Study: Liberals, atheists, have higher IQs

[RandomGuy]

Pascal's wager is still a decent argument. It's been refuted, but not defeated. I don't follow it, but that isn't because it's poorly done.

Even a marginal increase in possible benefit is enough to make a decision. Like if being christian gave a person a one-percent better chance of being saved than being an atheist, then it makes sense to be a christian, all other things equal. It's all about how much that one-percent increase is worth. Is it worth your reason or liberty? I don't think so. But some do.

Refuted is pretty much the same as defeated.



It isn't one percent, it is much less so as to be meaningless and it gets worse.

[RandomGuy]

I didn't say that it can ONLY be had from religious thinking. I am saying that it can be had from religious thinking. I don't see why that is so bad.

Religious thinking is generally an abdication of reason, that is why it is a bad thing. It is ceding your judgement to that of some higher authority, generally, and there are lots of problems there.

Personally, I think it is really the act of thinking about morals and right and wrong that is the worthwhile pursuit. Generally I think religion inhibits rational consideration of such things.

[RandomGuy]

You see. This really confuses the out of me. So an atheist rejects evidence of God, but doesn't reject the idea of God? Does this mean that an atheist can believe in God?

I just don't think God claims have met their burden of proof.

I am not willing to make a positive claim that NO gods exist.

I will go so far as to claim that the God, as depicted in the Bible, Torah, and Q'uran that I have read doesn't exist. The claims made about God in those books are self-contradictory in so many places, and they have so many factual mistakes about the physical universe that it is easy to wave them away.

Here is a bit on burden of proof that might help:

[Chinook]

Refuted is pretty much the same as defeated.

Refuted in my book means that someone just made an argument against it. Defeated means that those arguments have made the claim nonviable. That's what I intended to say (that it's been argued against but not rendered nonviable), anyway, as to not make this a semantic thing.

It isn't one percent, it is much less so as to be meaningless and it gets worse.

"Meaningless" is subjective. Obviously, I am persuaded by your line of thinking on this issue. But the wager doesn't set up the math the same way I did in this thread, where picking the right religion has a utility of 1 and picking the wrong one or picking none has a utility of zero. I completely ignored in my interpretation. In Pascal's scenario, being correct on christianity is positive infinity, being wrong about christianity (by not believing) is negative infinity and there being no god is zero regardless of belief. So in that regard, the benefit of picking any individual religion is actually relatively neutral (positive infinity for the right answer, negative infinity for any wrong answer) while being non-religious is a guaranteed (in his mind) negative infinity.

That's why I said in another post that the wager doesn't work as a means to justify being christian. But it is still viable as a means to justify not being atheist (or non-religious -- I'm in the same boat as atheists here). There being a lower probability of success does not justify losing on purpose.

[RandomGuy]

Refuted in my book means that someone just made an argument against it. Defeated means that those arguments have made the claim nonviable. That's what I intended to say (that it's been argued against but not rendered nonviable), anyway, as to not make this a semantic thing.



"Meaningless" is subjective. Obviously, I am persuaded by your line of thinking on this issue. But the wager doesn't set up the math the same way I did in this thread, where picking the right religion has a utility of 1 and picking the wrong one or picking none has a utility of zero. I completely ignored in my interpretation. In Pascal's scenario, being correct on christianity is positive infinity, being wrong about christianity (by not believing) is negative infinity and there being no god is zero regardless of belief. So in that regard, the benefit of picking any individual religion is actually relatively neutral (positive infinity for the right answer, negative infinity for any wrong answer) while being non-religious is a guaranteed (in his mind) negative infinity.

That's why I said in another post that the wager doesn't work as a means to justify being christian. But it is still viable as a means to justify not being atheist (or non-religious -- I'm in the same boat as atheists here). There being a lower probability of success does not justify losing on purpose.

There are an infinite number of ways to get it wrong.

Divide 1 by infinity, and tell me that is larger than 0 by infinity, and by how much.

Meaningless and nonviable.

[RandomGuy]

http://www.foxnews.com/science/2014/...tcmp=obnetwork


500-million-year-old swimming filter-feeders called vetulicolians have been a mystery since their discovery more than a century ago.

Newfound fossils may solve a century-long mystery over the iden y of a bizarre 500-million-year-old animal.

