Pascal's Mugging

[Vera]

Truth of this can be denied only by dogless atheists who hate dog and want to sin. 

I'm only dogless 'cause I'm catful

I mean, can you blame me?



(I just brought home one of my cats... after the vet took out a pellet where some fucking piece of human shit had shot him (it was superficial and he wasn't in pain and I only felt it when I was holding him) I have even less patience for human scum than I usually do and that's saying something!)

[Szuchow]

Truth of this can be denied only by dogless atheists who hate dog and want to sin. 

I'm only dogless 'cause I'm catful  

I mean, can you blame me?



(I just brought home one of my cats... after the vet took out a pellet where some fucking piece of human shit had shot him (it was superficial and he wasn't in pain and I only felt it when I was holding him) I have even less patience for human scum than I usually do and that's saying something!)

Catful you say? I see we are both in thrall of our demonic overlords:

[Vera]

Catful you say? I see we are both in thrall of our demonic overlords:

See the face of the kitten on the left in my pervious pic? Is the one I'm making right now, after seeing that cartoon

I love both but there's just something about cats...

[Minimalist]

If your god is too stupid to know charade from true belief then your god is a moron.  Yours is.  So are all the rest.

What will you do if, when you die, you go to Valhalla and Odin demands to know why you didn't die with a weapon in your hand?  Pascal was a catholic.  The problem with fools like you is you think his silly bullshit can be adapted to your absurd god, too.

I thought you left?  Lied again.

Allah will not be pleased.

Does Odin claim himself to be the Way, Truth and Light? Only one deity lays claim to this.

Odin is as phony as your fucking jesus, boy.  Wake up.

[Dānu]

Mmmm. Cats is good eatin'.

[Rahn127]

From the very beginning the chance that the mugger would return any money whatsoever is zero.
He is by definition a mugger, a thief. someone who steals money.
If we change the mugger to an investment broker and the man into someone who is looking for a good investment, then we are dealing with someone who operates under certain rules of law.

There is some degree of trust when dealing with lawful people.
Zero degree of trust when dealing with unlawful people who promise you things they have no intention of delivering.

It doesn't matter how much a dishonest person promises you. You could even say that the more a person promises, the more likely that person is being dishonest.

This would mean that those religious folks who promise an eternity of life are the most dishonest

[Kim]

From the very beginning the chance that the mugger would return any money whatsoever is zero.
He is by definition a mugger, a thief. someone who steals money.
If we change the mugger to an investment broker and the man into someone who is looking for a good investment, then we are dealing with someone who operates under certain rules of law.
----
---

Coincidentally, I was going to suggest changing the "mugger" to a rando desperate guy emerging from a casino.  The accosted "man" remains just any man - not even looking for anything, just minding his own business.  

Either way - rando gambler or investment broker - I'ma toss in a monkey wrench which may more broadly address human vulnerability.

Show ContentSpoiler:

Hookers & blow.    
In both scenarios, the two guys go off  together to spend a few hours & all the money between them, getting loaded & laid.  If, "Oh God!" is deliriously screamed at any time during this adventure, it's merely contractual.

Trust or not, the twat Pascal (imagined character of the famed wadger exercise) obviously never explored human nature or, it's various frailties in any capacity.  

[airportkid]

... I'ma toss in a monkey wrench which may more broadly address human vulnerability.

Show ContentSpoiler:

Hookers & blow.    
In both scenarios, the two guys go off  together to spend a few hours & all the money between them, getting loaded & laid.  If, "Oh God!" is deliriously screamed at any time during this adventure, it's merely contractual.

You need to puts warnings in front of posts like that so I don't blow coffee out my nose 

[Kim]

... I'ma toss in a monkey wrench which may more broadly address human vulnerability.

Show ContentSpoiler:

Hookers & blow.    
In both scenarios, the two guys go off  together to spend a few hours & all the money between them, getting loaded & laid.  If, "Oh God!" is deliriously screamed at any time during this adventure, it's merely contractual.

You need to puts warnings in front of posts like that so I don't blow coffee out my nose 

... coffee out the nose ...
My work here is done.

[rocinantexyz]

The thought experiment in the original post is perhaps the best example of an indeterminate result I've seen. Might make a great lesson for teaching calculus/limits.

If you are promised a 4x payout (or the mugging money), but only have a 50% chance of receiving it; your average payout is 4 * 0.5 = 2 (so on average you would receive double the amount you were mugged for).

If you are promised an infinite payout, but have a 0% chance of receiving it, your average payout is:
which is an indeterminate form(3rd row on chart).

[Paleophyte]

If you are promised an infinite payout, but have a 0% chance of receiving it, your average payout is:
which is an indeterminate form(3rd row on chart).

Amusingly, since we don't even know the sign of the indeterminate form it's entirely possible that your pay-out is negative. Poor Blaise Pascal.

[Rhythmcs]

If your god is too stupid to know charade from true belief then your god is a moron.  Yours is.  So are all the rest.

What will you do if, when you die, you go to Valhalla and Odin demands to know why you didn't die with a weapon in your hand?  Pascal was a catholic.  The problem with fools like you is you think his silly bullshit can be adapted to your absurd god, too.

I thought you left?  Lied again.

Allah will not be pleased.

Does Odin claim himself to be the Way, Truth and Light? Only one deity lays claim to this.

 Yes!  Among many other things, just as your own god describes itself as many things, and in many ways, in your own magic book.  Really, though, you should go check this stuff out yourself - it could be a journey of discovery.

[Dancefortwo]

How do you know? Did he tell you?

No religion, besides, Christianity has ever said this three words in one sentence: I am the *way* the *truth* and the *light*. Some religions have said one or two of this words but never the three many even said that they are not the way. Look it up and tell me what you find.

There's a verse in the bible which talks about people who did not see the Lord but believe by faith and it talks about reward for those people.

The bible is not evidence of a god.  It's a book of claims.  It only claims a god exists.  You can quote from it until the cows come home. You can point to any quote you want from any page you want but all you're accomplishing is a circular fallacy of dizzying proportions.   What you need to do to prove your god exists is produce contemporary evidence from unbiased sources outside of your book of claims.  You need to define your god in a way that it can be tested.    Then you might have something there. Until that moment comes, and no theists anywhere on this planet has ever come close to evidence of a god,  you're spewing utter nonsense.  

Oh, and as to your reference to "faith".  ALLL religions use faith.  The ancient Romans used faith to believe in Zeus.  The Egyptians used faith to believe in Oisiris.  The Norse people used faith to believe in Odin.  The Hindus use faith to believe in Vishnu.  Your bible faith is not at all special. If people can use faith to believe deeply in any number of gods what does that tell you about faith?  If you're a thinking person you would realize that faith is not telling you if what you believe is true or not.  It should also tell you that when faith leads one to believe in different gods then faith is essentially meaningless twattle.

[Astreja]

Does Odin claim himself to be the Way, Truth and Light? Only one deity lays claim to this.

How do you knows that the claim was made by an actual deity?  Even if a deity did say this, how are you going to test the deity's claim to determine whether or not it's telling the truth?

What if there is no "Way, Truth and Light" at all?