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shminux comments on "Stupid" questions thread - Less Wrong Discussion
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To steelman it, what about a bet that believing in a higher power, no matter the flavor, saves your immortal soul from eternal damnation?
That is eerily similar to an Omega who deliberately favours specific decision theories instead of their results.
Just trying to see what form of the Pascal's wager would avoid the strongest objections.
I don't think this is just about the afterlife. Do any religions offer good but implausible advice about how to live?
What do you mean by 'good but implausible'?
I was thinking about the Christian emphasis on forgiveness, but the Orthodox Jewish idea of having a high proportion of one's life affected by religious rules would also count.
Judging something as 'good' depends on your ethical framework. What framework do you have in mind when you ask if any religions offer good advice? After all, every religion offers good advice according to its own ethics.
Going by broadly humanistic, atheistic ethics, what is good about having a high proportion of one's life be affected by religious rules? (Whether the Orthodox Jewish rules, or in general.)
It may be worth something for people to have some low-hanging fruit for feeling as though they're doing the right thing.
That sounds like a small factor compared to what the rules actually tell people to do.
If the higher power cared, don't you think such power would advertise more effectively? Religious wars seem like pointless suffering if any sufficient spiritual belief saves the soul.
If the higher power cared about your well being, it would just "save" everyone regardless of belief or other attributes. It would also intervene to create heaven on earth and populate the whole universe with happy people.
Remember that the phrase "save your soul" refers to saving it from the eternal torture visited by that higher power.
I don't think we disagree.