Pascal's Wager Argument

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Charlemagne_II said:
Now tell us … if there is a God, and the atheist dies denying it, does he go to the heaven of Christ, or Allah, or Odin? Or does he go where there might be much weeping and gnashing of teeth? 😉
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Trying to imagine this skeptical atheist, the first sticking point is she must believe that gambling isn’t immoral, otherwise merely being presented with the wager will turn her against any god who promotes it. The implication is that only gamblers can have eternal life, gambling is good, Las Vegas is heaven on earth.

To get her assured reservation the gambler must now believe she has an eternal soul, that gambling with this soul isn’t immoral, and that whichever god she’s going to profess a belief in is sufficiently addicted and capricious to have fixed the odds. There just might be some chicken-and-egg here.

To maximize the odds she must now take one of two routes (a) profess a belief in every god ever thought up in the hope that whichever god is real doesn’t mind her also believing in all the false gods, or (b) put her money on someone else’s One True God™ while hoping she’s not in the clutches of Matt 23:15.

Finally she must hope that Odin is absolutely fine with selfish faith until she’s had enough time to sacrifice ten wildebeest or whatever else substitutes for spiritual development in this madcap romp.

The wager might sound reasonable if we’re already convinced about Odin, but is surely a little desperate and kooky otherwise. If God has a sense of humor, He must split His sides discussing this with Pascal.
 
inocente

*The wager might sound reasonable if we’re already convinced about Odin, but is surely a little desperate and kooky otherwise. If God has a sense of humor, He must split His sides discussing this with Pascal. *

Or maybe Satan also has a sense of humor and is splitting his sides discussing it with those who were too pure to gamble on any God? 😃
 
This
inocente said:
One True God™
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is brilliant! While some will take offense at it, it shines as a comment on the proprietary attitude displayed by the tens of thousands of the world’s religions. And I have to agree. To reduce God to a bet to cover your donkey is both absurd and demeaning, as well as dishonest. Further, how sincere can a belief arrived at by this tic-tac-toe logic possibly be? For what it’s worth, I’d be far more inclined to accept the stand of someone who owned their viewpoint by conviction, than someone who waffled and defaulted to a simplistic wager.
 
It’s interesting that Pascal’s wager is “mind-numbingly stupid” to atheists and even some Christians. The Christians believe you shouldn’t gamble (take a chance) on God? Yet some of these same Christians are willing to argue that when atheists gamble there is no God, that’s just fine. 😃

What I have noticed about many atheists is that the Wager really doesn’t become a plausible event until they realize their life blood is about to run out. Then all of a sudden they look at hope with a different perspective. Is that perspective “mind numbingly stupid”? Is it unworthy as a reason to approach god? I don’t think so. Any reason to approach God is a worthy reason … even the reason of self interest. After all, did God create us to throw away our self interest, or to advance it every chance we can get within reason? What is irrational about approaching God on one’s deathbed? It is not sincere? But who are we to speak about another person’s sincerity?

Certainly Jesus made it clear that we have considerable self interest to protect by choosing him. Indeed, in the following passages doesn’t Jesus anticipate Pascal’s wager and offer a reason to accept it?

“Everyone who acknowledges me before others I will acknowledge before my heavenly Father. But whoever denies me before others, I will deny before my
heavenly Father.” Matthew 10:32-33

“He who believes and is baptized will be saved; he who does not believe will be condemned.” Mark 16:16
 
Pascal’s Wager – much to gain and everything to lose. Bet on God. 👍
 
That might make minuscule sense if the “much to gain and everything to lose” was dependent on “Bet on God.” It isn’t. Ever. So the wager is futile.
 
The Trojan horse trick worked at Troy. It won’t work here. You have been found out. 😃
 
It’s funny, but I’m on another thread, when a briefly Catholic poster suddenly displays comprehensive knowledge of half of the anti-scriptural arguments in existence!!! Funny that…:rolleyes:

Once you’ve seen one “oh I’m a Christian just like you - oh no I dramatically changed - SEE AND SHARE MY DISILLUSION!” trick, you’ve seen them all…:yawn:
 
Tonitz said:
That might make minuscule sense if the “much to gain and everything to lose” was dependent on “Bet on God.” It isn’t. Ever. So the wager is futile.
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OK - a challenge for you. Come up with a reasonable purpose for existence which is *not * contingent on an understanding of reality involving the existence of God.

The wager is never futile. Ever. Or if it is, so is everything else… :eek:
 
There goes that either/or stuff again. Let’s have some use of imagination. The question is framed in a useless way.
 
Mystic_Banana said:
OK - a challenge for you. Come up with a reasonable purpose for existence which is *not * contingent on an understanding of reality involving the existence of God.
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Rather than ask a fellow Catholic to speculate, it might be more productive to ask an atheist.
 
