Re: belief, faith, truth

From: <Daddycaylor.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Thu, 2 Feb 2006 02:08:59 EST

 
Norman wrote:
> I'm agnostic, yet it strikes me that even if there
> is no God, those that decide to have faith, and
> have the ability to have faith, in a benign God
> have gained quite a bit. They have faith in an
> afterlife, in ultimate justice, in the triumph of good
> over evil, etc. Without this faith, life for many would
> be intolerable.
>
> If there is no God, there is no afterlife and they get
> a zero. If there is a God, there is an after life and
> they get infinity. So how can they lose? Maybe
> Pascal's Wager deserves more consideration.
>
> Norman Samish
 
My opinion about Pascal's Wager is that we try to compare things that we
can't quantify or measure, or at least that we don't know the relative measure
of the things we are trying to compare. It involves betting on the existence
of something infinite based on a totally undefined probability distribution.
I think that it is indeterminate, like dividing zero by zero, or infinity by
infinity. However, I think this same mistake is done in talking about
multiverses, too, as I've brought up before.
 
Tom Caylor
 
Received on Thu Feb 02 2006 - 02:10:02 PST