Talk:Pascal's wager/Archive 3

Moved from article

those who choose to believe in, say, scientific theories that may contradict scripture may be able to discover things and accomplish things the believer could not

The above is not a useful objection, as I am quite certain that no such "scientific theories contridicting scripture" can be produced, nor can the "discoveries and accomplishments" resulting from them be documented. If you are of the POV that they can, this is still not the place for such musings, which would be a great deal more relevent in arguments against the existence of God, or perhaps published in any number of scientific journals. Needless to say such documentation would be rather earth shattering, assuming it does not require a leap of faith ;) Sam Spade 07:28, 14 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I don't know what the original author had in mind, but the first thing that comes to mind is the progress in gene therapy due to the evolutionary biology and genetics approach, an approach taken in contradiction to the first chapter of Genesis. mydogategodshat 07:36, 14 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I am by no means alone in failing to see a contridiction betwixt evoloution and creationism. The number of believing scientists sharing my opinion is stagering. I would be happy to discuss with you the preponderance of proven biblical facts in comparrison to the lack of any disputing documentation of events biblically depicted, but this is not the place for such discussion. Sam Spade 07:50, 14 Feb 2004 (UTC)

So it is only an appearent contradiction in your view. I will make that ammendment to comply with your views and replace the sentence. mydogategodshat 21:55, 14 Feb 2004 (UTC)

It isn't a contradiction at all in my view. But I do agree it is a contradiction in the eyes of others, mostly atheists and fundamentalist creationists. I edited what you placed there slightly, but I do agree it deserves mention. Sam Spade 02:55, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC)

"Alternatively, the wager does not rule out the possibility that there is a God who instead rewards skepticism and punishes faith. In societies where faith is often rewarded by economic and social benefit, its potential moral significance vould be considered dubious. This theoretical "god" exists only for the purpose of this argument however, bringing the objection that any valid god would necessarilly be known, and therefore be the subject of worship."

This objection begs a number of questions, first and foremost what contradiction there is between skepticism and belief in God. In answer, there is none. I myself for example am both a skeptic, and a believer in God. Besides which, the insinuation of hitherto unheard of gods is unhelpful, and the source of below discussed difficulties. Sam Spade 08:46, 14 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Yet the Goat-related argument seems important to include in some form. I'll consider this tomorrow. Dan 08:58, 14 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Hindu gods

I find this edit particularly amusing, but I must point out that Hinduism is at its very core an all embracing religion. The quote "all paths lead to God" is a particularly useful one when considering the theoretical punishments a lesser hindu diety might dish out when punishing a believer in the Christian God (which is nearly universally seen by Hindu's as equivilent to Brahman). Sam Spade 07:54, 14 Feb 2004 (UTC)

oh... I see the Hindu gods are suggested to be punishing Christians for their failure to believe in norse gods? LOL! As silly as that is, I find it less objectionable than what I had thought it read, and can't really say that would be innaccurate... rather an odd scenario tho, and not a particularly convincing dispute of Pascals wager ;) Sam Spade 07:56, 14 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Nothing that complex. By switching it from Norse gods to Hindu gods, I was trying to NPOV it. The use of Norse gods trivialises the argument because almost nobody today believes in them. By switching to a panthion that has hundred of millions of believers, it portrays the arguement fairly. mydogategodshat 21:51, 14 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Actually, it presented an innaccuracy, as I claified above. I have no removed any specific mention of particular gods, leaving that open to the reader to interpret. Sam Spade 02:48, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC)

star goat

Joke websites do not a religion make. The article is not the place for nonsense humor, regardless of how funny. Sam Spade 08:06, 14 Feb 2004 (UTC)

You can find the Church of the Star Goat at http://www.skeptictank.org/hs/stargoat.htm

Yet you say it does not exist. Kindly define what you mean by existence, and explain what it has to do with 'pedia policy. Also, you reverted several other changes. User:Dan

First, I don't think Wikipedia has a policy as to what constitutes "a religion". Nor would it make sense to have one, IMHO. Second, the current version of the page (since you deleted my NPOVing) flatly denies the existence of any god who punishes believers. It seems relevant to note that some disagree. User:Dan

The other changes related to the above discussion. Actually, I think the whole portion relating to hindu or norse gods is patent nonesense, and in no way a valuable contribution to this article. By existence, I mean an officially recognized religion. I saw the silly website. The wikipedia has had a debate of similar issues before, a goodly number of times. While on the one hand I enjoy a good joke as well as anybody, lets keep the more intensely questionable humorous material on the talk page. Sam Spade 08:24, 14 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Assuming no-one has done it before, I can easily form a Universal Life Church of the Star Goat for "official" US government recognition. Last I checked, wiki's policy required that we have a way to verify information and did not require much else. Again, this material seems relevant to the article. Dan 08:31, 14 Feb 2004 (UTC)

