Pascal’s Wager – Does it Succeed?

I visit many different forums that have many different discussions. Most of these forums has an “off-topic” section where people discuss things that are not related to what the forum is for. Now, I don’t consider myself an expert in philosophy, but I do know enough to identify good and bad arguments for both sides. Keep in mind I don’t mean that every argument that fails is a bad argument, I just mean ones that are not even thought-provoking to start with. That is how I categorize these things.

But where does Pascal’s Wager fit in? For those who are not familiar with it, allow me to briefly explain it. Wouldn’t it be safer to simply believe things that you believe to be false? Even if you are 99% sure that God does not exist, why take the risk? Either you burn in hell for all eternity, or you go to church every Sunday. What seems easier to you?

Now, I know many people who are Christians because of this argument. So it has to have some merit to it. But there are problems that I see to accepting this. One, how exactly would it make my life better? I disagree with many things that the bible says, such as homosexuality. So accepting the theistic God means accepting theistic ethics. If we all thought that way, then that would not be a wager I am willing to fold on. I also believe that if God does exist, he may reward honest attempted reasoning rather than blind faith. He did give us free will after all. Richard Carrier expands on this as such:

Suppose there is a god who is watching us and choosing which souls of the deceased to bring to heaven, and this god really does want only the morally good to populate heaven. He will probably select from only those who made a significant and responsible effort to discover the truth. For all others are untrustworthy, being cognitively or morally inferior, or both. They will also be less likely ever to discover and commit to true beliefs about right and wrong. That is, if they have a significant and trustworthy concern for doing right and avoiding wrong, it follows necessarily that they must have a significant and trustworthy concern for knowing right and wrong. Since this knowledge requires knowledge about many fundamental facts of the universe (such as whether there is a god), it follows necessarily that such people must have a significant and trustworthy concern for always seeking out, testing, and confirming that their beliefs about such things are probably correct. Therefore, only such people can be sufficiently moral and trustworthy to deserve a place in heaven — unless god wishes to fill heaven with the morally lazy, irresponsible, or untrustworthy.[1]

One could also turn it around on the theist and argue he is also placing a wager. Because how is he so certain that theism is true? Why not Islam, or Scientology? The obvious response is that he finds it to be more likely through reason. But that’s just it! I also find atheism to be more likely than theism so that just defeats the argument altogether.

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[1] – The End of Pascal’s Wager: Only Nontheists Go to Heaven

News Bitz #1

Haven’t done one of these yet! Keep in mind that these may not always be about philosophy or anything, just a few things I find interesting around the web.

1 – We’re screwed: robot teaches itself to fire a bow and arrow.

2 – Over 120 retired military personnel claim Aliens are monitoring our nukes.

3 – Scientists make a small cloning advancement.

4 – Survey shows Americans know little about religion.

5 – Andy Whitfield, star of Spartacus, has been re-diagnosed with cancer(he had it earlier in the year but went into remission quickly) and will not be returning for the second season.

6 – I will be updating the about section later this week, as well as write in the four cosmological arguments. I will also continue my series on The Problem of Evil, and respond to Ryft from The Aristophrenium. Sorry I have not responded to your email correspondence in some time! But I lost the password for my email(recently regained it), and instead of continuing our discussion I figured I would just make a new blog post on it.

Is Porn Dangerous?

I apologize for not making a blog post in nearly two weeks; I just started school and had a lot of things to do outside of the computer. I also apologize for the lack of philosophy-based posts, and this will likely be my last one concerning ethics in a long time. I will focus more of theistic arguments and try to examine them carefully. If someone can point me to some unknown atheist arguments too, that would be great! Now on with the blog post about porn(my specialty).

I have a few Christian friends; some intelligent, some…. Not so much. And although they do not really care about how dangerous pornography can be, it is still an issue that I thought was an interesting one. A theist may use this as an argument against pornography, but the truth is that most would rather their daughter become a coal minor(much more dangerous job). This is because they’re concerned with the morality of porn. Even though this is the case, I will still address this argument.

Many female porn stars are ingesting human fecal matter because of ‘ass-to-mouth’. This is where during anal sex, the male takes his penis out and allows the girl to perform oral sex on him. For obvious reasons, eating shit is not healthy and this is causing many female porn stars to become very sick. Are the risks worth the rewards? They do it because it is what some of the viewing audience wants to see, not because they enjoy it(they may enjoy it, actually). The question is are the risks worth the rewards? I’ve seen this in several movies and it doesn’t necessarily turn me on(I was actually grossed out the first time I saw it), but in the end they’re doing it for a viewing audience. Is it worth it? There are not many ways you can totally protect them from that when they are essentially doing to the worst thing possible to absorb fecal matter.

