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A video game community filled my nephew's final days with joy

theguardian.com

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Re: A video game community filled my nephew's final days with joy

#71

Post by Retric »

rubinelli wrote: post #62
Retric wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If following a religion has zero downsides in life, then it needs no justification. However, the act of trying to justify religion suggests it’s not inherently optimal. So, the actual counter argument to Pascal’s wager is this. If there are some true god(s) that care they might have an actual objective scale, but as it’s unknowable any sacrifices for a specific religion are unwise. In other words we don’t know if the…

We promote and justify all kinds of actions and attitudes that are not immediately beneficial, like eating properly and exercising. For the religious person, a virtuous life is in itself a reward.

That’s orthogonal to Pascal’s wager. Various religions all have tangible costs and rewards. Pascal’s wager is essentially trying to decide how valuable the rewards after death offered by each religion are when you can’t verify if they exist.

My point is the availability heuristic makes biases people to overestimate how likely each religion is to be true. (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Availability_heuristic) The set of all possible religions would first need to be limited before that specific line of thinking becomes relevant. Which essentially means the argument is meaningless as you must first assume a religion is likely before it would tell you to follow it.

Re: A video game community filled my nephew's final days with joy

#72

Post by Retric »

em-bee wrote: post #68
Retric wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If following a religion has zero downsides in life, then it needs no justification. However, the act of trying to justify religion suggests it’s not inherently optimal. So, the actual counter argument to Pascal’s wager is this. If there are some true god(s) that care they might have an actual objective scale, but as it’s unknowable any sacrifices for a specific religion are unwise. In other words we don’t know if the…

If following a religion has zero downsides in life, then it needs no justification. However, the act of trying to justify religion suggests it’s not inherently optimal. let me rephrase that: If following civil laws has zero downsides in life, then they need no justification. However, the act of trying to justify certain laws suggests that they are not inherently optimal life with zero downsides does not exist. we nee…

That’s not really what I saying I should have added net downside.

Anyway, you don’t need to opt out of religion, that’s the default state. To use an obvious example, at birth people don’t have a codified view of what happens after death.

People can and often are biased based on their upbringing, but that in effect takes effort from an existing believer to communicate their beliefs directly or via artifacts like books. Without that, nothing forces you to form an option.

Re: A video game community filled my nephew's final days with joy

#73

Post by Stratoscope »

scotty79 wrote: post #47
Arbalest wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pascals wager is garbage, it underestimates the time, effort and thought cost if there is no god. What sort of reflections would otherwise be meaningful? All the regrets they have? It's a kid, he had cancer, what could he have done differently?

Also Pascal wager is wrong because it assumes that believing in god is free or almost free, but if there's no god then the only thing you have is your life and by believing in god you are giving up the only opportunity to live your life the best way you can. Instead you taint everything you got with twisted and wicked thoughts like the one user 'sdegutis' presented: "Kid should suffer more before he died. Because sup…

Whatever anyone thinks of sdegutis's comment (and I didn't like it much either), what they actually wrote bears no resemblance to the "twisted and wicked thoughts" that you made up and put in their mouth.

From the HN guidelines:

Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.

Re: A video game community filled my nephew's final days with joy

#74

Post by em-bee »

Retric wrote: post #72
em-bee wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If following a religion has zero downsides in life, then it needs no justification. However, the act of trying to justify religion suggests it’s not inherently optimal. let me rephrase that: If following civil laws has zero downsides in life, then they need no justification. However, the act of trying to justify certain laws suggests that they are not inherently optimal life with zero downsides does not exist. we nee…

That’s not really what I saying I should have added net downside. Anyway, you don’t need to opt out of religion, that’s the default state. To use an obvious example, at birth people don’t have a codified view of what happens after death. People can and often are biased based on their upbringing, but that in effect takes effort from an existing believer to communicate their beliefs directly or via artifacts like books…

could you expand on the whole phrase with net downside please? i don't get what you mean here.

Re: A video game community filled my nephew's final days with joy

#75

Post by JonathanMerklin »

scotty79 wrote: post #47
Arbalest wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pascals wager is garbage, it underestimates the time, effort and thought cost if there is no god. What sort of reflections would otherwise be meaningful? All the regrets they have? It's a kid, he had cancer, what could he have done differently?

Also Pascal wager is wrong because it assumes that believing in god is free or almost free, but if there's no god then the only thing you have is your life and by believing in god you are giving up the only opportunity to live your life the best way you can. Instead you taint everything you got with twisted and wicked thoughts like the one user 'sdegutis' presented: "Kid should suffer more before he died. Because sup…

I am of the opinion that Pascal's wager is mostly wrong because it's a false dilemma. For each diety/religion R that you're considering, simply construct a diety that will punish you for believing in R and reward you otherwise. Alternatively, construct dieties that reward you for atheism. The point is that it's not a 2x2 matrix of (Atheism, Theism) x (God is real, God is not real).

Re: A video game community filled my nephew's final days with joy

#76

Post by di4na »

nrmn wrote: post #59
di4na wrote: post #29

o7

fyi to the downvotes: o7 is a farewell salute. https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/3sdixv/what...

Coming from Eve Online, it is even older :D. I have no problem with the downvote. What matters is to do it.

Re: A video game community filled my nephew's final days with joy

#77

Post by Retric »

em-bee wrote: post #74
Retric wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s not really what I saying I should have added net downside. Anyway, you don’t need to opt out of religion, that’s the default state. To use an obvious example, at birth people don’t have a codified view of what happens after death. People can and often are biased based on their upbringing, but that in effect takes effort from an existing believer to communicate their beliefs directly or via artifacts like books…

could you expand on the whole phrase with net downside please? i don't get what you mean here.

Basically, using whatever measurement system you choose their is the best possible outcome after cost benefit analysis.

Aka if religion Alpha offers the best possible tangible outcomes using whatever metrics you are bashing this choice on and it also offers the best possible unknowable outcomes then their is little reason to pick anything else. By tangible rewards/costs I mean things that could be theoretically verified like joy, physical fitness, social acceptance, positive legacy etc. and by intangible rewards/costs I mean what the gods / spirits / whatever think of you, what happens in the afterlife etc.

Essentially it’s only if you rank religions by tangible rewards and intangible rewards separately and end up with a different first place that the intangible rewards become an issue.

Re: A video game community filled my nephew's final days with joy

#78

Post by dang »

sdegutis wrote: post #34

Or alternatively, these are very important days in a person's life where serious thought and reflection might actually be needed, in the event that there really is something after this life, and our decisions in this life do actually have consequences on that. But instead, this person was offered constant distraction until the very end.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20368325.

Re: A video game community filled my nephew's final days with joy

#79

Post by dang »

scotty79 wrote: post #48
sdegutis wrote: post #34

Or alternatively, these are very important days in a person's life where serious thought and reflection might actually be needed, in the event that there really is something after this life, and our decisions in this life do actually have consequences on that. But instead, this person was offered constant distraction until the very end.

If I needed anymore arguments about immorality of religion, immorality of passing fairy tales as even potentially real, I got your comment.

Religious flamewar is not allowed on HN. Please don't post like this, regardless of how wrong another comment is or how you feel about it.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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