Mankind has argued for eternity about the existence of God. Today, I will officially solve this great debate. .............Ok of course i can't do that. But i'll show you a cool little exercise.
I'm gonna show you some philosophy, it's called Pascal's Wager(the mathematician). Just to clarify, utility means goodness, happiness, or value that one gets from the result of a decision.
On Christianity, there are basically 2 possibilities, god exists, and god does not exist. A person can choose to A) believe in god, B) not believe in god. That means, a total of 4 scenarios are possible. See below.
Utilities of your Choice
probability god exists=10% p(not exist)=90%
probability god exists=10% p(not exist)=90%
Utiltity of Choose Christianity = 100(if god exists), -1(if god does not exist)
Utility of Not Choose Christ = -100(if god exists), 0(if god does not exist)So in the scenario you choose to be christian, and God exists, you go to heaven and get +100 utilility(or goodness).
In the scenario you choose christianity and god does not exist, you wasted some of your time, and get -1 utility.
Scenario you do not choose god and he exists, you go to hell and get -100 utility, cause it sucks to burn in hell.
Scenario you do not choose god and he does not exist, nothing happens.
Still following? I basically randomly chose the probability of God existing at 10%, you could argue it should be much higher, or lower, but lets just see what happens.
To calculate the expected Utility of being Christian = (10%)*(100) + (90%)*(-1) = 9.1
Utility of being non-christian = (10%)*(-100) + (90%)*(0) = -10
Therefore, just based on this simple exercise, Pascal argued that choosing Christ is a more rationale decision than non choosing him, based on maximizing utility. Even if we only assume God has a 10% chance of existing, the utility of taking a chance of him is much higher than the utility of not believing in him!
Now my belief is that when you choose religious preference, it should be based purely on your own beliefs, and not on expected utility. In other words, believe what your mind and your heart tells you. Use the information you have available to come to the right conclusion.
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6 comments:
this was interesting, ive heard another rationalized arguments about the existence of God and religion in general.
one of my favorites is the "what do you have to lose?" argument. basically if you pray to God, and get what you ask for, you win. if you pray to God and you don't get what you want, well then you didn't really lose anything.
there's more to this and a whole boatload of other arguments for and against the existence of God but I am just a lowly commenter and I will shut up now.
cacho, that was pretty insightful commentary about utility theory of god.
I thought you we're going to ask if God could heat a burrito so hot that he himself could not eat it.
ahahaha, another question for the ages...
lol but you're basing the entire calculation on an assumption of probability. the existence of something isn't based on probability, and certainly not the arbitrary 10-90 break down.
so yeah, i bet the math was fun, but the rest really isn't substantive
First, I certainly didn't come up with this, I'm not that smart. Pascal, the famous child prodigy, mathematician, and philosopher, created this model.
Yep, the entire model is based on one's judgement of utility of pre-determined outcomes as well as the probability of god existing. I simply used 10% to make a point. You can put in any probability, based on available information. So if there is incredible evidence pointing to non-existence of God, you would use a small number.
So, in response to the comment, I actually went and tried to figure out the % that would make both decisions yield equal expected utility. And, unless I screwed up the math, being Christian will always yield a higher expected utility.
Sorry, I actually did make an algebra mistake. The probability of God existing that would make either decision yield the same expected utility is 1/201, or about .5%
Again, don't misinterpret the meaning of the model. All it shows is the expected utility from your decisions, it says nothing about whether God actually exists or not.
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