Sure.

Except that rational people don't wager on myths and legends that are built on faith and fertile imaginations...

I held back putting a fine point on irrational behaviour and decision making, and OCD type thought patterns, because I didn't want to go round in circles with ubuntu, but your comments Bob, really dovetail well and illustrate the point.

He's just trying to put a spin on his 'reasonings' to make them sound more profoundly philosophical, instead of conceding what is obvious to at the very least, you, I, and a few others...

The probability of any one of the options being the outcome is low considering the number of options that exist... If that is the case, I'd choose the one were my chances are the best for receiving reward.

That's not what I meant -- I was talking about not needing to wager as I have done. Induction from evidence is a sort of wager in an of itself. I was talking about it in the absence of evidence or in light of uncertainty. Uncertainty and the need to be pragmatic are strongly mitigated in light of compelling evidence. If there was compelling evidence for Islam, then I'd forego the wagering pragmatic grounds in light of that evidence. I don't need to consider the outcomes of possible scenarios among other things if there is good reason to believe something based on evidence.

But insofar as a "crude approximation", I don't think that is necessarily the case either. Competing scenarios that result in an outcome of payoff have (at least IMHO) failed to produce compelling evidence for one or the other such that they have more-or-less and equal foothold on being a possible outcome. All lies are equally untrue, and if one of the scenarios is true, it hasn't done a good job as separating itself from the rest.

The safety of flight can be ascertained based on variables such as the number of people who have flown and lived vs the number who have flown and died, the average number of miles traveled without incident, or the number of flights taken without incident among other things. I think there is a lot more certainty here otherwise.

A lot of options giving low probability for any one does not remove the logical need to assess each one for intrinsic likelihood. Low or not, they are all very likely to be different in plausibilty. The more there are , the more likely is the range of likelihood to be wide, and THAT is the issue I was raising, NOT the average likelihood. So it is still a very crude approximation if you ignore the plausibility of each option, as well as the 'no gods' option.

You have no basis for assuming 'more-or-less equal'. That is the same error.

I was not assuming compelling evidence. In this context in particular, we are never going to get that, especially as regard relative plausibility.

So, as I said, all we can do by examining each scenario, is make broad assessments of probability, mainly relative to the other options. But this is essential to get a proper basis for any wager.

Just to give an example, one civilization could have given rise to a large number of religions, with only more-or-less  subtle differences.

With your extremely crude approach, you don't have any consistent method of deciding when they should be counted as one or many, A proper analysis, as I suggest, will address that.

The basis for assessing risk of flight is certainly far more that assessing the likelihood of any given God scenario, but that does not make it non-wagerable thing. For any given flight, we can only assign probability of a crash, not a confident 0%. So a wager is still applicable, even there.

ubuntu, have you ever done any classes in probability and statistics? I have done several.

No, none of us here are jumping to conclusions.

You claim to have once been an atheist. Now you claim not to be. No one has missed that point.

Your problem with all of us is we don't care what you claim to be now.

"God/god/deity/entity/super natural", Are all the same superstitious made up comic book wishful thinking bullshit. Re wrap the empty box all you want, it is still empty.

If you are going to postulate a non material thinking entity which IS a naked assertion, we are going to see through all this elaborate clap trap. You are not fooling anyone here.

I am not so much 'jumping to conclusions' about what you are doing, I am bypassing it, by pointing out how you should properly and logically approach such a Wager situation.

You are utterly wrong in your assertion that the number of options in any way affects their relative probabilities unimportant or 'more or less equal' in any way. That is VERY sloppy 'reasoning'. YOU don't understand what you are talking about.

Apart from the fundamental fallacy of only considering systems that have actually been believed in by some group or other.

What you are doing is trying to justify some kind of theistic belief after the fact.

It is a text-book example of self-justification, which you cannot admit to yourself, obviously.

EDIT: The podcast I listened to yesterday explained the way our brain can get into this mode after making some significant decision which can not be easily and fully justified, especially if it is at odds with a previous assumption. It is a form of cognitive dissonance. You seem to be exemplifying it.

