Back to "is there a God?" = "Are there unicorns?".
It seems to me that the vast majority of people who would examine this situation and come to a different conclusion than me must subscribe to some form of Pascal's Wager (a fallacy) reasoning: "Yeah, unicorns might be real, but if you don't believe in God you will burn in hell, so I'm not taking the chance and will believe just to be sure!". This is problematic, because it is not at all the case that the choice in wager is just between fluffy unicorns and a Bronze-age skygod. Indeed, the Judeo-Christian universal overseer comprises an all-star selection of wagers by Herself in the forms of Judeo-YHWH, Christian Yahweh (aka. J. H. Christ) and Islamic Allah. This fact alone means that by wagering on Christianity one accepts that there is at least two times greater chance to end up in another (or the same, I get confused) god's hell. The list is hardly exhaustive, but do browse Wiki's list of hells - we might not be socially conditioned so, but all those places are as possible as any other. And this does not even factor in the possibility that there is a totally unknown god with his own hell which awaits every one of us because we were so preoccupied with Catholicism, did not bother to look for the "real" creator of the universe and lived utterly immorally (since this unknown god happens to value serial-killing as heaven-admittance virtue). So we have impossible odds at picking what to wager on our afterlife, which is a serious issue. There is, however, a rational thing to do in this situation - it is logical to assume that hell awaits after death. Assuming there are 50 different potential hell-heaven pairs and one try at guessing the right one, 2% chance of blissful afterlife is paltry compared to near-certainty of hell. But do not despair! Chances are there are no hells at all, but assuming their imminence at death illustrates nicely the need for maximizing well-being in this life and minimizing time and resources, both material and intellectual, wasted on following a religion - on wagering, so to speak.
Note that the idea of hell is coupled with the ideas of sin and moral worth, which, in turn, can be very culture-specific and not pertain to utilitarian interpretation of ethics. In some cases, the moral norms and ideas of sins and taboos are blatantly contrary to what a person who understands ethics as well-being of sentient beings would hold "sinful" and "taboo".
And this gives us an inkling why so many believers find themselves claiming that without (their particular) religion carnage will erupt in the streets. It is a combination of dread of having to figure out for oneself what to wager on except religion and a selfish fear of people who could choose not to wager as much or anything at all and get ahead more in life.
And now that I think about it, it is exhilarating and frightening to Imagine a life trod on a path never taken before. The kind of life befitting a man, not a sheep.
P.S. Even if there were one, Christian hell, Pascal's wager might still fail to give sufficient reasons to have faith even if the payout (pleasure in heaven) is infinite. See St. Petersburg Paradox.
Note that the idea of hell is coupled with the ideas of sin and moral worth, which, in turn, can be very culture-specific and not pertain to utilitarian interpretation of ethics. In some cases, the moral norms and ideas of sins and taboos are blatantly contrary to what a person who understands ethics as well-being of sentient beings would hold "sinful" and "taboo".
And this gives us an inkling why so many believers find themselves claiming that without (their particular) religion carnage will erupt in the streets. It is a combination of dread of having to figure out for oneself what to wager on except religion and a selfish fear of people who could choose not to wager as much or anything at all and get ahead more in life.
And now that I think about it, it is exhilarating and frightening to Imagine a life trod on a path never taken before. The kind of life befitting a man, not a sheep.
P.S. Even if there were one, Christian hell, Pascal's wager might still fail to give sufficient reasons to have faith even if the payout (pleasure in heaven) is infinite. See St. Petersburg Paradox.
Nav komentāru:
Ierakstīt komentāru