[ExI] Fwd: Pascal's wager

[William Flynn Wallace]

Some good points, Ben.  Notice that people just seem to love hurting
themselves, sometimes physically (incl. flagellation), when they take on a
religion.  Give up alcohol and drugs, give up having mistresses, give up a
good bit of your money, give up your whole life (nums, monks, foreign
missionaries).  These things make many people feel good.  They 'know' that
they are full of sin and deserve to suffer, asceticism being one way to do
that.  Another way is to find sinners and either convert them or torture
and kill them (Christianity and Islam).  These are goals that appeal to
billions, whereas atheism has no goals to offer people.  bill w

On Tue, May 4, 2021 at 11:43 AM Ben via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> On 01/05/2021 23:04, Spike commented:
> > Perhaps you know of Pascal’s Wager, where the philosopher (who
> > discovered a whole buttload of cool math (and so is forever on my list
> > of people who can do no wrong)) expounded on how humans make a
> > win-draw bet on the existence of god.  If they choose to believe and
> > are right, then good.  If they choose to believe and are wrong, then
> > nothing happens, so what the “hell” difference does it make?  It’s a
> > win-draw bet, ja?
>
> Nein.
>
> It's a non-starter, because first, which god do you choose to believe
> in? Choosing the wrong one could be just as disastrous as choosing none,
> if there were a god or gods. And considering how many gods we've
> invented over the millennia (a LOT), the odds are overwhelmingly in
> favour of choosing the wrong one.
>
> Additionally, being a believer almost always comes along with
> restrictive rules on how you should live your life, so depending on
> which religion you bet on, you could lose a lot in the way of enjoyable,
> educational and otherwise positive experiences, and gain a lot in the
> way of miserable, guilty and fearful ones. Not to mention being an
> active contributor to holding back human development generally (this
> applies whether gods exist or not).
>
> But I'm sure most of us on this list know this already.
>
> --
> Ben Zaiboc
>
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