The issue isn't about ubuntuanyone.

The issue is anyone who might not spot the fallacies and non sequiturs in the lines of reasoning he is putting forth, and using that as a basis to make life decisions.

That's the issue...

I don't think so... i think you're grasping for a reason to dismiss such things, and your attempts seem to be getting more desperate.

The reason I only consider that which has been believed is because probabilities suggests that randomly ascertaining something in a sea of infinite options is 0.  But if the truth is unknown, the probability of finding it is zero. But even so, I really don't think the set of unknown  is actually infinite -- I think it is at best transfinite which would mean that the probability is still non-zero. On the other hand, if the truth known, then it is a part of a finite set of options, and all other options are not true, such that the set is finite. There are any number of options that fit the bill here. This is simply being pragmatic about the set one considers.

To actually accuse me of having some sort of cognitive dissonance would be a circumstantial ad hominem fallacy... that was one of the first accusations you made in this thread.

Not desperate, just losing hope of being able to communicate meaningfully with you.

A little sad, perhaps.

Your first sentence is all that actually applies.

Cantor refused to label the 'transfinite' numbers he described as "infinite" for religious reasons. He felt the "absolute infinite" should refer to God.

All "transfinite" numbers ARE infinite. Even Aleph-0 will mathematically make the probability, in the context we are considering, zero.

Another explicit error on your part, further supporting my assessment of your position. Thank you for that.

It is utterly irrelevant whether any person does or does not have a belief which happens to coincide with the 'truth'. That in itself cannot be known, unless and until that 'truth' can be established by valid argument and evidence.

Yes you are being 'selective', not 'pragmatic', about the set of options you consider. Maybe 'paragmatic' within your own aim, which is to justify your new position, whatever it takes.

You attempt to justify your position by arguments which include clear fallacies of logic and errors of math.

Which you stubbornly refuse to acknowledge, or dodge by appeal to yet more fallacious reasoning to accuse me of not understanding.

All I am saying is that you fit the pattern. If you have some deeper problem for falling into the error of Theism, it will require a trained psychologist to diagnose, I guess.

Most believers seem to ultimately fall back to the position that they cannot really imagine God not existing, or they have had a deep experience of 'communicating' with God in some sense, either just feeling his presence, or receiving a 'message' of some sort, or even a response to a prayer.

Those are more honest than your convoluted and fallacy-ridden attempt to justify your position, by arguments that you apparently find more appropriate to your self-image.

You may be closer to Flew, who you mentioned in the original post, who almost certainly had Dementia when he 'recanted' his Atheism. A bit harsh, but that was the first name you said you were "following in the footsteps of"....

As i said before, I  am not desperate, by any definition, just sad, for you.

Then fire away!

(note: of course it's absurd. My post did not deal with that.)

It's simple. If there's an urban legend, bet that it's real...

Sorry I haven't replied in a wee bit... been out of pocket for a while with some major projects at work.

I said "at best"... You're getting hasty.

I said "transfinite" to refer to one to one correspondence with natural numbers -- that is an infinitely countable set. I don't think it even approaches. The set of possible errors has to be filled otherwise, or they don't actually exist. (IOW, how can an unstated, untrue proposition exist?). I don't think otherwise that it even approaches an infinite set of possibilities. My reason for focusing on what does exist is that it is limited...and even so, even if the truth us unknown, it is what is known plus one. But even so, there are even options to cover that that actual exist such as esoteric beliefs or some form of gnosticism....

When one cannot do that, then what is one left with? And if superdominance is involved, then one should approach things on pragmatic grounds.

Being selective based on reasons to be selective is being pragmatic.

I have made no mistakes... You keep asserting things that I have done which I have not done... That simply overstating my position. In all your attempts, you keep grasping for one thing or another, fallacy after fallacy... while you think you have done something else.

The "cognitive dissonance" could be on your part as well. All in all, I think any such accusation from me or you would result in what is a circumstantial ad hominem.

