Felagund
21hr ago
In my library, there are more than 100 ebook copies of "This Book is Gay," of which 1 is being read at the moment. That probably costs this particular library system $5000 per year.
I've heard that you can often find similarly ridiculous numbers of copies of some other leftist books at other library systems.
Felagund
21hr ago
It's progressives, generally speaking, who dislike "child marriage" being legal (which usually means, you can get married at 16 or 17, provided that a parent or the court system signs off on it being fine). I don't think that this is accurate.
Not a good look for Cremieux. That's a shame.
Edit: Not as bad as I first thought, as he included the source in a series of links at the end, labeled, "Links:"
Still not great.
Felagund
5d ago
It doesn't assume that there's sufficient evidence to conclude that God exists. It merely assumes that there's more than literally zero evidence for one sort of action being favored over another. Which will roughly always be the case.
It doesn't matter how strong the evidence is for/against there being a God; the relevant question is something closer to, "what course of action has, in my own evaluation, the best chance to get me infinite rewards/avoid infinite punishment?" Which has more to do with what sort of god is most likely to exist than what the absolute probability is.
Felagund
5d ago
What do you make of Unitatis redintegratio affirming that those not under Rome can have faith, hope, and charity (3)? And Lumen Gentium defining the Church in those terms (8), in some sense at least?
Felagund
6d ago
It would be, but as compared to the larger infinity, it would be a much smaller one in expectation.
Cardinal infinities don't work. Something like hyperreals or surreals work better. You could also just drop the continuity axiom and treat infinity as a relation between values rather than sticking a number on it globally, but hyperreals/surreals should work equally well.
But if we want a convergent utility function, we probably need to add the stipulation that there's some maximum possible state, or at least, some state than which it is impossible that you have values infinitely greater.
Felagund
6d ago
It is if our concern is the expected value of acting accordingly. Higher rewards->higher expected value (all else equal).
It actually doesn't leave me open to all sorts of malicious agents. My credence in them will understandably be quite low, and so the return on just continuing to try to follow Christianity faithfully will outweigh whatever they're offering/threatening.
Okay, do you think that the pagan gods of your homeland can plausibly promise you infinite benefits or threaten you with infinite harms? (And if so, we might then have to worry about different levels of infinities, given that e.g. hyperreals have them, but I'm not certain about that)
Felagund
6d ago
Well, for reason of Pascal, the relevant question is how strong it is compared to the alternatives. Do you think that it's reasonable for me to think that Christianity is more reasonable at least than most other religions (of those that promise infinite rewards)?
After. I've been Christian all my life. But I do think that if I were convinced that Christianity were false, that I would look seriously at alternatives, due to Pascal's wager, and if I gave up, would be doing that out of weakness and would be unreasonable in that.
Felagund
6d ago
Eh, there's still a little of the social connections. People have group chats and social media, and I think gaming together is a thing for those who do much video games (not me). But yeah, that's definitely different from talking face to face or doing some activity in person together.
Felagund
6d ago
A bigger factor than external restrictions is that the entire online world decreases the impetus to go out and do any of these things.
Felagund
6d ago
Because I think that people are only saved by Christ, so none of those work.
Now, if you're asking why I think that Christianity is more likely to be true than some position that would recommend any other identifiable course of action, well, I think that the fact that it's claiming to be a revealed religion and is large are reasonably strong points in its favor—if we expect God to reveal himself (or, at least, if we expect that to be likely provided that he care about what we do, which is what is here relevant, since we want to know what can give infinite benefits/harms). I think that the evidence for the resurrection is decent. The teachings make sense.
Felagund
6d ago
and what are you really left with?
A value that's still more than you sitting around and doing whatever else you do.
If I actually considered vague abstract probabilities like this worth acting on I'd probably be doing all kinds of dumb shit all the time.
This wouldn't actually be the case, if you were convinced a single path was better expected value. Then you'd just do that single thing.
Felagund
6d ago
knowledge that the Wager specifically excludes.
Are you saying in that Pascal says so? Ignore that. Arguments matter in their idealized form, not their historical articulations.
How certain are you that we are completely ignorant? In the case where we are not completely ignorant, are there any possibilities that are at all more likely? (E.g. would "do good things" have better expected value than the contrary? Would some religion proposing some deity slightly increase the subjective chance of that deity existing (as presumably they should be evidence)? etc.)
I think that religions that claim revelation are at least more likely than the negation of those religions, and largeness is probably also a mildly positive sign for a religion. I further think that, even ignoring that, there's a decent chance that moral realism is true, in which case our ethical intuitions are more likely to be courses of action that are approved of by the divine.
Felagund
6d ago
No, I'm not spending all my time searching, I'm a Christian. Now, the proper thing to do is to live accordingly with all my might. I admittedly don't do at all as much of that as I should. But that's a failing on my part, and I'll admit to it being one.
"You could be wrong!" you're surely about to say. Certainly. But is the expected value of investigating other options higher than that of trying to live out a pious Christian life?
Felagund
6d ago
Are you saying that you think that all chances of infinite rewards cancel exactly? And that you have precisely zero knowledge about this? No hunches whatsoever? You couldn't even come up with some mild leanings if you put a year's diligent work into it?
I don't think that it requires a finite list of religions; you should be able to calculate the expected value across a countable number of courses of action.
Felagund
7d ago
assuming there is an eternal existence beyond my single finite life, it is vastly (infinitely!) improbable that I'm experiencing the finite life right now.
Is this still true if eternity is not temporal? (Or: might not be temporal)
Felagund
7d ago
It may still be possible to estimate things that are more likely. In fact, it would be extremely surprising if it were literally impossible to do that, if everything were exactly equal.
It doesn't require that it be Christianity or nothing. If there's more than one religion/source of infinite concerns in question, it'll endorse the course of action with the highest expected value.
Felagund
7d ago
@SubstantialFrivolity had a much better response, and I wouldn't have this objection if you'd said something like that. I only warn you, for the sake of your soul at the day of judgment, to consider things seriously instead of as a mechanism of getting me to shut up. There are much more important concerns than shutting me up.
Felagund
7d ago
You didn't engage with the argument in a substantive way.
It's okay if you think they're all sourced by wishful thinking. It would still be the case that the remote chance that any of them are not, if they are actually claiming to bound up in matters of infinite value, is of greater expected value than what you'd get by ignoring the matter.
I'm not assuming that it's not followed, but he's not considering the right things by his previous responses. There were other things that he could have said that would not have caused me to respond in that way.
Felagund
7d ago
Well, no, it's not. Rather, it's that there is some non-zero chance that there is, which does not seem at all like a bold claim to me.
Felagund
7d ago
Oh, I'm not saying anything goes. I'm just saying to recognize your fellow Christians as such. I agree that the Protestant world is too splintered, and has diverged from its foundation in various problematic ways (e.g. most modern protestants don't care about the Eucharist).
But it's not the case that you lose all ability to have standards. I mean, consider when Protestant churches were generally national churches. That probably doesn't have much of the problems you have in mind, since Eastern Orthodoxy is also organized in a national-ish way.
Felagund
7d ago
@hydroacetylene—if you have insider knowledge, could you make some money here? (if that would be ethical)
That wouldn't put an end to the problem. NGOs literally fly them into the country.
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