Tim Wood: I DID give you a citation ---- READ Raymond Smullyan. I'm not going to waste my time educating you, that's your responsibility. If you are too lazy to read up on mathematical logic, then that's not my fault, it's yours. I didn't even bother to read the remainder of your comment, since your first sentence was disingenuous.

A request for a citation is a reasonable request. Being directed to "read Raymond Smullyan" is not a citation. Or, I could say that I have read Raymond Smullyan, closely, and found nothing that resembles your claim. The rest of your post is simply a non sequitur and apparently an attempt to bully your way out of a corner.

I don't really doubt that there is some substance underlying your claim, I merely want to understand the application a little better. If it is as you say, then there's a 50-50 chance there's a dragon in my garage, and in everyone else's, too, the which, given the number of garages, means that there are almost certainly a large number of dragons out there. Right?

Tim Wood: I gave you the name of an author and you can check up on his published pop works, you don't even have to read his actual textbooks for university courses. The fact you are too lazy to read up on logic and math isn't my problem --- it's yours. I have no responsibility at all to educate you. You have that responsibility.
If you can't understand the most basic concepts in logic and math, then that's also not my problem. I explained how the principle works in a manner that anyone with half a brain should be able to grasp. The fact you can't, probably is because you don't know much mathematics. Have you ever even taken a non-computational course in math?

And there you go again with the BS about a dragon? Like you seriously don't think that there is actually evidence against the existence of a dragon in your garage? Really?

I gave you the name of an author — LD Saunders

Exactly, and I requested a citation. And I am locally famous for being lazy, ignorant, and stupid, but inasmuch as you're not from here, your only justification for adducing any of that is projection. And there is some evidence for that: you apparently are too lazy to respond appropriately to a fair request, apparently too ignorant to know that it's a fair request, and apparently stupid enough to suppose it will pass as "well-played."

And you're now subject to Hitchen's razor. If you don't know what that is, I'll tell you - you merely need ask. Anyway, I dismiss your claim for lack of evidence.

The wager looks like this:

Believe and God exists. Go to heaven
Believe and God does not exist. Religion is only a slight inconvenience

Don't believe and God exists. Go to hell
Don't believe and God doesn't exist. Nothing much to say.

The main issue. We don't know if God exists.

We have to be sensible. We stand to lose big time if we don't believe and God exists but if we believe and God doesn't exist religion is not much of a problem.

So, it's better to believe than not.

What's the flaw?

None.

It's the most sensible choice.

As Christopher Hitchens once pointed out, it’s somewhat bizarre to believe that you could trick an omniscient God as to the sincerity of your belief. You cannot force yourself to believe something that your rational mind refuses to accept.

Additionally, if God is supposedly all-loving and forgiving, who would He consider to be more honest, courageous, and sincere? The person who simply could not make himself believe in a God and remained honest to himself, or the person who spent their life making fawning professions of faith because Pascal told them it was a good bet to achieve personal gain?

Whether God exists or not is a boolean question. With no evidence either way, its correct to assign a 50%/50% outcome. A rational mind should not be so dismissive of the possibilities... Pascal's wager is still applicable.

You seem to be saying this:

If there is no evidence for or against the existence of X, then there is a 50 percent chance that X exists.

You can replace the “X” with anything other than God to reveal the fallacy. Would you also say:

There is no evidence for or against the existence of fairies, therefore there is a 50 percent chance that fairies exist.

The burden of proof lies with the person making the claim. If someone claims that God exists, they can’t escape the responsibility of providing evidence by claiming that, because they can imagine God to exist, that this automatically makes it 50 percent likely to be true.

If there is no evidence for or against the existence of X, then there is a 50 percent chance that X exists. — Ryan B

Thats correct, that is the starting point for your probability analysis. You then proceed to alter 50% up/down by admitting evidence for and against the proposition

There is no evidence for or against the existence of fairies, therefore there is a 50 percent chance that fairies exist. — Ryan B

You have empirical evidence that fairies do not exist on planet earth which you have implicitly used to deduce its very unlikely that fairies exist. Imagine asking the same question if you did not even know what a fairy was - then you'd start at 50%/50%.

