Amusing

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POOBAH
The problem with Pascal's wager, as has been pointed out to you, is that
you
do in fact risk something by betting. As Walt pointed out, for most
Christians you are wagering a significant portion of your income, besides
the investments of time & senseless behaviors. Your argument that the
people
in question wouldn't have necessarily invested the money is besides the
point; the money is still down the drain.


TERRY
Most Religions offer a hope for an afterlife and since people are dying
every day, I certainly see this condition to be true.  The Blood issue is
not something I worry about, so I don't find it ironic.  Especially since
I know someone that die from taking tainted blood, now that is ironic.
Walt does not know what most Christians are doing, because he can only
speak for himself.  Furthermore, most Christians get quite a bit of
enjoyment out of what you call this senseless behavior and my argument
that the people would not necessarily invested the money is not beside the
point, if it is true.

POOBAH
I'm not sure if you're being deliberately dense, Terry, or trying at it.

The fact that most religions offer hope of an afterlife combined with the
reality of death is not proof of the existence of an afterlife, so once
again your analogy fails because there is no indication of a condition.

Secondly, the point still remains that people spend/waste/idle away a good
deal of time/money/effort/mental concern on religion, so belief is not
without cost. By pointing out that these people may get enjoyment out of it
you make your best attempt at an argument, but you will still need to show
an equivalency between the enjoyment & the cost before you can say that
belief costs nothing. Parenthetically I will add that most religious folk
don't accept this argument when it comes to gambling <shrug>. Further, given
that most religions forbid their adherents from engaging in certain
behaviors that might be enjoyable (eating certain foods, for example), the
earthly enjoyment gained from religion would have to exceed the cost to
still get the cost back up to nothing, and I think enjoyment is the last
thing most people think of when they think of going to church.

Thirdly, the point about the blood transfusions is Terry I doubt you would
criticize your own co-religionists for not accepting blood transfusions, but
that's essentially what you are faulting the atheists for in your flawed
analogy, hence the irony & special pleading.

While this is the real-life problem with Pascal's wager, there are other
logical & mathematical objections that deal with the choice issue you
mentioned above, but I guess I'll skip it in interest of ending an off-topic
thread.

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