The Theist Position

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In case your wondering what the Hybrid Pascal’s wager is:

Basically the wager boils down to:

It’s your choice does God exist or doesn’t he
You get to make the choice

If you bet that God does not exist and it turns out he does and not loving him results in eternal hellfire then your loss is permanent and you can not come back from it.
If you bet that God does not exist and it turns out he doesn’t it basically results in nothing in the sense that whatever you gain is not permanent

Conclusion: It is unreasonable to gamble no matter the odds when you stand to lose permanently and gain nothing.
 
I agree- if you aren’t forced to take a side it doesn’t make sense to unless you are certain. But we are forced to pick a side. Once someone has told you this wager this way you have to understand “walking away from the table” itself to be a decision. We claim that that decision also results in hell. Once someone has told you the rules of this game you are stuck making the choice.
 
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The reason the option to walk away from the table is not on the table, is because you have already exhausted your position to get to the table. To walk away from the table is to just debate your premises until you die.
 
On your death bed you can choose not to choose (which is to choose hell in our understanding or the same nothing as choosing to not believe in the alternative). You can choose not to believe which is either hell or nothing. Or you can choose to believe which is heaven or nothing. Yes there are 3 options but you can avoid playing the wager and of the 3 belief is the only one with positive value.

Again this is probably the worst reaosn to believe but it’s better than nothing.
 
Wait are you saying that it’s a choice to know the wager exists. I didn’t have a choice in being told about God. The wager is not “choose to believe or decide you don’t” it’s “choose to believe or don’t” the difference is one allows you not to play the game. That’s not the reality though.

It’s more like this: you are standing on some surface blindfolded. Someone tells you to step forward or the ground will give out and you’ll die… without any reason to believe one way or the other why would you not step forward. Unless you have a reason to stay put this wager has a clear best play.
 
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I’m saying you have to play the game there is no option not to. The reason is that all three positions stand moving into the Hybrid Pascal’s wager. You have to gamble from each position otherwise you are left to delight or debate your premises. That literally gets you no where. It’s an unreasonable maneuver.
 
Oh I see- interesting. I’d still rather have a reason to believe not a wager. Pascals argument helps but I like Others better by far
 
Remember as well that not having a positive belief in God results in hell or nothing in the gamble. So walking away from the table doesn’t negate the wager.
 
Right that was my point but said more eloquently and in fewer words. I think I misunderstood your original point.
 
catholicray said:
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Lion_IRC:
If I claimed Abraham Lincoln never existed or the Moon Landing never happened, I would be expected to justify my LACK of belief.
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Be careful here. When you make a claim you do need to provide evidence. Instead the position would be “I lack belief in the existence of Abraham Lincoln”.
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Nope.
The claim that Abraham Lincoln never existed is just as much a self-asserting proposition as its negation. There is no unbalanced, asymmetric persuasive burden.

If you want me to to believe that he never existed (as against my claim that he did,) then you will need to do your own evidentiary heavy lifting.

The biblical theist has more than enough evidence for God. If uber skeptics want to gainsay that evidence they need to do more than merely proclaim that their position remains the default truth until such time as THEY concede otherwise.

Atheism is not the same as the mere “lack of belief” ignorance which is the neutral space occupied by an agnostic.
 
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catholicray said:
Remember as well that not having a positive belief in God results in hell or nothing in the gamble. So walking away from the table doesn’t negate the wager.
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It works with the FSM as well as every other god ever conceived. Just one of the reasons it’s useless.

In any case, everyone misrepresents the wager. Pascal didn’t say ‘believe in God’. He said ‘act as if you believe in God’.

'But at least learn your inability to believe, since reason brings you to this, and yet you cannot believe. Endeavour then to convince yourself, not by increase of proofs of God, but by the abatement of your passions. You would like to attain faith, and do not know the way; you would like to cure yourself of unbelief, and ask the remedy for it. Learn of those who have been bound like you, and who now stake all their possessions. These are people who know the way which you would follow, and who are cured of an ill of which you would be cured. Follow the way by which they began; by acting as if they believed, taking the holy water, having masses said, etc. Even this will naturally make you believe, and deaden your acuteness.

Fake it 'till you make it…
 
catholicray said:
The Theist position is:
I do not believe in the non-existence of God
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Of course this is not an assertion about God, but about what the theist believes, and is therefore unproductive, since it does not require justification and is not susceptible to disproof. You might prefer to wrestle with statements like “it is untrue to say that it is not the case that God is not non-existent” and see how you make out with them?
 
Is it not true that a belief in the statement that it is untrue to say that it is not the case that God is not non-existent is true?

I don’t believe so.
 
Bradskii said:
It works with the FSM as well as every other god ever conceived. Just one of the reasons it’s useless.
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Yes it does work for the FSM. There is a tiny difference however. Suppose we set up the same wager for the FSM. We all arrive at belief in the FSM.

Now we consider the world we live in. Based on the logic we have now arrived at belief in a hypothetical God or FSM. By Pascal’s wager we believe in the hypothetical existence of these two because of the threat of hellfire. Everything is looking good on paper.

The difference is that, when we look at our reality rather then the logic on paper, there are exactly 0 claims for the existence of a FSM especially an FSM for which the consequences for not believing would be eternal hellfire.

There is however one God, for which our hypothetical God fits exactly and there is no end to the claims of His existence.
 
The statement “I do not believe in the nonexistence of God” or “I lack belief that God does not exist” is not a double negative. You seem to be suggesting that the statement is “no fair.”
 
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catholicray said:
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niceatheist:
God not likely
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This is merely your position going into Pascal’s Wager (inversed). You’re approaching the wager with 99.9 % odds that God does not exist and 0.1% odds that he does. The wager is applicable to every position though. I’ll explain this if you like.
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It most certainly isn’t an inverse Pascal’s Wager. I’m not betting against heaven. I’m saying I have yet to be convinced of the necessity of God.
 
It is as far as I know. Originally Pascal’s Wager was dealing with what you stood to gain, again as far as I know. Although I think the inverse basically follows. Here we are dealing with what you stand to lose.

Edit: It would appear I’m wrong. I don’t even know anymore lol. Depending on who you talk to and what they are trying to prove the Wager changes.

None the less I think the criticism of the Wager is that you don’t necessarily gain heaven from believing. Regardless, what you stand to lose is in no way negated.
 
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