Strange figure-8 shaped creatures from the Cambrian Period are actually very distant cousins of humans, according to a new study. These vetulicolians, as they are known, appear to have possessed a notochord, a hollow nerve structure just like modern vertebrates, including humans.










"It finally puts to rest the position of this weird-looking group of animals," study researcher Diego Garcia-Bellido, an invertebrate paleontologist at the University of Adelaide in Australia and an honorary research associate at the South Australian Museum, wrote in an email to Live Science. The findings also suggest that chordates, or creatures with notochords, were diverse and successful from the beginning of animal evolution, he said. [Gallery: See Images of the Bizarre Swimming Animals]

Weird life

Vetulicolians were truly bizarre: They lacked eyes, but had a wide mouth and a segmented tail. Like miniature whale sharks, these early animals swam through the oceans, filter-feeding off plankton and other microscopic tasties. Fourteen species have been found in the fossil record since 1911, including specimens from Greenland, southern China and western Canada.

Now, Garcia-Bellido's team has discovered a new species of this group on Kangaroo Island, Australia, a hotspot for Cambrian-age fossils with soft parts like musclesand guts preserved in stone. They dubbed their find Nesonektris aldridgei. "Nesonektris" is the Greek word for "island swimmer," while "aldridgei" honors late University of Leicester geologist Aldridge, who studied vetulicolians extensively.

The most complete specimen of the new species measures about 4.9 inches long; most of the 150 or so fossils the researchers found were fragmented into tails and bodies, with tails usually measuring around 3.5 in. long. It was in these tails that the researchers noticed something very strange.

Running through the tails were long, rodlike structures. They might have been part of the gut, but they were unusually long and wide, the researchers reported in September in the journal BMC Evolutionary Biology. More mysteriously, the rods appeared segmented into strange block-shaped structures.

"This finding is inconsistent with it being a gut (which is a hollow tube), but consistent with the way a cartilage (notochord) would break, which allowed us to realize where the group might belong in the tree of life," Garcia-Bellido said.

Tied by a chord

Notochords are present in the embryos of all vertebrates, acting as a cartilaginous sort of skeletal support before the bones form. Some boneless invertebrates, including filter-feeding sea squirts, retain the notochord throughout life. All animals with notochords (vertebrates included) are called chordates.

By comparing the Kangaroo Island fossils with animals such as sea stars, sea squirts, jellyfishlike salps and vertebrates, the researchers were able to position the vetulicolians as close relatives of tunicates, a group made up of sea squirts and salps. This puts vetulicolians in the same chordate category as vertebrates, including humans not humans' direct ancestors, Garcia-Bellido said, but "cousins."

Paleontologists will need to re-evaluate other vetulicolian species in search of notochords, Garcia-Bellido said. The ultimate goal is to reconstruct the family tree of some of the first animals ever to evolve.

"On our part, we will continue to excavate the [Kangaroo Island] locality, searching for more clues about the oldest animals in the world," he said.

Nifty. Thanks.

[Chinook]

There are an infinite number of ways to get it wrong.

Divide 1 by infinity, and tell me that is larger than 0 by infinity, and by how much.

Meaningless and nonviable.

Well the first thing is that infinity is not a number. You can't actually divide anything by it. Instead, you have to take the limit and yadda yadda... It's really not a practical thing to talk about nothing is really infinite.

Disregarding that for the moment, though. In Pascal's example, choosing the correct door has a benefit of infinity, while choosing atheism would have a detriment of negative infinity. So even if you did infinity/infinity, you'd still get a higher number than you would if you just get zero minus infinity. So the chances of salvation are tiny, but they're still better than no answer at all.

As far as the possibilities posited in that video, all of those apply to all religions as well. There is not a unique scenario in which having no religion is beneficial; they can all be co-opted. However, each religion has its own genus of scenarios which are unique to it. So no matter how many scenarios a person comes up with, religions will have more possibilities than non-religiosity.

[Blake]

How so? I could nit-pick at the way that's framed, but that's not what I'm trying to do by asking. I'm actually curious as to what other options you see as possibly being there.

god could be lying and instead of reward, it's eternal .

honestly, with limitless possibilities, it's not that hard to come up with other options.