Another thing that is becoming more prominent in modern-day porn is doing scenes without a condom. Why do they do this? Because the viewers want the scenes to be as real as possible. Seeing a condom is not something that the average viewer wants to see and I almost never see them. The question is the same: are the risks worth the rewards? Adult film stars are tested every two weeks for STD’s and drugs. They are not allowed to do scenes if they test positive. All of these risks increase dramatically if they do not wear condoms.

In the long run, porn is dangerous. Is it worth the money? Probably not, but for some of the actresses and actors it is. Likely because the porn industry is the biggest entertainment industry in the world, and that means some good money. This, like most jobs, involves risks and it is up to the people involved if they’re willing to take them.

The Moral Appeal of Theism and Its Simplicity

During my discussions with theists, I usually find that they try to sway me with ethics. They ask me questions that try to play with my emotions, and they often do. I know the routine responses to these questions, and I use them in my defense. Although I do believe they work I would like to explore responses that will make the theist think I make sense rather than think I am crazy.

But this brings me to my question, is theism an easier position to defend? From most debates I have seen between a theist and atheist, the theist usually seems to have the edge. The atheist has to explain why there is morals, why there is something rather than nothing, ect. That takes a whole lot longer to explain than God did it. That explanation often frustrates me, especially when theists are satisfied with ‘poof, magic’ being a good enough explanation.

Bringing me back to my original story, about a month ago when I was experimenting with desirism to some friends(which failed miserably) they demanded me to explain why there is nothing wrong with murder. Before I started, I asked them the same thing. The answer is incredibly easy to answer as a theist, murder is wrong because it is contrary to God’s nature. I find this explanation to be akin to murder is wrong because unicorns fly. Are humans really satisfied with this being the reason? Do we really need a magical sky genie to tell us what is right and wrong? I don’t think so.

Some theists disagree, and cannot seem to grasp that right and wrong can in fact exist outside of theism(a position accepted by millions). No matter how many different theories or explanations you bring up they will not accept it until a magical sky fairy is brought into the conversation. Now this is where morals start to make sense!

I admit that this is perhaps by most bias blog post yet, and can even be considered a little offensive. But I really don’t know any other way to spell this out to theists. I find ‘God did it’ to be the absolute worst explanation on the face of the Earth. It is not easy, it cannot be tested, it meets all of the requirements of a terrible explanation.

You’re a Fucking Human Being – Joe Rogan and Daft Punk

Mosque, And Constitution

The mosque at ground zero has been a huge issue for political news stations. Both sides bring up some points that I feel need to be addressed. Some are good… Some are not so good. For today’s blog post, I will explore both sides(as always) and come up with an unbiased conclusion(surprise!).

Turning on any political news station means running into a segment about this issue. Why are people so concerned with a Mosque being built on ground zero? When I watch the news, it is filled with video footage of people with signs protesting the Mosque being built. It is obvious that these people are offended by it, and that cannot be changed. But should these people be offended by it? I don’t think so.

That really is the only argument I am aware of against the building of the Mosque, so I’m not sure how I can explore that side of the argument any further. It is obvious that it has little depth, and becomes very flimsy when we get the constitution involved. It doesn’t matter if the majority of New York doesn’t want the Mosque being built near ground zero, it doesn’t even matter if 100% of the American population doesn’t want it being built. Their constitution states that they have a right to protest, but it also equally states that the Muslims have exactly the same rights to build the Mosque.

I don’t think that America should be restricted to one religion, and I don’t think that certain religions should be restricted. Sure, I can think that the Phelps family are a bunch of ignorant bigots, but they are well within their rights. All of the protests they do are peaceful. Well, not exactly what I would call peaceful, but they do not get violent with their protests. A private school can restrict black people to join it, but there is nothing wrong with that according to our constitution. I believe that we must not only support issues, but also have the ability to be able to protest them. This is what sets us(as North Americans) apart from most of the world. As former republican Bloomberg stated, we can’t always do what is easy, but we must do what is right.

