Pascal’s Wager 2.0, or how to use many many words to say absolutely nothing.

friendlyatheist:

fdfrem submitted the following. My comments in block quote.
-FA 

Ok this will be fun in my opinion.

It always is.

I’ve read some of your posts and while I find some of them downright offensive to religious people (though I’m not one, not really) others were pretty fun. First of all, people should have a right to believe in anything, practice or do whatever they want to do with their lives as long as they don’t cause grief for others, I hope we can agree on that otherwise I’ll have to acknowledge you as a bigot and a fascist ^^.

Read the FAQ. I agree that people have the right to believe whatever they want in the same way that others have the right to criticize and not agree with said beliefs. To even hint that I am a bigot or a racist is to accuse others falsely. A cursory reading of the FAQ shows as much.

I don’t like most religious people either, but that’s because they are radicals, just like you with your atheism :)

I actually love most religious people. My family is religious and they are not radicals. Am I a radical just because I don’t agree with religious superstition and I have a tumblr that says as much? Is that being “radical”? I suggest you review your off base understanding of what radical is. Violently attacking embassies and killing innocent people because a crappy movie offended your religious sensibilities IS radicalism. Giving my opinion on a website is just free speech. So much is obvious to any honest, logical person.

Being a radical, for whatever purpose, distorts your logic to the extreme and makes you reject anyone else’s logic. That’s what’s exactly wrong with today’s world in my opinion. Everyone knows best! (So do I, I guess, by stating this in such strong manner:) ).

There is no such thing as “personal logic”. I don’t even know what that is supposed to mean. Either beliefs have evidence to support them or not. Simple as that. If it were otherwise there would not be a need for mental asylums. Beliefs are not true just because you have them. 

Let’s not deviate from the subject. You keep talking about proofs and disproving and science when you want to control the subject of “God”.

At this point this sounds like a copy paste from somewhere. I will google later to confirm. Is so generic that for all its many words it actually says nothing. For example, what does “disproving science” means? I have no idea but apparently I keep talking about it. LOL!! What does “control the subject of god” mean? I don’t know but apparently that is my purpose. :-D 
LOL x 2!!! 

I’m a scientist myself and I’ve studied Mathematics as my major and now I’m a Game Theorist. As a person immersed in so much theoretical discussions I can easily point out that most of the theorems have some suppositions in them and they can only be proved through these suppositions. And any proposition can be considered valid if you cannot disprove it. Note that I’m saying valid, not true, it has the possibility of being true but it’s not necessarily so.

Believers see their god as a real being that acts, wills, creates and it is interested in every single detail of their live. They do not see their god as a mathematical equation. Fact is that things are not true because they cannot be disproved. Can you disprove the flying spaghetti monster? How about the invisible pink unicorn? Can you disprove Thor, Zeus, or the invisible fairies at the bottom of the lake? Of course not. To assume that anything is real just because it cannot be disproved is asinine to the extreme. Anything and everything must be real and there would not be a difference between reality and imagination. It goes without saying that even a child knows this is not the case.

Things are true when there is evidence to support it. Not before. That is how reality works. Period. 

Also proving and disproving are only words that can be used with any context. For example: Can you disprove that God exists? Can you prove that God does not exist?

No one can disprove that which does not exist. Simple. Is this your best argument? Really?

Both mean the same thing, so using arguments like proving and disproving does not really help the subject when it’s a matter of belief and again people should be allowed to believe in whatever they want as long as yada yada…

They actually do help. I have written this post on tumblr. The fact that you can read it is proof that I did. You can ask others to read it and they will agree.

The same thing cannot be said of god. As a matter of fact this post has more evidence in its favor than belief in god has ever had.

People can believe what they want. Others can criticize them as they wish. Even more so when there is no evidence to support those beliefs. Simple as that.

Moving on, I do believe that there is a higher power in the universe. Because when I think about the vastness of the universe, I believe that it must have been created by something for some purpose. Hence, coincidence is not good enough for me :)

I am not so self conceited to assume there has to be any purpose for the universe. I make my own purpose. The universe does not owe you or me any purpose. I don’t assume anything nor do I prejudge it based on my puny opinions. Reality is what it is with my opinion or without it. You don’t like coincidence? Too bad. It might all be a big coincidence. The universe does not care how you feel about it. The cosmos just is.

When approaching the subject as a Game Theorist I can give you this model:

ZZZzzzzz….

Consider that there are 2 options you can choose from: Believing in God or not believing in God. There are also 2 possible situations: God either exists or not. Now you have a game with 4 outcomes: Believe in God and God Exists, Believe in God and God does not Exist, Don’t believe in God and God Exists, Don’t Believe in God and God does not Exist. Out of these 4 outcomes you have 4 different values of utility (profits if you want). Let’s call them A, B, C and D respectively. It is clear that D > A > B »> C for most people (unless you like burning in hell and C takes precedence :) ). Now let’s assume the probability that God exists is “p” and “p” is a very small non-zero value. Now both of your choices have the following values: A*p + B*(1-p) and C*p + D*(1-p). A little bit of mathematical knowledge show that the first group’s value is much higher than the second group’s value (as C is probably close to negative infinity for most people’s ordinary preferences).

Blah, blah, blah. Pascal’s Wager with numbers. How boring. And lame. And easy to disprove. I won’t waste my time commenting on it when it has already been done here.

Hence: it’s logical in a game theoretic sense to believe in God :)

Actually the opposite is true.

This is of course not a proof that God exist but a way to end the debate using scientific methods :)

Again, there is no way of proving that which does not exist. I do agree there is no debate. Fact is there is no evidence in favor of a god existing so the debate exists only in the minds of those who decide to avoid reality in favor of personal like, opinion and self centeredness.

Good luck in your crusade :)

Thanks but no thanks. I don’t embark on crusades, much less when we look back and remember the results of such by christians in the middle ages.

Peace!

In reason:
-FA