PHIL 2297 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: The Best Bet, Agnosticism, Theism
2 Oct 2016
School
Department
Course
Professor
Document Summary
True beliefs are often more useful than false beliefs. A belief can be pragmatically but not epistemically rational, or vice versa. Epsustemitcallu rational to believe spouse is cheating. So, it can be epistemically rational to believe one thing, and pragmatically rational to believe something else. It is epistemically irrational to believe in god. It is pragmatically rational to believe in god. Or, don"t believe that god exists ( agnostic or atheist) We can"t conclusively demonstrate that god does exist. We can"t conclusively demonstrate that god does not exist. So, each possibility has some probability> 0 and <1. You believe god exists you don"t believe god exists. God does not exists: finite loss finite gain. Would not make sense to risk the infinite loss for the possibility of a finite gain. Granted that faith cannot be proved, what harm will . , that he exists. The best risk/gain ratio is with belief. Belief in god is in your long-term self interest.
