Pascal's Wager Redux

[Vera_Ljuba]

But seriously, if 2 billions - even more, if we’d add Muslims, Jews, maybe some others - managed to find God, is God really that hidden?

All those people believe (very honestly, I presume) that they “found” God. But that is not an evidence. However, I am game (as always). Let me have the method which will allow me to “find God” and let’s see if it works. However, I am afraid that all I will receive is the same cop-out, that the charlatans of the paranormal say every time: “You have to believe, because if you don’t believe, the paranormal effects will not happen”. They never happen when professional magicians are in crowd. You (in general) say the same: “if you ask for some miracle and your purpose is to test God, it will never happen”. To be very blunt: you portray God as a cosmic cheater, who will always “thwart” your attempts to “unmask” him. The so-called “divine hiddenness” is one of the insurmountable impediments to take the God-hypothesis seriously. The other one is, of course, the “problem of evil”.

You do not know what “a hypocrite” is supposed to be, do you?

Yes, I do. Someone who pretends to accept something that they don’t believe.

 

[tonyrey]

…nor has anyone ever produced a feasible blueprint of a superior world. It is easy to suggest piecemeal improvements but to design an entire biosphere is rather more challenging…

An excellent example of a piecemeal improvement! Please explain how life could have developed according to natural laws to such an advanced level without an element of conflict, violence, injustice, chance and adversity.

 

[Bradski]

Please explain how life could have developed according to natural laws to such an advanced level without an element of conflict, violence, injustice, chance and adversity.

You’ll have to ask God. He had it set up that way to start…

But you are asking how God, who is omnipotent, was restricted in the way He set things up. By the natural laws, which He devised.

You get the best builder in the world to build you a house. So let’s face it, it’s going to be good. But when he hands you the keys, there are problems everywhere. How come there are so many faults when he is the best builder available?

Ah, says one of his workers, it could have been better, but he was restricted by the specifications.

You idiot, you reply. He WROTE the specifications!

 

[Charlemagne_III]

And if God is not a personal God, that is if He has no interaction with us at all, then He might as well not exist.

Mighty big “if” there. How does an “if” factually become an “is not”?

 

[Mike_from_NJ]

Training in a gun range helps both policemen and assassins. What does that call into question?

Gun training is a learned skill. It doesn’t lead one to a true use of guns, just how to use them in general. When that skill is aquired the person can do what he wants with that skill. My earlier comment was to debunk Randy’s asserton that doing the things asked (church, religious attendance, prayer) would lead one to a true faith, something I showed in two ways was not accurate. Your attempted analogy is not analogous.

What “Divine Hiddenness”? It looks like there are more than 2 billions of Christians in the world. It doesn’t look like finding God is quite as hard as you claim…

Vera_Ljuba makes an excellent point in comparing the certainty of believers in religion with that of believers in other supernatural things (e.g. ghosts, tarot, ouija boards). Doubting any of those will often result in the claims that the doubter isn’t trying hard enough or doesn’t have an open mind. The idea that something exists only when one first professes belief in its existence runs counter to how we know and learn everything else. When relativity was discovered a great many people doubted it, but evidence – real evidence – has shown it to be true even to those highly skeptical of it. Nothing close to that occurs for religion.

Taken another way everything about Christianity seems to be an explanation after the fact. It doesn’t add up that God would present himself to only a select few in one tiny area of the world and then use man to spread this message. God is omni-everything unless it causes trouble with the narrative. Sure there are 2 billion Christians; but there are more non-Christians than Christians, and many of them use the same methods to believe in gods Christians would declare as false. You can’t use a method to prove your god is true (or demonstrate humanity’s innate longing for your god) if the same method is used to claim the existence of false gods.

For this point you need to prove at least “On average, atheists are as charitable, as believers.”.

