I’m sold. Of course, now that I’m sold, I’m thinking magically, and therefore doomed to be deleted. 
EDIT: By the way, I’m so stealing this.
Here’s a response:
[QUOTE=Terry Pratchett]
The Quirmian philosopher Ventre put forward the suggestion that “Possibly the gods exist, and possibly they do not. So why not believe in them in any case? If it’s all true you’ll go to a lovely place when you die, and if it isn’t then you’ve lost nothing, right?” When he died he woke up in a circle of gods holding nasty-looking sticks and one of them said “We’re going to show you what we think of Mr Clever Dick in these parts…”
[/QUOTE]
Best Response? Try “Yawn. Pascal’s Wager. How 1650s.”
Wow. Deep.
Second best response.
I tell them to give me $100, because God will rewards eternally all you give me $100, and punishes eternally all that don’t. I mean, it is an obviously self-serving (for me at least) belief system, and I am completely open that I am just making it up, but it’s only a one-time $100 bucks which is a much smaller inconvenience for people that a lifetime of worship, and what if I’m right?
If that person doesn’t immediately give me $100 (or my religion gives them leave to go to an ATM if need be), then he or she must be taking into account the credibility of the eternal reward/damnation threat, as well as just the size of it in their decision making process. Just as I do when considering the classical Pascal’s Wager.
Years ago, I’ve seen Pascal’s Wager applied to GMO.
Alice: “If there is even a remote chance that genetically modifying organism can cause great harm, Pascal’s Wager says we should not do this.”
Bob: “There is strong reason to believe we can reap great benefits from pursuing GMO, possibly even averting environmental disasters in progress. Failure to do so could also result in great harm. Pascal’s Wager says we should pursue this technology.”
Without personally expressing a position on GMO, I think Pascal’s Wager can be used to argue just about any side of any argument where you can imagine very good and very bad outcomes.
But most of the schtick of Pascal’s wager is specifically that the good and bad outcomes are known to be infinitely good or bad, and because of that there is no possible weighing of risk versus reward. Any amount the joy you might get out of a lifetime of hookers and blow is dwarfed by eternal damnation, and any amount of pain suffered in a lifetime of carnal forbearance is dwarfed by eternal reward.
GMOs tradeoffs are much more of the “genes might do something unexpected vs some people might starve due to avoidable crop failure” variety where one could defensibly take either side.
This is basically similar to my thinking on the Pascal’s Wager question. If you assume a god exists, and that that god will reward/punish you for actions, then the most likely case is that that god wants you to behave as virtuously as possible. What is the god likely to consider virtuous? Abrahamic faiths (on which Pascal’s wager is based) assume the answer to that is blind faith in that god, but that’s never sat well with me. It’s more likely to me that the god would reward critical thinking, personal growth, and kindness to others. It turns out those things have value even if said god does not exist, so the best thing to do is practice those virtues.
It’s a false dichotomy. You also have to include things like this:
To appease all the possible gods, spirits, and ghosts theorized to exist, you’d starve, bleed out, and poison yourself in the pursuit of performing all of the rituals all of the cultures around the world demand for that day of the week. I wouldn’t be surprised if the full load of them would kill you within the day, but certainly you wouldn’t last more than a few weeks.
It would really suck to find that the only thing which the All-Being accepts as proper worship is to bang drums and
blow on pipes beside a swamp while Mars is visible in the sky.
Pascal was writing in the 17th century, when one’s choice of belief was “be Christian” or “pretend to be Christian” (else you’d probably face some unpleasant earthly consequences as well as whatever you were going to in the hereafter). So the “other gods” thing wasn’t really an issue for him.
It is for us, obviously.
The other variant I like to use (well, think about–I’ve never had someone seriously propose the Wager to me) is Nyarolathotep’s Crawling Wager. Looking around at the cosmos, I’m not seeing clear evidence of omnibenevolence and omnipotence; it looks to me like any God in charge of this universe has got a sonofabitch streak a universe wide. Maybe the only way to appease such a god is with bloody human sacrifice and the same sort of mercurial cruelty that gives rise to ebola and the bubonic plague.
But I really like the $100 donation version, too.
Speaking as a Catholic , I see two obvious problems with Pascal’s Wager:
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You think that, if God is real, he’s going to reward someone who cynically adopted a creed he didn’t really believe in just to hedge his bets and avoid Hell?
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The Judaeo-Christian god isn’t the only option. What if you cynically pretend to be a Christian then find out after death the Muslims were right?
Yeah. My version goes like this:
When you die and get to the gates, the guard will hand you a form on a clipboard with a pen on a chain. After the name and address boxes is one question:
Religion:
[ ] Jehovah's Witness
[ ] Other / None
Whatcha gonna put down, Ace?
Oh, not true! Have you not seen Hamlet? Claudius:“My words fly up, my thoughts remain below. Words without thoughts never to heaven go.”
And we all know what a long and happy life the king had, right? I’m sure he got his just rewards.
Stranger
What if there really is a heaven – and only atheists are allowed in?
Hey Claudius
Hey what?
Are you ready?
For what?
To God
God what?
God-speak, oh!
My words are high
My thoughts are low
And this is how I God-speak-oh!
(His words are high
His thoughts are low
And this is how you God-speak-oh!)
God-speak-oh!
God-God-speak-oh!
God-speak-oh!
God-God-speak-oh!
Ia! Ia!
My stock answer would be even more dismissive than “Which God?”. It would be “Stop using Nonsense Words.”
Interestingly enough (to me, anyway), I classify myself as an agnostic/atheist. To clarify, I know only that I don’t know, and will continue in that ignorance at least as long as I draw breath. But my suspicion is that there is no sentient, greater being. At best, some kind of Prime Mover or absolute Laws of Nature which, while they follow certain prescribed paths, make no real decisions nor ‘know’ what they are doing. My faith is in science, and that all phenomena can be explained rationally, if you but have all the evidence.
As for Pascal, the question just seems silly to me. If there is a compassionate God, he/she/it should understand my point of view. If not, shit happens.
Just rereading this thread. I thought this sounded about right, too. To me, however, his rationale is still cynical and dumb. He is missing the point of Faith, which is all about the struggle, not just rolling with it because, hey, why not.
But I also went back and checked the Wiki page, linked to above. What is fascinating is how much space is devoted to the Wager as being seminal in the area of Decision Theory. In other words, Pascal broke the question of existence down into probabilities, did the analysis and drew his Conclusion.
As a foundation of Decision Theory, yes, taking that approach, and evolving it into full-on Game Theory in the 20th century, has been ground-breaking in its importance and influence in many fields.
As an inquiry one puts to one’s own soul, it is hilariously cynical and profound in its tone-deafness. It’s an accountant trying to describe the value of a work of art.
What a fuckwit. I’ll take his contemporary, Montaigne, any day of the week for thoughts about what it means to be Human.