Risk Analysis

Mind Over Matter

Registered Senior Member
When one does the "risk analysis" one must take into account the old adage sometimes refered to as Pascals Wager. While athiests discredit ro ignore it completely the fact is that God not only recognizes it but uses it to help many begin their journey.

The old adage is this.
If I believe in God and am wrong - then I have lost nothing
If I don't believe in God and am wrong - I lose much.
To the above I would add this.
If I believe in God, but in the "wrong way", - then, if he exists, I will likely be judged on my sincerity in seeking His Truth.

Athiests will say that believing, or practiceing, out of fear is not belief but hypocracy. Which to an extent I agree with.
However, look at what the Bible says about it, "The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom". (Ps 111:10)
So if one begins his belief and his journey out of "self serving" fear, it is none the less a start. Then as one coninues the journey and grows in wisdom, fear is replaced by Love until fear vanishes altogether.
This then is the goal as set forth by Christ in the Gospels. The Goal of being eprfect in Love.

Athiests can call into doubt many "historical facts" in the Bible. They can point to inconsistancies in christian faiths. But they cannot deny the root core of Christ' teaching which is Love.
i am trying to use this as my goal and guide and ANY of the bible canons will be sufficient.
Of course we must not forget or deny the necessity of the Love and discipline offered to us By Christ through the magisterium of His Church.
 
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Argument from inconsistent revelations.

Since this has been posted in the comparative religion forum, I can only assume that you are willing to accept the teachings of other religions as being relevant to the discussion, in which case the above link becomes highly relevant.

It asserts that it is unlikely that God exists because many theologians and faithful adherents have produced conflicting and mutually exclusive revelations. The argument states that since a person not privy to revelation must either accept it or reject it based solely upon the authority of its proponent, and there is no way for a mere mortal to resolve these conflicting claims by investigation, it is prudent to reserve one's judgment.

We can ignore the part about the unlikeliness of God's existence and just concentrate on the part about mutually exclusive revelations so far as it relates to the usefulness of pascals wager as an argument to accept religion.

EDIT: By the way, I was watching some Heaven's Gate videos on youtube a couple of weeks ago (initiation tapes, exit statements etc) and one thing that struck me was the testimony about how many members had left the group but had later returned to it after realizing that life just wasn't fulfilling on the outside. As strange as some of the members were, they clearly felt a sense of divine purpose and belonging. What we can learn from this is that some people will even see divine revelation in the idea that the earth is about to be "recycled" and that we must all escape onto a spaceship trailing behind a comet by committing suicide. Since many of these people did in fact follow through with said course of action (and it was within a "cult" that didn't try to stop you from leaving if you wanted to) one can only conclude that a significant amount of faith was in play.
 
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If I believe in God and am wrong - then I have lost nothing.
As the former Data Security Officer for one of the world's largest government agencies, I have considerable formal training and experience with risk analysis and risk management.

Your assertion appears to be correct, but only upon superficial analysis, and this error is what causes many risk analyses to fail disastrously, as yours does. It completely avoids discussion of the reality that only an insignificant percentage of theists merely sit at home basking in the love of their imaginary deity.

The overwhelming majority of theists belong to one of the world's organized religions. Most of these organizations (obviously I'm referring to the monotheistic, evangelical Abrahamic religions, which metastasize out of the Middle East like a cancer epidemic every couple of millennia and now dominate civilization) come with a gigantic list of requirements and prohibitions that go far beyond simple belief in a deity. They teach their members that they are just ever so slightly better than non-believers, and this gives them not just the right but the duty to at least harrass them and at worst persecute them in order to "save" them from their own "ignorance." Many of their diverse sects interpret this as a mandate to suppress the teaching and tolerance of "blasphemous" ideas and behavior within their countries, such as evolution, racial equality, first-class citizenship for women, homosexuality, music, dancing, and the keeping of mankind's oldest and most loyal companions as pets.

If the theist would kindly keep his belief-inspired behaviors to himself--such as refusing vaccination and ignoring scientific evidence--this would be bad enough but perhaps it would be a tolerable balance between individual rights and the maintenance of a civilized society. If he would just restrict it to his own family--not allowing "sinners" to patronize his business, sequestering his wife and daughters from public life (so long as they retain their legal right to flip off the asshole and walk out)--this would be markedly worse but a case could still be made for tolerating it in the name of "diversity."

