If following a religion has zero downsides in life, then it needs no justification. However, the act of trying to justify religion suggests it’s not inherently optimal.
let me rephrase that:
If following civil laws has zero downsides in life, then they need no justification. However, the act of trying to justify certain laws suggests that they are not inherently optimal
life with zero downsides does not exist. we need to make some compromises if we want to live together as a society. be those civil laws or a religion is a matter of choice, but we can't opt out.
the need to justify religion does not invalidate religion any more than the need to justify laws invalidates those.
as a society we still need to decide which laws we want to implement.
and as an individual everyone needs to investigate for themselves which religion (if any) to follow.
That’s not really what I saying I should have added net downside.
Anyway, you don’t need to opt out of religion, that’s the default state. To use an obvious example, at birth people don’t have a codified view of what happens after death.
People can and often are biased based on their upbringing, but that in effect takes effort from an existing believer to communicate their beliefs directly or via artifacts like books. Without that, nothing forces you to form an option.
Basically, using whatever measurement system you choose their is the best possible outcome after cost benefit analysis.
Aka if religion Alpha offers the best possible tangible outcomes using whatever metrics you are bashing this choice on and it also offers the best possible unknowable outcomes then their is little reason to pick anything else. By tangible rewards/costs I mean things that could be theoretically verified like joy, physical fitness, social acceptance, positive legacy etc. and by intangible rewards/costs I mean what the gods / spirits / whatever think of you, what happens in the afterlife etc.
Essentially it’s only if you rank religions by tangible rewards and intangible rewards separately and end up with a different first place that the intangible rewards become an issue.
> and as an individual everyone needs to investigate for themselves which religion (if any) to follow
I disagree. Nobody needs to investigate any religions. There's no knowledge based reason to do that. You might want to join religion for the community but even then there rarely any investigation necessary. It's sufficient to just follow their practices.
if you just want to join a community, and don't actually care what the community stands for, sure.
but we are discussing pascal's wager.
if god exists, you want to do what god asks for. that requires that you investigate what god is really asking for. joining a random community and just following their practices will help you do that. you have to investigate and figure out whether these practices make any sense.
you may or may not find an answer. either way it's up to you to keep searching (maybe there is a better answer).
sure, you can take pascals wager on blind faith. but that would be a pure gamble. i prefer to make an educated guess. and that requires investigation.
> sure, you can take pascals wager on blind faith. but that would be a pure gamble.
It's always a pure gamble since there is no knowledge about which god is more real.
> i prefer to make an educated guess. and that requires investigation.
Your guess will not be anymore educated regardless of how much you investigate. Because the only way to investigate claim of some god's existence is to ask people who can't know either.
No matter how smart you are, garbage in, garbage out.
let me rephrase that:
If following civil laws has zero downsides in life, then they need no justification. However, the act of trying to justify certain laws suggests that they are not inherently optimal
life with zero downsides does not exist. we need to make some compromises if we want to live together as a society. be those civil laws or a religion is a matter of choice, but we can't opt out.
the need to justify religion does not invalidate religion any more than the need to justify laws invalidates those.
as a society we still need to decide which laws we want to implement.
and as an individual everyone needs to investigate for themselves which religion (if any) to follow.