ehem:

"for the sake of arguement, imagine for the moment that there's a 50-50 change that God exsists. Now, choosing the [God] envelope is equivalent to choosing to be a devout [believer]. If you happen to choose this path there are two possibilities. If you are a faithful [believer] and there is no God, you just fade into nothingness when you die. But if there is a God, you got to heaven and live for eternity in bliss: infinity. So the expecte value of being a [believer] is:

1/2 chance of fading into nothing: 1/2 X 0 = 0
1/2 chance of going to heaven: 1/2 X infinity = infinity
_________________________________________________________
Expectation = infinity

After all, half of infinity is still infinity. Thus, the value of being a [believer] is infinite. Now what happens if you are an athiest? If you are correct - there is no God - you gain nothing from being right. After all, if there is no God, there is no heaven. But if you are wrong and there is a God, you go to hell for an eternity: negative infinity. So the expected value of being an athiest is:

1/2 chance of fading into nothing: 1/2 X 0 = 0
1/2 chance of going to hell: 1/2 X negative infinity = negative infinity
____________________________________________________
Expectation = negative infinity

Negative infinity. The value is as bad as you can possibly get. The wise person would clearly choose [believing] instead of atheism.

But we made an assumption here - that there is a 50-50 chance that God exsists. What happens if there is only a 1/1000 chance? That value of being a [believer] would be:

999/1000 chance of fading into nothing: 999/1000 X 0 = 0
1/1000 chance of going to heaven: 1/1000 X infinity = infinity
__________________________________________________
Expectation = infinity

[Based on the properties of infinity] it's still the same." (Zero: the Biography of a Dangerous Idea, Seife)


I think that's the most interesting thing I've ever read.

I think that's one of the most retarded things I've ever read. Infinity is not a number and cannot be used in calculations the way normal numbers are. You cannot add to or subtract from infinity, nor can you muktiply it or divide it. Mathematics do not work that way.

Infinite

keep in mind that Pascal wrote and published that theorm in the 1600's, when infinity and zero were blasphemous ideas.

I think that's pretty creative a thought process, personally.

Pffft, your just mad cause your handle was used. I liked it.

I question the logic of applying math to spiritual concepts...

i'll have to agree with infinite on this. Infinity is an idea and not a value, and although it is closley related to mathematics, the equations listed above are impossible, as you can not multiply, add, subract, divide, or do any other operations to it. infinity plus 2 is still infinity, things like that don't work. you can't apply mathematical operations to ideas such as infinity.

pfft, thats like this.

Let X = .9 repeating
multiply both sides by 10...
10x=9.9repeating
subtract x
9x = 9
divide by 9...
x = 1


ALSO, 0 / 0 is one, and x / 0 = 483749324

But, back to the subject, I don't like the idea of using this, because if you were going to write it in interval notation you'd write it [0,infinite) (you can't reach infinite... nor can you reach infinite -+/* anything. uhm... yeah, anyway.... I'm atheist still.

--- edit ---
besides, why the fuck are you proving a BELEIF?

Man, the fact that your post is right neo, is messed up. Infinity is fucked up.

Anyways, as to the second part of your post...

x / 0 cannot be one because...

lets say x = 4
4/0 according to you can be anything
so if 4/0 = 10
10 * 0 = 4
Does zero tens = 4? Hell no!

bah, I ment 0/0 can be anything... but I fucked that up.

so on irc SilentRage and I were talking about the .9 repeating thing being one. He proved my method invalid... But how about this.

1/3 = .3 repeating
1/3 * 3 = 1

or If you remember sums of infinite sequences....

Sigma (n=1 to infinite) 9/(10^n)
which is another way of writting .9 repeating

You can then do the a(1)/1-r thing to get sum.
which looks like...

(9/10)/1-(1/10) or .9 / .9 which is 1

lol i had 2 get my caculater... but i think belife in the after life and what not, and math should not be compared or mixed, whatever u did on ur post, ima gonna stay atheist, no matter what number u throw in my face.

The name [belief] says it all. There is no proof that there is a "great beyond" or god or anything of the sort, that is why it is called a belief. But if there were proof there was a god, then it would be called a fact. But then if it was a fact, we wouldn't be here discussing weather or not we should do what, when, and how we should do it....wait...what were we talking about again?