Is belief in God just the ultimate in CYA?

by nvrgnbk 63 Replies latest jw friends

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  nvrgnbk

  Pascal's Wager

  Blaise Pascal offers a pragmatic reason for believing in God: even under the assumption that God’s existence is unlikely, the potential benefits of believing are so vast as to make betting on theism rational. Critics in turn have raised a number of now-classic challenges. According to intellectualism, deliberately choosing which beliefs to hold is practically impossible; according to the many-gods objection, Pascal’s wager begs the question and hence is irrational; according to evidentialism, Pascalian reasoning is epistemically irresponsible and hence immoral; and according to various paradoxes, reference to infinite values is decision-theoretic non-sense.

  1. A Reason for Believing in God

  There are two kinds of argument for theism. Traditional, epistemic arguments hold that God exists; examples include arguments from cosmology, design, ontology, and experience. Modern, pragmatic arguments hold that, regardless of whether God exists, believing in God is good for us, or is the right thing to do; examples include William James's will to believe and Blaise Pascal's wager.

  Pascal -- French philosopher, scientist, mathematician and probability theorist (1623-1662) -- argues that if we don't know whether God exists then we should play it safe rather than risk being sorry. The argument comes in three versions (Hacking 1972), all of them employing decision theory.

  For those who are unfamiliar with decision theory, the idea can be illustrated by considering a lottery. Suppose there are 100 tickets at $1 each and a jackpot of $1000. Is it rational to play? If you total the earnings and the expenses for all the tickets ($1000 - $100), then divide by the number of tickets, you find that on average each ticket nets $9. In comparison, not playing involves zero expense and zero payoff. Since $9 is preferable to $0, it is rational to play. Alternately, suppose there are 1000 tickets costing $2 each, a grand prize of $1000, and a consolation prize of $500. Then the total earnings and expenses ($1500 - $2000), divided by the number of tickets, yields a net loss of fifty cents for the average ticket. In this case, unless you have some reason to believe that a given ticket is not average, playing the game is irrational.

  To put the matter more generally: a given action (say, buying a ticket) is associated with a set of possible outcomes (say, winning the grand prize, winning the consolation prize, or losing); each outcome has a certain value or "utility" (the utility of winning might be the value of the prize minus the cost of the ticket); the "expectation" for each outcome is equal to its utility multiplied by the probability of its happening; the expectation for a given action is the sum of the expectations for each possible associated outcome. The course of action having the maximum expectation is the rational one to follow.

  http://www.iep.utm.edu/p/pasc-wag.htm

  Do you believe because it makes you feel better?

  Do you believe because the alternative is overwhelmingly horrifying to you?

  Do you believe because you feel that in so doing, you have everything to gain and nothing to lose?

  I have read some sincere people on JWD that believe for the above reasons.

  What about you?

  Is fear or calculated pragmatism driving your belief?

  Can an all-knowing benevolent deity be satisfied with worship/belief motivated by either?
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  eclipse

  What does 'CYA?' stand for? -Thanks in advace.
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  keyser soze

  I'm an agnostic, personally. Whatever little belief I may have in God is based on all those reasons stated above, not on anything of a scientific nature.
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  nvrgnbk

  Sorry, eclipse.

  I thought the expression was universal.

  Thanks for asking the question.

  Cover your ass

  From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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  The acronym CYA, meaning cover your ass (or arse), as well as being relatively widespread urban slang, is also commonly used by a number of professional bodies, in relation to procedures which are perceived to be purely defensive against legal penalties. The two most commonly cited examples are:

  • Physicians, who use CYA as a short-hand for referring to the practise of defensive medicine - i.e., ordering every conceivable test to try to insulate them from future medical malpractice suits if the patient fails to recover.

  • Bank compliance officers, who sometimes joke that KYC ("know your customer") and CYA are essentially the same thing - ie. that money laundering and terrorist financing will inevitably occur regardless of the amount of regulatory structures which put in place, [1] [2] but by complying with all the regulatory requirements the compliance officers can absolve themselves from future liability for failing to spot a money launderer or terrorist.

  But its use is also reasonably widespread among journalists [3] and structural engineers.

  As an example, just before the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster, the final launch approval by Morton Thiokol (the maker of the solid rocket boosters used during the launch) contained the following warning: "Information on this page was prepared to support an oral presentation and cannot be considered complete without the oral discussion". This warning, which was present even though the information was sent by fax, has been labelled as a CYA notice. [4]

  An alternative form is CYOA meaning cover your own ass (or arse).

  Do you think I should rename the topic " Is belief in God just the ultimate in self-preservation?"?

  I respect your opinion.

  Thanks.
• 

  BlackSwan of Memphis

  Do you believe because it makes you feel better?

  Do you believe because the alternative is overwhelmingly horrifying to you?

  Do you believe because you feel that in so doing, you have everything to gain and nothing to lose?

  I have read some sincere people on JWD that believe for the above reasons.

  What about you?

  Is fear or calculated pragmatism driving your belief?

  Can an all-knowing benevolent deity be satisfied with worship/belief motivated by either?

  a) No

  b) No

  c) No

  d) lol hmmm

  I believe there is Something because both me and my husband, and incredibly close friends have experienced Ghosts. Not some impersonal energy that is just there and there were no strings attached

  And ya know, spontaneous evolution just doesn't cut it for me. It just does not explain why there is another side.

  NOW

  I will readily admit I have not looked into the whole concept of parallel universes etc etc etc etc and I hope at some point I find enough of a reason to care to do so.

  At which point it is entirely possible my "beliefs" may change.

  Since I'm not exactly the sort of person that is into "worshipping" anything or anyone, I tend to think that it wouldn't be too traumatic of an event in my life
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  eclipse

  Ohh, right! ...No-no, don't change the title on my account, I am the only one who did not know that

  edited to add: (oops, I guess I'm not)
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  blueviceroy

  I have yet to find compelling reason to believe in the God handed out by organized religion. I have my own take on things and do believe there is a common source for all things in our percievable reality.I am incapable of defining what that source is due to our limited existence ,but just our inherent intelligence is sufficient to indicate to even the most obstinate individuals that all of reality came from some event or occurance at some point >That common source is what I believe to be God > I believe this not in hope of a payoff or out of fear but because it is a belief demanded by logic and reason. The only other option is to believe that things are as they are and will continue to be as they are forever and ever.Matter would just simply be sucked in by black holes and spewed out by white fountains (these fountains are a fairly recent discovery by astronomers) thus providing the necessary energy to fuel the continuing eternal universe and all life is just merely a side affect of matter. This is also something that I sometimes believe but it seems a bit of a stretch if sentience is a consideration , of what real use is the ability to ponder the nature of reality? I think the fact that we wonder about this is pointing to fact that maybe there is more to life than meets the eye.
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  nvrgnbk

  LOL!

  You're fine, eclipse.

  As Djiboutian is your first language, you could not be expected to be familiar with that expression.
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  Anti-Christ

  I think so. I would like to believe in a god, but when I think about it the only reason why I'm looking for a god is for reassurance. I see it as a child that is hurt and ask mommy or daddy to kiss the boo-boo to make it better. The kiss does not heal any thing but in the child's mind it makes a difference. Believing in a god, even if there is no god, comforts people.
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  stillajwexelder

  Yes - the old joke at college appraoching exam time.

  Question "Why is Grandma reading the bible so much?"

  Answer "cramming for her finals"