Pascal's Wager

Great Debates
81

This debate seems to be centering on the cost of belief. Cost is a very subjective thing. It is related to what we value, and I’m sure everyone will agree, values are subjective.

I think, I’m not sure, that Pascal is trying to put an absolute value on life. I had this whole wager concept since I was a little boy, long before I heard of Pascal. How I thought is as follows:

Either there is an afterlife, or there isn’t. If there is no afterlife, then all is meaningless. We are but material objects, and life has no better value than a hydrogen atom. Thus all our subjective values are meaningless (equal to zero), i.e. money, property, beliefs, good works or bad works.

If there is an afterlife, then life has meaning. Thus however subjective our values may be, it does have a value greater than zero.

So back again to the two scenarios: either there is an afterlife or not. And another premise, if you believe in X, then you get the afterlife.

If you believe in X, and there is no afterlife, then nothing is lost, since believing in X had no value anyway. If there is an afterlife, then you win.

Therefore there is an absolute value to life, being either zero or greater than zero.

I feel that on these grounds, Pascal is right. The premise of his that I object to is that believing in God is the ticket to the afterlife. If there is an afterlife, we will all get there, no matter what (Beeruser’s theory: we all inherently have a ticket.) If there isn’t, there’s nothing we can do about it.

There’s always another beer.

82

Perhaps instead of incoherently rambling, I should have just stated this:

If there is no afterlife, then objectively, everything is meaningless. Does everyone agree with this?

If so, this places an absolute zero on our values. I think it is from this zero that Pascal makes his “belief costs nothing” premise.

There’s always another beer.

83

Beeruser said:

No, and I think we’ve had this discussion before. Life has meaning to each of us. If there is no afterlife, I say that life has more meaning because this is the only chance you get. So you’d better make the most of it and enjoy it while you’re here.

84

I hope I dang well enjoy life while I am here.

I know that David B., Singledad, Glitch, Gaudere, Slythe, etc. do not believe in God or any supreme being. Fine. Was Pascal’s wager flawed? Could be. I understand that there are many more facets to PW than the original statement (that is not just a belief in one particular god, but believing in the correct God.) The question is, if God does indeed exist, can we put together a simple wager that would work for all? Not likely. I believe in the Christian God. I believe he spoke to us through the bible. This is the same God of the Jewish faith. They believe in the Torah (Old Testament to me) as being the word of God. Others believe in what ever god they believe in and believe that he/she has spoken to them through religious writings or people or some other manner.

Can I say with 100% certainty that God does exist and that it is the God that I follow? No. I believe 100%, however, that this is the case, but I cannot prove it to anyone. Can I disprove another religions god exists? No. Can anyone prove that any god does or does not exist? No.

Do I accept PW as being valid? Not really. I have stated earlier how it would be easy for a believer (no matter what god they believed in) could see the wager as valid and not understand why everyone could not see the same. But in the end, honestly, I must admit that it is not completely valid as stated and that it is not as much a no-brainer as some would make it out to be.

I see most everyone on this board are very intelligent people. Some believe there is no god. Some believe in the God of the Torah or Christian bible. Some believe in other gods. This does not change their intellectual abilities. If anyone questions me honestly and wants to debate my beliefs, fine. Just as long as we realize that we do disagee on this issue and that there is really no way to prove one way or the other.

You know what? It does not matter what I say or believe. It does not matter what Lib, or Poly, or Joey, or David B. or anyone else believes. What matters is whether or not there is a God. If God does not exist, then fine. You have lived your life however you have lived it and that is that, good or bad. If He does exist, then he makes the rules and I may have followed his rules and I may have not. I may be in the same boat as all the others. The only way I will find out is when my life is over.

See you on the other side.
Jeffery

85

Jeffery: Rah!

Just to make myself clear:

If you’ve read my posts, you know that I’ve never taken issue with someone who believes and acknowledges that their belief is not, in itself, a statement of fact.

I do not hold that a refutation of Pascal’s Wager definitively disproves the existence of God; the refutation merely proves that the Wager is not a reason under rational debate for an unbeliever to accept belief.

Myself, I find the concept of God definitively not a meaningful question under an empirical epistemology.

86

DavidB wrote:

Yes, I agree. But this is a subjectivemeaning. My question was, is there an objective meaning in life?

There’s always another beer.

87

Why would eternal life give your life “objective” meaning? It seems to me all it would do is allow your life to be subjectively meaningful to you forever, but I do not think this converts it to “objective” meaning.

88

Why is ‘objective meaning’ important? I’m having quite a nice life without worrying the least about its objective meaning.

89

I feel I must resurrect my old sig:
“I should scorn to shiver with terror at the thought of annihilation. Happiness is nonetheless true happiness because it must come to an end, nor do thought and love lose their value because they are not everlasting.” Bertrand Russell, (1872-1970)

90

I’m happy that you are able to shun such a deeply philosophical question. Just look at what kind of wreck it has made me. :slight_smile:

Gaudere,

My question wasn’t based on eternal life. It was in the context of no afterlife.
I like that Russell quote. I wish I could get myself to believe it. I would be a lot happier if I could do so. Not that I’m very unhappy now, just I would be a lot happier.
But, what if thought and love were washed away utterly to the point that it was like it never existed in the first place.
Picture this: Suppose that in a previous Big Bang, there existed many great civilizations. What value do their thoughts and love have now?