But when these theists band together and achieve political power, all HELL breaks loose. They create entire nations in which members of one sect are given second-class citizenship by the dominant sect (the differences between which are so subtle as to be virtually indistinguishable to outsiders). Entire nations in which women are allowed to die in a burning building because it would be a "sin" for the fireMEN to carry them out. Entire nations in which gay people, people of African ancestry, adulterers and women who run for public office are murdered with impunity.

Worst of all, their nations go on campaigns to subjugate (or simply annihilate) other nations who do not practice the same brand of religion.

Belief in a god almost never stops at the personal level--at least not in Abrahamic societies. It almost always gives the believer a sense of superiority and a sense of mission: that he must spread his belief throughout the world--by violence, if necessary. Thus, the history of the monotheistic Abrahamic religions has been a non-stop campaign of violence and depravity.
  • The cleansing of the Roman Empire when it first adopted Christianity as its state religion. (If you haven't seen "Agora," rent it.)
  • The centuries of war between the Catholic (Rome) and Eastern Orthodox (Byzantium) empires over which version of Christianity was the "true" faith.
  • The destruction of the "heathen" civilization of Egypt by the Muslim armies of Caliph Omar.
  • The Crusades.
  • The Inquisition.
  • The century of non-stop war in Europe between the upstart Protestants and the entrenched Catholics that we shrug off as the "Reformation."
  • The obliteration of two of the world's six precious independently-developed civilizations (Inca and Olmec-Maya-Aztec), for being "pagans," by the Christian armies of Europe, with the blessing and encouragement of the Pope--right down to burning the Aztec libraries and melting down the golden art of the Incas.
  • The millennium of violent antisemitism that virtually defined European Christendom.
  • The Holocaust, which was the culmination of that millennium.
  • The current holy war, in which the Christians, Muslims and Jews threaten to annihilate each other (and themselves, not to mention all the rest of us) with nuclear weapons.
This is why we can't simply roll our eyes at the childish, irrational, antiscientific belief in gods, angels, demons, and other invisible and illogical supernatural phenomena for which no evidence has ever been found, and say, "Well some people are just stupid, let them have their silly fun."

Their "fun" constantly threatens to destroy us personally and our civilization as a whole.

We cannot continue to tolerate these dangerous fools. We have to educate them before they do even more damage.
If I don't believe in God and am wrong - I lose much.
But you could say exactly the same thing about any carefully constructed fantasy of evil. If you believe that the Klingons are coming and learn all of their submission rituals, and you are right, you will survive their invasion, although as a captive. But if you don't believe, they will kill you.

Does this mean it's rational for you to believe that FTL travel exists, that creation of a galactic empire is economically feasible in an Einsteinian universe, and that the Klingons have a technology that can detect our presence? Is this good risk analysis and risk management?

This is no different from belief in an invisible, illogical supernatural universe in which creatures and other forces exist which occasionally, capriciously, whimsically, and often angrily perturb the behavior of the natural universe.

No wait. Actually, it is quite different. People who believe in Klingons don't try to convince us that they have already been here. People who believe in gods constantly tell us that there is plenty of evidence for them. Yet the "evidence" never turns out to be valid. The best they come up with is one tortilla, out of the billions that are manufactured every year, which appears to have a scorch mark that resembles a person who lived two thousand years ago, of whom there are no portraits against which to compare it for accuracy.

The Rule of Laplace reminds us that extraordinary assertions must be supported by extraordinary evidence before we are obliged to treat them with respect. The extraordinary assertion of the existence of a supernatural universe has no evidence at all. To believe in it is irrational, foolish, in fact it is downright childish. It is much more reasonable to believe that one will win the lottery. After all, every few months someone actually does. The probability is so small as to be inconsequential, but nonetheless evidence exists to indicate that it is non-zero. There is no such evidence to justify belief in the supernatural.