[Chinook]

god could be lying and instead of reward, it's eternal .

honestly, with limitless possibilities, it's not that hard to come up with other options.

That's not a bad one, actually. It's much harder to deal with than most of the alternatives I've been hearing.

[silverblk mystix]

I love to watch sleeping people arguing over wakefulness.

[FuzzyLumpkins]

Fuzz for example is still trying to claim that he's not atheist, even though he's adamantly not a theist, according to his replies.

No what I am saying is that your categories of groups of people is a false dichotomy that you use to distinguish yourself from a group of people and does little else. It can be valid in your own mind but it has no reality independent of that. I reject your dumbed down categorical tyranny.

I think it incredibly simpleminded to think you can break all people into two groups based on that particular distinction and make judgements on everyone. this is doubly so considering all the various belief systems much less the people that do not order their reality on the basis of a choice you want them to make regarding any 'belief.'

You think of the world in binary terms. You scope is limited and watching you respond to myself and DMC it's obvious what your level is. You need your boxes and you can move in them quite nicely; its why I call you box boy. OTOH, the way the world works objectively is not inherently how you order them in your mind. You can insult my intelligence but one can evaluate your intellectual capacity quite clearly. As if your attempt at playing school teacher did anything but demonstrate where you were forced to draw the cognitive line.

Spectrum approach seems better to me considering the faith-doubt dynamic but even that is just a better approximation. I am interested in knowledge which is independent of all that.

I am not overly interested in unverifiable hypothesis. I am interested in semantics that have analogs to the real world and ideas like god and belief are not that. The inane semantic bull DMC has had to go through demonstrates that quite clearly.

[FuzzyLumpkins]

Well the first thing is that infinity is not a number. You can't actually divide anything by it. Instead, you have to take the limit and yadda yadda... It's really not a practical thing to talk about nothing is really infinite.

This is ignorant. You should read some Euler who was the one that demonstrated convergence and infinite series in several groundbreaking proofs. That is the point of the limit. Just because it is inconvenient for you because you don't understand the process does not mean it is invalid. You can add, subtract, divide, multiply, and change the order of infinity. the proof that it works are called integration, differentiation, and transforms.

Moreso there are several forms of infinity but the bottom line is that there is no objective proof about the outer limits of several scales and you don't get to deduct the existence of God from all known possibilities.

[Chinook]

No what I am saying is that your categories of groups of people is a false dichotomy that you use to distinguish yourself from a group of people and does little else. It can be valid in your own mind but it has no reality independent of that. I reject your dumbed down categorical tyranny.

I think it incredibly simpleminded to think you can break all people into two groups based on that particular distinction and make judgements on everyone. this is doubly so considering all the various belief systems much less the people that do not order their reality on the basis of a choice you want them to make regarding any 'belief.'

You think of the world in binary terms. You scope is limited and watching you respond to myself and DMC it's obvious what your level is. You need your boxes and you can move in them quite nicely; its why I call you box boy. OTOH, the way the world works objectively is not inherently how you order them in your mind. You can insult my intelligence but one can evaluate your intellectual capacity quite clearly. As if your attempt at playing school teacher did anything but demonstrate where you were forced to draw the cognitive line.

Spectrum approach seems better to me considering the faith-doubt dynamic but even that is just a better approximation. I am interested in knowledge which is independent of all that.

I am not overly interested in unverifiable hypothesis. I am interested in semantics that have analogs to the real world and ideas like god and belief are not that. The inane semantic bull DMC has had to go through demonstrates that quite clearly.

Did you seriously try to use 'tranny' as an insult for a person who've never seen/met?

Well, go ahead and add it to the homework, then. I see you still haven't found a dictionary to look up 'atheism', since you think it's a gradient.

[Chinook]

This is ignorant. You should read some Euler who was the one that demonstrated convergence and infinite series in several groundbreaking proofs. That is the point of the limit. Just because it is inconvenient for you because you don't understand the process does not mean it is invalid. You can add, subtract, divide, multiply, and change the order of infinity. the proof that it works are called integration, differentiation, and transforms.

Moreso there are several forms of infinity but the bottom line is that there is no objective proof about the outer limits of several scales and you don't get to deduct the existence of God from all known possibilities.

Yeah, because me talking about needing limits to deal with infinity clearly shows I don't know that infinities are expressed with limits...

