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Comment by Maxatar | Hacker News Reader

Not at all. The asymmetry holds whenever the other possibilities don't introduce an opposing infinite penalty for belief. There could be countless other gods who are indifferent to Christian belief, reward it, or impose only finite penalties, and the asymmetry would remain intact.

The hypothetical god who punishes believers of a Christian God is a legitimate objection to Pascal's wager, but it doesn't establish the original assertion I objected to. You're confusing demonstrating that the asymmetry isn't guaranteed with demonstrating that it requires Christianity to be the only possibility. Those are two entirely different claims.

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>The asymmetry holds whenever the other possibilities don't introduce an opposing infinite penalty for belief.

Or in a stronger argument. It only works when you're the only possible infinity that exists with the set of possible requirements. The moment another infinity exists that has even a single conflicting requirement then it falls apart.

Using language we can create infinite conflicting infinities which makes Pascals wager a weak argument in a generalized set.

Now, if someone vibe coded up Roko's basalisk into a real entity that was copying humans and torturing them for eternity that's a different story, at least until someone made a second incompatible basalisk.

I agree Pascal's wager is generally weak. But I think the strongest reason it's weak is because people in other worldviews, particularly Islam, have a tremendous amount to lose if they convert to Christianity but it turns out Islam is true.

>but it turns out Islam is true.

I may be misinterpreting this but

Lol, wut.

I'm just saying from the viewpoint of people in Islam (or in Islamic nations)... the tradeoffs look a lot different from that perspective.

Almost nothing in common with a 17th century French philosopher in Christian Europe

After the word "if", the entire rest of the sentence is the hypothetical.

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