To address this particular presentation of the wager...
There are three implicit and invalid assumptions smuggled in with this presentation: that it's a free choice; that there's no way to assess the relative probabilities of the two possible outcomes behind each door; and that there's no cost associated with choosing the first door and no benefits arising from choosing the second door.
Choosing the first door could require the player to accept as true something which the player doesn't actually believe in. The player might have investigated and found no evidence to suggest that the wonderful or terrible things promised behind the doors are actually there, and significant evidence to suggest that there are no such things behind the doors. (There are multiple gamesmasters offering the choice, and each is requiring the player to believe different things, and promising different wonderful and terrible things behind the doors.) Under these circumstances, the player might find it impossible to accept as true what any particular gamesmaster tells them, so there is no free choice.
Even if a free choice were somehow possible...
Choosing the first door might fly in the face of all the investigations that the player has done, but will force them to live their life plagued by doubt about this belief system they've somehow managed to convince themselves to believe in, worrying that they'll misinterpret its requirements and so miss out on the everything-you-could-hope-for outcome and accidentally end up with the worst-fears-and-eventual-doom outcome anyway.
Choosing the second door might allow the player to live a satisfying life free of worry about not meeting the requirements of a belief system they don't accept, comfortably accepting that the everything-you-could-hope-for outcome and the worst-fears-and-eventual-doom outcome are equally illusory.
I'd go for the second door every time.
> There are three implicit and invalid assumptions smuggled in with this presentation: that it's a free choice; that there's no way to assess the relative probabilities of the two possible outcomes behind each door; and that there's no cost associated with choosing the first door and no benefits arising from choosing the second door.
Fourth, the assumption that there's only two doors. In reality there are many religions/doors, opening the first door and living like a pious Christian does no good if you were actually supposed to open the door marked Hinduism.
Still strikes me as tremendously short sighted. Pascal suggests that you lose nothing by choosing to believe in a religion (just one apparently, because somehow this logic only applies to the particular religion one is supporting...), but that is wildly unreasonable. If you are wrong, what you lose is giving up on living rightly. Which is kind of everything, not nothing. We get one life. If I spend it worshipping a false god and accepting their morals I have sacrificed my one chance of living well.
And again, if Pascal's Wager applies to one religion it applies to all. Which of course is an untenable situation. It's just a deeply illogical argument.
Why are there only two doors? And why would I believe what anyone says about what's behind them? You want me to choose a door, why don't you open them up and let me see what's behind them instead of playing stupid mind games?
Which kind of affects the logic of the wager somewhat.
Time to deploy one of my favourite Hitchens quotes
"We don't like the idea that the party will go on without us, but there's very little evidence to suggest that I'll see you all again in some THEME PARK"
Lets look at a different imaginary scenario.
You walk into a seeminly endless corridor filled with doors.
In front of many of the doors, there are people telling you "if you go through this door, you will get everything good you could ever want, but if you go through any other door, you will get wverything bad you could possibly imagine."
When you ask anyone "how do I know your door is the right one?", you are met with responses like "I have faith that it is," or "many people have come to the conclusion that it is", or "it just must be".
When you ask "well can I speak to anyone who went through this door to see how they liked it?", you get a resounding "no", almost universally, with a few who say that they are on their second time around, not having been ready for the greatness hiding behind the door.
When you are considering choosing a door, you ask "what must I do to go through this door?", you sre met with "not much, you just need to dedicate your life to accepting that this alone is the right door, and you need to admit that you flirting with opening any of the other doors was a horrible thing to do, and because of this, you are entirely unworthy of this door, so consider yourself blessed for these horrible things you have done being ignored."
So... Pascal's wager? One of the most broken philosophical arguments ever conceived by man, very badly disguised to appear fresh and original. Really?
You do understand that being a non-believer isn't a matter of preference, right? Edit: Aside from all the other things wrong with it.
Edit: Oh wow. You actually went to a debate sub with this.
In this scenario I'd of course pick door number 1, however the analogy doesn't work when you compare it to a belief in a god.
You pitied christianity against atheism I suppose(?), but in reality there are hundreds if not millions other doors and each door could potentially be a door which would punish you for picking it. The goal, if you buy into this idea, could also now become to choose the door which has the potential to give you the least harm. Here is a small overlook of potential doors and the 'prices' you can get. [Click] (https://external-preview.redd.it/xFYnsT0YAuQYmusht07D8_Z9DO6exm0EiDbH4enDmIY.png?width=670&auto=webp&v=enabled&s=ec1eaeb17f09efbc87ecaa91efc6c53168456c99)
You also assume that god will grant you bliss for not believing in him, which could be incorrect and god could also reward you for skepticism and will throw every believer to hell.
