Pascal's wager was not at all anchored to any specific attestations, you are taking his wager and reinterpreting it to give it some kind of legitimacy that it never originally held. The entire point of the wager was to justify belief in the absence of sufficient evidence, by appealing to the asymmetry between infinite reward and finite cost. If your now arguing that Christianity is more credible because of historical evidence, so be it and stick to it but you've abandoned Pascal's wager and moved on to an entirely different argument.

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anonymous908213 4 hours ago | parent [-]

> by appealing to the asymmetry between infinite reward and finite cost

The supposed asymmetry only holds in a framework that assumes the Christian God as the only possibility. The point is that it's possible for there to be a god that isn't Yahweh, and that god might sentence you to eternal torment for believing in Yahweh, so in fact believing in Yahweh can result in infinite cost, destroying the value of the wager.

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Maxatar 4 hours ago | parent [-]

Not at all. The asymmetry holds whenever the other possibilities don't introduce an opposing infinite penalty for belief. There could be countless other gods who are indifferent to Christian belief, reward it, or impose only finite penalties, and the asymmetry would remain intact.

The hypothetical god who punishes believers of a Christian God is a legitimate objection to Pascal's wager, but it doesn't establish the original assertion I objected to. You're confusing demonstrating that the asymmetry isn't guaranteed with demonstrating that it requires Christianity to be the only possibility. Those are two entirely different claims.

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pixl97 3 hours ago | parent [-]

>The asymmetry holds whenever the other possibilities don't introduce an opposing infinite penalty for belief.

Or in a stronger argument. It only works when you're the only possible infinity that exists with the set of possible requirements. The moment another infinity exists that has even a single conflicting requirement then it falls apart.

Using language we can create infinite conflicting infinities which makes Pascals wager a weak argument in a generalized set.

Now, if someone vibe coded up Roko's basalisk into a real entity that was copying humans and torturing them for eternity that's a different story, at least until someone made a second incompatible basalisk.

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TimTheTinker 2 hours ago | parent [-]

I agree Pascal's wager is generally weak. But I think the strongest reason it's weak is because people in other worldviews, particularly Islam, have a tremendous amount to lose if they convert to Christianity but it turns out Islam is true.

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pixl97 2 hours ago | parent [-]

>but it turns out Islam is true.

I may be misinterpreting this but

Lol, wut.

	▲	TimTheTinker 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I'm just saying from the viewpoint of people in Islam (or in Islamic nations)... the tradeoffs look a lot different from that perspective. Almost nothing in common with a 17th century French philosopher in Christian Europe