummy points out below, but the argument and analogy is sound. What we care about is the change in probability of each possibility. If P(Christianity is man-made | evidence) > P(Christianity is man-made) then we can conclude that Christianity is less likely due to the evidence.