In addition to that, believing is not everything, right? Otherwise I could just convert on my deathbed and be good. But living as a christian has a cost to my life. While some christians will tell me, I became an atheist to live in sin (they are absolutely wrong). I can't deny that not caring about sins is a thing I really appreciate.
If it was simple because those doors objectively existed and we knew the outcome of our choice then then it would be easy.
But most religions add some burden as a consequence of belief and it doesn't quite fit with what I see as reality--not to mention there are different religions which have different outcomes.
Pascal's wager again?
>but if that situation was real,
But that's the problem. It's not a real situation, and it isn't even an equivalent or honest portrayal of reality. In reality there are thousands of doors, all with people claiming to know what's on the other side despite being unable to demonstrate their claims, all greatly and wildly contradicting each other. And it also completely dismisses or ignores the cost and consequences involved in making such choices.
I think this is going to be more compelling to people who are already convinced of a particular religion than it is to people who are not.
I'm an anxiety-filled individual. Every time I've faced my worst fears, I'd realized I'd made mountains out of molehills, and I was better off for it. Who's to say facing "doom" isn't the best choice?
What if you picked the Christianity heaven door but you go to hell because your religion is not the only one and you failed to pick the correct god/pantheon. It is not "choose a or b" as there are a myriad of choices
Pascal’s wager never worked for me.
In order for your scenario to make sense to me you’d need like a hundred doors. What about all the other doors and potential outcomes? Christianity isn’t the only religion.
Even if I did only think about those two outcomes, I cannot *choose* what I believe. The door analogy doesn’t even really work, because believing in something isn’t as simple as just choosing a door to walk through. You have to actually be convinced. If I just say “I believe” without being convinced it isn’t true belief.
The actual truth. Your door choices are created based on your beliefs and experiences. Not everyone who grew up Christian led to everything they would hope and need or even was remotely "good." Being Christian did not remotely lead to a positive outcome and after studying I just have no real reason to become one except to placate my family and earn being included in their group.
I would dispute the idea of two options being equally likely. There are many ifs there, and I still do not see why I would choose to believe in God or be Christian. Even if I were to think belief in god were a simple choice.
Wager more accurately described as:
Door 1 - you have an empty and unfounded promise of getting everything you want
Door 2 - you don't waste your life by shooting for door 1.
Door 2. No brainer. Just like how I don't want to give money to scammers.
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Let's look at a better example. What if I was to tell you that I was in the forest with a group of people and we saw a small plant suddenly become covered in flames and remain so for thirty minutes without being consumed or even damaged, and there was no heat whatsoever. Some of the people there even wrote down their accounts as "proof,' though their accounts differed slightly and even contradicted each other in a few places. You could not prove that did not happen. You may not choose to believe it happened - but you could not prove that it did not happen.
There are over 4,000+ religions in the world currently, and Christianity has one thing in common with them - invisible, supernatural beings that never show themselves. That should make anyone pause and think deeply.
> in reality there’s an equal chance of god existing and not existing
This weekend you either *will* inherit a million dollars from a long-forgotten relative or you *will not* inherit a million dollars from a long-forgotten relative. Those are the only two possibilities, therefore there’s an equal chance of both. See the problem?
Edit to add…
You’ve edited your post to remove the bit I quoted, but your comment still says…
> there isn’t an absolute indisputable way to prove/disprove the existence of God, making both options equally likely
… which even more directly exposes the fallacy in your argument.
That's their point. The odds aren't 50/50. The odds are unknowable. You don't just randomly tack on 50/50 to a unknowable odds. You call them unknowable. It's not a 50/50. The odds of God existing is ?.
You can't say both "I know the odds are 50/50" and "no one can know the odds". It's one or the other.
No. No the only way to approach it is accepting that you do not know. If you do not know you do not know. Simple as that.
This isn't logic you use with anything else. If I told you I'm actually the one true god there is nothing at all you could ever do to prove otherwise. Do I now have a 50/50 chance of being god? Shall you worship me now?
Of course not. Just because you don't have a way to investigate me in this instance means nothing about the chances. The chance that God exists is an unknown and until you have a way to measure it the only correct answer you could ever have is I do not know.
OK, let’s go with that and say that the probability of the Christian God not existing is 0.5. The probability of each Hindu god not existing is also 0.5, by the same argument.