Two things on that:

1. There are plenty of charitable atheists. Now until recently not very few did it under the banner of atheist organizations the way many Christian organizations do. I chalk that up to the fact to the lessening of the stigma of being an atheist and also to the fact that it’s a reaction to people make the errorneous claim that atheists aren’t charitable. Regarding both factors, here’s a Christian charity who denied a contribution from an atheist group. Now I think that is an outlier, and most charities aren’t like this, but it’s something not to be ignored when claiming atheists aren’t as charitable as believers.
2. It’s not a matter if atheists are on average as charitable as believers (although I do believer they are). Randy said charity would lead one to a true faith, and by pointing to the many charitable atheists – whether they do so as part of an atheist organization, working under a religious organization, or as part of a secular one – that the statement is patently false.

So, in other words, you do agree - you are talking about feelings here.

I literally wrote the exact opposite as demonstrated by what you quoted from me, so I have no idea how you came to that conclusion. I said atheists tend to look at the god question more with the hows and whys, while believers tend to talk more about their feelings.

Of course there are similarities - precisely the ones that are irrelevant here.

Explain why these similarities, which I’ve gone into detail as to how they will likely cause the same results and how they both don’t cause one to overcome how the person doesn’t find the argument cogent, are irrelevant.

Then become a deist.

I find atheism is more plausible than deism, just as I find deism is more plausible than Christianity.

I’m afraid that this is not certain even for Deism…

But it is even more interesting that here we see that you are not exactly free from wishful thinking…

It’s not a matter of wishful thinking to say that if the god(s) of Deism is correct, meaning he/she/they doesn’ interact with his/her/their creation, then it’s unlikely that if there is an afterlife the judgement is based on belief in him/her/them. It naturally follows from the makeup of Deism.

Pascal’s Wager is meant for cases when evidence is inconclusive.

Then why are so many believers getting on the case of atheists who say that it’s not about evidence being inconclusive but instead non-existant?

 

[Mike_from_NJ]

I’m pretty sure that victims of Katyn would disagree with the claim that no atheist organisation has ever “commanded people to do great evil”.

And once again you need to compare averages. Outliers do not matter.

Finally, the point you were answering was that, from the point of view of just about any religion, just about any religion is preferable to atheism. Your answer has little to do with that point.

I never said that, so I don’t know from what whole cloth you derived that from. What I did say was that believers have an extra hurdle in matters of morality that non-believers don’t – namely that if a religious organization or a detiy (secondhand from a religious text) tells a believer to do something immoral then it’s quite the struggle. Every one of us has influences to have is do things where we need to judge whether they are moral or not. These can come from governments, friends, media, family, employers, organizations, even strangers. The believer’s extra influences of religious group and religious text (speaking for the deity) can be extra burdensome because believers are taught that these are the best sources of morality. I’ve talked to quite a few believers on CAF on matters of when a religious group or text/detiy performs, calls for, or allows for an immoral act how to deal with it. Unfortunately, the most common response is to downplay or deny that such acts are immoral. In those cases the non-believer has the clear upperhand. That’s not to say atheists are more moral than believers, just that atheists can judge whether an act is immoral on its face without the added baggage of being trained from birth to blindly accept acts by a certian group or deity are moral.

Even in that case they have to be acknowledged. “I got bad answers.” is not the same as “I got no answers.”.

A bad answer is just as useful as no answer.

I’m not sure what you ask for, thus, at first, do you know what sacraments are?

I know what the sacraments are. I want to know to know what you mean by “work”. It’s best to have a clear idea of what people mean whenever possible.

So, I tell you that the form of both arguments is the same and you respond that the subject is different…

I’m saying that in both cases decision is based on something other than evidence, because it is assumed to be inconclusive or simply hasn’t been presented.

I’m telling you that they are different because they are different.

In the case of atheists having assessed the case for the Christian God, I don’t think “assumed to be inconclusive or simply hasn’t been presented” goes far enough. To most atheists what is provided to us as evidence isn’t in some gray area of inconclusiveness, where it could go either way. Instead it fails. As far as evidence not yet presented, there has been plenty of time to compile evidence for the existence of a god. If it hasn’t come now it’s hard to think it’s just around the corner. That’s not to say minds aren’t open to new evidence, just that optimism for such future evidence has evaporated. As I said in my original comment, non-believers can come to their own conclusions open and honestly just as many believers have.

