Buddhists and Hindus view on Pascal's Wager

[cho_pilo]

What do reincarnationist (Buddhists and Hindus) think of Pascal’s Wager?

Does it make sense to them?

 

[Ahimsa]

What do reincarnationist (Buddhists and Hindus) think of Pascal’s Wager?

Does it make sense to them?

Here is the Wager:

1. 
   *]“God is, or He is not”
   *]A Game is being played… where heads or tails will turn up.
   *]According to reason, you can defend neither of the propositions.
   *]You must wager. It is not optional.
   *]Let us weigh the gain and the loss in wagering that God is. Let us estimate these two chances. If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing.
   *]Wager, then, without hesitation that He is. (…) There is here an infinity of an infinitely happy life to gain, a chance of gain against a finite number of chances of loss, and what you stake is finite. And so our proposition is of infinite force, when there is the finite to stake in a game where there are equal risks of gain and of loss, and the infinite to gain.
   
   From a Buddhist perspective, the very first sentence is problematic. What is meant by 'God"? A Buddhist would perhaps put in place of “God”, the idea of “Dhamma”, which means Truth.
   
   For a Buddhist, Dhamma simply is the way things are. To deny that things are the way they are, would be irrational, unreasonable. That means that Dhamma is a very rational idea, and thus there is no need to wager on its existence as if Dhamma could possibly not exist.
   
   From a Hindu perspective, God is “Sat-Chit-Ananda”, with “Sat” meaning “Existence”. So, if things exist, their existence is due to the Sat/Existence that is God.
   
   So, for a Hindu, it would make no sense to wager, or guess, that God exists, because God is that which makes existence possible. The question “God is, or He is not” would be non-sensical. It would be like saying “Existence is, or Existence is not”.

 

[secondeve]

Here is the Wager:

1. 
   *]“God is, or He is not”
   *]A Game is being played… where heads or tails will turn up.
   *]According to reason, you can defend neither of the propositions.
   *]You must wager. It is not optional.
   *]Let us weigh the gain and the loss in wagering that God is. Let us estimate these two chances. If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing.
   *]Wager, then, without hesitation that He is. (…) There is here an infinity of an infinitely happy life to gain, a chance of gain against a finite number of chances of loss, and what you stake is finite. And so our proposition is of infinite force, when there is the finite to stake in a game where there are equal risks of gain and of loss, and the infinite to gain.
   
   From a Buddhist perspective, the very first sentence is problematic. What is meant by 'God"? A Buddhist would perhaps put in place of “God”, the idea of “Dhamma”, which means Truth.
   
   For a Buddhist, Dhamma simply is the way things are. To deny that things are the way they are, would be irrational, unreasonable. That means that Dhamma is a very rational idea, and thus there is no need to wager on its existence as if Dhamma could possibly not exist.
   
   From a Hindu perspective, God is “Sat-Chit-Ananda”, with “Sat” meaning “Existence”. So, if things exist, their existence is due to the Sat/Existence that is God.
   
   So, for a Hindu, it would make no sense to wager, or guess, that God exists, because God is that which makes existence possible. The question “God is, or He is not” would be non-sensical. It would be like saying “Existence is, or Existence is not”.

1. 
   It is doubtful whether Pascal’s notorious Wager should make sense to anyone. God does not punish people for invincible ignorance. If a person honestly believes atheism is true ( as many do these days ) then God certainly prefers that she should say so and live accordingly, rather than live a lie for the sake of possibly " backing the right horse".

 

[Ahimsa]

What do reincarnationist (Buddhists and Hindus) think of Pascal’s Wager?

Does it make sense to them?

Regarding reincarnation (the Hindu term) or rebirth (the Buddhist term), the threat of eternal hell in Pascal’s Wager would not be a very potent threat, since a person’s residence in a Hindu or Buddhist hell would not be permanent.

However, Hindu and Buddhist depictions of various hells in their scriptures, do present certain hells as giving very painful experiences and potentially lasting for eons and eons, so Pascal’s Wager might be salvageable from that perspective.