Pascal's Wager

Do you really have any serious doubts that it is better to deal honestly and charitably with others than to deliberately hurt and take unfair advantage of them whenever you feel you can get away with it?  If so, I hope I never have to have any business or social dealings with you!

The one thing that preachers consistently get right is the importance of treating others as you would like them to treat you.  I have found time and again that trying to live that principle is more conducive to real happiness and well being than any material advantage or influence that can be obtained by deliberately hurting or taking unfair advantage of others.  Failure to practice that principle has been and still is the cause of some of the worst miseries that beset mankind.  Failure to realize that is very nearly as foolish as believing that the Earth is flat!

This principle works regardless of whether there is any such thing as a hereafter, and even whether or not God exists (both of which I seriously doubt, by the way).

From Mirriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Tenth Edition:

Honesty: fairness and straightforwardness of conduct: adherence to the facts: sincerity

unfair: 1: marked by injustice, paritiality or deception: unjust 2: not equitable in business dealings

I get the distinct impression that no matter what words I could use to define these terms you would simply ask me to define those words in turn and then the words I use to define them, and so on in an infinite regression that would get neither of us anywhere. 

Straightforwardness is simply being what you say you are and doing what you say you will do.  I realize, of course, that most, if not all of us, come somewhat short of that ideal from time to time, but there can't be any reasonable doubt that it is a worthy ideal -- not in my mind, anyway.  If you don't think so, I hope I will never have the misfortune of meeting and having to deal with you in person.

As an example of unfairness, suppose I contract with you to provide a product or a service in exchange for something from you and then refuse to provide what I promised after getting from you what I wanted.  Would you accept that as valid example of unfairness?  Or how about if someone faked an injury on your property in order to sue you for everything he could get from you, would you regard that as unfair?  I could easily come up with many examples of conduct that would satisfy any reasonable person's criterion for unfairness or dishonesty.  I imagine your only response to that would be to demand that I define reasonable, and then to define any conceivable word I could possibly come up with to try to satisfy that demand.

Do you really have any serious doubts that it is better to deal honestly and charitably with others than to deliberately hurt and take unfair advantage of them whenever you feel you can get away with it?  If so, I hope I never have to have any business or social dealings with you!

The one thing that preachers consistently get right is the importance of treating others as you would like them to treat you.  I have found time and again that trying to live that principle is more conducive to real happiness and well being than any material advantage or influence that can be obtained by deliberately hurting or taking unfair advantage of others.  Failure to practice that principle has been and still is the cause of some of the worst miseries that beset mankind.  Failure to realize that is very nearly as foolish as believing that the Earth is flat!

This principle works regardless of whether there is any such thing as a hereafter, and even whether or not God exists (both of which I seriously doubt, by the way).

Don't disagree with me, it's  the wrong thing to do.

Whatever I say is true because I said it.

Whenever I make a statement I'm right until you prove I'm wrong.

I get the distinct impression that no matter what words I could use to define these terms you would simply ask me to define those words in turn and then the words I use to define them, and so on in an infinite regression that would get neither of us anywhere. 

Straightforwardness is simply being what you say you are and doing what you say you will do.  I realize, of course, that most, if not all of us, come somewhat short of that ideal from time to time, but there can't be any reasonable doubt that it is a worthy ideal -- not in my mind, anyway.  If you don't think so, I hope I will never have the misfortune of meeting and having to deal with you in person.

As an example of unfairness, suppose I contract with you to provide a product or a service in exchange for something from you and then refuse to provide what I promised after getting from you what I wanted.  Would you accept that as valid example of unfairness?  Or how about if someone faked an injury on your property in order to sue you for everything he could get from you, would you regard that as unfair?  I could easily come up with many examples of conduct that would satisfy any reasonable person's criterion for unfairness or dishonesty.  I imagine your only response to that would be to demand that I define reasonable, and then to define any conceivable word I could possibly come up with to try to satisfy that demand.

Quote from: Gunnar on June 06, 2008, 11:13:27 PM

I get the distinct impression that no matter what words I could use to define these terms you would simply ask me to define those words in turn and then the words I use to define them, and so on in an infinite regression that would get neither of us anywhere. 

