While apologetics have adopted the idea that going to heaven offers infinite utility, the actual descriptions of heaven in the texts from which Christianity is derived (what little there are,) don’t describe anything like infinite utility, except if you accept that a finite utility times an infinite duration equals infinite utility. Given an infinitesimal chance of payout on Christianity, you’d probably be giving yourself better odds trying to achieve infinite utility by living infinitely long, even given the rather low odds of the fundamental laws of physics being amenable to that.
That’s fair. I guess adopting exponential discounting is also good enough to rule out Christianity. Not about trying to live infinitely long, though—it would depend on how much believing in Christianity would hinder you in achieving that. (Same for other religions that don’t promise sufficiently amazing bliss.)
I would think that a properly self consistent Christian would probably not try to live forever given the expectation of being able to go to Heaven and stay there forever after a lifespan of ordinary length.
On the other hand, Christians with sufficient alief to look forward to their own deaths are pretty rare.
While apologetics have adopted the idea that going to heaven offers infinite utility, the actual descriptions of heaven in the texts from which Christianity is derived (what little there are,) don’t describe anything like infinite utility, except if you accept that a finite utility times an infinite duration equals infinite utility. Given an infinitesimal chance of payout on Christianity, you’d probably be giving yourself better odds trying to achieve infinite utility by living infinitely long, even given the rather low odds of the fundamental laws of physics being amenable to that.
That’s fair. I guess adopting exponential discounting is also good enough to rule out Christianity. Not about trying to live infinitely long, though—it would depend on how much believing in Christianity would hinder you in achieving that. (Same for other religions that don’t promise sufficiently amazing bliss.)
I would think that a properly self consistent Christian would probably not try to live forever given the expectation of being able to go to Heaven and stay there forever after a lifespan of ordinary length.
On the other hand, Christians with sufficient alief to look forward to their own deaths are pretty rare.