Pascal's Wager should not be followed, it is flawed.

I. Decisions should be made based on maximizing self-benefit. My opponent made no objections to this premise. II. When there is uncertainty about A> whether a thing will happen, or B> how much benefit there will be on average if it does happen, the product of perceived probability and percieved average benefit if true is the best approximation of the benefit for decision-making purposes. My opponent apparently makes an objection here, but here's what he says: "There is absolutely not guarantee that the religion one is attempting to settle with actually will put forth infinite happiness. Not only is there this lack of a guarantee but there is absolutely no definite probability from which we can derive an equation from which we may determine probable benefit." Notice that in my example in premise III, I assigned the probability of Religion X being true to 1%, not 100%. My opponent is warping my own position, then attacking the position he's warped rather than attacking my actual position. I am not claiming that there is an absolute guarantee that a religion is true. To show his point, my opponent brings up LaVeyan Satanism. LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, Pascal's wager does not apply to EVERY religion. IT applies to religions that A> Offer infinite rewards if you follow them, and B> the person is UNSURE about. MY opponent deliberately chose such an off-the-wall religion because he knows the audience has no appreciable uncertainty about the religion. If anyone reading this has even CONSIDERED LeVayan Satanism, I would be shocked. Pascal's wager applies only to religions a person is uncertain about. It does not apply equally to all religions, and to some people, it does not even apply at all. III. Following a religion is a better decision than not following it based on I and II. Let me provide a re-analysis of my opponent's scenarios, which once again are completely void of the probablity factor. a. "Cut off your arm, kid. If you do, you might get eternal salvation." Benefits: 1. You might get eternal salvation [0% chance, +infinte motivation if true]. Losses: 1. You won't have an arm [-100 motivation] 2. It'll hurt [-10 motivation] 3. It might give you depression [50% chance, -100 motivation if true] Thus, we get: +0 for possibility of eternal salvation. [0% x infinite motivation] -100 for not having an arm [100% x -100] -10 for it hurting [100% x -10] -50 for possible depression [50% x -100] Because there is no reason AT ALL, for a person to believe this guy who just told us to cut our arm off, we can safely place the perceived possibility for his claims at 0%. Since 0% is truly 0%, not some infinitesimal, 0% x infinite ends up being 0 as well. Thus, since we have no reason to consider the possiblity of his statement, we should not be swayed by the 'possible' rewards. The same princeiple holds true for the next example. b. "Find Atlantis, get wealth from it." First, let's consider how likely it is that we'll find this wealth. First, the probability that we'll actually find atlantis. We'll call it 1%, even though it's smaller. Next, we need to decide how much wealth. While some guy said it was infinite, it's clear that that's impossible. However, it's clear that there would be a great deal of wealth involved in actually finding Atlantis. We'll say 100 million dollars. We'll say we're going to spend a combination of time and money that's worth 5 million into this project. [we'd have to put in much more to have a 1% chance of success, probably]. Benefits: Might get wealth. [1% chance, +100,000,000 motivation if true] Might get highly praised. [1% chance, +10,000,000 motivation if true] Losses: Will cost a lot of time and effort. [-5,000,000 motivation] Might be a laughingstock. [99% chance, -1000 motivation] So we get: +1,000,000 for potential riches. +100,000 for petential praise. -5,000,000 for putting in a bunch of man-hours and money. -990 for potential laughingstock-ness. = -3900990 motivation Decision: Don't bother As we see, when we consider the probabilities of these things, they don't end up being worth it. The same is true for gambling. Since the odds are always stacked against you, it's always a bad idea... UNLESS you ENJOY it enough that that benefit alone overcomes the average loss of money. So once again, by not considering probability in his arguments against me, my opponent is not attacking my position, he is only attacking a position that he himself has twisted from my own. My argument relies on (perceived probability) x (perceived average benefit IF true) = estimated average benefit Responding to "Other Problems" A. "Which religion" was already addressed in my R1. I'll tell you again. "For example: Religion X and Religion Y each offer eternal bliss if followed, but cannot both be followed simultaneously. Religion X promises an eternal bliss half as good as Religion Y, but it seems about 3 times as likely as Religion Y to be true. Thus, Religion X would win, since its infinite component is 1.5 times as great as Religion Y's." -Me So basically, whichever has a greater (perceived probability) x (perceived benefit if true). Perceieved probability can usually be based on prophecies, etc. B. "You're a sham, Edgeworth!" My opponent's argument here is that only people who follow a religion irrespective of Pascal's wager are considered true followers. Let's say it's 100 times more likely that god will only reward these "true" followers. This only reduces the probability of the infinite reward, it does not eliminate it. Let's say the perceived probability was 0.0000001% before. Now, it's 0.000000001. It still works the same, due to the infinite benefit. C. "I challenge Beem0r to explain one legitimate reason a god would not just simply come to us and tell us what had happened." Maybe he wants us to figure it out on our own. Watching the uncertainty in us is probably fun for him. Also, what if God wants to intervene in human affairs as little as possible? Coming down to us and having a chat would sort of go against this. Basically, what if he just doesn't want to? That's very legitimate.