In the case of God; you have not got empirical evidence of his non-existence; just empirical evidence that he's not been near planet earth. Which is not surprising considering the size of the universe. There is no evidence against the existence of God.

On the other hand, there does appear to be evidence for God's existence: the big bang, the fine tuning argument, the prime mover argument.

So my point is its impossible to dismiss the existence of God outright; therefore Pascal's wager is still applicable.

You’re changing the terms of your argument on the fly. You originally said, “Whether God exists or not is a boolean question. With no evidence either way, its correct to assign a 50%/50% outcome.”

So, by your own logic, you cannot adjust the rate up or down without evidence, which keeps you stuck at agnosticism.

But then, in your latest response, you state that there is evidence for god’s existence after all but no evidence for his non-existence, a convenient position to hold if you tend toward theism.

I would ask, what evidence is there that fairies do not exist? If anything, it’s the fact that fairies have never been seen or reliably documented, which is the SAME evidence against the existence of god.

The Big Bang is not evidence for god any more than it is evidence for fairies. The Big Bang simply describes the first state of the universe that we can reasonably talk about, but doesn’t suggest anything beyond that. Also, the prime mover argument has so many flaws that it hardly counts as evidence for god’s existence, either. I wrote about the first cause argument here:
https://escapingplatoscave.com/2018/10/01/objections-to-the-first-cause-argument-for-the-existence-of-god/

If I wanted to prove the existence of fairies, I would need to do more than point out that you don’t have evidence that they don’t exist. Of course there is no evidence for the nonexistence of something that doesn’t exist. How could there be?

Likewise, if you want to prove that god exists, you have to do better than to point out that no one can prove his nonexistence. The burden of proof is entirely on you.

Let me end by asking you a question: what would change your mind? If you think this is a matter of probability, where Pascal’s Wager is relevant, then what piece(s) of evidence would ever get you to adjust the probability in favor of god’s nonexistence?

Unless you can answer that, then the answer is nothing, in which case you’re not really abiding by the apparent logic of the wager as much as using the wager as justification for a conclusion you favor.

You’re changing the terms of your argument on the fly. You originally said, “Whether God exists or not is a boolean question. With no evidence either way, its correct to assign a 50%/50% outcome.”

So, by your own logic, you cannot adjust the rate up or down without evidence, which keeps you stuck at agnosticism.

But then, in your latest response, you state that there is evidence for god’s existence after all but no evidence for his non-existence, a convenient position to hold if you tend toward theism. — Ryan B

No, for any boolean proposition, you start at 50%/50% and then alter the odds in light of the evidence. For example:

Was there a creator God? Start with 50% and then examine the evidence for:

The Big Bang makes it 50% likely there was a creator:
50% + 50% x 50% = 75% chance of creator

Fine tuning makes it 50% likely there was a creator:
75% + 25% x 50% = 87.5% chance of a creator

The Prime mover argument makes it 25% likely there was a creator:

87.5% + 12.5% x 50% = 93.75% chance of a creator.

There is no evidence against a creator (you have given none).

I would ask, what evidence is there that fairies do not exist? If anything, it’s the fact that fairies have never been seen or reliably documented, which is the SAME evidence against the existence of god. — Ryan B

We know fairies don't exist on earth because we've never seen one. But we would not expect to see god - the universe is too large and too young for God to have had time to visit us:

1x10^24 estimated stars in observable universe
5.1 x10^12 days since start of universe

God must visit 195,694,716,242 star systems a day for God to have visited all star systems in the observable universe by today. Talk about a hectic schedule

So you cannot expect evidence for God in the form of a personal appearance.

The Big Bang is not evidence for god any more than it is evidence for fairies — Ryan B

Its a huge suspicious explosion. Was it natural? Thats a 50%/50% call. So you can't dismiss it out of hand if you are doing a probability analysis.

Also, the prime mover argument has so many flaws that it hardly counts as evidence for god’s existence, either. I wrote about the first cause argument here — Ryan B

Your argument against seems to be pinned on the fact the universe did not have a beginning - I argue that eternal is impossible so the universe must have a beginning here:

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/4158/nine-nails-in-the-coffin-of-presentism/p1

Welcome any comments...

