Fantasy Football - Footballguys Forums
Welcome to Our Forums. Once you've registered and logged in, you're primed to talk football, among other topics, with the sharpest and most experienced fantasy players on the internet.
Creation vs. Evolution (2 Viewers)
- Thread starter larry_boy_44
- Start date
But pragmatically, it could easily be -EV to worship a god. There are many more false gods than true gods, most likely.I had this exchange on the twoplustwo forum:
Other person: If the athiest is right, the persons beliefs are irrelivent and they will rot no matter what.
But if the religious persons belief is correct the advantage of keeping that belief would be huge. (wouldnt it be something like having to catch two to a flush to win, but no one made you pay for it. Your odds of winning may be small, but why would you fold?)
Me: To make your backdoor-flush-draw analogy applicable, there'd have to be thousands of different types of draws (as there thousands of religions), and part of the problem in deciding which one to draw to, or even whether to draw at all, is that there's no good evidence about what hands rank higher than others.
For example, a folded hand might actually beat a flush. We don't know. Or maybe a spade flush is harmless, but hitting a diamond flush sends you to a worse Hell than folding would have.
It reminds one of this marvelous quote from Neil Gaiman's and Terry Pratchett's Good Omens:
God does not play dice with the universe; He plays an ineffable game of His own devising, which might be compared, from the perspective of the players (i.e., everybody), to being involved in an obscure and complex version of poker in a pitch-dark room, with blank cards, for infinite stakes, with a Dealer who won't tell you the rules, and who smiles all the time.
Or to discard the poker analogy and put things in simpler terms, your argument applies equally well to Quitzalcoatl as it does to Yahweh -- and to Baal, Odin, Jupiter, U-dimmer-an-kia, Ashtoreth, and to thousands of other gods.
Are you going to worship all of them -- just in case? See, infinite pot odds do you no good if there are infinite draws out there and you don't know which one(s) beat a folded hand, if any.
Last edited by a moderator:
In part because people can't choose their beliefs in the first place. I couldn't believe in the Christian God even if I wanted to. I could only pretend.
Mr. Anonymous
Footballguy
Hey, maybe that's it! Maybe God wants us to be skeptical, use our brains to advance ourselves and make the world a better place and our fellow humans better for having known us, and does not want us to believe a bunch of foolish nonsense. Just to make sure we're not tempted into joining a religion just to be "pragmatic," he makes sure religion is enveloped in a lot of hellfire and brimstone.If we pass that test and don't take the easy path, then we've fulfilled the destiny that billions of years have produced, and we're "in." And He saves special punishment for those who try to force their religious views on others by invoking the power of the State.C'mon, guys, are you sure you want to run this risk? Shouldn't you just accept what science has placed in front of your eyes, ears, and brains, just to be safe? You can always say "but God created it all" and still be okay!
Last edited by a moderator:
The holes have been closing on a regular basis. There is no evidence before me that shows that the depth and bredth of scientific knowledge is shrinking, or slowing down.I'm also confident that computing power will continue to double every 18 months for the next several years.This IS faith, in a sense.
Well i see your point, but I think you are being a little extreme with the infinite redraws.and even a 1-outer hits once in a while. Sure, you may be drawing dead, but the cost to me is so minimal.
So pick a religion that requires the least effort if you don't want to throw much money (utility) in the pot. Pick the Tao of Marni. But pick something.
I'm down with the Tao of Marni, but what'd you have to bring Pick into it for?
Mr. Anonymous
Footballguy
Playing cards is wicked. I would suspect someone who even knows the rules or lingo of cards to be a possible witch.
buck naked
Footballguy
Actually, you could. You've just chosen not to.
bostonfred2
Footballguy
Excellent. I've been waiting for MT to get into this debate again.
shining path
:prettyplease:
But then you have to go to church every sunday, when you could be using that valubale time getting drunk for the early games.
She claims I went to college and somehow "lost" my religion. When in fact, it never existed in the first place.
The Man Who Met Andy Griffith
Footballguy
Without bothering to read this thread, I can only assume you are talking about Pascal's wager.My essential problem with this is as follows. It is quite possible (although I think unlikely) that faith and devotion to God will save me from the fires of Hell. However, it is also quite possible (and unlikely) that Christianity is a trick imposed by some evil higher being, and that those who renounce and defy Christ will be rewarded in eternity, and those that follow Him are doomed to suffer in perpetuity.And there are of course infinite other possibilities, none of which are verifiable, and thus none of which I believe to be more likely than any other.In other words, the best equation is not:Limit as n approaches 0 from above and m approaches infinity, m * nThe more realistic equation isaverage of all H
, from n=0 to infinityWhere H is the happiness I would derive through following Christ in scenario n and there are infinite different possible scenarios. Given that there is there are infinitely many n's where H > 0 and also where H < 0 (and of course plenty where H =0) this is not very useful.bostonfred2
Footballguy
It's also quite possible that God's answer is, live honestly, be good, don't lie, and that He sees lying to God about your faith in Him as the worst form of dishonesty.
larry_boy_44
Footballguy
you don't think that if I was an alias I'd have been outed already? seriously...