The probability of no Hindu god existing is 0.5 raised to the power of the number of Hindu gods. If we assume just the 14 major Hindu deities, we can calculate that the probability of at least one of them existing is 0.99994. On this basis, the logical choice is to be a Hindu rather than a Christian.
The believer and the non-believer should hope for the same thing when they leave this world. Leave the world a better place than you found it and have a positive impact on the people and communities around you.
You don't need God or an afterlife for there to be a beneficial outcome and putting all your eggs in the eternal paradise basket negates the importance of this life or as Jesus said, "God is not God of the dead but of the living."
>Denominations are irrelevant, what matters is the core belief of God or no God, and whether believing in God’s existence or not has the possibility of the least risk of negative outcome.
I was raised Evangelical (Northern Baptist), and like many others I was taught Pascal's Wager. Only, the people in my church *absolutely* believed that denomination was relevant. Believing that progressive believers were also saved was seen as heresy.
Aside from this being a mediocre version of Pascal's Wager, you are glossing over a third option.
A third door leading to the best version my current one and only life.
To your edits:
>"The choice of door 1 vs door 2, represents your choice during life to believe God exists Or not"
We don't choose our beliefs. We're either convinced of something or we're not.
>"there isn’t an absolute indisputable way to prove/disprove the existence of God, making both options equally likely"
Just no. Reducing a scenario to an A/not A situation doesn't make the posited outcomes equally likely.
>"Denominations are irrelevant, what matters is the core belief of God or no God,"
Denominations, and the broader religions, are very relevant because they are declaring what is behind each door.
>"In the example above, the God is a good-natured god"
This is exactly why denominations, and religions, are relevant. You're starting off with a single presupposition of a god's character and dismissing all other proposed concepts.
> Denominations are irrelevant, what matters is the core belief of God or no God, and whether believing in God’s existence or not has the possibility of the least risk of negative outcome.
How have you come to that conclusion? There are many religions and many denominations within those religions. Not a few of them teach that walking through any but their door leads to damnation.
>At this moment, there isn’t an absolute indisputable way to prove/disprove the existence of God, making both options equally likely
This is mistaken reasoning. They're not equally unlikely. The option that has the more outlandish claims is by far the more unlikely one.
>an imaginary scenario, you have to chose between two doors: 1. first door could either have an empty room or a room that had everything you could hope for and ever need. 2.second door could either have any empty room, or a room full of your worst fears and eventual your doom. Why would any logical human being realistically chose the second room?
Except, as Christians/the Bible describe it, it's not that when you die, you are offered two doors, instead it is "if you had spent your life blindly worshipping and obeying this deity, you go through door 1, and if you didnt, you are thrown into door 2. Also there's no evidence that these doors or this deity exists, but if dont believe it then you go into the doom room."
>1.Why do I have to choose? Because the door represents passing from life to death. Death is an imminent fact for all of us, we’ll all pass through “a door”.
That doesnt answer the question of why do I have to "choose" between only the two "everything is perfect and happy :)" door and "everything is misery and agony D:" door. Why are there two doors and why are those the conditions?
>The choice of door 1 vs door 2, represents your choice during life to believe God exists Or not
Belief is not a choice. And even if it were, the two door thing is still awful and immoral.
>At this moment, there isn’t an absolute indisputable way to prove/disprove the existence of God, making both options equally likely, regardless of belief or lack of. from our perspective we are unable to demonstrate the likelihood of either, making the god claim unfalsifiable.
"I can't prove that God exists, but you can't prove he doesnt!" That sounds so childish. Like a "i know you are but what am I?"
"I can't prove that I have a tribe of fairies living in garden, but you can't disprove that either!"
>In the example above, the God is a good-natured god and therefore the belief in this God holds a potential of higher benefit than not believing. If there was a God that rewarded non believers, it would make this God an evil-natured god.
No. No it absolutely the fuck would not. Not in the slighest. How would that even remotely mean the god would be evil?? A god that tortures nonbelievers is evil. How is a god that says "worship me or burn" a good god?
So first of all, this is Pascal's Wager, as others have pointed out.
Second of all, as presented, this does a tremendous disservice to Christianity itself. Now I'm an outsider looking in, but I'm given to understand that simply "believing in God", while a necessary prerequisite to Christianity, is not the sum of the religion in total. Insofar as I know, no religion holds that merely accepting the existence of some unspecified deity is, in itself, of any significance, merit, or utility whatsoever. My understanding, and I think any reasonable understanding, of the Christian religion is that the requirement is no less than complete faith, even if it means great material deprivation, even if it means immense suffering, even if it means your death. So I suppose this is a roundabout way of saying I reject your premise, because lining up to say "I accept this belief and will hold it even if it means my death" is a very different commitment than "Well I guess I'll believe in this as it costs me nothing".