10 Reasons Why Gay Marriage is Wrong(Humour)

01) Being gay is not natural. Real Americans always reject unnatural things like eyeglasses, polyester, and air conditioning.

02) Gay marriage will encourage people to be gay, in the same way that hanging around tall people will make you tall.

03) Legalizing gay marriage will open the door to all kinds of crazy behavior. People may even wish to marry their pets because a dog has legal standing and can sign a marriage contract.

04) Straight marriage has been around a long time and hasn’t changed at all; women are still property, blacks still can’t marry whites, and divorce is still illegal.

05) Straight marriage will be less meaningful if gay marriage were allowed; the sanctity of Brittany Spears’ 55-hour just-for-fun marriage would be destroyed.

06) Straight marriages are valid because they produce children. Gay couples, infertile couples, and old people shouldn’t be allowed to marry because our orphanages aren’t full yet, and the world needs more children.

07) Obviously gay parents will raise gay children, since straight parents only raise straight children.

08) Gay marriage is not supported by religion. In a theocracy like ours, the values of one religion are imposed on the entire country. That’s why we have only one religion in America.

09) Children can never succeed without a male and a female role model at home. That’s why we as a society expressly forbid single parents to raise children.

10) Gay marriage will change the foundation of society; we could never adapt to new social norms. Just like we haven’t adapted to cars, the service-sector economy, or longer life spans.

Existence: An Explanation

A guest blogger(who wishes to remain anonymous) has let me use some of his work for a blog post. I would also like to note that I do not necessarily agree with him, and all future work he decides to do.

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The mind operates under a consistent framework. That is, all states that the mind exists in are consistent with its past or future states. Principles such as the cosmological constant, the fine structure constant, kinematics, thermodynamics, etc, always remain consistent with our raw observations. If ever we find an inconsistency in our raw observations, we eventually find that it’s merely been our interpretation of those raw observations that were flawed. From this, we can infer that it’s not necessarily the case that this is a result of their being some mind independent reality.

When we deduce what the universe was like in its most primordial state, such as how it was moments after the Big Bang, we’re merely resolving the probability state in which these events existed in prior to being observed. That is to say, the Big Bang did not occur as a mind independent event; it exists as an experience that occurs in our present. In other words, the time lines of the universe and our conscious awareness are not identical. In fact, the timeline of our universe is highly analogous to the timeline one creates while understanding a fictitious storyline. When watching a movie, the viewer can deduce events of a character’s past. This does not imply that this character’s past events happened with respect to real life events. What it does imply though is that the viewer creates a time line that exists separately from one that references real life affairs. This is a perfect solution to a problem which arises in the field of quantum study; namely, retrocausality.

This theory is also the most convincing in terms of explaining the origins of our very existence. When one questions the idea of the universe resulting from conscious experience (and not the other way around), chances are their question will pertain to the origins of the conscious experience itself; or, better put, “What caused the conscious experience?” The answer to this would be that conscious experience simply exists uncaused, and that trying to think of a time when it did*’t exist will result in contradiction and thus the systematic breakdown of the thinking process. We have direct, experiential evidence of something existing uncaused. Such evidence would include various dreams, as well as the beginning of our own life relative to the universe! Be honest: Do you have any recollection of the first moments of your life? Additionally, do you ever remember how your dreams begin? It is clearly evident that it’s very well possible for our memories of the past to exist without their being an objective, mind independent past. And the fact that this resolution of the first cause paradox is supported by direct, experiential evidence, whereas others are not, makes it the most plausible of all current explanations pertaining to this study.

The Big Bang Theory is best not to be viewed as a theory that explains our existence. This theory is merely intended to explain the phenomena of cosmic expansion, such as the increasing recessional velocity of galaxies, and Cosmic Background Radiation. It says nothing about the origin of our universe or our existence. Which brings us to that question: What theory does offer an explanation for our existence? Philosophical and scientific evidence shows that the Biocentric Universe Theory does. This theory states that life (consciousness, more specifically) creates the universe, and not the other way around. In this theory, the past of the universe exists nothing more as our present experience. As we deduce what the universe was like before the existence of what we refer to as our material composition, we’re not actually discovering it as if it were already there; instead, we’re resolving it through act of observation.

