Frank Update

My current "belief system" is that anyone who believes in god and reads about Pascal's Wager will focus on the parts of it that confirm their current beliefs. Those with opposite viewpoints will focus on different aspects of same, and amazingly, with identical information, people will come to diametrically opposed conclusions.

These views are mutually exclusive, so it isn't necessary to pick a side, to know that at least one or both of them have to be wrong.

The wager's obvious omission (which I choose to call an "error") is it allows only for the existence/non-existence of one god, when there are many to choose from, and no advice is offered on a logical selection process. Even if one doesn't agree with any of the other objections, I believe failure to account for all possibilities is clearly an error as it reduces the predictive potential of the thought process to near zero.

It is especially noteworthy that Pascal was a staunch Catholic, and that the very church to which he ascribed has since reversed its stand on hell as a place, and the concept of eternal damnation.

It is moderately noteworthy that some believe Pascal published the Wager to show to the church how science and math could support religion, so he could get away with publishing his work on "the vacuum", which had been considered a heretical concept in previous centuries.

Very few of his biographers believe he believed what he wrote was anything other than a cleverly constructed joke that furthered his goals to have more free reign as a scientists, without the church looking over his shoulder all the time.

~FK

P.S. As far as discussing the Singer system at this time: To do what has been done before, over and over again, expecting different results would qualify as a form of insanity. I intend to focus on aspects of the system that have not been considered before, and leave flogging dead horses to those of you with a greater predilection for deceased animal abuse.

Frank,

A thought provoking and informative post. What we each believe and how we have come to that belief is an interesting subject. As you say, once formed any strong belief is difficult to change. If one sees no benefit to changing a strongly held belief, a re-thinking is even less likely. Regardless, it is healthy to realize that people who believe differently than ourselves have the right to live their lives accordingly, assuming that it does no harm to others.

A rhetorical question for you; Is a bet against in Pascal's Wager the equivalent of setting a win limitation? :-)

As to your P.S. My :-) at the end of that sentence was to indicate that I wasn't asking a serious question. My point was that some things are impossible to determine with logic or scientific analysis simply because there are not enough facts available to solve the problem.

Another rhetorical question; is it animal abuse if the horse is already dead?

How to tell she is a witch.

Sir Bedevere: There are ways of telling whether she is a witch.
---Are there? Oh well, tell us.
Sir Bedevere: Tell me. What do you do with witches?
--Burn them.
Sir Bedevere: And what do you burn, apart from witches?
--More witches.
--Wood.
Sir Bedevere: Good. Now, why do witches burn?
--...because they're made of... wood?
Sir Bedevere: Good. So how do you tell whether she is made of wood?
--Build a bridge out of her.
Sir Bedevere: But can you not also build bridges out of stone?
--Oh yeah.
Sir Bedevere: Does wood sink in water?
--No, no, it floats!... It floats! Throw her into the pond!
Sir Bedevere: No, no. What else floats in water?
--Bread.
--Apples.
--Very small rocks.
--Cider.
--Gravy.
--Cherries.
--Mud.
--Churches.
--Lead! Lead!
--A Duck.
Sir Bedevere: ...Exactly. So, logically...
--If she weighed the same as a duck... she's made of wood.
Sir Bedevere: And therefore...
...A witch!

I will try to answer your questions, even your rhetorical ones. I numbered them:

1. I would hope we would not have to look much past seventy two virgin rewards encouraging people to commit suicide in blazing homicidal glory to realize that some beliefs are detrimental to more than the believer.

2. Setting win limitations is more of an action than a belief. If someone believes that having win limitations alters their long term results, then that's a different story. The direction of causation is relevant.

3. Theories have a minimum burden of proof required to be considered valid. Not being able to disprove something is not the same as not being able to prove it. What will be tricky is providing new information to a well discussed topic.

4. That's why I said, "Deceased animal abuse". Typically I think we just call that "dinner".