Look dude, you need to find a math teacher or something. Actually, probably an English teacher. Then, you'd understand that infinity isn't a number and that nothing can actually equal it (hence why the term 'limit' has to be used at all).

More importantly, you should read what people write better than that. I very much account for the non-existence of god. It's just that that is a loss across the board in Pascal's wager. It doesn't affect the logic of the math in any meaningful way.

[RandomGuy]

Well the first thing is that infinity is not a number. You can't actually divide anything by it. Instead, you have to take the limit and yadda yadda... It's really not a practical thing to talk about nothing is really infinite.

Disregarding that for the moment, though. In Pascal's example, choosing the correct door has a benefit of infinity, while choosing atheism would have a detriment of negative infinity. So even if you did infinity/infinity, you'd still get a higher number than you would if you just get zero minus infinity. So the chances of salvation are tiny, but they're still better than no answer at all.

As far as the possibilities posited in that video, all of those apply to all religions as well. There is not a unique scenario in which having no religion is beneficial; they can all be co-opted. However, each religion has its own genus of scenarios which are unique to it. So no matter how many scenarios a person comes up with, religions will have more possibilities than non-religiosity.

Infinity is a number, just not a rational one.

Again, life is finite. Picking a religion, and a wrong one, means placing belief in something incorrect for the limited amount of time you have to live.

Picking a door in an infinite hallway means that your chances of being right are so close to zero as to be zero for all practical purposes.

The difference here is, though, you can't even show there is a hallway to begin with.

[RandomGuy]

Sure. But I was just theorizing about why people would claim atheists are arguing there is definitely no god.

You can't really attack atheism based on its own merits. You can only defend theism. An heism can be attacked on its own merits, which is why people project it onto atheists.

Bingo.

[RandomGuy]

I don't think that makes a ton of sense to try to answer. If god made the universe, then he clearly wasn't there when he made it.



I don't believe that's a valid criticism. Cause and effect do require sequence, but I don't think they have to have time in the way we experience it. It's like asking how an individual was born. Time as a perceptional concept doesn't exist to a person before they were born, but time as a physical concept does. In the same way, time as a physical concept depends on a universe, but time as a logical concept does not. Time is connected to the universe, but that doesn't help it move past a need for a first cause.



I think I can. Atheist want to argue about the null being that god doesn't exist. Essentially we shouldn't believe something interesting occurred unless we have enough evidence to think so with confidence. We have no evidence that things can happen without cause, so it doesn't make sense to assume they can. The universe is a giant Rube-Goldberg machine, and science depends on our ability to ascertain previous steps by looking at present conditions. The moment you start introducing causeless effects, things risk breaking down.

I've yet to see anyone show evidence of a state without a cause. That's why I say it's undisputed.

Can you demonstrate that anything can exist outside the universe?

You are building in all sorts of unproven exceptions, and ending with special pleading.

"Everything we know of is in the universe, except for this one thing that isn't."


"Cause and effect do require sequence, but I don't think they have to have time in the way we experience it."

What does that even mean? Time is required for causality. Period. This, then that. We don't even know if time existed before the big bang.

Lastly, you have put in the assumption that the cause, even if the universe without time COULD have a cause, is some sentient actor. Off we go to the endless regression of what caused this sentient actor. Feel free to solve that problem any time.

All you are stuck with is what you want to be true, with some basic logical fallacies and unproven assumptions with deep inherent flaws.

[Chinook]

Infinity is a number, just not a rational one.

Well, we'll just disagree on that.

Again, life is finite. Picking a religion, and a wrong one, means placing belief in something incorrect for the limited amount of time you have to live.

Picking a door in an infinite hallway means that your chances of being right are so close to zero as to be zero for all practical purposes.

I don't know that there are an infinite (conceding that it's a number for sake of argument) number of religions -- just an infinite number of possible outcomes. Then, there are still fewer religions that require belief in them to avoid . At that point, you can come up with whatever justification you want to pick the religion to hitch your wagon to. Maybe go by number of followers, or ones whose prac ioners seem the most able to connect their mythos to real events. Maybe the oldest.

You get into dishonest faith at that point, of course. So maybe you just stick with the first religion you experience.

The difference here is, though, you can't even show there is a hallway to begin with.