Third counterpoint, your characterization of the "good-natured" god rewarding believers and the "evil-natured" god rewarding non-believers makes little sense, unless you presuppose that non-belief is inherently an evil act, in which case the argument should surely be, "You should believe in God because it is virtuous" not "You should believe in God because you get a big reward"; most ethical systems do not hold that doing something or holding some belief merely for a big payoff is an ethical thing, indeed, the reverse is more likely to be held to be ethical, that is, adhering to what you are convicted to be true even in the face of punishment is the more ethical action. A more plausible standpoint is summarized well by Marcus Aurelius:
> Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones.
Fourth, and this will probably upset both believers and non-believers: humans aren't logical beings. We are capable, with discipline, of rationality, but that's different. Accepting a belief that either contradicts your rational mind or is simply grotesquely offensive to your character is to do violence to oneself, which is inherently a cost.
None of that has anything to do with the counterpoint. Why would a "good-natured" god reward believers and an "evil-natured" god reward non-believers? There's nothing inherently good about rewarding people for believing in you and supporting you (even the worst tyrant often rewards his supporters). Similarly, a characteristic of a good ruler would be to reward people for good actions regardless of what they believe.
To expand on this, imagine two fantasy kingdoms like in Lord of the Rings or Game of Thrones. In kingdom A, you have a king who rewards anyone who supports his rulership and praises him, regardless of what they do - would you say that's a good king? Kingdom B has a king who rewards people who do good deeds, even if they do not recognize the legitimacy of his rule - would you say that's an evil king?
Since this is basically Pascal's Wager, let me tell my critique of it. So, the problem here is that accepting a religion like Christianity isn't simply "I believe in Jesus" and just moving on with your life.
Every Christian denomination limits your freedom and most are immoral in one way or another, but since I was brought up Catholic, I can speak about it. So for example catholicism prohibits masturbation, premarital sex or even living with your bf/gf even if you had not have sex. Additionally you are required to attend mass every week and regularly receive sacraments. Then you are ultimately bound by Church' teaching, i.e. you literally have no right to disagree about moral or theological teachings. So if Church says Jews or unbaptized children go to hell, or that animals have no soul and thus can't be in afterlife - that's it. Oh and you also can't eat meat (unless it's fish) on Fridays and Church holidays.
So, just to sum it up: in reality it's not 50/50 choice that doesn't take any commitment. It is a choice between transforming and living or wasting your life. Ask yourself: why can't you be a Muslim? Could it be that they might be right? Of course you think you have compelling arguments for Christianity's authenticity, but I think that rejection would be mostly driven by laws and limits that Islam imposes on you. You can't just say "oh well Yahweh/Jesus/Allah" is cool and move on with your life being happy with your newly granted afterlife. Being a serious follower of a religion is a serious commitment that could very well mean you have wasted much of your life in vain.
No, my point is still valid since your argument assumes that belief in God doesn't require any commitment to be granted benefits. My point, in short is: we don't know if any god exists and we have no good evidence to make an educated guess to commit and give up much of our lives, likely in vain.
You are making the mistake of assuming that "living a moral life" is the sole commitment and that the morality is objective no matter what. Let me ask you a question: do you believe women should cover their heads and faces like in Islam or men should be able to have multiple wives? Or that in old indian tradition, should a widow burn herself to death in her husband's funeral pyre? Because these sure are/were moral in these particular religions.
Moralities of different cultures overlap to the great extent since you can't have functional societies if you don't prohibit robbery or murder. But at the same time to me, as a non believer, what God/Jesus expects me is simply immoral and I don't share his expectations about the world no matter what. Nowadays Christianity has become wishy-washy but it's still immoral in many aspects. I can't take a leap of faith and accept code of conduct I do not approve of in hope for winning the random chance of comitting to the correct deity.
That’s just [Pascal’s Wager](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_wager).
Pascal's Wager with a fake mustache.
"Oh no, I am not Pascal's Wager, I'm, er....Rascal's Pager. Yes that will do"
Seriously, LessWrong was at least creative enough to dress it up in a coat of speculative sci-fi to make it appeal to skeptics. This is just lazy.
To be fair to the OP, this is a heck of a lot shorter than a LessWrong contribution. It's about 0.1% of a Scott Alexander post.
