Felagund
2d 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
2d 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
2d 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
2d 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
2d 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
2d 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
2d 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
2d 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
2d 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
2d 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
3d 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
3d 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
3d 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
3d 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
3d 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
3d 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
3d 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
3d ago
@hydroacetylene—if you have insider knowledge, could you make some money here? (if that would be ethical)
Felagund
3d ago
Then it's in your interest to estimate the probability space and act accordingly. Not to assume everything magically cancels.
Throwing up your hands and doing nothing is lazy and irresponsible, considering the stakes.
Pascal was quite right to criticize this attitude of carelessness or dismissal in Pensées 195:
Before entering into the proofs of the Christian religion, I find it necessary to point out the sinfulness of those men who live in indifference to the search for truth in a matter which is so important to them, and which touches them so nearly.
Of all their errors, this doubtless is the one which most convicts them of foolishness and blindness, and in which it is easiest to confound them by the first glimmerings of common sense, and by natural feelings.
For it is not to be doubted that the duration of this life is but a moment; that the state of death is eternal, whatever may be its nature; and that thus all our actions and thoughts must take such different directions according to the state of that eternity, that it is impossible to take one step with sense and judgment, unless we regulate our course by the truth of that point which ought to be our ultimate end.
There is nothing clearer than this; and thus, according to the principles of reason, the conduct of men is wholly unreasonable, if they do not take another course.
On this point, therefore, we condemn those who live without thought of the ultimate end of life, who let themselves be guided by their own inclinations and their own pleasures without reflection and without concern, and, as if they could annihilate eternity by turning away their thought from it, think only of making themselves happy for the moment.
Yet this eternity exists, and death, which must open into it, and threatens them every hour, must in a little time infallibly put them under the dreadful necessity of being either annihilated or unhappy for ever, without knowing which of these eternities is for ever prepared for them.
This is a doubt of terrible consequence. They are in peril of eternal woe; and thereupon, as if the matter were not worth the trouble, they neglect to inquire whether this is one of those opinions which people receive with too credulous a facility, or one of those which, obscure in themselves, have a very firm, though hidden, foundation. Thus they know not whether there be truth or falsity in the matter, nor whether there be strength or weakness in the proofs. They have them before their eyes; they refuse to look at them; and in that ignorance they choose all that is necessary to fall into this misfortune if it exists, to await death to make trial of it, yet to be very content in this state, to make profession of it, and indeed to boast of it. Can we think seriously on the importance of this subject without being horrified at conduct so extravagant?
This resting in ignorance is a monstrous thing, and they who pass their life in it must be made to feel its extravagance and stupidity, by having it shown to them, so that they may be confounded by the sight of their folly. For this is how men reason, when they choose to live in such ignorance of what they are, and without seeking enlightenment. "I know not," they say ..."
Felagund
4d ago
It sounds like he trusted people in the 90s whom he no longer trusts, which was also part of why he dismissed Christianity. If the 'experts' were clearly wrong about other things societally, then why could they not also have been wrong about Christianity? Hence an increased openness.
Felagund
4d ago
See, I really don't like how exclusionary the Eastern Orthodox tend to be. Why not recognize Christ's body throughout the world, even as it's racked by various grevious schisms? Why worsen them? At least the Roman Catholics are sort of willing to recognize the other church bodies, especially post Vatican II. And the ecclesiology seems kind of broken with the way that schisms happen—e.g. was the entire East not part of the church for taking the wrong side during the Acacian schism? And then just became, at once, the church again when they reconciled? And, like, then you have to disclaim the Church of the East evangelizing China in the first millenium just because they didn't follow Ephesus.
I'm quite happy over here with my Protestantism that's willing to recognize the entire community of the faithful, regardless of nation, as assemblies of my brothers in Christ, and parts of his single visible church.
Felagund
4d ago
Well, then look for options that don't require belief, and do those?
Or at least be researching the options extremely diligently on the off chance that one of them is true and you're convinced or God directly causes faith in you (for the positions that believe that happens) or something.
Any of these paths seem obviously to dominate over uncaring atheism.
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.
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