Then what piece(s) of evidence would ever get you to adjust the probability in favor of god’s nonexistence? — Ryan B

Well some form of proof of God's non-existence or at least a strong argument against his existence, can you give one?

I noticed you skipped the fine-tuning argument in your reply - which seems pretty strong evidence for God - any reason why?

Whether God exists or not is a boolean question. With no evidence either way, its correct to assign a 50%/50% outcome. — Devans99

A Procrustean assignment that chops the legs off the question, or less colorfully, as answer makes the question meaningless. The better answer is that certain qualities that are attributed to God remain undemonstrated with respect to generally accepted criteria. Existence is one of those qualities. In assigning probability you are affirming what in fact is not known. The right attitude, pending further clarification, is Pyrrhonic scepticism, (and no, you probably do not know what that is).

If it's a coin toss, assigning a probability is a more-or-less accurate assessment of what could be, or will be if the coin is tossed. And all fair enough, within the world in which such things apply.

But they don't apply - they are misapplied - to any questions about God. Do you disagree? If you disagree, then you might well agree that before you apply any such logical tools, you need to know what it is you're applying them to, yes? If so, tell us what (who) God is.

The right attitude, pending further clarification, is Pyrrhonic scepticism — tim wood

Mathematically you are wrong; if there is a non-zero chance that God exists, then investing in Pascal's wager is in our interests.

...before you apply any such logical tools, you need to know what it is you're applying them to, yes? If so, tell us what (who) God is. — tim wood

I define God as the creator of the universe and try to establish his existence and attributes from that premise. This is a different approach to assigning certain qualities (eg 3Os) to God and then trying to rationalise his existence.

Admittedly not reading through most of this - but I don't think mathematically it matters much what probability you put on God is or God is not. It is an expected value problem. It is the respective payoffs that matter. If the pay off for God is, is unimaginable happiness, and the pay off for God is not, is - nothing ( well maybe sleeping in on Sunday ) - the expected value of "God is" will be near infinitely better if the probability of "God is" is 50 - 50 or a million to one.

No. you're playing with "God," a convenient and sufficiently vague concept to allow you to play math-like games with it. What the math does is convert the concerns of the question to mathematical expressions, understandings, and concerns. Sometimes this is the right approach, sometimes the wrong. And sometimes whether right or wrong, it can be elucidating.

But none of that in the case of this topic. You might as well say the supernatural is a 50-50 proposition. And no, it isn't. Nothing wrong with math and logic, just the wrong tool, wrong usage, wrong subject. Ok for playing games and engaging in entertaining nonsense with those who want to play.

I define God as the creator of the universe and try to establish his existence and attributes from that premise. — Devans99

Ok. But through math games/tools rather than through evidence. Whatever you establish is limited by your definitions/methods. The subject you've chosen lends itself to that, but at the same time is of such a nature as to render any result you get inapplicable outside of itself.

I’ve never had someone use Pascal’s Wager to prove god’s existence and then proceed to comment on god’s itinerary through the universe. An all-powerful god has restrictions regarding travel speed??? He created us in his image but decided to start his itinerary at the other side of the universe?? He created the entire universe but is restricted by its own laws???

These are the types of hasty generalizations that characterize most arguments for god’s existence, which people think prove something they clearly do not.

Us having not seen god is more consistent, and takes less for granted, with the fact of his non-existence than with the fact that he can only travel to so many stars at one time. And even if I were to accept his existence, the argument would tell me nothing about him, and so I haven't really explained anything at all.

An all-powerful god has restrictions regarding travel speed??? — Ryan B

I don't think God (if he exists) is Omnipotent or Omniscient. Both are irrational demands upon a deity; no-one can make 1+2=2 or know all the digits of pi. The shear size of the universe dictates that we will not have heard from any materialistic/non-magical God yet.

Back to Pascal's wager, my point was:

- if you have a non-zero percentage for the chance of God's existence
- then you are well advised to pay heed to the wager