Outside Contain
Footballguy
Actually with that post he makes more sense than you
Jayrok
Footballguy
God actually gave separate commandments to gentiles from the jews. The noahide laws were given to Noah, who was a gentile, for the gentiles to follow. When the mosaic laws came about it was specifically for the nation of Israel. The noahide laws for everyone else were still in effect. The seven noahide laws:
Idolatry is forbidden. Man is commanded to believe in the One God alone and worship only Him.
Incestuous and adulterous relations are forbidden. Human beings are not sexual objects, nor is pleasure the ultimate goal of life.
Murder is forbidden. The life of a human being, formed in God's image, is sacred.
Cursing the name of God is forbidden. Besides honoring and respecting G-d, we learn from this precept that our speech must be sanctified, as that is the distinctive sign which separated man from the animals.
Theft is forbidden. The world is not ours to do with as we please.
Eating the flesh of a living animal is forbidden. Do not eat the severed limbs of animals or animals that were torn by other animals... Roadkill..
Mankind is commanded to establish courts of justice and a just social order to enforce the first six laws and enact any other useful laws or customs.
The other laws for the jews came later and expanded these greatly. But these laws are what the gentiles have been under since Noah.
God said his Torah (laws) was "everlasting". The idea that he came to earth as a god-man to be the end-all sacrifice for mankind's sins, and subsequently nullifying his laws, is foreign to Judaism and only something that Christians came to believe.
C
CrossEyed
Guest
And exactly where do you find these "Noahide" laws?
ElGatoLoco
Footballguy
"I'm afraid it was the Mormons. Yes, the Mormons were the correct answer. "~~Hell Coordinator, South Park
Jayrok
Footballguy
It's a jewish thing.. Sanhedrin 56–60, Yad Hazakah, Melakhim scripture. These were supposedly given to Noah and his descendents before Moses got the other commandments on Mt. Sinai. And they are "supposedly" binding to all men. The Mt. Sinai commandments and all the many commandments that went with them were specifically jewish and binding only to the nation of israel escaping Egypt.
Btw, I'd never even heard of Pascal's Wager before this thread. It was just something that seemed logical to me.Like you said, there may be infinite possibilities with none no more believable than the next, but if you assume infinite possibilities, isn't one correct (i.e. possible).If one is possible than why not pick one, just in case? That is, I don't buy a possiblity where the EV of H < 0 .Without bothering to read this thread, I can only assume you are talking about Pascal's wager.My essential problem with this is as follows. It is quite possible (although I think unlikely) that faith and devotion to God will save me from the fires of Hell. However, it is also quite possible (and unlikely) that Christianity is a trick imposed by some evil higher being, and that those who renounce and defy Christ will be rewarded in eternity, and those that follow Him are doomed to suffer in perpetuity.And there are of course infinite other possibilities, none of which are verifiable, and thus none of which I believe to be more likely than any other.In other words, the best equation is not:Limit as n approaches 0 from above and m approaches infinity, m * nThe more realistic equation isaverage of all H
Just in case of what? For all you know, the Divine Administrator of the Universe will send all atheists to heaven and all theists to hell. Should you therefore become an atheist -- just in case?
Well that doesn't quite make sense does it?Sure, your possibility is one. But in making the choice to become an atheist (just in case) that is rewarded, it implicitely acknowledges that you realize that there is someone to administer the reward.
I'm saying it doesn't make sense to believe in nothing. And the argument that maybe believing in nothing is the way to be rewarded doesn't quite fly because of what i said above.
I've been waiting for someone to make this argument and if I missed it from someone else I apologize.If the penalty for believing in the wrong one is worse than the penalty for not believing in the right one (i.e. not believing at all) then my theory kinda falls apart.
I assume they are equal.
But if you assume the differing penalty structure, don't you implicitely believe in a correct god, now you just have to find the right one.
bakes
I am the Beer God!
I believe there's some sort of afterlife or higher power - but YMMV.Live your life in a manner that harms the fewest and helps the most, hold your beliefs, and allow others to have their beliefs even if they're different from yours. We'll all find out too soon who was correct.
Last edited by a moderator:
C
CrossEyed
Guest
So why aren't they recorded in the OT?
Why? Maurile's already established that not doing anything may have an equal chance of being right as actually actively pursuing a faith, and I've already established that doing nothing can be pragmatically more beneficial than doing anything whatsoever.Even from a logical & economic perspective, there doesn't seem to be much point.
I acknowledge that it has an equal chance of being right. But you don't address the issue that if it has an equal chance of being right, than there is a right. If you realize that there is a right and doing nothing is the right thing to do fine.But.Are you still an atheist, or are you a theist that just does nothing. I submit the latter. It's a subtle difference but a difference nonetheless.