Straightforwardness is simply being what you say you are and doing what you say you will do.  I realize, of course, that most, if not all of us, come somewhat short of that ideal from time to time, but there can't be any reasonable doubt that it is a worthy ideal -- not in my mind, anyway.  If you don't think so, I hope I will never have the misfortune of meeting and having to deal with you in person.

As an example of unfairness, suppose I contract with you to provide a product or a service in exchange for something from you and then refuse to provide what I promised after getting from you what I wanted.  Would you accept that as valid example of unfairness?  Or how about if someone faked an injury on your property in order to sue you for everything he could get from you, would you regard that as unfair?  I could easily come up with many examples of conduct that would satisfy any reasonable person's criterion for unfairness or dishonesty.  I imagine your only response to that would be to demand that I define reasonable, and then to define any conceivable word I could possibly come up with to try to satisfy that demand.

    You're getting ripped on, because your arguments are all surface ones. Guessed is getting you to define, because you use terms like better, good, best, right, wrong, etc.. without having any claim to their definition.

   I've read your arguments briefly, and it seems you're an atheist. So, who determines the Good, True, Beautiful. How, without a coherent definition of those concepts, make claims about what is inherently these qualities. Go deeper, right now we're wading in the shallow end, amid the urine pools of all amateur philosophies, languishing in petty brevity.

Quote from: unIreland on June 06, 2008, 05:50:15 AM

Quote from: Gunnar on June 05, 2008, 08:16:13 PM

Loving and helping others should be done because it is the right thing to do, not out of any expectation of reward or punishment in the hereafter for doing or not doing so!

Wow, what a compelling argument - the same compelling argument I've heard from every other preacher.

Are you disagreeing? If so then don't be such a fallacious hypocrite and come with at least half a counter-argument.

• Gunnar posts mostly regurgitated shit pudding about pascal's wager
• I make a jibe at him for using a moral absolutist term which is somewhat ironic given the subject (as I am conditioned to so)
• You, the only purely unconditioned person in the world that is full of original shit pudding, have a go at me for making a jibe at a term he used rather than making a statement about his regurgitated shit pudding.

So you don't have anything to add apart from the now standard response around here "lol morality is subjective" like it's some brilliant and controversial view point that nobody has ever heard before. You know we get this topic cropping up a lot on here and always the same old responses get spewed out all over the place like some kind of regurgitated shit pudding.

I'm tired of it, nobody has a clue what they're saying they just spout it out because they're trying desperately to go against the grain, never once thinking about the topic at hand just reacting to the buttons being pressed. You know what? I know morality is subjective. It's probably one of the most obvious and simple concepts that I know of.

When you say "I disagree there is a right thing to do" you are lying. You don't disagree, you've been conditioned to disagree by several things such as forums like this one, literature and the age we live in in general where religious dogma is slowly dying away and being replaced by a new dogma which I call "fucking idiot dogma". What you say is correct but you have no idea why you're saying it. I love it when people come barging into a thread like this and start shouting about morality and subjectivness and religion when they haven't a fucking clue what they're talking about or even why they think the way they do.

Here's the big fucking surprise for you though. I never mentioned morality. You did, and I knew you would because you don't have any ideas you just react in the standard way that you know how. So where does that leave your argument? Redundancy.

So why don't you use that brain of yours that you're obviously so proud of and actually do some thinking of your own. You might actually realise that there's nothing wrong with loving and helping people; let's face it, the only reason you so religiously subsrcibe to this new age dogma is because you're scared. Think about what I've said before you reply because so far you've given nothing to this thread; absolutely nothing.

Back onto Pascals Wager..." class="bbc_link" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"> Perfect response...as close to perfect as you can get.

  Oh, and this reminds me of a story from first year. I had just heard Pascals Wager, realized how bullshit it was when in the caf bathroom, so wrote on the stall: Fuck Pascal. When I came back to it a few weeks later, there was a theological discussion scrawled all over the stall...on both sides. Apparently, in private people feel strongly about Pascal.