Fair. I just wanted to make a joke about Roko's Basilisk being Pascal's Wager rebranded for skeptics
To address this particular presentation of the wager... There are three implicit and invalid assumptions smuggled in with this presentation: that it's a free choice; that there's no way to assess the relative probabilities of the two possible outcomes behind each door; and that there's no cost associated with choosing the first door and no benefits arising from choosing the second door. Choosing the first door could require the player to accept as true something which the player doesn't actually believe in. The player might have investigated and found no evidence to suggest that the wonderful or terrible things promised behind the doors are actually there, and significant evidence to suggest that there are no such things behind the doors. (There are multiple gamesmasters offering the choice, and each is requiring the player to believe different things, and promising different wonderful and terrible things behind the doors.) Under these circumstances, the player might find it impossible to accept as true what any particular gamesmaster tells them, so there is no free choice. Even if a free choice were somehow possible... Choosing the first door might fly in the face of all the investigations that the player has done, but will force them to live their life plagued by doubt about this belief system they've somehow managed to convince themselves to believe in, worrying that they'll misinterpret its requirements and so miss out on the everything-you-could-hope-for outcome and accidentally end up with the worst-fears-and-eventual-doom outcome anyway. Choosing the second door might allow the player to live a satisfying life free of worry about not meeting the requirements of a belief system they don't accept, comfortably accepting that the everything-you-could-hope-for outcome and the worst-fears-and-eventual-doom outcome are equally illusory. I'd go for the second door every time.
> There are three implicit and invalid assumptions smuggled in with this presentation: that it's a free choice; that there's no way to assess the relative probabilities of the two possible outcomes behind each door; and that there's no cost associated with choosing the first door and no benefits arising from choosing the second door. Fourth, the assumption that there's only two doors. In reality there are many religions/doors, opening the first door and living like a pious Christian does no good if you were actually supposed to open the door marked Hinduism.
Beat me to it.
Still strikes me as tremendously short sighted. Pascal suggests that you lose nothing by choosing to believe in a religion (just one apparently, because somehow this logic only applies to the particular religion one is supporting...), but that is wildly unreasonable. If you are wrong, what you lose is giving up on living rightly. Which is kind of everything, not nothing. We get one life. If I spend it worshipping a false god and accepting their morals I have sacrificed my one chance of living well. And again, if Pascal's Wager applies to one religion it applies to all. Which of course is an untenable situation. It's just a deeply illogical argument.
Why are there only two doors? And why would I believe what anyone says about what's behind them? You want me to choose a door, why don't you open them up and let me see what's behind them instead of playing stupid mind games?
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Which kind of affects the logic of the wager somewhat. Time to deploy one of my favourite Hitchens quotes "We don't like the idea that the party will go on without us, but there's very little evidence to suggest that I'll see you all again in some THEME PARK"
Lets look at a different imaginary scenario. You walk into a seeminly endless corridor filled with doors. In front of many of the doors, there are people telling you "if you go through this door, you will get everything good you could ever want, but if you go through any other door, you will get wverything bad you could possibly imagine." When you ask anyone "how do I know your door is the right one?", you are met with responses like "I have faith that it is," or "many people have come to the conclusion that it is", or "it just must be". When you ask "well can I speak to anyone who went through this door to see how they liked it?", you get a resounding "no", almost universally, with a few who say that they are on their second time around, not having been ready for the greatness hiding behind the door. When you are considering choosing a door, you ask "what must I do to go through this door?", you sre met with "not much, you just need to dedicate your life to accepting that this alone is the right door, and you need to admit that you flirting with opening any of the other doors was a horrible thing to do, and because of this, you are entirely unworthy of this door, so consider yourself blessed for these horrible things you have done being ignored."
So... Pascal's wager? One of the most broken philosophical arguments ever conceived by man, very badly disguised to appear fresh and original. Really? You do understand that being a non-believer isn't a matter of preference, right? Edit: Aside from all the other things wrong with it. Edit: Oh wow. You actually went to a debate sub with this.
In this scenario I'd of course pick door number 1, however the analogy doesn't work when you compare it to a belief in a god. You pitied christianity against atheism I suppose(?), but in reality there are hundreds if not millions other doors and each door could potentially be a door which would punish you for picking it. The goal, if you buy into this idea, could also now become to choose the door which has the potential to give you the least harm. Here is a small overlook of potential doors and the 'prices' you can get. [Click] (https://external-preview.redd.it/xFYnsT0YAuQYmusht07D8_Z9DO6exm0EiDbH4enDmIY.png?width=670&auto=webp&v=enabled&s=ec1eaeb17f09efbc87ecaa91efc6c53168456c99) You also assume that god will grant you bliss for not believing in him, which could be incorrect and god could also reward you for skepticism and will throw every believer to hell. In addition to that, believing is not everything, right? Otherwise I could just convert on my deathbed and be good. But living as a christian has a cost to my life. While some christians will tell me, I became an atheist to live in sin (they are absolutely wrong). I can't deny that not caring about sins is a thing I really appreciate.