Therefore we can give grudging respect to the person who thinks he will win the lottery, because out of the millions of them who say that, one will actually win it one day. By the same token, we owe only disrespect to people who think gods exist. They are wasting their mental resources and leading civilization down dark paths, in order to not admit that it is a fairytale like Santa Claus.
Atheists will say that believing, or practicing, out of fear is not belief but hypocrisy.
[Please do us the courtesy of using your spell checker.] You don't know much about atheists. It's not hypocrisy. It's simply irrational risk management. You only have a finite amount of mental energy. Use it to accomplish things that will improve your own life, the lives of your family members, the welfare of your community, and the advance of this wonderful superorganism we have created, of which we are the cells, named civilization. Don't squander it on an obsession with childish bogeymen. Look at how much intellectual energy and physical energy and resources people waste by veering off course to avoid crossing paths with a black cat, by redesigning their living space (or turning down a good deal on a perfectly nice house) to improve its feng shui, or by turning on a burner at sundown Friday and leaving it burning for 24 hours so they can cook on the Sabbath.

Supernaturalism impairs one's quality of life in very real ways. In aggregate, it is a drag on civilization
This then is the goal as set forth by Christ in the Gospels. The Goal of being perfect in Love.
[Please, please, please turn on your spell checker. You insult your readers with this lazy, haphazard writing.] Setting a goal does not automatically ensure that it will be met. The world's Christian population, taken in aggregate, has not acquitted itself well and, if Jesus were a real person, he would be ashamed of the things they have done in his name. The destruction of an entire civilization, much less two of them, is a "sin" which can never be atoned. There is nothing Christians can do to compensate the world for the wealth of philosophy, art, history, and culture that they destroyed in the New World. If Christianity survives for a million years, it will still be haunted by a legacy of unspeakable evil that will forever prevent it from deserving anyone's respect.

And we don't even need to talk about the Holocaust, in which Christians attempted to actually exterminate an entire people. And please don't give me the facile bullshit about how that was fascism, not Christianity. Those people were Christians and they wholeheartedly supported it. Very few of them spoke out against it, and when the war was over and we experimented with letting the Jews move back to their old homes in Poland, the motherfucking Polish Christians started killing them all over again.
Athiests can call into doubt many "historical facts" in the Bible. They can point to inconsistancies in christian faiths. But they cannot deny the root core of Christ' teaching which is Love.
I have no problem with Jesus. I love Jesus the same way I love Winnie the Pooh, Frodo Baggins, Santa Claus, Robin Hood, and dozens of other fictional characters. Fiction teaches us great things. It teaches us that there is good inside of us and all we need to do is to tap into it.

But I absolutely despise the religion that has sprung up in Jesus's name, and if you think Jesus would be even slightly pleased with it, you are too far gone to reason with. On the balance, measured over the roughly two thousand years since Jesus's alleged birth, lifetime and death, Christianity has accumulated a legacy of overwhelming evil that will haunt humanity until our sun becomes a red giant and boils the life off of this hapless planet.
i am trying to use this as my goal and guide and ANY of the bible canons will be sufficient. Of course we must not forget or deny the necessity of the Love and discipline offered to us By Christ through the magisterium of His Church.
You've got to be joking. It is the churches and the church leaders who have led their followers to commit these unspeakable crimes against humanity.

If Christianity were merely a personal belief system, it might work. But when Christians get together, they rise up in unison in paroxysms of violence every two or three generations, and undo what little good work they might have accomplished between wars.

Christianity is evil and it is the duty of every decent, rational, educated human being to speak out against it.
 
Here is how I see it. Get a red letter version of the bible. A red letter version of the bible will have just the teachings of Jesus, in red letters, to help separare his teachings from the other teachings in the bible. This limited set of primary Christian teachings does not suggest any of the atrocities you mention.

When Christianity merged with Rome, Roman ways were added to Christianity, which went beyond the scope of the red letter teachings. These were beneficial to the needs of Rome. For example, the red letter version says, Blessed are the poor. Rome was not about being poor, but was much more about opulence; they gots its. Blessed are the meek. Rome was not about being warm and fuzzy, but more about the power of cold steel, etc.

If you look at Rome, compared to the red letter version, it was also about art, sculplture, philosophy, science, law, social classes, paganism, atheism, with these influences all impacting the red letter version. The atheist-christians played their own role in the atrocities being part of the group but not under the red letter teachings since god is dead, but the needs of day to day is right in front of us.