In the case of Pascal’s Wager, that begins after one has assessed whether they believe the Christian God is real. It takes the next step and says because the threat of Hell is so great and the promise of Heaven is so great everyone should put aside any doubt or disbelief and succumb to those threats and promises. Again, Pascal’s Wager is not about whether an atheist can come to their conclusions on God honestly. Different ballpark, different sport.

No, I was not saying that.

And no, “open and thorough assessment” is far too high bar for honesty.

And it is no wonder that no, I do not remember any atheist making anything close to “an open and thorough assessment of the god question” (the ones who became former atheists because of it do not count)…

I find an open and thorough assessment if the available evidence to be a reasonable gauge of whether someone is honest in offering up findings on a matter. You may feel that absolutely no atheist has ever been open and thorough on the matter of whether there is a god, but there are quite a few in your midst. As I said before and I’ll say again, it’s possible for multiple people to come to different conclusions on the same matter and have each person come to those conclusions honestly. This is especially true on a topic riddled with so much vagueness and unknown as the topic of a god.

You were asking what would happen to Zap if Catholicism is true. And even if you were asking anything else, that is not an excuse to tell falsehoods.

As I said in the very statement you quoting and as others have mentioned here you can’t just consider one religion or even one subset of one religion. There are a great many Christians who take up the exclusivist position, and you would need some backing to call that a falsehood.

I don’t think that pride counts as evidence… I also do not think pride counts as a good basis for honestly held beliefs.

For yes, if Christianity is true, the relationship between humans and God is somewhat similar to a relationship between humans and their pets (or, perhaps, humans and Teddy bears - after all, we do not create our pets). It is so even if you do not like it.

Hopefully, you merely misspoke here…

I certainly did not misspeak. I agree that it’s possible (although extremely unlikely) that if the Christian God were real he would do so via disgusting threats and impossible promises, but that would run completely counter to the idea of God being love itself. You know what, I do take one part of it back. I wouldn’t respect a dog owner who treated his dog that way.

 

[Bradski]

Mighty big “if” there. How does an “if” factually become an “is not”?

You need to follow the conversation rather than taking quotes out of context, Charles. I’d been asked ‘why not a deist’.

Maybe I am. My god is called Naychah.

And well done, Joey on your last few posts. Makes me want to lift my game.

 

[Abba]

You seem to have completely forgotten Matthew 25, where the carrot and the stick abound. Christ does not ask us to pretend to be compassionate, but TO BE COMPASSIONATE. Pascal, using the carrot and the stick, does not ask us to pretend to believe, but TO BELIEVE.

I have mentioned in the past that I think atheists should not be bunched under one label. We can keep ‘atheist’ but we need to distinguish the class and degree, e.g. Born Atheist, Infant Atheist (those that for infantile reasoning are atheists), Too busy to learn about God Atheists (distinguished professionals that dedicated themselves to their professions and never really took the time to learn about God), Herd Mentality Atheists (joined because that is what is a la mode), Turned Atheist (those who were raised in a faith but this stopped and their knowledge of the faith is infantile and as adults with their infantile knowledge decide the faith is not worth it) etc… I am just typing the list without much thought, but, we would serve atheist better if we can distinguish them. Maybe, someday, a thread can be started and a good workable list can be developed or some theologian will come up with a nice list that makes a good workable distinction.

So, this whole idea of thinking that an atheist can just ‘choose to believe’ is unreasonable to me. Except in the rare cases where someone just decided not to believe due to the inconvenience or struggle uncertainty once posed. But, there are people who were raised with an atheistic worldview and additionally some of them reason in such a way that it is almost beyond them to come to recognize the existence of God. Now, I just cannot sit in front of an atheist as if waving a crystal and try to hypnotize them into just freezing their thinking process and ‘just believe’.