The point is you havn't. Its simply not a church. I would be shocked if this "religion" has even one member, unlike the Church of the SubGenius which has a great many, and which would be likewise ridiculous to cite in regards to matters of classical theological debate. If you made other good edits, go ahead and put them back, but not anything about Hindu Gods punishing Christians. If anything that portion should be removed, it is innacurate to suggest their are any "punishments" in Hinduism for failure to woship lesser gods (indeed worshipping the lesser gods, or idols, is seen as spiritually inferior to worship of the one God, Brahman, preventing one from reaching Nirvana after death). Sam Spade 08:34, 14 Feb 2004 (UTC)

You say, "Its simply not a church." Can you say that in E-prime? I maintain that the sentence has no objective meaning, unless it refers to somewhat arbitrary government policies. But I will refrain from putting the material back until I have the two other members I need to form an Official Church. Dan 08:41, 14 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Note, incidentally, that the relative probabilities of Christianity and Goatism have no bearing on the mathematics of the Wager. Any non-zero probability will do, and you can't prove there isn't a Star Goat. (Does theological debate have to be "serious", or does it just have to be insightful and logically unassailable?) Dan 08:51, 14 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Nobody is disputing the existence of your joke goat, its the existence of the accompaning religion which is lacking. Sam Spade 08:54, 14 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Since parts of Goatish doctrine seem created to make a point about Pascal's Wager, it might be a valid addition to the article -- but I would say not, because the same point can be made in a more serious fashion. --No-One Jones 08:15, 14 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Faith

Pascals wager does not involve faith, but rather belief, in God. These are differning concepts, and so I removed reference to faith. Sam Spade 12:30, 14 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Judio Christian God

I switched monotheistic god to Judio Christian God because this is clearly what Pascal is talking about, He is not talking about all monotheistic gods. He is talking about the God of the Bible, the one that punishes you with an eternity in hell, or rewards you with an eternity in heaven. This Judio Christian reward and punishment scheme is central to Pascal argument and it shouldn't be obsured by pretending that it applies to other monothiestic systems, ones that do not accept the concepts of eternal punishments or rewards. mydogategodshat 22:15, 14 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Pascal's intent is nearly irrelevent to how people might utilize his theory. You beg the question, what montheistic religion does not incorperate the concept of rewards and punishments? I can think of none. Actually, I can't think of any religion that doesn't incorperate rewards and punishments. The word "eternal" is best left out, as it is simply a vaguery in matters of metaphysics, most believers seeing time as something God (and generally the deceased) are outside of. Sam Spade 02:50, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC)

If, as the article says, Judaism does not require you to have faith in order to get the reward, then "abrahamic religions" makes less sense here. And Pascal definitely meant his God. I've kept your line about similar belief systems, as that seems like a good compromise. Oh, and see my personal talk page for more on the Goatee debate. Dan 07:15, 16 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I never ment in any way to suggest that Judaism doesn't require you to have faith. It looks like I'm going to have to write the article on the laws of noachide ;). For now, I reccomend you look it up before you make any false assumptions. All I am saying with it in the article is that you don't have to be Jewish, to go to the Jewish heaven. Sam Spade 15:43, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I just read "the 7 laws" on some guy's webpage, and although they prohibit "blasphemy", they don't explicitly forbid atheism. So it looks like you don't need faith to get into the Jewish heaven. Did I miss something? How do people who hold this belief define "non-Jew"? Dan 17:43, 19 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Noachide Laws

I just wrote this article. You may also look here B'nai Noach. Atheism is blasphemy, or a curse against God, by most accounts. I don't see how this is particularly relevent here, but have at it. Sam Spade 06:51, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Pascal and Voltaire

"In his own time, Pascal was severely criticized by Voltaire."

I'm not inclined to edit this remark, but it does seem a bit silly and I would like its author to explain it to me if possible.

Pascal died in 1662. Voltaire wasn't born until more than 30 years later, and the remarks on Pascal you probably have in mind appeared in 1733. So what is the definition of "his own time" implied in this remark? It's pretty elastic, no?

Also, if we are going to put a sentence like this in the entry for everybody Voltaire ever criticized, "In his own time or sometime thereafter, X was severely criticized by Voltaire" than we are going to be very busy before that task is complete!

Be bold in updating pages. I've removed the ambiguity of the sentence; the only thing it is really useful for is as a placeholder for a more detailed description of Voltaire's criticism - if it is indeed original and interesting (another ambiguous word ;). - snoyes 17:20, 22 Feb 2004 (UTC)