Although history has Rome disappearing in the dark ages, it never really ended, but merged into the Holy Roman Empire and the Catholic Church. That was what was suppose to happen after the transgression.

The outward weakness of the red letter Christians, needed the strengthes of Rome to survive, less other violent religions do them in. These same religions won't bully Rome the same way, who will protect their own, until it was time. The atheists and Christians of today, were once on the same team as the holy roman empire. The atheists had more options for atrocity. Who presecutes who nowadays? The atheists are on the offensive and the red letter are on the defensive. Atrocity is offensive not defensive.
 
Pascal's "wager" depends upon the almost perfectly circular insistence that belief in Christianity is the only way to avoid a grave threat that's only visible to those who believe in Christianity.

If we don't already believe in Christianity, then we aren't likely to have any concern about the damnation that we supposedly face for not believing in Christianity.

Historically, I don't think that Pascal really intended his "wager" to be an argument that would convince atheists and non-Christians.

He was a mid-1600's French mathematician, physicist and intellectual who suffered some kind of psychological crisis in midlife that rendered him devoutly Christian in his last few years. (He died relatively young.)

The problem that faced him at that point was justifying his newly hightened religiosity to himself.

He agreed with the rather skeptical Paris deist circles that he socialized with that there wasn't really any convincing evidence for special religious revelation. Nevertheless, he still found himself attracted to a rather Protestant-style Catholic Jansenism for psychological reasons that had very little to do with evidence.

He'd been thinking about probabilities and the rationality of gambling strategies around that time, so he created what seemed to be a novel game-theoretical argument for why it was rational for him to believe in Christianity even without any credible evidenciary justification for that belief.

He convinced himself (or at least tried to) that if Christianity was true, then believing in it had an infinite pay-off while disbelief had an infinite cost. But if Christianity wasn't true, he figured that it didn't matter what he believed and that there would be no cost to believing.

This line of reasoning simply assumes that Christianity is the one and only religious option. The fact that the world offers lots of religious choices wasn't universally recognized in Europe in the 1650s, despite that date already being 150 years after the voyages of discovery.

But what if Christianity is false while another religion, Indian Saivism say, is actually the one true road to salvation? Would a shot-in-the-dark belief in Christianity result in Pascal receiving no payoff from the Christian illusion while his false belief prevents him from winning whatever payoff Saivism offers?

And there's another and perhaps more fundamental objection as well--

Intellectual integrity demands that we affirm truths because we honestly believe that they are true.

It's intellectual dishonesty to affirm that something is true with no other justification for the assertion than our calculation that making it is in our personal interest.

That's not very remote from lying.
 
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Christianity is evil and it is the duty of every decent, rational, educated human being to speak out against it.
*************
M*W: Thank you for saying that. It seems that everywhere I go, be it Sciforums, talking with family members, friends, and even strangers, I get lambasted for my personal opinions. I never bring it up to anyone first, but when I'm constantly confronted by christians who want to bless me, pray for me, lay hands on me or save my soul, I feel the need to profess my own non-belief to shut them up. Most of the time they are stunned and speechless. Sometimes they run from me like I'm carrying the plague. Other times they get belligerent and argumentative. I feel that it is necessary to continue expressing my opinions of non-belief when the opportunity arises. Otherwise, who else is going to do it? Maybe if these people heard it a few times, they might check into the rationality of it all. The worst case scenario is that if they study their religion more, they might begin to see the lies come through. The more polite ones will ask, "can I pray for you?" I simply say, "no thank you, I'm an atheist."
 
Here is how I see it. Get a red letter version of the bible. A red letter version of the bible will have just the teachings of Jesus, in red letters, to help separare his teachings from the other teachings in the bible. This limited set of primary Christian teachings does not suggest any of the atrocities you mention.

When Christianity merged with Rome, Roman ways were added to Christianity, which went beyond the scope of the red letter teachings. These were beneficial to the needs of Rome. For example, the red letter version says, Blessed are the poor. Rome was not about being poor, but was much more about opulence; they gots its. Blessed are the meek. Rome was not about being warm and fuzzy, but more about the power of cold steel, etc.

