The best odds for/against god
 

this is just to elaborate on the following arguments

"If you believe in God and are right you get heaven. If you are wrong you get dirt.
If you don't believe in God and are right you get dirt.
If you don't believe in God and are wrong you get hell.

Clearly +EV to believe in God."

-Kathleenstand-

-this is what I mean and i just didn't want to retype it..sorry kathleenstand if you'd rather me not quote you

I used to believe the whole everything to gain and nothing to lose be believing in god, but one night I was talking to a christian friend an tried to give him the criteria I would use in deciding whether or not it was good odds to believe in god...

problems occurred when realizing that in order to believe in a specific god (the christian god in this example) you cannot get around haveing to place a better chance of that god existing and rewarding you if you believe in him than the chance that you would be punished for believing in a false deity.. well not really because you would also have to consider chances that there is a god that would reward you if you did not worship but punish you if you believed in a false god... well anyway It gets very confusing and made my brain hurt so i just went to sleep.

since this is a philosophy forum in poker forums, what better a place to discuss this. I'm sure most of you non-believers have thought about this before so..

what things you do need to consider in this evaluation?? I'm sure there are extraordinary amounts of them, but any that you have though of as important??

--if this has had been adressed before, sorry but nothing wrong with a fresh discussion

--i know that there's not much a reason to believe in god if you'ree doing it because of odds.. but let's try to ignor that

Re: The best odds for/against god
 

[ QUOTE ]
this is just to elaborate on the following arguments

"If you believe in God and are right you get heaven. If you are wrong you get dirt.
If you don't believe in God and are right you get dirt.
If you don't believe in God and are wrong you get hell.

Clearly +EV to believe in God."

-Kathleenstand-

-this is what I mean and i just didn't want to retype it..sorry kathleenstand if you'd rather me not quote you

I used to believe the whole everything to gain and nothing to lose be believing in god, but one night I was talking to a christian friend an tried to give him the criteria I would use in deciding whether or not it was good odds to believe in god...

problems occurred when realizing that in order to believe in a specific god (the christian god in this example) you cannot get around haveing to place a better chance of that god existing and rewarding you if you believe in him than the chance that you would be punished for believing in a false deity.. well not really because you would also have to consider chances that there is a god that would reward you if you did not worship but punish you if you believed in a false god... well anyway It gets very confusing and made my brain hurt so i just went to sleep.

since this is a philosophy forum in poker forums, what better a place to discuss this. I'm sure most of you non-believers have thought about this before so..

what things you do need to consider in this evaluation?? I'm sure there are extraordinary amounts of them, but any that you have though of as important??

--if this has had been adressed before, sorry but nothing wrong with a fresh discussion

--i know that there's not much a reason to believe in god if you'ree doing it because of odds.. but let's try to ignor that

[/ QUOTE ]
rest your weary head, the odds dont matter [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

finite chance * infinite upside = finite chance * infinite downside whatever the relative magnitudes of the finite chances.

chez

Re: The best odds for/against god
 

oh yeah and exactly how does Pascal's Wager work it's way into this.. i don't think it changes the fact that you would have to put greater odds on one thing than another??

Re: The best odds for/against god
 

[ QUOTE ]
oh yeah and exactly how does Pascal's Wager work it's way into this.. i don't think it changes the fact that you would have to put greater odds on one thing than another??

[/ QUOTE ]

The whole strength of Pascals wager is the infiniteness of the upside. Counter it with the infinite downside and its all over.

chez

Re: The best odds for/against god
 

[ QUOTE ]
rest your weary head, the odds dont matter

finite chance * infinite upside = finite chance * infinite downside whatever the relative magnitudes of the finite chances.

chez

[/ QUOTE ]

that's good advice, but i'll probably be up until 5am becuase i woke up and 3 pm today, so how about humoring me.

you just need to post a little inclusion, not an elaborate evaluation... [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

Re: The best odds for/against god
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
rest your weary head, the odds dont matter

finite chance * infinite upside = finite chance * infinite downside whatever the relative magnitudes of the finite chances.

chez

[/ QUOTE ]

that's good advice, but i'll probably be up until 5am becuase i woke up and 3 pm today, so how about humoring me.

you just need to post a little inclusion, not an elaborate evaluation... [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

[/ QUOTE ]

I dont quite understand your critisism but I'm sure its justified [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

I plead tiredness of the sorry saga of Pascals wager, so my bad.

In the other live thread there on the old athiest/agnostic debacle again - no-one can hear my screams. There is a god and what's worse I'm in hell and he has my sense of humour.

chez

Re: The best odds for/against god
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
rest your weary head, the odds dont matter

finite chance * infinite upside = finite chance * infinite downside whatever the relative magnitudes of the finite chances.

chez

[/ QUOTE ]

that's good advice, but i'll probably be up until 5am becuase i woke up and 3 pm today, so how about humoring me.

you just need to post a little inclusion, not an elaborate evaluation... [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

[/ QUOTE ]

I dont quite understand your critisism but I'm sure its justified [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

I plead tiredness of the sorry saga of Pascals wager, so my bad.

In the other live thread there on the old athiest/agnostic debacle again - no-one can hear my screams. There is a god and what's worse I'm in hell and he has my sense of humour.

chez

[/ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
rest your weary head

[/ QUOTE ]

ditto (in my best Patrick Swazie voice)

Re: The best odds for/against god
 

Well if the christian god is the true god u can be a non believer and ask for forgiveness at the gates of heaven and be accepted. Remember the two convicts hanging with jesus one asked for forgiveness and was accpeted into the kingdom of god.

Re: The best odds for/against god
 

You'd get an even better payoff if you assume that you can live a life of hedonism and pure selfishness and that there is a divine being who will reward such behavior with eternal bliss.

The reality is that you don't have an EV problem because you have offered no reasonable way to estimate the probability of either of your possible scenarios of being actually true.

I think that thinking about God in EV terms is a pretty bad way to go about it, and I have to question how seriously Pascal took his wager (and how much it was just a tongue-in-cheek reply to critics). Of course, it would be more forgivable of an error on his part, as the theory of probability was just being formulated in a devleloped manner around that time.

Re: The best odds for/against god
 

First of all there is a god or supreame "thing" that we call god. If you dont belive in a something bigger than ourselfs you are backwards, everything did not come from nothing. Its your view of this god that is important and should be discovered by you alone. Religon is the aid to this type of thinking that most people dont do. Believeing in a religon is a headstart to realizing that we and everything else are significant in a very small way. Heaven was created by christianity and is ment to be a reward to living an honest life, which most people dont live. You should think for yourself what will happen in the afterlife and belive in that instead of heaven/hell. It would be shallow to decide to live falsely beliveing in a heaven created by god only because you want to be a part of heaven. Or trying to convince yourslef throughout your lifetime that there is a heaven, and living accordingly to what is said to get you in. Live the way you want believing in what you want and you will not have to live your life trying to believe in something someone else told you was true. I bet if since the beginning of christianity you were told to walk backwards every full moon to get into heaven everyone would be doing that instead of beliveing in their "god" or taking part in their religon. Find your own truths.... nothing in our world is certain anyways.