Charlemagne_II said:
Blaise Pascal, French mathematician, physicist, theologian and philosopher devised the Wager Argument. The argument resulted from his conclusion that reason was unreliable either to prove or disprove the existence of God, and that therefore believing in God must be an act of the will resulting from the decision to act in the best interest of the self. What is the best interest of the self? If we believe and God exists, we have acted in our best interest. If we don’t believe and God exists, we have acted in our worst interest. If we believe and God does not exist, we have lost nothing. If we do not believe and God exists, we have lost everything. Therefore, in the absence of definitive logical arguments for or against the existence of God, we should bet on the existence of God, rather than on His non-existence.

Comments?
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Wow. This Pascal must have been some smart dude. So, let’s see: Reason is unreliable, but chance is more reliable. Good point. Acting in self interest (selfishness being a virtue in all religions) we should therefore make a bet, like on a horse.

OK, another good one: at a horse race we bet on horses; they are all horses and one of them will win. In religion, we will bet on gods, as one of them will win. So we can go to the religion window and bet on the Catholic horse, the Muslim horse, the Jewish horse or one of the other lesser favored horses. The wager still works; a hose will win. But which one? Which one is the One True Horse??? I’m sure yo will find the Jews and Muslims betting heavily on the Christian horse. Oh. Maybe bet on horse-nature, and you can win on any one of them. But there’s no ticket for that–to Buddhist. Looking into the actual substance of Universals is irreligious and too encompassing. Can’t find a god-horse there, because you’re the horse. But it’s still fun to bet, lol!

Believing in god we act in our own self interest? OK, I am a South Sea Islander and have no clue as to Christianity or any of the others. One day people arrive in big gray boats dressed in weird clothes and do things to the island with animals that have wheels and soon these big silver birds come from heaven and disgorge good stuff, like food and cigarettes and booze. Hey! I’m going to build a big bird out of driftwood, and maybe god will send me a bird!!!* Yep, I’m acting in my self interest. Ought to get me to heaven.

OK, one more. Since it is a bet, I’m unsure of the actual outcome, I’m just covering my ***. That has got to go for big points with a god. There is real commitment there: instead of a god of the gaps, we have a god of the bets.

Hey CII, I’m a theist and I don’t buy this. Got anything better? Or is that the bets (sic) that you can do? Or are you just being funny so we can talk?
  • Google “cargo cult.”
 
Okatana said:
Wow. This Pascal must have been some smart dude. So, let’s see: Reason is unreliable, but chance is more reliable. Good point. Acting in self interest (selfishness being a virtue in all religions) we should therefore make a bet, like on a horse.
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The point, Okatana, of Pascal’s Wager is that it’s either
  • a good place to *start *one’s theological journey–one starts from this premise and then pursues the wager using better arguments.
  • a good place to *end. * When use considers all the other arguments and cannot be convinced, then, in the end, why not go with the one that provides the best outcome?
 
Tonitz said:
There goes that either/or stuff again. Let’s have some use of imagination. The question is framed in a useless way.
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Well frame it in a way that appear useful to you, or leave it as it is - nonetheless, it is telling that you dodge answering it 😛
 
Mystic_Banana said:
Well frame it in a way that appear useful to you, or leave it as it is - nonetheless, it is telling that you dodge answering it 😛
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So in other words, I didn’t say what you wanted to hear and said that at a level you don’t wish to engage. OK, I know it is “ad hominem,” MB, but it is in kind. Too kind.
 
Tonitz said:
So in other words, I didn’t say what you wanted to hear and said that at a level you don’t wish to engage. OK, I know it is “ad hominem,” MB, but it is in kind. Too kind.
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Er, OK. If I get this right, you can’t be bothered answering because I asked a question in a fashion you mislike to deal with, then you blame me for not engaging…:tsktsk:

I could use my imagination, but that would just wander away from the question under false pretense, something it seems you’re quite keen to do 🤷
 
danserr said:
One more note, Pascal did actually think there was also good evidence for Christianity that could tip the scales of the wager that way.
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No, he didn’t. Pascal believed that onf can only believe in God through pure faith, and that one can justify believe in him with reason.

Pascal’s wager was not an essentially part of his philosophy, and in fact could quite easily be seen as a form of tongue-in-cheek joke, when you consider that the mathematical theories of Pascal had quite an influence of gambling.

I greatly admire Pascal, but do no consider his wager to be convincing. It is just such a shame that when modern people talking about Pascal, all they can talk about is his wager.
 
VeniEmmanuel said:
No, he didn’t. Pascal believed that onf can only believe in God through pure faith, and that one can justify believe in him with reason.
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I don’t believe that Pascal ever professed that.

In fact, he is attributed with saying this: “Two errors: to exclude reason; to include only reason.”
 
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