250
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 24 Jun 2024
250 points (90.3% liked)
Today I Learned
17769 readers
91 users here now
What did you learn today? Share it with us!
We learn something new every day. This is a community dedicated to informing each other and helping to spread knowledge.
The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:
Rules (interactive)
Rule 1- All posts must begin with TIL. Linking to a source of info is optional, but highly recommended as it helps to spark discussion.
** Posts must be about an actual fact that you have learned, but it doesn't matter if you learned it today. See Rule 6 for all exceptions.**
Rule 2- Your post subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material.
Your post subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material. You will be warned first, banned second.
Rule 3- Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here.
Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here. Breaking this rule will not get you or your post removed, but it will put you at risk, and possibly in danger.
Rule 4- No self promotion or upvote-farming of any kind.
That's it.
Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.
Posts and comments which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.
Rule 6- Regarding non-TIL posts.
Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-TIL posts using the [META] tag on your post title.
Rule 7- You can't harass or disturb other members.
If you vocally harass or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.
Likewise, if you are a member, sympathiser or a resemblant of a movement that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of a group of people, and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you will be banned on sight.
For further explanation, clarification and feedback about this rule, you may follow this link.
Rule 8- All comments should try to stay relevant to their parent content.
Rule 9- Reposts from other platforms are not allowed.
Let everyone have their own content.
Rule 10- Majority of bots aren't allowed to participate here.
Unless included in our Whitelist for Bots, your bot will not be allowed to participate in this community. To have your bot whitelisted, please contact the moderators for a short review.
Partnered Communities
You can view our partnered communities list by following this link. To partner with our community and be included, you are free to message the moderators or comment on a pinned post.
Community Moderation
For inquiry on becoming a moderator of this community, you may comment on the pinned post of the time, or simply shoot a message to the current moderators.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
Pascal's Wager always seemed really flawed to me even through a purely Christian perspective. You're saying that god is so oblivious (even though he's supposed to be omniscient) that he'll be fooled by you claiming to believe just because you're hedging your bets? The actual reason it's dumb is that it's not a binary choice since there are thousands of ways people claim you can be saved in various religions.
Most importantly, since there are infinite other options in-between that are just as likely as God existing, some can have negative reward values if you choose "worship God anyway". It is just as likely that there is a vengeful Anti-God that will torture you for eternity if you worship the Abrahamic God, which would completely negate the rewards from the original wager.
The "wager" that makes the most sense to me, then, is to behave as if there is no god that cares what you do or who you worship. Try your best to be a positive force in the world, because whether anything we do matters to the universe or not, it matters to us humans.
I mean he ruined a man's entire family to win a bet with someone he doesn't even like, being this oblivious is on-brand for God.
Very true - Old Testament god in particular was really dumb and didn't even know what was going on in the next town over.
More that repetition reinforces an idea. By commiting to the bit and accepting a God at face value, you reduce your psychological defenses when the priest or prophet comes around with the next ask.
So you admit you believe in God? Then you won't mind putting a few coins in the collection plate to prove it.
Oh, you've already donated? Surely you'd be comfortable making a confession.
My son, you've got so many sins! Surely you'd like to join our prayer group to get yourself right with the God we all agree exists.
Can't have prayer without works! Time to do some penance.
That's...what?
It was a response to this part.
Ah gotcha I somehow missed that part
His whole point though makes those other thousands irrelevant. Even if there's a chance, however small, you're still better off doing it just in case.
Here's my favorite variation of the same pragmatism.
But if he considered that, then he also would have considered not believing in anything was an equally probable bet for salvation. Which is clearly not the case.
Why is it equally probable to believe nothing? No atheist is preaching damnation if you believe in God lol.
Preaching of damnation is not evidence of damnation. There is just as likely a god who punishes you for believing anything wrong as there is a god who punishes you for not believing in them specifically.
Evidence was never part of his theory. Why are you using it as an argument?
He was not in the business of making up new possible religions. Only assessing the currently geographically popular ones.
You seem to not understand the discussion we're having.
What a pathetic cop out response. I assure you I do, though I shouldn't have to.