I think fear has its place (kingjamesbibleonline.org/Bible-Verses-About-Fear-of-the-Lord/ ) but, I would not use fear obligate/terrorize someone into forcing themselves to ‘just believe’ - if that is even possible. I think we need to respect the person. As a matter of fact, God Himself could do something to terrorize everyone and make them believe, but, He doesn’t, He wants people to work out their own salvation. Don’t forget - Satan is not an atheist. Perhaps in an advanced stage of the journey, some atheists can take the leap of faith. Fear that death may catch me unprepared pushes me to make sure I receive the sacraments as death may come as a thief in the night. Fear pushes me to abide by the commandments and do the will of God. There is good fear but, due to fear to do acrobatics in my mind against myself is not something I would do nor demand that others do. I respect myself and others.

I have corresponded with an atheist who is one of the tops in his field and has left his footprints already in history. And what have I discussed with him? Nothing more and nothing less than his atheism. I just remembered there is a book I been meaning to send to him by Galot. Well, Charlemagne III, this atheist presents himself as a homeless person on a cold winter Christmas night outside looking in a home where family and friends are sitting in the dining room enjoying a nice meal etc… He has Catholic and Jewish friends and he admires their faith and how rich it makes their lives. If God exists - he wants to know; but, he can’t, he has tried and has struggled but, he says that I just cannot come to intellectually understand that a God exists never mind that he is personal. I would describe him as a Reluctant Atheist. This, of course, brings to mind the movie; The Reluctant Saints (I recommend for those of you who have never seen it:youtube.com/watch?v=eXxOLNRBdXw ). Now, I would be hard pressed to tell him: okay, just close your eyes and from the moment you open them again you will just be a believer - just believe - one, two , three. It just doesn’t work that way. You say there is nothing funny here, but, how am I suppose to do that with a serious face? I mean, really?

About Matthew, well, I can already detect we have different understandings about who can be saved, so I will leave that for now. Suffice to say, that I believe anyone and everyone can be saved - and yes, even atheists and this thru the blood of Jesus and thru the Catholic Church. As far as I am concerned, Atheists are the Poorest of the Poor Spiritually - to borrow a little from Saint Theresa of Calcutta. And, according to Matthew 25 the Lord may someday say, after I gave you so many graces and spiritual gifts, how could you not help the atheists? I don’t know you!

I know many will disagree with me and that’s fine; but, I do not think that all the atheists who do not come to recognize the existence of God before they die are going straight to hell. We do not know their individual struggles nor if as may be the case for some negligent irresponsible abandonment, but, it is God who will judge them. Again, there are atheists and then there are atheists. The atheist I mentioned above, the last thing he would want to do is to be affiliated with the atheist ‘religion’ or club or fad whatever; he truly is struggling and has been and will continue to until he dies - to try to understand if there is God. Some people just draw a blank kind of thing. I am not here to judge, I am here to help.

 

[Bradski]

In regard to the types of atheist in the last post, I personally don’t consider anyone an atheist unless they are at least at an age where they can reason, have actively thought about belief and have honestly come to the decision that there are no gods.

So there are no child atheists.

There are no atheists who could say: ‘Well, I haven’t given God much thought so I must be an atheist’.

There are no atheists who say: ‘My parents don’t believe so I guess that makes me an atheist’.

There are no atheists who say: ‘I don’t know anything about it, somI must be an atheist’.

The obverse is true for anyone declaring a religion.

 

[Vico]

Pascal argued:

A. Either God exists or He does not, and either you choose to believe Him or you do not.
B. When you combine these two truths, there are only four logical possibilities.

1. 
   *]You believe in God, and He exists.
   *]You believe in God and He does not exist.
   *]You don’t believe in God, and He exists.
   *]You don’t believe in God, and He does not exist.
   