I think the idea of a hallway is pretty solid. It's just pointless. I think we all do come up with or stay locked into our own belief systems and thus choose a door. I just don't think it makes sense trying to pick something just because you want to avoid the extremely small chance of going to .

[Chinook]

Can you demonstrate that anything can exist outside the universe?

You are building in all sorts of unproven exceptions, and ending with special pleading.

"Everything we know of is in the universe, except for this one thing that isn't."

Again, before you get to an infinite regression, you have to deal with self-reference. If god made the universe, he couldn't have been in the universe, because it wasn't there for him to be in until he put it there. That's not a magical god exception -- it's just a reasonable line of thought. So it's not a matter of god "being somewhere else", since he'd have to have created that as well. He can't exist in space the way we're thinking of it, or at least he doesn't have to.

"Cause and effect do require sequence, but I don't think they have to have time in the way we experience it."

What does that even mean? Time is required for causality. Period. This, then that. We don't even know if time existed before the big bang.

I didn't dispute that sequence is required for causality ("this, then that"); I merely said that this physical thing we call time isn't necessary. Supposedly, spacetime is a feature of our universe, and if it is possible to create new universe, then those things carry their own spacetime with them. So in that universe, time began with its inception. Full stop. But for us, there was definitely time before that universe was created. That's why I said sequence is required, since time, even as a physical concept is subjective.

Lastly, you have put in the assumption that the cause, even if the universe without time COULD have a cause, is some sentient actor. Off we go to the endless regression of what caused this sentient actor. Feel free to solve that problem any time.

I do assume that god is sentient, but I don't think that's a necessary characteristic. The reason why I make that assumption is that our own sentience is the closet thing we can point to for the origin of causeless effects. Of course, we are still part of the causal chain, don't have true free will and all that. But I'm assuming that a different version of that is what would be necessary to be the prime mover, the ability to cause yourself to do something.

Anyway, as I said, infinite regression is pretty much a non-starter, since you run into self-reference before you even try to get past god. If god set up this sequence of causes, then he obviously isn't part of them himself. Otherwise, he wouldn't have been the one to set them up. It's a fallacy to expect god to be bound by the rules of the universe -- it's similar to the incompleteness theorem.

All you are stuck with is what you want to be true, with some basic logical fallacies and unproven assumptions with deep inherent flaws.

Well obviously, you think that since you disagree with me. I think the opposite. I think people have been so quick to assume a belief in god is irrational that they've grown lazy in their counterarguments. It's hard to blame them, since it's pretty much a stock-argument debate nowadays.

[DMC]

I was originally going to use "logical" instead of rational, but I wanted to avoid opening up that can of worms. I was going to say that because you were saying "Pascal's Wager" as if it were the gambler's fallacy. The wager itself is still a decent argument; it's not a fallacy. So automatically labeling an argument "Pascal's Wager" doesn't delegitimize it.

If it is Pascal's Wager, that's what it is. It's not a decent argument. You keep saying it is but not illustrating just how. Argument by repe ion... again.

Because the wager is subjective. It's supposed to be for everyone to decide upon. Just because I don't think it's worth it to hop on any old religion doesn't mean someone else doesn't.

No it's not. Pascal made the wager objectively. He said if you do this, this is the outcome. He didn't include all religions and all beliefs other than atheism. You're doing that because it helps you produce an argument but it's just smoke and mirrors. If it's subjective then it's not a wager. Otherwise anyone could say they lost or won regardless the outcome.

I mean that if it there weren't present benefits and detriments to picking a religion or picking no religion. If the only thing that had any sort of utility was going to heaven or going to . In such a case, it's simple math, and it makes no sense to be atheist/non-religious. But because all things aren't equal, it makes the math a whole lot more complicated.

But that's not the case. The wager isn't "decent" just because you can apply a set of conditions to it and make it so. In reality, those conditions aren't known to exist. If they did exist, it's not a wager, it's a life preserver. All things aren't equal. You don't get to change the rules to make your argument seem decent.

This is at the heart of atheism vs theism. Atheist generally tend to stick to the rules of what is, and theists like to suppose what might be, and make rules for that as if it's reality, then argue from that position. Something either is or it is not.

