1) and 2) - The first half of the video is addressed towards the people who try to convert atheists with the wager, so I agree it's not really relevant to what you're saying.habsJD said:3/ Different denominations don't equal different religions. I don't see any one denomination as being superior than others. I think the Phelps kinda have their own cult thing going on there and so I wouldn't really include them. But other than that, for the most part they all share the same basic premise, for lack of a better word.
4/ The only thing in the entire vid that even gave me pause to think was about the infinite number of possibilities out there. And yes there are infinite possibilities. I chose one that there is a basis for here on our planet. And I am quite comfortable with my own personal process of rational thought that I don't believe video game god will begrudge me for choosing to believe in something else. I also don't believe that this possibility invalidates the basic premise of Pascal's Wager. Given the very finite number of possibilities that humans can consciously choose to believe, the concept still stands up. I never said that it is limited to Christianity, I even made a point to mention other religions. And in believing that there may be a video game god that rewards rational thought, doesn't "rational thought" get thrown out the window? I've taken my stance, I chose an established religion, albeit much less formal than your typical established religion. Given that established religions have been here for so long, I believe that there is a greater chance that one of them is correct than a god that has chosen to not have any interaction with us.
3) - Perhaps, but what about all the Christians who use birth control? If Catholicism is correct they're going to hell for murder or whatever sin it falls under. I don't know enough about all the various offshoots of major religions to provide any other examples, but generally each sect is founded on some interpretation of their holy book that often redefines the list of sins somewhat.
4) - No religion can be said to be more or less likely than any other unless you're motivated by bias. It simply isn't possible to determine the statistical likelihood of an omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient being existing, and there certainly isn't any way of determing which is more likely than the others. Every religion is claimed, by its followers, to have a basis here on our planet, and dismissed as ludicrous by everyone else, and none of them have actual scientific evidence. And an idea being persistent doesn't make it right, it simply means that people want to believe it.
The 'video game god' idea is an irrational one, yes. Perhaps it's a hypocritical god, they certainly exist in major religions today. Or perhaps it's because, when you play a game, you're expected to play by the rules of that game, not of reality. Since this 'game' happens to be the world we live in, you're expected to use the rational rules of the world. Sure, it'd be rational to pick up the ball when you're playing soccer, but it goes against the point of the game. But picking apart one specific example goes against the whole point. There are an infinite number of potential gods. Every god that can possibly be conceived, and every god that cannot possibly be conceived if the 'maybe man was not meant to know' crowd are correct, must be considered. For every god that rewards a certain behaviour, another will punish it. Because probability is something grounded in the laws of physics (we can only give an assessment of how likely a glass is to break when you drop it because reality follows certain laws that supernatural beings don't), we cannot possibly determine how likely each god is to exist. Thus, even if a god exists, there is no way of knowing whether any given behaviour will lead to reward or punishment. Feel free to believe in a religion if you like, but to say that it is the only option that can ever benefit anyone is simply incorrect.