If you look at Rome, compared to the red letter version, it was also about art, sculplture, philosophy, science, law, social classes, paganism, atheism, with these influences all impacting the red letter version. The atheist-christians played their own role in the atrocities being part of the group but not under the red letter teachings since god is dead, but the needs of day to day is right in front of us.

Although history has Rome disappearing in the dark ages, it never really ended, but merged into the Holy Roman Empire and the Catholic Church. That was what was suppose to happen after the transgression.

The outward weakness of the red letter Christians, needed the strengthes of Rome to survive, less other violent religions do them in. These same religions won't bully Rome the same way, who will protect their own, until it was time. The atheists and Christians of today, were once on the same team as the holy roman empire. The atheists had more options for atrocity. Who presecutes who nowadays? The atheists are on the offensive and the red letter are on the defensive. Atrocity is offensive not defensive.
I posted this on another thread. It took a couple of complimentary paths. One relating to the Bible, another relating to the validity of the Church’s authority and finally a look at the fruits of each Church system.

First we must start with the acceptance of Christ, His life, death and resurrection.
So. If we accept Christ we need to ask some questions to arrive at a decision as to which church is correct.

First let’s deal with the Bible since that is a crux of teaching and the center of what we as Christians know of Jesus.
1) Do all Christians accept the Bible as the Word of God? - Yes
2) Do all Christian bibles have the same books in them? (the same canon) - No
3) Does it make sense that the “Holy Word of God “, used by Christians should have differing canons? - No
4) Then why the difference and which canon is correct? - This led me to an investigation of how the Bible as we use it today came about. The result was that the universally accepted Bible in the Catholic Church from around 400 AD to 1500 AD, 1100 years had 73 books in it. It was at the time of the Protestant Reformation that the reformers removed the seven OT books AND, it should be noted, Martin Luther wanted to toss several NT books as well.
Upshot? The Catholic Church compiled the Bible as we use it today. We accept these books as The Word of God because of the Authority of the Catholic Church. The Protestant denominations, who place such high regard on The Bible” and declare, as it says in revelation, that not one word is to be changed, started out by changing The Bible.

Now – How to deal with the issue of who is right among the Churches.
1) Can the Holy Spirit inspire or teach conflicting doctrine? - No
2) Did Christ establish a community/Church? - Yes
3) Did Christ establish multiple independent Churches? - No (Christ says “Church”)
4) Did Christ give this Church Authority? - Yes (Mt 16:18-19 and Mt 18:15-19) [indents] Note that these are the only 2 places in the Gospels where the term Church is used. [/indent]5) Did Christ Promise to be with His Church, to not leave us orphans and to Send the Paraclete? - Yes
6) Did Christ leave us a Church to guide us, or did He leave us a book? - A Church

So – Based on the above, we can see that, Christ established a Single, Authoritative Church, that hell will not overcome, and has the authority to Bind and Loose. Since Christ cannot lie, it follows that His Church will be in continuous and visible existence and not fall into apostasy as some claim, but will persevere. (Which is not to say individuals, even high ranking ones, will not fall into apostasy.) She will also act authoritatively in matters of faith and morals. The only church that fits that description is the Catholic Church. That same Church acted authoritatively in selecting the Books to be included in the canon of the Bible.
Therefore the correct church, for correct teachings on faith and morals must be the Catholic Church.

Now let’s look at the “Fruits” of “Catholicism” and “Protestantism”.
CatholicismCatholicism is built upon the Three legged stool of Scripture, Tradition (Oral teachings), and Magisterium. Each is critical to the Fullness of Truth and unity. We can also add Apostolic Succession – That is we have teachings not only from the Apostles but from those who were taught by the apostles and so on.
Catholicism has been messy from the beginning having to work constantly to define doctrine, answer questions and fight those who would teach a different Gospel. However the Church places a huge emphasis on Unity. Christ has One Mind. There is One Truth. There has been and will continue to be discussion, argument and within the Church. However, such problems are dealt with within the structure of the Church and decisions reached prayerfully in unity and always with reference to the Holy Bible as well as the many great writings of the Church fathers and Doctors. Once a decision is reached by the Church (always after much prayer, discussion and consultation) the faithful who might still disagree submit their will to the Will of Christ in The Church thus maintaining unity and fulfilling Christ’s command to “Tell it to The Church”, and reinforcing Paul’s teaching that it is The Church that is the “Pillar and Foundation of Truth”.