I think questioning Flew's mental condition was precisely the sort of circumstantial ad hominem I am getting at.

You cannot claim to be 'pragmatic' any longer when you skip the first step of being logical in assigning probability to the likelihood of 'if', in an if/then equation.

If your 'selected' reasons are based on subjectivity, intuition and not on logical grounds, then you are patently misapplying the term 'pragmatic' to your methodology.

You have made the mistake of mischaracterizing your methodology.

There's no need to resort to that.

You demonstrate the topology of your methodology, and you've skipped steps in critical analysis.

It simply doesn't qualify as being 'pragmatic'.

That's not an ad hominem by any means.

Nice attempt to rationally justify Pascal's (irrational fear based) Wager though...

Obviously, you read nothing about what a said. Rather than seek clarity, you make a tangential statement about why Cantor used the word "transfinite" rather than "infinite", which had absolutely nothing to do with anything I said. Then you accuse me of saying something I didn't say , then say I'm in error for doing it. In short, rather than attempting to understand me, you refuse to do so. I made no mistake... All I have from you is a boat load of presumptions, assumptions, and an accusation about my mental state...

You keep bringing up these red herrings as if they were relevant at all....

I hardly keep repeating anything... you keep bringing up objections, unrelated or otherwise, and I keep answering them. If I'm repeating anything, it is the answers to fallacies.

His arguments are one thing, and really isn't my point. The point is that to allege that he converted because of his alleged mental condition is the ad hominem.

Quite honestly, I have nothing more to add here unless you have something new to say....

Run away? Complain?  but if pointing out fallacies of irrelevance constitutes complaining in your mind, then so be it.  You can interpret my unwillingness to post as "run(ning) away", but that would be yet another caricature...

Here is the bottom line. No one eats pizza every day. Sometimes they eat chicken, or have soup, or a burger, some people go from eating meant to being vegetarians. You flipped positions. BIG WOOPTY DOO. People have gone from being Muslim to Christian. People go from one position to another all the time, and all that proves is that they switched positions.

EVIDENCE is what you lack, and that is what we are focused on. If you had any you could beat the world to the patent office and win a Nobel Prize. Your arguments have been used countless times in many different ways by countless people prior to this thread. The box is still empty and always has been.

You ARE running away because you don't have anything. Instead of blaming us for your bad arguments, blame yourself for swallowing them.

Now, if you post again, stop bitching, and make an argument.

I read some of the first page, but I still don't get what your supposed reasoning is for this change nor I do really even understand what you believe now that was any different than before. Post evidence reasoning? How exactly did it lead to theism?

It reminds me of when I tried to gain an understanding Eloise's beliefs and was similarly baffled.  

I do have to give you credit, this is the first time I have seen the dodge of reality "I am in denial that this is merely what I like believing" put like the quote above.

Translation:"I cant do it through empirical scientific method so I will make up bunk philosophy as a substitute"

Secondly, Scientific method does not "justify" it TESTS TO VERIFY.

Anything you make up can be justified with mere mental masturbation. Evidence is when you can test it and thrash it over and over and over and hand it over to others with no horse in the race and they still come up with the same data.

You don't have that.

Ok, so this is an argument, and no, it is not complaining, but it is still not evidence. I merely sounds like something you bought because you cant apply your pet deity to universal scientific method.

If "Secondary modes of justification" was valid, why aren't you at the patient office now? Why don't you have a Nobel Prize in science now?

Sounds like pseudo intellectual junk to me.

And it IS because of your mental state. Just like the mental states of the Egyptians falsely lead them to believe that the sun was a thinking being. If you want to believe something badly enough, that mental state will allow you to. Placebos, sugar pills, gap filling, can fill you with all sorts of warm fuzzies that in reality merely amount to wishful thinking.

Strawmen don't serve you well...

So what's your point? I said from the beginning this was in lieu of evidence.

If some one awarded anyone a medal for science based on such things, I would really question what they committee is calling "science". It's not science. I've said that already, so move on.

