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JoshuaZ comments on Outside the Laboratory - Less Wrong
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Hmm. Personally, as a Christian and a student of science (doing a Bachelor of Aviation Technology), I have to say that my thought processes were entirely different from what you described in your article.
I went with Pascal's Wager, or at least a modified version of it. Any sort of existence is infinitely better than not existing at all; this eliminates atheism, Buddhism, and Hinduism from consideration, along with other reincarnation-oriented religions. Judaism is almost impossible to convert into, so it's out of the running. Of the religions that remain, most of the pagan ones have relatively mediocre afterlives compared to the heavens of Christianity and Islam, and similarly mediocre punishments if I'm wrong as long as I live virtuously. If I do follow a pagan religion, and Christianity or Islam is correct, I'll suffer eternal hellfires. Therefore, I will be either a Christian or a Muslim. Since Christianity doesn't require me to attempt to overthrow Western civilization, has generally easier requirements to attain Heaven, and will probably allow me to avoid Hell if Islam is correct, I chose to be a Christian.
Of course, simply believing something to be true does not neccessarilly make it true, so I plan to put off testing that belief as long as humanly possible. Or, more accurately, as posthumanly possible, considering I plan to become a posthuman robot god and live forever.
I'm curious if you actually put as much thought into this as you claim to. I'm also curious if you grew up in a largely Christian environment. This entire piece sounds a bit like motivated cognition. In particular, I have to wonder whether your justification for throwing out Judaism as being "almost impossible to convert into" reflects an actual attempt to investigate this matter. Depending on the denomination/movement, the time it takes can vary from a few weeks or months (in some Reform versions) to as long as 2-3 years (in Orthodox forms). It also seems like you didn't do much research because under your framework there are much stronger reasons to reject Judaism. In particular, the vast majority of forms of Judaism don't believe in eternal damnation, and those that do generally severely limit the set of people whom it applies to. You seem to have an associated problem in generalizing about Christianity and Islam in that there are universalist or close to universalist forms of both those religions. Not only that, but even among non-universalists there is a chance for members of other religions to go to heaven. (If one were just looking at the Abrahamic religions for example and trying to minimize one's chance of hell, Judaism might make the most sense since many forms of Christianity and Islam are ok with that). But you seem to have also simply avoided thinking about many religious traditions, such as Mormonism and the Ba'hai.
I'd like to think I put as much thought into it as I think so! :P I don't think I wrote down the answer first and then filled in the proof, but I suppose I can't be totally sure I didn't. I did get raised in a Christian environment, but we were hardly the type who'd go to Church every week.
One of my friends as a teenager had his mother converting into Judaism; apparently people who convert into the religion have to go through the diet strictures and whatnot extra-strictly. That's what I meant by "almost impossible to convert into". My understanding of the Jewish view of the afterlife is that they either go to Heaven or cease existing (Sheol) which is infinitely worse than eternal hellfire, and a decent Christian will still get into Jewish heaven since we'd follow the Noahide laws, so that way I'm covered.
Mormonism was rejected because the guy who founded it was a known con man, and the nature of the Book of Mormon is such that if it is true, you can't not believe in it and go to Heaven, and if it isn't, then you can't believe in it and go to Heaven. Since he was a con man and therefore it probably isn't true, it's probably not a good idea to believe in it.
I'll admit that I don't think I did much looking into Bahai, other than seeing that they were basically a religion that splintered off of Islam. Looking it up on Wikipedia, though, it looks like they believe in reincarnation? Bleh. My mind is who I am; if it gets deleted when I go onto the next world, there's no point.
This remark makes it sound even more like you didn't do much research. The belief that one ceases to exist was historically floating around in some sects but wasn't a prominent viewpoint from about 100 CE to 1800 CE where it again got picked up by the most weak theistic and deistic strains of Judaism (such as some Reform and Conservative types). Most Orthodox for example believe in a heaven and (temporary) hell pretty similar to that of Christianity (although even this is complicated by the lack of any strong doctrinal statements. There's a lot more fracturing without anything like the statements of faith or catechisms found in many forms of Christianity). Also, while it is clear that Muslims follow the Noachide laws by most approaches it is actually far from clear that Christians count as such. In particular, the belief in the divinity of a human, Jesus, according to many opinions runs afoul of the prohibition on idolatry. Islam doesn't have this problem when running into the Noachide laws because no claim is made that Muhammad is divine, indeed quite the opposite.
ETA: Also the thing about converts keeping laws extra strictly is only true in some strains also. Note also that this simply amounts in some strains to actually requiring converts to keep the rules (for example in the United States only about half of all Conservative Jews keep kashrut but it is expected that converts keep some form. The Conservative Movement leaders believes that everyone should keep Kashrut but in practice they can't get most of their members to actually do so).
That's not true. Many Mormons believe that non-Mormons can go to heaven. The only caveat is that non-Mormons don't progress as much as Mormons.
Also, keeping kashrut only seems almost impossible if it's something you don't want to do. Obviously, there are a great many people who do it, though the feasibility depends greatly on where you live.
The sort of conversion which seem to be extremely difficult is one which will get you Israeli citizenship.
Especially since Mormons are in the habit of converting non-Mormons after their deaths.
One other thought: If you are as concerned about continuing to exist as you say you are then you should be much more worried about religions in which believers don't stop existing and non-believers do stop at death. In that case, your options become a bit more limited. I take it you aren't either a Jehovah Witness or a classical Karaite?
My value system is just the opposite. To me eternal hellfire is the worst thing possible, hence infinitely worse than nonexistence. But since the chances for it appear infinitesimal, I easily assign greater expected utility to the freedom from cognitive dissonance that consistent empiricism affords me.