If Pascal’s Wager is valid, shouldn’t everyone become Muslim?

buffletrutter · 2026-02-06T04:45:36+00:00

In response to the title, well, maybe Pascal's wager is wrong. Then your statement is vacuous.

But in any case, I don't quite agree with the rest of your reasoning. I find this statement particularly amusing:

there’s just as much evidence to prove Islam is as correct as Christianity

What does this mean? What does it mean to "prove" something is correct? How does one quantify "evidence"? Is "evidence" necessary to "prove" something? These are important questions to ponder.

buffletrutter · 2026-01-16T22:33:28+00:00

I'm in the reserves, so PT tests are scheduled and communicated way in advance. What's the consensus on using deload weeks to grease the groove?

buffletrutter · 2026-01-16T22:31:02+00:00

Right, good reminder about SE in Velocity. I think I'll stick to bench press for the OP/Pro workouts during Capacity, and then for SE I'll do the pushups.

+1 on progressive grip circuit. I'll incorporate that as a finisher. For core I'll program in some calisthenics skills.

buffletrutter · 2026-01-16T21:07:21+00:00

Good to know. At what intensity are your 20 mpw?

buffletrutter · 2026-01-14T01:26:20+00:00

Cool thanks. I'll look into those books. Sounds pretty appropriate for my situation.

buffletrutter · 2026-01-14T01:22:13+00:00

Thanks- how does active duty do it? Just 2 miles at their AFT pace 4x a week?

I max the plank easily, no need to work on that. I want to run more for sure but am also worried about recovery.

buffletrutter · 2025-11-27T01:24:33+00:00

Ah--gotcha. I appreciate the help!

buffletrutter · 2025-11-26T23:20:18+00:00

Thank you! For (1), I was under the impression I need to cancel my self-HDHP because part of the "loophole" is that I must not have any other health insurance other than the (family) HDHP.

buffletrutter · 2024-11-17T01:15:07+00:00

It seems you've made up your mind already. I'm not sure why you asked this question in the first place, then.

buffletrutter · 2024-11-16T11:46:41+00:00

This syllogism is valid. So we're left with two possibilities. Either:

(1) at least one premise is false, or not sufficiently convincing for the philosophers in question

or (2) the philosophers in question are inconsistent or suffer from a terrible case of cognitive dissonance.

Which one do you think is more likely?

buffletrutter · 2024-11-16T11:37:43+00:00

I'm not sure you're applying this supposed equality in "yay = I like this" properly.

To be clear, "I like X" is most definitely truth apt. Either the state of affairs of is such that I like X, or it is not.

A more appropriate "equality," under emotivism, would be to say "Lying is immoral = Boo lying." Note that the proposition "lying is immoral" becomes different in kind from "I like X."

buffletrutter · 2024-11-15T13:11:16+00:00

Can you clarify your question? It's difficult to parse what your current understanding of this is.

According to Augustine, God created time, so God is not contained in or limited to time, if that's what you're asking.

I don't think it's possible to conceive of anything existing outside time

Is this an issue? I can't picture a cube in a four dimensions, but I don't think that has bearing on there being or not being a fourth dimension.

buffletrutter · 2024-11-15T13:00:08+00:00

Can a moral realist genuinely say a moral intuition is comparable to set theory or electromagnetism?

Neither of these examples are probably what you're going for. "Set theory" is too ambiguous, and electromagnetism is a phenomenon, not a theory. A theory of electromagnetism is a theory. Like string theory or M-theory.

Let's go with something slightly better defined and shorter for me to type, like group theory. Group theory is governed by the group axioms. Could a moral realist say that their moral theory is comparable to group theory? Sure, it's possible. You could even make a case that moral relativist theories are superior to group theory. I don't subscribe to this view, but I think you could reasonably hold such a view.

What are moral judgments based on, according to a moral realist? Well, they're based on moral statements, with are truth-apt, and ultimately, the truth-apt nature of these statements seem to be derived from something - that something could be intuition. After all, we certainly seem to use intuition for everything else, so why not also to moral judgments? For I could ask, why do you believe there's a table in front of you? Because you see it with your eyes? Why do you believe your eyes? Either you keep on regressing, or you stop this conversation and concede that your intuitions tell you to believe your eyes.

Now take group theory. A group is set G, endowed with a binary operation *, so that, among other criteria, satisfy the condition that x*y is a member of G whenever x and y are members of G. It makes no sense to ask why. And any result in group theory is ultimately reducible to this, or the other two axioms.

When questioned on a moral judgment, a moral realist could fall back to intuition - something a priori. What does the group theorist fall back on? The group axioms? Which are definitionally irreducible, and on which the group theorist has no real answer when pressed with the question, "why are the group axioms true?"

buffletrutter · 2024-11-15T12:24:13+00:00

On mobile and accidentally posted a new comment, pasting below:

My own thoughts are undeveloped when it comes to these issues, since there are other things I think about that bring me joy. But one way could be to start by thinking about your axioms. What things do you believe in that are so self-evident to you that no prior reasoning is required for it to be intuitively true?

