Someone comes up to you on the street and demands all your money. It quickly becomes apparent that they are unarmed and not a physical threat to you.
They claim that they are a god. If you ignore them, then you will be eternally tortured in the afterlife. If you comply, you will be richly rewarded in the afterlife.
They then say: I know you are skeptical, but even if there is tiny chance this is true, the reward for compliance is so great that you should expect infinite value
Do you comply?
@urusan I give him my money and then immediately attempt to kill him. If he is not God, I take my money bac from his corpse. If he is God, I cannot kill him but I have still complied with the terms the deal and I will be richly rewarded in the afterlife, regardless if he kills me right now or not.
@fuxoft Just before you kill them (wait, why are you already armed and prepared to kill a random person on the street?), they suddenly explain that killing the messenger (his physical body) will also result in eternal torture.
@urusan @fuxoft
If they're not sticking to the deal and are willing to add arbitrary additional conditions on it, then this becomes more of a long-term blackmail situation. At that point you have evaluate the number of potential additional conditions they could add and the probability of you being able to comply with every single one of them... which might well lead you to conclude that you might as well enjoy your wealth while you have it, even if it's going to be followed by eternal torture.
@digital_carver @fuxoft That's okay, they can just add in a provision about forgiving you if you goof up, as long as you continue to act in good faith towards them.
I mean, they don't expect you to be perfect anyway, being human and all.