Moreover to the “first cause” paradox, the Biocentric Universe Theory also offers a perfect explanation for the fine tuning of the universe. The reason why the universe is so fine tuned for life is because it is life that created the universe in the first place! This explanation is much more plausible than others, including the Anthropic Principle, the Multiverse Theory, and especially the Intelligent Design Hypothesis. All of the current alternative explanations of the fine tuning problem invoke the need for an objective reality, something that there exists no evidence for and additionally cannot escape the problem of circular definition (try defining “real” without making reference to conscious awareness). Because the other explanations of our existence and universal fine tuning lack sufficient evidence and parsimony, the Biocentric Universe Theory, a branch off of Monistic Idealism, can be deemed the most plausible explanations in terms of answering many proverbial, existential questions.

Why Does it Matter?

Recently, I was showing a few of my friends my blog and they asked me why I made one. They are devout Christians, and likely took offense to me showing them. I wasn’t sure why, but then I thought about it and came to a conclusion. The took offense to me showing them because although some sort of God may not exist, they are not comfortable with that conclusion. Why is this the case? Why does it matter whether or not God exists? Would your life be any different if the case were any different?

Perhaps there is some sort of meaning to God’s existence that I do no understand, and I probably never will. But I am way to stubborn to give up that easily so I took the liberty of researching this issue for this blog post, and my conclusion remains the same. But I can also understand why to some people God not existing would be absolutely devastating.

One of the main things that I understand is ethics, and the ethical appeal of religion is certainly easier to defend than atheism. I have not been yet convinced that objective moral values exist, and it is pretty much the deciding factor in me believing in some sort of God. People generally don’t like that idea that there is nothing actually wrong with murder, and I admit that is a hard thing to say. But simply because there is nothing actually wrong with it doesn’t mean that there is something right about it. People often take offense to such a blunt defense of error theory, but that really is just a misunderstanding of the argument as a whole.

What about the other side of the argument? Why does it matter? I myself don’t really think it does. If God does exist, I do not believe he is performing miracles right now. I don’t believe he is intervening in history. I don’t think that this means that we have some sort of purpose to our lives. Simply because I answer no to all of these questions doesn’t mean that it is impossible for someone to answer yes to them. Because they are, quite literally, impossible to prove or disprove. All opinions on them are entirely subjective. To some, it does matter. And we have no right to state otherwise.

Desire Utilitarianism – My Problem With It

Lately, I have been thinking about what I want to do with my life. I have decided that I want to make an impact on how humans view ethical problems as a whole. In my search for an ethical theory, I came across desire utilitarianism(desirism), and at first was pretty convinced by it. But now I no longer see it as a correct ethical theory and instead believe error theory to be more plausible. Allow me to explain how I arrived at this conclusion. I haven’t concluded a sure fire moral theory to follow, but I have concluded that desirism is not it.

I believe desirism to be false because in the end it does not solve the problem of morals being objective. When it is attempted to be explained, it really doesn’t get to what is really right and what is really wrong. It attempts to explain this by saying our desires have value, and it is up to us to ‘discover’ what is right and wrong. This is where I found problems with the reasoning of desirism. Allow me to explain.

The obvious answer to this is what if I desire to murder? Wouldn’t this render desirism an impossible moral theory to follow? The general response is that our desires have good and bad reasons on why we should follow them. Can you think of a good reason to murder? Surely you can think of many bad reasons to kill. But this is just begging the question. What makes those reasons bad, and the other ones good? What if i state that the reason for murder is justified and no matter what you state can change that? In the end, this becomes a purely subjective view of the world and I feel that it doesn’t answer what is truly right and wrong.

Using this theory, we must accept that some sort of objective truth exists in the propositions that we put forth. When I state that setting puppies on fire is immoral, that proposition has some sort of ethical truth to it. But why does it have this ethical truth? Why is setting puppies on fire an immoral act? Lets examine both sides to see the outcome.

Setting puppies on fire is immoral because it is harmful to the puppies, not only is it a cruel, evil, terrible act. But the puppies would probably argue against it(presuming they could). If we examine the person lighting the puppies on fire, what gives him the right to do this? I already mentioned that it was a cruel, evil, terrible act. But what does it take for an act to be considered this? How do we not know if petting those puppies is an evil, cruel, terrible act? What constitutes an act to be considered evil, cruel and terrible? How do we know that’s what constitutes it? How do we know that it’s not morally acceptable since the person burning the puppies is fulfilling his desire to do so? How do we know that does not outweigh all of the other desires against it? These questions are simply impossible to answer under this moral theory, and the problem that this moral theory proclaims to solve is simply false.