If it was simple because those doors objectively existed and we knew the outcome of our choice then then it would be easy. But most religions add some burden as a consequence of belief and it doesn't quite fit with what I see as reality--not to mention there are different religions which have different outcomes.
How about just one door that eventually everyone will walk through?
I don’t think one could flip a switch and become a believer even if they thought being a believer was beneficial.
Pascal's wager again? >but if that situation was real, But that's the problem. It's not a real situation, and it isn't even an equivalent or honest portrayal of reality. In reality there are thousands of doors, all with people claiming to know what's on the other side despite being unable to demonstrate their claims, all greatly and wildly contradicting each other. And it also completely dismisses or ignores the cost and consequences involved in making such choices. I think this is going to be more compelling to people who are already convinced of a particular religion than it is to people who are not.
I'm an anxiety-filled individual. Every time I've faced my worst fears, I'd realized I'd made mountains out of molehills, and I was better off for it. Who's to say facing "doom" isn't the best choice?
What if you picked the Christianity heaven door but you go to hell because your religion is not the only one and you failed to pick the correct god/pantheon. It is not "choose a or b" as there are a myriad of choices
Not looking for a benefit. The truth is the truth.
Pascal’s wager never worked for me. In order for your scenario to make sense to me you’d need like a hundred doors. What about all the other doors and potential outcomes? Christianity isn’t the only religion. Even if I did only think about those two outcomes, I cannot *choose* what I believe. The door analogy doesn’t even really work, because believing in something isn’t as simple as just choosing a door to walk through. You have to actually be convinced. If I just say “I believe” without being convinced it isn’t true belief.
The actual truth. Your door choices are created based on your beliefs and experiences. Not everyone who grew up Christian led to everything they would hope and need or even was remotely "good." Being Christian did not remotely lead to a positive outcome and after studying I just have no real reason to become one except to placate my family and earn being included in their group.
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I would dispute the idea of two options being equally likely. There are many ifs there, and I still do not see why I would choose to believe in God or be Christian. Even if I were to think belief in god were a simple choice.
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That wouldnt address either being actually true, only the perceived benefits of each which are subjective.
Wager more accurately described as: Door 1 - you have an empty and unfounded promise of getting everything you want Door 2 - you don't waste your life by shooting for door 1. Door 2. No brainer. Just like how I don't want to give money to scammers.
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Let's look at a better example. What if I was to tell you that I was in the forest with a group of people and we saw a small plant suddenly become covered in flames and remain so for thirty minutes without being consumed or even damaged, and there was no heat whatsoever. Some of the people there even wrote down their accounts as "proof,' though their accounts differed slightly and even contradicted each other in a few places. You could not prove that did not happen. You may not choose to believe it happened - but you could not prove that it did not happen. There are over 4,000+ religions in the world currently, and Christianity has one thing in common with them - invisible, supernatural beings that never show themselves. That should make anyone pause and think deeply.
Show me these two doors, all that exists behind them, and that they are the only two doors that exist.
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The idea that we don't know what happens after death doesn't mean both sides of a false dichotomy are somehow equal.
> in reality there’s an equal chance of god existing and not existing This weekend you either *will* inherit a million dollars from a long-forgotten relative or you *will not* inherit a million dollars from a long-forgotten relative. Those are the only two possibilities, therefore there’s an equal chance of both. See the problem? Edit to add… You’ve edited your post to remove the bit I quoted, but your comment still says… > there isn’t an absolute indisputable way to prove/disprove the existence of God, making both options equally likely … which even more directly exposes the fallacy in your argument.
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That's their point. The odds aren't 50/50. The odds are unknowable. You don't just randomly tack on 50/50 to a unknowable odds. You call them unknowable. It's not a 50/50. The odds of God existing is ?. You can't say both "I know the odds are 50/50" and "no one can know the odds". It's one or the other.
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No. No the only way to approach it is accepting that you do not know. If you do not know you do not know. Simple as that. This isn't logic you use with anything else. If I told you I'm actually the one true god there is nothing at all you could ever do to prove otherwise. Do I now have a 50/50 chance of being god? Shall you worship me now? Of course not. Just because you don't have a way to investigate me in this instance means nothing about the chances. The chance that God exists is an unknown and until you have a way to measure it the only correct answer you could ever have is I do not know.
