I didn’t vote it down, but I think giving the Catholic Church the “benefit of the doubt” is off-base. You could say the same about anyone doing bad—“Maybe they’re right on some level.” The Catholic Church has simply done tons and tons of bad. And I think I’m saying this not just because of my personal hatred of the Catholic Church. https://www.losingmyreligions.net/
Matt—I’m not arguing that we should give the Catholic Church the ‘benefit of the doubt’. Only that if—big if—their theology and metaphysics are correct, and if they actually managed to ‘save some souls’ (switching their fate from infinite suffering in hell to infinite bliss in heaven), then their net consequentialist impact in the afterlife would totally swamp any evil they’ve done on Earth.
You may think there’s zero % chance their theology and metaphysics are correct, but their beliefs are basically a variant of a Simulation Hypothesis, in which human actions ‘in simulation’ (during mortal life) determine rewards ‘out of simulation (in the ‘real’ afterlife).
There’s obviously a variant of Pascal’s wager that raises some thorny problems here. And it applies equally to every other religion that posits reincarnation or an afterlife....
PS Folks who disagree-voted with this comment—I’m genuinely curious why you disagree?
I didn’t vote it down, but I think giving the Catholic Church the “benefit of the doubt” is off-base. You could say the same about anyone doing bad—“Maybe they’re right on some level.” The Catholic Church has simply done tons and tons of bad. And I think I’m saying this not just because of my personal hatred of the Catholic Church. https://www.losingmyreligions.net/
Matt—I’m not arguing that we should give the Catholic Church the ‘benefit of the doubt’. Only that if—big if—their theology and metaphysics are correct, and if they actually managed to ‘save some souls’ (switching their fate from infinite suffering in hell to infinite bliss in heaven), then their net consequentialist impact in the afterlife would totally swamp any evil they’ve done on Earth.
You may think there’s zero % chance their theology and metaphysics are correct, but their beliefs are basically a variant of a Simulation Hypothesis, in which human actions ‘in simulation’ (during mortal life) determine rewards ‘out of simulation (in the ‘real’ afterlife).
There’s obviously a variant of Pascal’s wager that raises some thorny problems here. And it applies equally to every other religion that posits reincarnation or an afterlife....