   C. If you believe in God, and you’re right, you will enjoy unimaginable happiness forever.
   D. If you believe in God, and you’re wrong, you will never know you were wrong. When you die, you will simply cease to exist.
   E. If you don’t believe in God, and you are wrong, you will suffer eternal damnation.
   F. If you don’t believe in God, and you are right, you will never know you were right. When you die, you will simply cease to exist. Further, you will not even have the satisfaction of knowing that you were right.
   G. These are the only four reasonable outcomes. You will be in one of these four situations after death.
   H. At present, you have partial control over the outcome.
   I. You cannot abstain from choosing.
   J. The believer has everything to gain and nothing to lose. The non-believer has everything to lose and nothing to gain by not believing.
   K. Not believing is the most foolish option.
   L. Therefore, believing in God is the safest course of action.

1. 
   There is no consideration of final repentance, only belief, in bringing happiness.

 

[po18guy]

And if you don’t believe something exists, why on earth would you want to seek it out? Bizarre…

Not so bizarre, actually. In science and medicine, this is called research.

In spiritual matters, it is called seeking. Some seek, others do not. Animals are instinctual and do not seek. Humans have the ability, whether or not one chooses to believe that it is useful.

Even if we are purely products of chance evolution, have we not developed the ability to seek for some reason? Or is evolution actually devolution?

 

[Bradski]

Not so bizarre, actually. In science and medicine, this is called research.

In spiritual matters, it is called seeking. Some seek, others do not. Animals are instinctual and do not seek. Humans have the ability, whether or not one chooses to believe that it is useful.

Even if we are purely products of chance evolution, have we not developed the ability to seek for some reason? Or is evolution actually devolution?

Research is the study of a particular subject im order to learn more about it. Once you reach a decision that it doesn’t exist, it would be (again) bizarre to continue looking for evidence that it does.

If you don’t believe Elvis is still alive, you spend zero time looking for the guy. If you don’t believe that Bigfoot exists, then you don’t spend any time in the woods looking for it. If you don’t believe in UFOs, then long nights gazing into the heavens looking for little green men is not going to be your favourite pastime.

Yes, we have developed the need to look for reasons behind what we experience. But if you find a reason that you believe to be true, you stop looking for alternatives. Or maybe you regularly check out Bhuddism and Hinduism.

Just a shot in the dark here, but you don’t. Yet you expect me to?

 

[PRmerger]

In regard to the types of atheist in the last post, I personally don’t consider anyone an atheist unless they are at least at an age where they can reason, have actively thought about belief and have honestly come to the decision that there are no gods.

So there are no child atheists.

There are no atheists who could say: ‘Well, I haven’t given God much thought so I must be an atheist’.

There are no atheists who say: ‘My parents don’t believe so I guess that makes me an atheist’.

There are no atheists who say: ‘I don’t know anything about it, somI must be an atheist’.

The obverse is true for anyone declaring a religion.

Not quite.

Sure, there are “child Catholics”.

But the rest of your statements are not endorsed by Catholicism.

Regarding the “child Catholics”: let’s remember the ever-present both/and here.
Catholicism is not ONLY a system of beliefs. It’s membership into a body/corpus/family.

So…

 

[inocente]

That sure is a lot of sophistry.

But let’s go to the real question that you didn’t answer: are you going to claim that someone “who says, ‘You fool!’” is not “in danger of the fire of hell”?

If by calling standard Christian morality ‘sophistry’ you are calling me a fool then decide for yourself.

 

[Vera_Ljuba]

In regard to the types of atheist in the last post, I personally don’t consider anyone an atheist unless they are at least at an age where they can reason, have actively thought about belief and have honestly come to the decision that there are no gods.

So there are no child atheists.

There are no atheists who could say: ‘Well, I haven’t given God much thought so I must be an atheist’.

There are no atheists who say: ‘My parents don’t believe so I guess that makes me an atheist’.

There are no atheists who say: ‘I don’t know anything about it, somI must be an atheist’.

The obverse is true for anyone declaring a religion.