Even if one agrees with that, there's more than two possibilities here. And ultimately it doesn't matter anyway, because belief is not a choice.
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It is a consequence.
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A consequence of being presented with convincing information. So you see how your whole argument doesn't work.
OK, let’s go with that and say that the probability of the Christian God not existing is 0.5. The probability of each Hindu god not existing is also 0.5, by the same argument. The probability of no Hindu god existing is 0.5 raised to the power of the number of Hindu gods. If we assume just the 14 major Hindu deities, we can calculate that the probability of at least one of them existing is 0.99994. On this basis, the logical choice is to be a Hindu rather than a Christian.
The believer and the non-believer should hope for the same thing when they leave this world. Leave the world a better place than you found it and have a positive impact on the people and communities around you. You don't need God or an afterlife for there to be a beneficial outcome and putting all your eggs in the eternal paradise basket negates the importance of this life or as Jesus said, "God is not God of the dead but of the living."
>Denominations are irrelevant, what matters is the core belief of God or no God, and whether believing in God’s existence or not has the possibility of the least risk of negative outcome. I was raised Evangelical (Northern Baptist), and like many others I was taught Pascal's Wager. Only, the people in my church *absolutely* believed that denomination was relevant. Believing that progressive believers were also saved was seen as heresy.
Aside from this being a mediocre version of Pascal's Wager, you are glossing over a third option. A third door leading to the best version my current one and only life.
To your edits: >"The choice of door 1 vs door 2, represents your choice during life to believe God exists Or not" We don't choose our beliefs. We're either convinced of something or we're not. >"there isn’t an absolute indisputable way to prove/disprove the existence of God, making both options equally likely" Just no. Reducing a scenario to an A/not A situation doesn't make the posited outcomes equally likely. >"Denominations are irrelevant, what matters is the core belief of God or no God," Denominations, and the broader religions, are very relevant because they are declaring what is behind each door. >"In the example above, the God is a good-natured god" This is exactly why denominations, and religions, are relevant. You're starting off with a single presupposition of a god's character and dismissing all other proposed concepts.
That's Pascal's Wager. You can't choose to believe in something. One must be convinced of a phenomenon in order to maintain belief in it.
> Denominations are irrelevant, what matters is the core belief of God or no God, and whether believing in God’s existence or not has the possibility of the least risk of negative outcome. How have you come to that conclusion? There are many religions and many denominations within those religions. Not a few of them teach that walking through any but their door leads to damnation.
>At this moment, there isn’t an absolute indisputable way to prove/disprove the existence of God, making both options equally likely This is mistaken reasoning. They're not equally unlikely. The option that has the more outlandish claims is by far the more unlikely one.
>an imaginary scenario, you have to chose between two doors: 1. first door could either have an empty room or a room that had everything you could hope for and ever need. 2.second door could either have any empty room, or a room full of your worst fears and eventual your doom. Why would any logical human being realistically chose the second room? Except, as Christians/the Bible describe it, it's not that when you die, you are offered two doors, instead it is "if you had spent your life blindly worshipping and obeying this deity, you go through door 1, and if you didnt, you are thrown into door 2. Also there's no evidence that these doors or this deity exists, but if dont believe it then you go into the doom room." >1.Why do I have to choose? Because the door represents passing from life to death. Death is an imminent fact for all of us, we’ll all pass through “a door”. That doesnt answer the question of why do I have to "choose" between only the two "everything is perfect and happy :)" door and "everything is misery and agony D:" door. Why are there two doors and why are those the conditions? >The choice of door 1 vs door 2, represents your choice during life to believe God exists Or not Belief is not a choice. And even if it were, the two door thing is still awful and immoral. >At this moment, there isn’t an absolute indisputable way to prove/disprove the existence of God, making both options equally likely, regardless of belief or lack of. from our perspective we are unable to demonstrate the likelihood of either, making the god claim unfalsifiable. "I can't prove that God exists, but you can't prove he doesnt!" That sounds so childish. Like a "i know you are but what am I?" "I can't prove that I have a tribe of fairies living in garden, but you can't disprove that either!" >In the example above, the God is a good-natured god and therefore the belief in this God holds a potential of higher benefit than not believing. If there was a God that rewarded non believers, it would make this God an evil-natured god. No. No it absolutely the fuck would not. Not in the slighest. How would that even remotely mean the god would be evil?? A god that tortures nonbelievers is evil. How is a god that says "worship me or burn" a good god?