There’s always another beer.

91

Spiritus,

You wrote:

Singledad’s model is not without it’s flaws. After all the arm-waving and adjusting the model for a cost of disbelief, he ended up with 2Q > x… but that might actually be 2Q >> x. Alas, it all comes back to what one believes…

92

Well, if your afterlife is not eternal, you will still be gone someday; it will just take longer.

Why must a thing exist forever to be meaningful? It seems quite likely from scientific evidence that nothing lasts forever without change, not even the universe. So is the entire universe (which will last a heckuva long time, admittedly) meaningless?

Do you remember what you were doing three years ago today? No? So to you that day–or any other day you do not remember in precise detail–may as well have never have existed to you, right?

I would argue that things have meaning if they have ever existed at all. They have been a part of the universe, and helped make it what it is and will be. Things change and die: universes, stars, trees…and me. It is meet and proper. I would like a long life, but who knows? Perhaps in a hundred years I will be eager for oblivion.

93

Joeyblades:
The point of that particular mathematical exercise was that adding th epossiblity of “Hell” into the equation does not significantly alter the analysis. You had earlier stated that you disagreed with that point.

Beeruser:
Meaning is an inherently subjective concept. Meaning is meaningless without a recipient. (Sorry – couldn’t resist.) Having an afterlife does not make meaning objective, it just raises the possibility for it to be persistent.

The best lack all conviction
The worst are full of passionate intensity.
*

94

Singledad, I hope that in my earlier post, you did not feel that I was talking about you when I wrote about people thinking believers to be idiots.

You have been very kind in your questioning. There just have been others in various threads that have treated believers as idiots. I know that there have also been believers that have been hateful to atheists and people of other religions.

I think we must always strive to have a peaceful and thoughtful discussion and debate.

Thanks to all who have consistently done so.

Jeffery

95

Spiritus,

You wrote:

And I still disagree. I guess I’m not making myself very clear. Let me try one more time, a little bit more directly. Singledad arbitrarily assigned the probability of God’s existence as 1/infinity. As a non believer, I’m sure he felt he was being generous. Your average Bible thumper would most likely assign that probability to be something a bit closer to 1. Even if you change Singledad’s assumption to 1/billion the reduction of the model produces very different conclusions.

96

JoeyBlades: You are absolutely correct: assigning a definite numerical probability, however small, to the existence of God does indeed change the Wager. But I haven’t seen any evidence to justify such a probability.

As a rational exercise to convince an unbeliever, you must be able to either prove that the wager is valid for any probability of existence, including an infinitesimal probability; or you must prove the actual numerical value you assign.

As a theological musing, you can assign whatever probability you wish. But then you lose the ability to use the Wager as a rational argument.

97

Spiritus Mundi wrote:

Why am I being misunderstood? Having an afterlife would mean that meanings are subjective, or subject to the creator of meaning, if such a thing exists.

No afterlife means by default there exists objective meaning, or better to say meaning doesn’t exist at all. How are we different from any other chunk of matter flying through space? What objective value do my thoughts and beliefs have in this universe? Nothing that we subjecively value has anything of real value. Therefore belief costs nothing.

I don’t agree with Pascal’s Wager. I’m just arguing for his “belief costs nothing” premise that everyone seems to be hung up on.

I don’t agree with Pascal’s other premise, that belief in God is the ticket to the afterlife. If there is a remote chance of an afterlife, I’d prefer to believe we all have tickets. Besides, how is Pascal’s belief better than mine, or vice versa?

Gaudere wrote:

Yes. This is the point I’m trying to make. And a long time is relative.

Which is precisely what Pascal’s premise “belief costs nothing” relies on. Our flimsy beliefs are built upon an even flimsier existence. What possible (objective) value do our beliefs have?

Who defines this meaning.
I don’t know, perhaps in a hundred years (or about 25 in my case), I’d be eager for oblivion also. I’ve begun to notice that many things change with age…

There’s always another beer.

98

SingleDad wrote:

I don’t see how you’ve proven Goddard superior, but I’ll take that bet with you anytime.

As for the US Army vs. 12 trained rats, the probability of the rats winning looks like a dismal zero, so a bet would be useless. If these rats were infected with anthrax or something, then I’ll take the bet. :slight_smile:

There’s always another beer.

99

Beeruser:
Whether or not I exist after death has no effect upon the meaning of my life as I am alive. If I vanish in death, then whatever subjective meaning I found will persist exactly as long as it is remembered by or provides an infulence on someone still alive. If there is an afterlife, that meaning will persist exactly as long as the events of my life still have the same meaning ot myself or to some other disembodied spirit.

That statement does not make sense to me. No afterlife does not remove meaning from living; it only implies that that meaning is necessarily finite in duration. Finite does not mean “nonexistent”.

The best lack all conviction
The worst are full of passionate intensity.
*

100

Beeruser:

I’m using the technique of reductio ad absurdem (sp?): Showing that a premise leads inexorably to a ridiculous conclusion.

Essentially, I’m applying the slanted form of Pascal’s wager to “prove” that you believe in a patently absurd conclusion: That a Jr. High football team is superior to a professional NFL team.

Against stupidity the very gods / Themselves contend in vain.