wedrifid comments on A Voting Puzzle, Some Political Science, and a Nerd Failure Mode - Less Wrong

88 Post author: ChrisHallquist 10 October 2013 02:10AM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (180)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: wedrifid 10 October 2013 07:12:54PM 3 points [-]

I would submit that it rather depends on your goals.

This is true in as much as the No Free Lunch theorem is true. As for the relevance to the beliefs and preferences of actual Christians, the testimony of the relevant religious texts, expressed beliefs of Christians and emphasis of Christian apologetics arguments do much to affirm that "long life of positive experience" is a goal that is in general shared by Christians. The "carrot" presented to reward belief is "eternal life". John 3:16 is the most famous quote from the Bible and the one used to express the core of Christian doctrine concisely:

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

People, including Christians, tend to prefer long life---either in their physical body or after that body has been destroyed. If the beliefs of the Christian are false then the actions they choose when attempting to achieve this goal will fail.