Pieman333272;7827740:
No offense, but that is an entirely weak hypothesis with no evidence to support it. The concept of God is that of a highly complex and unfathomably powerful entity, which seems more like an awfully convenient excuse instead of empirical evidence or even logical conjecture.
I envy you and all religious people for their ability to simply -trust- something despite having no evidence to support them, and despite the multitude of evidence indicating otherwise.
Hi mkinson,
curiously, and forgive my laziness at not reading every post: have you read Augustine? His writings on Faith and Reason are heady stuff, but signficant in understanding what he posits, which is in turn significant in understanding that for many of us, it
isn’t simply trust
Interestingly, I spent some time alternating between atheism and agnosticism, and was a reluctant convert to the Catholic Church once I’d decided I did believe in God- God of the Judeo-Christian tradition. This was a process of many years, and having read Up-Napushtim or however it’s spelled
and Hammurabi and knowing the parallels between ancient Babylonian legends and Biblical “truths” hindered me more than the science side of it. As per that, and I might get blasted for recommending you read Pellegrino, but I do recommend it. He is by no means a Catholic apologist, or even Christian: he’s a self professed agnostic, because he writes, “a good scientist will questions his own questions” or something like that. He has some interesting insights you may appreciate and that may give you something to consider besides what you already know.
Here’s a take for you to consider, how I saw it.
I can’t prove God exists, an atheist can’t prove He doesn’t. So,
both are positions of faith. If I am going to hold a position that is faith based, which position is most reasonable?
A little Augustine found it’s way in here, as well as some Pascal. I will rely on information next that was once given to me about probability theory, the credit for which I have no ability to give, and it will be rough as I’m going off a fading memory.
This has to do with Pascal, who was by trade a mathematician and scientist; he used probability theory to advise Counts & Princes about increasing the odds of winning when they gambled.
Pascal analyzed how reasonable an expectation was in gambling based on odds, and he sort of did the same thing as part of his conversion, His Wager is famous, but this isn’t that, though it was explained to me this way.
Pretend you have 2 boxes, one is A and one is B. Before you see the boxes, someone flips a quarter which will indicate which box has money inside. If it’s heads, A has $1000 inside. If the quarter is tails, box B has money but it’s a million dollars. So we would choose B no question-because of something called *expectation * which is a function of the probability theory: there could be money in A, it has a little bit of worth or value, but it doesnt have as much value as 1000$, because you aren’t SURE there is anything inside.
So Pascal might add the possibilities up, and multiply by the probablity (here, it’s a quarter toss)
1/2 chance of getting nothing 1/2 x 0 =0
1/2 chance of $1000 1/2 x 1000 = $500: the expectation is 500$
so the ‘expected value’ of box A is 500$
box B: the same formula, but for a
million, so the expected value of box B is $500
k: so if you pick, clearly B is the best choice.
What Pascal conceptualized was sort of the same, and for the sake of your question take God/Christianity or Atheism/Agnosticism.
(50/50 chance like the quarter flip above)
If you choose the “Christianity box”, there are two things that could happen. If you live as a devout Christian, believe in God and are wrong, you just die and that’s it. But if you are
right, then when you die you have eternal happiness, heaven: or infinity (I will use ~ as the symbol for infinity
To take the same concept as above, the expected value of devout Christianity is then:
1/2 chance of nothing 1/2 x 0 = 0
1/2 chance of heaven 1/2 x ~ = ~
the ‘Christianity box’ expected value = ~ (because 50% of ~ is still infinity)
I recall the point being that the value of faith is infinite.
If someone is an atheist and
right that God doesn’t exist, there is no gain from it. But if an atheist is wrong, the loss is much greater than if a Christian is wrong about his/her bet- hell being defined as negative infinity.
the expected value of atheism is:
1/2 chance of nothing = 0 1/2 x 0 =0
1/2 chance of going to hell 1/2 x - ~ = - ~ (again because it’s infinity, even as a negative)
Atheism box expected value = - ~
So Pascals position was that wagering for Christianity made more sense, because of the concept of expected value and probability theory. Even if someone says 1% chance, infinity remains. To say that there is a** 0** chance God is real would be nonsensical: no respectable scientist or mathematician would take that position, (Pellegrino may or may not be respected in his field, I don’t know, but he did make a good point about that kind of dogmatism, as mentioned) and besides, 0 x ~ doesn’t make sense.
It’s key to note that we all believe in something, including agnostics. How they live and the choices they make tell us so.
I believe you will challenge your own beliefs on your path, as we all should. If all we know is all we have, things get stale. Consider finally that “Belief in fact is simply thought accompanied by assent.” That is true for Christians as well as atheists, isn’t it?
The difference lies in the results…and those results exist in the here and now, not just that elusive hereafter Pascal challenges us to consider.
Pax!
so don’t play the Lord for a sucker 
With compliments like that who needs insults?