Because they have fewer chances to win. For every scenario in which atheists would be saved, a similar scenario can be made for ANY belief system. But religions would still have the benefit of being saved if their beliefs end up being true. Atheists/non-religious people don't get that benefit, because if there is indeed no afterlife, then they don't win just like everyone else. So if you were to do the probabilities, atheists would be behind every religion by at least one scenario.

Atheists don't necessarily believe there's no afterlife. They believe there's no god. Again you are creating worlds that don't really exist. Argue from this one. In this world, atheists just don't believe a god exists. They might believe in afterlife however. They might hold a myriad of beliefs that, if true, could be heaven for them. If their beliefs are true, then they are in their heaven. If a Christian's beliefs are true, the Christian is in a preconstructed heaven with an overlord. As much as you might like to say it's all good by definition, the Christian depiction of heaven isn't that appealing where eternity is concerned, but they contrast it with which is even less appealing, so you have to consider that the Christian can also be in if their beliefs are true, not just heaven. Atheists cannot be in if their beliefs are true.

Um, the wager has always been up to the individual. It's up to them to pick a side.

Still a dichotomy. Pick a side, this or that, and that's the wager. It's not subjective to the individual. What is picked is subjective but the wager isn't.

I'm not going to claim to have studied a whole bunch of religions, but Pascal was clearly weighing benefits while being religious. As I said, he seemed to have been a fan of critical thinking more so than of faith. You seem to have the view that the two cannot exist together, but that's simply not a view many theists agree with.

Pascal then seemed to agree, since both he and you separate the two.

[Chinook]

If it is Pascal's Wager, that's what it is. It's not a decent argument. You keep saying it is but not illustrating just how. Argument by repe ion... again.

This whole line of posts has been about Pascal's Wager and my arguments for its legitimacy. You may not agree with those arguments, but that's not the same thing as me not making them.

No it's not. Pascal made the wager objectively. He said if you do this, this is the outcome. He didn't include all religions and all beliefs other than atheism. You're doing that because it helps you produce an argument but it's just smoke and mirrors. If it's subjective then it's not a wager. Otherwise anyone could say they lost or won regardless the outcome.

At the end of the day (so the scenario goes) the truth will come out. There either is a god or not, and afterlife or not. The requirements for getting into the good afterlife (if it exists) will include some people and exclude others. In that way, there will be real winners and losers, and it won't be a simple matter of opinion. The wager is not based in what will actually happen, but in the projected utility of each position. Pascal does not quantify the utility of being atheist/non-christian, though he says there is some finite amount a person will receive by not making religious sacrifices. That's always been weighed against the benefit of god being real multiplied by the infinite reward of having followed him or the infinite detriment of having not followed him. The idea of the math has always been the same.

Pascal seems to have been into people being rational, so it stands to my reason that he would be into considering all options. I doubt he was actively excluding other religions into the math as much as he was just not concerned with talking about them. What was the point in 17th-century Europe?

But that's not the case. The wager isn't "decent" just because you can apply a set of conditions to it and make it so. In reality, those conditions aren't known to exist. If they did exist, it's not a wager, it's a life preserver. All things aren't equal. You don't get to change the rules to make your argument seem decent.

I'm sorry that I think that keeping the idea behind an argument and updating its premises is a legitimate thing to do for old philosophies. I'm not changing the heart of the wager at all; I'm just making it less resistant to petty attacks like, "OMG you didn't consider other religions even though it doesn't change the heart of the wager."

This is at the heart of atheism vs theism. Atheist generally tend to stick to the rules of what is, and theists like to suppose what might be, and make rules for that as if it's reality, then argue from that position. Something either is or it is not.

Ugh. Probability is not a theistic concept in the least. Decision theory and hypothetical arguments are used by both sides. Again, you seem to be missing the heart of science and how the scientific method works if you think it deals in reality and not beliefs.

Atheists don't necessarily believe there's no afterlife. They believe there's no god. Again you are creating worlds that don't really exist. Argue from this one. In this world, atheists just don't believe a god exists. They might believe in afterlife however. They might hold a myriad of beliefs that, if true, could be heaven for them. If their beliefs are true, then they are in their heaven.