I'm going to ask again.

S P E C I F I C A L L Y, where did Bob Spence commit an ad hominem, either a direct one or a circumstantial one?

Please quote his posts in your response to this request so we can analyze if your allegations are the truth.

Or maybe you don't understand that when you make an allegation, you yourself go on trial as well...

Perfect.

This I gotta see...

Do you know what cognitive dissonance is??

It's when 2 ideas seem to contradict each other.

Did you think it was a mental disorder?

As far as the comment about Flew, this is quote mined.

When something is taken out of context, it can mean something entirely different. Here's the original context (emphasis mine):

*********************

"You attempt to justify your position by arguments which include clear fallacies of logic and errors of math.

Which you stubbornly refuse to acknowledge, or dodge by appeal to yet more fallacious reasoning to accuse me of not understanding.

All I am saying is that you fit the pattern. If you have some deeper problem for falling into the error of Theism, it will require a trained psychologist to diagnose, I guess.

Most believers seem to ultimately fall back to the position that they cannot really imagine God not existing, or they have had a deep experience of 'communicating' with God in some sense, either just feeling his presence, or receiving a 'message' of some sort, or even a response to a prayer.

Those are more honest than your convoluted and fallacy-ridden attempt to justify your position, by arguments that you apparently find more appropriate to your self-image.

You may be closer to Flew, who you mentioned in the original post, who almost certainly had Dementia when he 'recanted' his Atheism. A bit harsh, but that was the first name you said you were "following in the footsteps of"...."

***********************

Flew could have "ultimately fall back to the position that they cannot really imagine God not existing, or they have had a deep experience of 'communicating' with God in some sense, either just feeling his presence, or receiving a 'message' of some sort, or even a response to a prayer.

With, or without dementia, someone could experience all of these.

You mentioned in your OP that you were following in the steps of Flew (granted among others).

That would indicate that you could have come to the same conclusions as him, either just like him, or not just like him.

What's the problem with that?

Bob didn't specifically say you WERE like Flew.

Did he?

Do you want to run a truth table and find out how many options there are between the states of mind between you and Flew in order to show how many possibilities there are between you and Flew?

You haven't proven your allegations against Bob, whatsoever.

This is added to your numerous false allegations of him using fallacies, and false allegations against me (that I've caught on to).

It's probably better that you just stick to the soundness and validity of your justifications for contemplating both an afterlife and a subsequent 'reward'.

You're already struggling to convince us of those...

You'd have to prove that you know what it is. Just saying that you know what it is, does not make it so.

Next...

Objectively, if any proposition has no evidence to show true/not true. It's a non starter. It takes evidence to verify/falsify any proposition.

Given that there are a seemingly endless list of propositions without evidence, what would be the impetus for a person to deliberate over any of them if they didn't have to?

It seems to follow that it would be for emotional reasons.

Feel free to argue that.

Next...

The you would have quoted the whole paragraph.

It was not quoted in it's entirety.

So, it is quote mined.

Next...

You've chosen not to be skeptical of unjustified claims of an afterlife and a 'superdominance', and deliberating in hopes of a reward from an 'imagined' superdominance.

You don't see that as a struggle that you're dealing with?

I see no basis for even contemplating these things.

If you chose not to deliberate; that would entail 'nothing to deal with' and 'no struggle'.

Nobody would say you were Flew.

He's dead.

Are you done being dense?

Next...

Yes.

You also said you were following in the footsteps of Flew.

Have you read about what's been written about how Flew 'deconverted'?

Next...

You need to recalculate your odds that it stands.

Next...

That's an ad hominem, BTW.

I'm not weaseling, I'm showing the fallacies of your claims, Asshole.

Ya, you did, Asshole.

You alleged P L E N T Y

That speaks volumes.

Because there's little chance of any serious repercussions to you from us, you aren't concerned much about what you say here.

It matters little to you that you ran your mouth and blatantly lied about people, because it's the internet.

Lucky for you, Asshole.

I'd ban your ass if I was a 'superdominance' here.