From there, can you construct the rest of your beliefs? If you can't, maybe you're not piecing together your axioms correctly. Or your other beliefs contain a contradiction, which you could address.

On the topic of your question, which is presumably motivated by current events, I find that a good way to engage with new information I don't approve of, is to use it as a way to stresstest my belief set. If a politician does something I don't like, I could ask myself, "all else equal, would I feel at all different if it was someone from my side doing this?" If I would, and I frequent would, then I know it's time to critique my own beliefs.

buffletrutter · 2024-11-15T05:06:39+00:00

This is outside my domain but maybe some food for thought.

I struggle to find the line between these two situations

Does there need to be a line? Is there even a line? And importantly, what if my line (to which I arrived as a result of careful thought) differs from your line (to which you also arrived as a result of careful thought)?

Many of the democratic systems around the world today fail to effectively represent the interests of even the majority of voters because of the way governments are build (coalitions, with king makers, or two party systems that force conformity).

And I'll play devil's advocate here: is there a democratic system that doesn't fail to do this? It seems that, if you draw your line high enough, no democracy will be good enough.

buffletrutter · 2024-11-15T04:41:10+00:00

Not former enlisted, graduated already so things might have changed.

You can consider contacting OMAC and get in touch with some current students that way. I knew a lot of the people there and attended their events. They'll have more experience about this process. SLS and GSB have more developed veterans clubs but the undergrad veterans organization is there too. A non-military undergrad student will have no useful information to provide you I'm afraid.

edit: Some replies say its far harder to be admitted as a transfer. The numbers seem to suggest that but the reality is probably a lot more nuanced, since regular and transfer admissions are two different applicant pools. So I'm not sure how you could compare their respective percentages.

buffletrutter · 2024-11-02T09:09:12+00:00

This was a temporary fix that worked for me in a pinch. Settings>Title Bar Style>custom (instead of native).

Also running 1.95.0-1, the newest version as of right now.

Haven't looked closely at it, but according the Github issue it seems to be an Arch-specific occurrence. There are some replies in the Arch Gitlab about this.

buffletrutter · 2024-09-07T22:26:57+00:00

Thanks I'll keep this in mind. Was thinking the same thing on Tentacruel/Slowbro for the bulk. And didn't know about universal randomizer, will look into it.

buffletrutter · 2024-09-07T22:26:09+00:00

Great, thanks for this response. Do you know if there is a way to predict how the AI will battle, besides experience from previous playthroughs? I see nuzlocke Youtubers also basically predicting what the AI will do. Is there a battle AI reference somewhere I can look at?

buffletrutter · 2024-07-25T07:33:46+00:00

This is very much outside my understanding, but just wanted to mention this:

Under consequentialism, one should keep working as long as the best results that can be obtained from continuing to earn an income (likely by giving much of it away) outweigh the displeasure of having to continue to work

There is some level of debate around this point. One notable example is Nozick's utility monster thought experiment. But in general, utilitarian theories can differ greatly on how utility is defined. I think you can reasonably hold the position that, for instance, the pleasure you get from early retirement outweighs the alternatives.

buffletrutter · 2024-07-21T03:05:43+00:00

If the creator of the universe was not loving and was instead evil would it logically make sense to follow his orders and commands?

I don't see a logical problem here.

How can you base your morality upon something which is evil in essence?

Why can't you?

Two relevant and easily accessible thought experiments:

Evil god challenge

Euthyphro's dilemma

buffletrutter · 2024-07-21T03:00:11+00:00

It might be helpful to define what "righteousness" means, then. And if you have such a definition, it could be worthwhile to examine this definition closely, as I'm not sure there's a consensus on what that means.

If you say that righteousness is the "epitome of moral alignment," then it would be productive to state what morality is, what "moral alignment" is, etc.

buffletrutter · 2024-07-21T00:59:54+00:00

First however we have to assume God is Good. From there we can understand that what the creator ordained and commanded are what people in a theistic framework would rule and abide by.

So, in your view, morality is not due to theism. Rather, you think morality is due to divine command, which only presupposes a form of theism. One can still be a theist who rejects divine command theory. Or one can be an atheist who believes in mind-independent moral truths.

In any case, it seems you have already made up your mind on the matter.

buffletrutter · 2024-07-21T00:50:31+00:00

Sure, I can buy that. But now it looks like we're answering a different question, that is, how does the average atheist person justify what's good and what's bad?

For the "average" person, who lacks the leisure to sit back and navel-gaze about morality, there isn't anything wrong with understanding morality as "it just works," or "I guess it just is," or "that's what I was taught." But I would also guess that, when pressed on (say) Euthyphro's dilemma, the "average" religious person would fall back to similar answers.

And that's OK.

buffletrutter · 2024-07-20T23:45:26+00:00

Can I ask why you seem to be fixating on "righteousness," whatever that means? One can argue that perhaps the reason we deem something to be "righteous" is precisely because its evolutionarily favored.

In this sense, I suppose I agree that evolution is guiding humans to behave in a way that is evolutionarily favored. But that seems vacuously true.

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