It's not a matter in believing in an afterlife, nor it is a matter in believing in every scenario. What I am saying is that for every argument non-religious people come up with as to how atheistic beliefs could turn out to be beneficial to a potential afterlife, the same argument can be used for any religion. Atheists have no unique argument, no unique afterlife scenario to posit. The same is true for people in my position. That's why they don't have as many favorable scenarios as any given religion does.

Anyway, I love how you now want to agree atheists aren't monolithic in their beliefs, but when I said that before, you rejected it.

If a Christian's beliefs are true, the Christian is in a preconstructed heaven with an overlord. As much as you might like to say it's all good by definition, the Christian depiction of heaven isn't that appealing where eternity is concerned, but they contrast it with which is even less appealing, so you have to consider that the Christian can also be in if their beliefs are true, not just heaven. Atheists cannot be in if their beliefs are true.

Well, by your definition, atheists can believe in and go there when they die. I will say, in general, Pascal didn't say simply asserting that something was true made a person a christian. He said they also had to live the ideals laid out by christianity. So by picking that route, one cannot set themselves up for if their beliefs are true.

Still a dichotomy. Pick a side, this or that, and that's the wager. It's not subjective to the individual. What is picked is subjective but the wager isn't.

Again, the risk/reward is subjective, at least in the sense that each person puts their own value on the things they're wagering. If taking a bet cost you $5000 dollars, then the nature of the bet is different depending on how much you value that amount of money. Some rich and famous may not feel the need to risk damnation to have a free and open mind, while someone who doesn't get so much utility from other places might. In that same way, someone really poor may not want to risk damnation to only marginally improve their lives while someone better off might not care so much about the afterlife.

Pascal then seemed to agree, since both he and you separate the two.

Ignoring the barb, he didn't separate them. He clearly was trying to appeal to reason with his wager. He also seemed to think that only the people who came to faith through reason were most virtuous, and that those who considered it but couldn't bring themselves to believe were also pretty virtuous.

Of course, I don't agree with him on much of this. As I said and you seem to ignore, I get no benefit from the wager. Not in his scenario or mine is there a path to heaven specifically for non-religious theists.

[FuzzyLumpkins]

Yeah, because me talking about needing limits to deal with infinity clearly shows I don't know that infinities are expressed with limits...

Look dude, you need to find a math teacher or something. Actually, probably an English teacher. Then, you'd understand that infinity isn't a number and that nothing can actually equal it (hence why the term 'limit' has to be used at all).

More importantly, you should read what people write better than that. I very much account for the non-existence of god. It's just that that is a loss across the board in Pascal's wager. It doesn't affect the logic of the math in any meaningful way.

I see you dumb down infinity too. There are several ways in which we know that something can be unbounded and they are not the same. For example the all manner of ratios of geometric shapes end up with irrational outcomes such as pi, this holds true if you use orders of prime numbers. It's why physicists get exited when ratios of phenomenon spit out prime numbers.

That speaks to the concept of divergence and how for example EM radiation behaves. Euler's proofs regarding infinite series started off as rational constructs but have been proven to be true empirically and exploited repeatedly. In short, your assertion that the notion of infinite or unbounded cannot be empirically demonstrated is false. You cannot prove that the universe as a whole does not exhibit similar behavior either.

You really suck at arguing. You give up on points and just surrender your initial premises. I guess that is a product of being full of .

Rather than tell me that I need to read what you write how about you actually address what I write. You can continue this routine and I will continue to take a on your takes specifically as anyone who can read can see that I do. WC does the same and it doesn't deter me in the slightest.

Pascal's wager is more self assuming nonsense with no empirical basis. I actually like the way Confucians and Buddhists phrase is with good life and virtue subs uted for god and without the threats. Be good/virtuous for its own sake as opposed to believe this or else you christians go for.

[FuzzyLumpkins]

Did you seriously try to use 'tranny' as an insult for a person who've never seen/met?

Well, go ahead and add it to the homework, then. I see you still haven't found a dictionary to look up 'atheism', since you think it's a gradient.

And you want to talk about reading comprehension. Tyranny. I see you ignore everything else I say. Like I keep saying you are obvious limited and just want to go around with the same pla udes.

You clearly do not understand how words are derived, what I am talking about categorization is going completely over your head and it's funny watching you try and tell me about the meanings of words, box boy. I get what you are trying to call things but you are not the arbiter of semantics for anyone but yourself. You would do yourself a favor in understanding that people do not look at things as you do particularly when it comes to things that do not have an analog in the real world.

