To take my mind off of current events for a moment, I went back over some past research and came across Pascal’s Wager. We all know Pascal from science, but less average people know he was a Christian philosopher. Pascal’s Wager vies with Anselm’s Ontological Argument for being the most famous argument in the philosophy of religion.
As I am new to this forum, I would like to bounce this heated discussion off this forum, to see how things go. I agree with Pascal’s position, but I believe that any theological argument will still take a movement of the heart i.e. faith, to be taken to its fullest potential. (Although most of everything in our world is by faith, even the subliminal faith we have, for example that lightening will not strike one’s wiring and transmit through the house to a computer as one types, or that one’s chair will not collapse)
But anyways, here is Pascal’s Wager, directly from his mouth:
“God is, or He is not.” But to which side shall we incline? Reason can decide nothing here. There is an infinite chaos which separated us. A game is being played at the extremity of this infinite distance where heads or tails will turn up… Which will you choose then? Let us see. Since you must choose, let us see which interests you least. You have two things to lose, the true and the good; and two things to stake, your reason and your will, you knowledge and your happiness; and your nature has two things to shun, error and misery. Your reason is no more shocked in choosing one rather than the other, since you must of necessity choose… But your happiness? Let us weigh the gain and the loss in wagering that God is… If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation that He is.
So, take it for what you will, and let the discussion begin.
I’m a fairly devout Catholic, so obviously I believe in God. But what do I think of Pascal’s Wager? Not much.
The problem with Pascal’s Wager is, it doesn’t necessarily lead one to embrace Jesus. Rather, it leads one to embrace the god who offers the greatest reward for the least effort.
Or he is a jealous bastard who will strike you dead for picking the God of the Bible, or some Hindu god, or a Wiccan Goddess, and we haven’t come up with the right religion yet.
It is presumed that we are talking about the Supreme Creator of the Universe. Again, this is Pascal’s argument and he is coming from the Christian perspective. And God did state (in Exodus 20) that He is a jealous God and he wants our attention, he wants us to love him. In which case, he will not make us love him. You may be jealous of your girlfriend having another love, but yet you do not want to make her love you. God is the same, he desires our love, but by our own personal choice.
“If God is God, He isn’t good
If God is good, He isn’t God”
Rational cogitation on spiritual things is chasing butterflies with a hammer: you might succeed, but the result is mutilated. It leads to theology, the Amish porno of human thought, and theology leads to such idiotic concepts as infant damnation, Limbo, and the laughable notion that God is “on our side”.
Salvador Dali:“Heaven is located precisely in the center of the chest of the one who has faith.”
Yeah, it’s been done before, but I’d just like to acknowledge clairobscur’s sterling effort in this thread.
To summarise:
First, believing in God isn’t free. You invest time in Church, prayers etc.
You have no clue about the odds. If I say: “flip a coin, if you loose, you’ll give me 100 dollars, if you win, perhaps I’ll give you 1 billion dollars”, would you agree?
The wager makes only if there are only two possibilities: god exists and will reward you if you believe or he doesn’t exists and nothing will happen. But unfortunately, there are thousands of religious beliefs.
Your religion don’t give you any guarantee that you’ll be rewarded. Perhaps your poor soul will be forever hunted by wolves because you didn’t make the proper sacrifices to the ancestors?
Without any evidence that a God could exists, and no evidence about the kind of God it could be and no way to know what he expects us to do the only rational possible choice isn’t to bet that a particular god your parents/neighbors/whatever believe in is for real and will reward you. It’s to ignore the issue altogether, and live according to what makes sense from a rational point of view.
I really liked this post and honestly couldn’t say it any better. I urge you to read it, and the follow up.
I’m currently banking on the concept of God as being the Set That Contains All Sets. Anything less than that is starting to seem unjustified. That would not only explain our concept of the opposite of God (how we perceive the Empty Set), and it gives us ourselves (and everything else) as proof of God’s existence, which would be necessitated by the existence of anything at all. It’s our limitations that account for the diversity of our perspectives on the subject, and our collective inabilities to come to any agreement. Anybody see any holes in that one?
Another problem with Pascal’s wager is that I think that if there was a God, he’d know if you TRULY worshipped him, or if you were just going through the motions in order to have a good time later.
As a former believer who became an agnostic when I was about 14, I can tell you that I didn’t have a choice in the matter. When I believed, I just DID. It was just obvious to me. I couldn’t have chosen to NOT believe if I wanted. But one day I just realized that I couldn’t believe any more. It just turned from being ‘real’ into being a story.
I couldn’t become a believer tomorrow if I tried. Sure, I could go through the motions, but is that enough for God? If it is, then how about if I just live my life by Christian values (which I try to do), and not bother with the trappings of religion? Maybe God would see that as being more honest, and therefore be more likely to grant me the keys to the kingdom than the guy down the street who’s been faking it.
Since we can’t know the motivations of God, there’s no real way to meaningfully define the wager. So it’s useless.
That is the definitive problem with it as far as I’m concerned. Pascal, intentionally or not, left us with an image of God as a hapless riverboat gambler who emotes with surprise when you show him your splendid hand.
[hijack] Well, your God wouldn’t be personal – just be the set of all personal gods. How would God affect the world – by Infinite Consensus? Would your God become no more than a figurehead? But, if you do finish your definition, start a thread – it would be a more interesting thread .
[/hijack]
When I thought of this, I proposed a modified Pascal’s wager: Assume you believe that worshipping God is your best bet, and the only problem is not being able to do so at will. Then you could try and persuade other people, and give them the best chance to have a good afterlife, by persuading them with the most superficially convincing arguments you can find.
You might not come off so well yourself, but it can hardly be worse than none of you worshipping God. Of course this unfortunately doesn’t suggest which religion to espouse.
And Shade, takes significant effort. A key part of the wager is that believing costs nothing. It doesn’t - even if you don’t have to convert people. Even if you don’t have to go to church, or tithe, or do any “religion” things instead of “faith” things. Faith still has a cost - particuallarly if it isn’t your natural state.
I make it a rule NEVER to discuss religion or politics, but here I go. While reading this thread I was reminded of a quote.
This seems to address the issue of believing for the sake of “hedging your bets”. Believe because you have “reasoned it out” or do not believe for the same reason. If you choose not to believe and you are wrong, TJ imagines that God will look kindly on you. Now, what would TJ’s vision of God say to the person who answers God with, “Gosh, I just always believed; I never really thought about it”?
I’ve been meaning to tell you all about Maximum Bliss. It’s an astral plane, a bit like Heaven, but infinitely better. All you have to do to attain Maximum Bliss is walk around completely naked. The governing forces frown on any stitch of clothing. In fact, they are so put off by the sinful invention of clothing that they will punish anyone who refuses their invitation to Maximum Bliss. Forsaking this path will result in an endless torture in the Pits of Doom, which makes Hell look like a tea-party in comparison.
Now, I can’t offer any proof for Maximum Bliss, the Pits of Doom, or the governing forces. But don’t you agree that it makes sense to behave as though they were real? What do you have to lose? Besides your underpants, that is.