ProtestantismProtestantism in it’s most basic, submits that it is The Bible Alone, interpreted by the “Spirit Led individual”. That will lead one to Christ. However it became quickly evident that there were different “spirit led” interpretations flying around. Even the Reformers themselves could not come to agreement and since none was willing to submit their own “Spirit Led” wills to the others in for the sake of Truth and Unity, they each went their own way.
The result of this is many – many different and conflicting “Bible Based, and Spirit Led” beliefs among protestants and no way to distill them into one unified whole. Even the Old and established Protestant Churches are finding themselves splitting apart because they have no authority to tell the schismatic that they are wrong.

So – The fruits of Catholicism is Doctrinal Unity built upon Scripture, Tradition, and Teaching Authority. The Fruits of Protestantism is doctrinal chaos built upon the individual right of self interpretation.

You shall know them by their Fruits.
 
The fact that the world offers lots of religious choices wasn't universally recognized in Europe in the 1650s, despite that date already being 150 years after the voyages of discovery.
Hence, it then does not prove that there is "one" right. So if the evidence is weak, why reject it instead of examining its context? :)
 
Rav,

I think Pascals Wager is not a proof of God per se. To me, it is more of an appeal. It tries to appeal to someone's sensibility by saying "what do you have to lose?"

A man by the name of Glenn Miller has a somewhat detailed method of discerning between different revelations which is probably much more than I could give here, so here it is http://christianthinktank.com/process1.html
 
Hence, it then does not prove that there is "one" right. So if the evidence is weak, why reject it instead of examining its context?

It's not clear how Pascal's Wager makes any sense if divorced from the idea that only one religion (as in "religious tradition", such as either Roman Catholicism, Calvinism, Saivism, etc.) is the right one.
 
It's not clear how Pascal's Wager makes any sense if divorced from the idea that only one religion (as in "religious tradition", such as either Roman Catholicism, Calvinism, Saivism, etc.) is the right one.
Quite right. Pascal's argument is aimed at atheists because he knows they do not want to find the idea of God reasonable. What he is therefore doing is to appeal to their sense of self interest. What if the atheist is wrong (that is, if you can find an atheist who is humble enough to admit he might be wrong)?

Before we continue this charade... do you believe in God so that you will get into heaven? Seriously, is that why you believe in God?

If the answer is no, then why do you think I would believe in God to get into heaven?


God plants in us the desire to be with him through all eternity. So yes, I believe because I want to be in heaven. I think you should believe in God for the same reason. If you are fighting God's will, it is up to you, not me, to figure out why.
 
Quite right. Pascal's argument is aimed at atheists because he knows they do not want to find the idea of God reasonable.
Um, no. It doesn't work with atheists. And you're wrong on the emboldened part. It's not a question of "not wanting" to find the idea reasonable, it just that the idea isn't.

God plants in us the desire to be with him through all eternity.
That's self-evidently incorrect.
 
Um, no. It doesn't work with atheists. And you're wrong on the emboldened part. It's not a question of "not wanting" to find the idea reasonable, it just that the idea isn't.


That's self-evidently incorrect.
"Human beings must be known to be loved; but Divine beings must be loved to be known." Blaise Pascal
 
To me, it is more of an appeal. It tries to appeal to someone's sensibility by saying "what do you have to lose?"

What do I have to lose by trying to force myself to believe (and adhere to the teachings of) some random religion knowing full well that even if I picked correctly, it's unlikely that I will reap any of the rewards that are offered anyway because my faith wasn't genuine? Seriously?

Contrary to popular opinion among theists, it takes a lot more than open-minded investigation of religious claims to become religious. It takes someone who is also willing to put more emphasis on the usefulness of emotion than rational thought when it comes to determining the truth. Religion is ultimately about what "feels" right. Committing suicide to escape the recycling of the earth "felt" right to members of the Heaven's Gate cult.
 
Let's see if I was wrong. One question. If God stood in front of you today would you kneel down and worship Him?
Three questions:
how would I know he was god?
why should I "worship" him? (I doubt I would).

And how does your question relate at all to my comment?
 
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