Looking at how physical systems actually work, when I see a binary rationale behind something it is almost invariably a human talking out of their ass or people operating within human created ins utions. With you its the former.

So do you have anything other than prima causa, natural law and pascal's threats?

[Chinook]

I see you dumb down infinity too. There are several ways in which we know that something can be unbounded and they are not the same. For example the all manner of ratios of geometric shapes end up with irrational outcomes such as pi, this holds true if you use orders of prime numbers. It's why physicists get exited when ratios of phenomenon spit out prime numbers.

I never disagreed with that. Doesn't make infinity a number, though.

That speaks to the concept of divergence and how for example EM radiation behaves. Euler's proofs regarding infinite series started off as rational constructs but have been proven to be true empirically and exploited repeatedly. In short, your assertion that the notion of infinite or unbounded cannot be empirically demonstrated is false. You cannot prove that the universe as a whole does not exhibit similar behavior either.

There's a difference between expressed and demonstrated. 1/0 is an expression for infinity, but it is not actually possible to divide by zero, so you have to take the limit... yadda yadda. That's why limits exist -- because the values they represent cannot actually be reached.

You really suck at arguing. You give up on points and just surrender your initial premises. I guess that is a product of being full of .

You're bad at reading, so you don't know what anyone's premises actually are. I already said infinity is expressed in limits before you brought them up, but for some reason, you think bringing up limits is a rebuttal of yours I have to defend.

Rather than tell me that I need to read what you write how about you actually address what I write. You can continue this routine and I will continue to take a on your takes specifically as anyone who can read can see that I do. WC does the same and it doesn't deter me in the slightest.

I tell you to read because your arguments don't address what people have said and they are out of context. Furthermore, you just toss them out without a hint of understanding. Then, you refuse to examine yourself, so you don't believe me when I tell you your arguments aren't relevant. I think you've finally realized that a categorical imperative is not what you thought it was. So I ask why do you think none of my other challenges are valid? Have you looked up atheism yet? You'd know that atheism/theism is a true dichotomy -- to be one is to not be the other. It's the same as infinite and finite. Once you realize that you're wrong for trying to make it a gradient, you'll see that your criticisms of me on those grounds are invalid, and your lame insults are also off base.

I tell you to look things up so that you don't have to trust me and my "lack of credibility". You can see you're wrong from other sources.

Pascal's wager is more self assuming nonsense with no empirical basis. I actually like the way Confucians and Buddhists phrase is with good life and virtue subs uted for god and without the threats. Be good/virtuous for its own sake as opposed to believe this or else you christians go for.

The bolded is a perfect example of why I don't take your arguments serious and suggest you learn more first. I have never claimed to be a christian; in fact, I've said very clearly that I am non-religious. So saying that I am christian makes it clear you haven't really followed anything I've said. You'd also know that I don't find Pascal's Wager motivating enough to move off my non-religious stance if you've read this current exchange with DMC and RG.

Anyway, I agree with the idea that living a good life is way more important than buying dogma. I don't think religion is necessary for being moral, like Pascal sort of asserted. So I take no issue with that statement.

I will say, though, that the wager is not self-assuming. It isn't begging the question. An argument like Descartes' proof of god is self-assuming, because it uses two things to define each other. It also doesn't have to be based in empiricism. No logical arguments, good or bad, are. Russel's teapot isn't empirical, and that's not what it's trying to be. It's an argument to clarify where the burden of proof lies.

[xellos88330]

I just don't think God claims have met their burden of proof.

I am not willing to make a positive claim that NO gods exist.

I will go so far as to claim that the God, as depicted in the Bible, Torah, and Q'uran that I have read doesn't exist. The claims made about God in those books are self-contradictory in so many places, and they have so many factual mistakes about the physical universe that it is easy to wave them away.

Here is a bit on burden of proof that might help:

Ok, so why doesn't the claim that God of the Bible (or other religious text) does not exist carry a burden of proof itself? I understand that you will proceed to break down some of the contradictions and lack of science within the bible, but if there is a God, it would be an all powerful one. One that could defy nature itself. Could the writers of the Bible be witnessing the actions of that same God, yet have no idea on how to explain the order of events in which he revealed his power?