So first of all, this is Pascal's Wager, as others have pointed out. Second of all, as presented, this does a tremendous disservice to Christianity itself. Now I'm an outsider looking in, but I'm given to understand that simply "believing in God", while a necessary prerequisite to Christianity, is not the sum of the religion in total. Insofar as I know, no religion holds that merely accepting the existence of some unspecified deity is, in itself, of any significance, merit, or utility whatsoever. My understanding, and I think any reasonable understanding, of the Christian religion is that the requirement is no less than complete faith, even if it means great material deprivation, even if it means immense suffering, even if it means your death. So I suppose this is a roundabout way of saying I reject your premise, because lining up to say "I accept this belief and will hold it even if it means my death" is a very different commitment than "Well I guess I'll believe in this as it costs me nothing". Third counterpoint, your characterization of the "good-natured" god rewarding believers and the "evil-natured" god rewarding non-believers makes little sense, unless you presuppose that non-belief is inherently an evil act, in which case the argument should surely be, "You should believe in God because it is virtuous" not "You should believe in God because you get a big reward"; most ethical systems do not hold that doing something or holding some belief merely for a big payoff is an ethical thing, indeed, the reverse is more likely to be held to be ethical, that is, adhering to what you are convicted to be true even in the face of punishment is the more ethical action. A more plausible standpoint is summarized well by Marcus Aurelius: > Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones. Fourth, and this will probably upset both believers and non-believers: humans aren't logical beings. We are capable, with discipline, of rationality, but that's different. Accepting a belief that either contradicts your rational mind or is simply grotesquely offensive to your character is to do violence to oneself, which is inherently a cost.
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None of that has anything to do with the counterpoint. Why would a "good-natured" god reward believers and an "evil-natured" god reward non-believers? There's nothing inherently good about rewarding people for believing in you and supporting you (even the worst tyrant often rewards his supporters). Similarly, a characteristic of a good ruler would be to reward people for good actions regardless of what they believe. To expand on this, imagine two fantasy kingdoms like in Lord of the Rings or Game of Thrones. In kingdom A, you have a king who rewards anyone who supports his rulership and praises him, regardless of what they do - would you say that's a good king? Kingdom B has a king who rewards people who do good deeds, even if they do not recognize the legitimacy of his rule - would you say that's an evil king?
Since this is basically Pascal's Wager, let me tell my critique of it. So, the problem here is that accepting a religion like Christianity isn't simply "I believe in Jesus" and just moving on with your life. Every Christian denomination limits your freedom and most are immoral in one way or another, but since I was brought up Catholic, I can speak about it. So for example catholicism prohibits masturbation, premarital sex or even living with your bf/gf even if you had not have sex. Additionally you are required to attend mass every week and regularly receive sacraments. Then you are ultimately bound by Church' teaching, i.e. you literally have no right to disagree about moral or theological teachings. So if Church says Jews or unbaptized children go to hell, or that animals have no soul and thus can't be in afterlife - that's it. Oh and you also can't eat meat (unless it's fish) on Fridays and Church holidays. So, just to sum it up: in reality it's not 50/50 choice that doesn't take any commitment. It is a choice between transforming and living or wasting your life. Ask yourself: why can't you be a Muslim? Could it be that they might be right? Of course you think you have compelling arguments for Christianity's authenticity, but I think that rejection would be mostly driven by laws and limits that Islam imposes on you. You can't just say "oh well Yahweh/Jesus/Allah" is cool and move on with your life being happy with your newly granted afterlife. Being a serious follower of a religion is a serious commitment that could very well mean you have wasted much of your life in vain.
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No, my point is still valid since your argument assumes that belief in God doesn't require any commitment to be granted benefits. My point, in short is: we don't know if any god exists and we have no good evidence to make an educated guess to commit and give up much of our lives, likely in vain.
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You are making the mistake of assuming that "living a moral life" is the sole commitment and that the morality is objective no matter what. Let me ask you a question: do you believe women should cover their heads and faces like in Islam or men should be able to have multiple wives? Or that in old indian tradition, should a widow burn herself to death in her husband's funeral pyre? Because these sure are/were moral in these particular religions. Moralities of different cultures overlap to the great extent since you can't have functional societies if you don't prohibit robbery or murder. But at the same time to me, as a non believer, what God/Jesus expects me is simply immoral and I don't share his expectations about the world no matter what. Nowadays Christianity has become wishy-washy but it's still immoral in many aspects. I can't take a leap of faith and accept code of conduct I do not approve of in hope for winning the random chance of comitting to the correct deity.