From: David Hill (dhill@spee-dee.com)
Date: Thu Jan 24 2002 - 11:27:05 MST
I scanned the text at plato.stanford.edu/entries/pascal-wager#1 to confirm
my recollections of what the bet was. I don't have time for further depth,
but my understanding is that the payoff matrix is:
God exists, and believe-> win big
God exists, and don't believe -> lose big
God doesn't exist and either believe or don't -> no difference.
I've always had a problem with this because though the premise proves the
conclusion, nobody asks if the premise is plausible. If I alter it slightly
to be: God exists, but doesn't want you to believe, the results also are
inverted. I find the liklihood of the standard Christian God to be highly
unlikely but possible and so side with the agnostics rather than the
athiests. The mounting and single value of the evidence is immaterial
because it takes only one divine intervention to change the result. Could
happen at any time.
I've gone so far as to postulate the existance of the first meta-God (Larry)
who is the creator of Allah, Yaweh, Christ et cetera and who has been (until
lately) distracted elsewhere doing God stuff. He created the above as a
gullibility test for those of us here and is kinda disappointed at the
results.
Of course we can't speak of the second and third meta-Gods (Moe and Curley).
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-virus@lucifer.com [mailto:owner-virus@lucifer.com]On Behalf
Of Steele, Kirk A
Sent: Wednesday, January 23, 2002 6:40 PM
To: 'virus@lucifer.com'
Subject: RE: virus: Kirk: Standing my ground
no. search for Pascal' wager to understand agnosticism
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