Ouch. There is a first time for everything - a serious disagreement between you and I . We have a linguistic / philosophical problem here. In the following short analysis, the word “god” means a hypothetical entity, which is metaphysically “supernatural” and epistemologically “transcendent”. The word “God” is the Abrahamic / Jewish / Christian version. “Supernatural” means that this entity is not part of the natural world. “Transcendent” means that this entity is beyond our epistemological methods. So:

Theist: someone who believes that a god or gods exist.
Atheist: someone who does not believe that a god or gods exist. “A”+“theist” = non-theist.

These are both metaphysical terms, describing a “belief” or the “lack of belief”. The reason, why someone believes or does not believe is irrelevant. They can differentiate between “strong” and “weak” types of atheists, but that is not important at this moment.

Gnostic: someone who expresses knowledge about the existence of non-existence of a god or gods.
Agnostic: somewhat who expresses ignorance in the matter, who says: "I don’t know if a god (or gods) exist or not.

These are both epistemological terms, describing the knowledge or the lack of knowledge in the matter. Obviously, the one who professes knowledge should be able to defend his position, bring up proof or very strong, compelling evidence.

So, there are 4 possible scenarios:

Agnostic theist: someone who believes in the existence of a god or gods.
Agnostic atheist: someone who does NOT believe in the existence of a god or gods.
Gnostic theist: someone who actually asserts that he knows that a god of gods exist.
Gnostic atheist: someone who actually asserts that he knows that a god of gods DO NOT exist.

It would be nice to have this made into a sticky, and everyone should agree. Otherwise there is confusion and misunderstanding.

 

[tonyrey]

Please explain how life could have developed according to natural laws to such an advanced level without an element of conflict, violence, injustice, chance and adversity.

Any physical system is bound to have its drawbacks and limitations - unless you can produce** a feasible blueprint **of an ideal world. If it includes independent persons a perfect system becomes even more of a fantasy:

1. Omnipotence doesn’t entail absurdity but consistency.
2. Created beings are necessarily imperfect in some respect.
3. Otherwise they would be Gods.
4. The hypothesis that there is more than one God violates the principle of economy.
5. Despite life’s imperfections very few people wish they had never been born.
6. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights implies that life is worth having.
7. Pessimists like Schopenhauer are inconsistent.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

I know many will disagree with me and that’s fine; but, I do not think that all the atheists who do not come to recognize the existence of God before they die are going straight to hell. We do not know their individual struggles nor if as may be the case for some negligent irresponsible abandonment, but, it is God who will judge them. Again, there are atheists and then there are atheists. The atheist I mentioned above, the last thing he would want to do is to be affiliated with the atheist ‘religion’ or club or fad whatever; he truly is struggling and has been and will continue to until he dies - to try to understand if there is God. Some people just draw a blank kind of thing. I am not here to judge, I am here to help.

Hope springs eternal, and well it should so long as we confess and repent our sins.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

In regard to the types of atheist in the last post, I personally don’t consider anyone an atheist unless they are at least at an age where they can reason, have actively **thought about belief **and have honestly come to the decision that there are no gods…

Because there is no evidence that God does not exist, those who have **thought about belief **cannot come to a conclusion there is no God. What they come to is the preferred belief that there be no God.

This too is the position of Pascal. One should prefer to believe in God than not to believe, and for the very reasons Pascal gives in the Wager argument.

 

[Vera_Ljuba]

1. Omnipotence doesn’t entail absurdity but consistency.

Omnipotence has nothing to do with “consistency”. Omnipotence is the ability to bring forth any state of affairs, as long as it is not contradictory. For God every “blueprint” is feasible except the ones which contain a logical contradiction. And every “piecemeal” improvement proves that the current state of affairs could be improved.

 

[Bradski]

Because there is no evidence that Bigfoot does not exist, those who have **thought about belief **cannot come to a conclusion there is no Bigfoot. What they come to is the preferred belief that there be no Bigfoot.

That makes just as much sense.