Pascal's Wager Redux

[goout]

There is no UNIVERSAL good.

Then you might need to ask yourself,
““what the heck am I doing here, day after day, discussing with these misguided Catholics what the real truth and goodness are?””

Don’t you wonder what it is you are doing, if not searching for something you hold to be objectively and universally true and good?

If not, what’s the point? We’re all good, even the axe murderers among us are cool.

 

[Vera_Ljuba]

Nope that’s not it. Sorry.
That’s a fundamentalist caricature of Christian belief.
It’s minimalist. It’s rigid.

I guess that you missed that a “caricature” is more revealing and more accurate than a portrait. The Christian system is based upon one principle: “obedience”. Not “love”… obedience. According to some interpretations the whole “original sin” was the lack of obedience.

 

[davidv]

I guess that you missed that a “caricature” is more revealing and more accurate than a portrait.

Distortions are never reflections of reality.

The Christian system is based upon one principle: “obedience”. Not “love”… obedience. According to some interpretations the whole “original sin” was the lack of obedience.

Another blatant mischaracterization.

 

[goout]

I guess that you missed that a “caricature” is more revealing and more accurate than a portrait. The Christian system is based upon one principle: “obedience”. Not “love”… obedience. According to some interpretations the whole “original sin” was the lack of obedience.

As David just mentioned you object to a straw man, not Christianity.
Do you know the Christian etymology of the word “obedience”? Hint: slavishness is not part of it.
Do you know what it is you are discussing?

 

[PRmerger]

As David just mentioned you object to a straw man, not Christianity.

Yep.

As Bishop Barron is wont to say to atheists: I reject the same god you reject.

 

[goout]

Yep.

As Bishop Barron is wont to say to atheists: I reject the same god you reject.

Yes. A person must follow his conscience. I also reject the god of slavish obedience who is dying to punish us.
We all need to ask ourselves if our conscience truly knows what it evaluates.

 

[inocente]

We weren’t the ones who brought up the threat of the “bogeyman”…

The OP says “If you don’t believe in God, and you are wrong, you will suffer eternal damnation”.

To justify that, you appealed to a doctrine described by an expert on Catholic doctrine as “anything but Catholic”.

And I found Pascal never even made that claim, and argued the exact reverse. It wasn’t me who distorted his argument to create the bogeyman. No point trying to blame me for checking the facts. If you want to debate your eternal damnation argument then start a thread, but it can’t be passed off as if it’s Pascal’s when it turns out he argued the reverse.

 

[inocente]

That “M” word might be the source of your issue.

No one has been able to quote Pascal claiming an unbeliever suffers eternal damnation.

Instead, he says the unbeliever gets nothing, while the believer gets eternal life.

That’s a totally different argument. It’s the difference between trying to train a puppy by striking it when it gets things wrong, or instead giving it treats when it does right. It’s the difference between telling someone, don’t do as I ask and I’ll kill your children, or instead offering do this and I’ll buy you dinner.

Only it’s a much more extreme difference, the threat that if you don’t believe in my religion you’ll get tortured for ever and ever, instead of Pascal’s if you do believe and are a good person, you’ll get eternal bliss.

 

[goout]

And as I posted some days ago, I think Pascal never says anything like the OP’s “If you don’t believe in God, and you are wrong, you will suffer eternal damnation” anyway. In the version I have, Pascal says if you don’t believe, you lose nothing. No hell, you lose nothing. Just gain a reward if you believe and happen to be right.

Can you cite where he says different? I’ve asked Charles, Tony and Christine, and they’ve not answered yet.

Again:
This particular wager makes a moral evaluation. In other words, it recognizes the good at hand, which is eternal and immeasurable beatitude. Recognizing the good at hand, we can make a moral evaluation pursuant to that, or a “wager”, as the OP has cast it with Pascal.

Ok, “wager” then. What is a wager?
Any gambler with a modicum of expertise weighs the opportunities with the goal of profiting by the wager. No sane person gambles with the goal of losing. The point of plunging into risk (or wagering) is to profit.

Put into Christian terms, the goal of moral evaluation is beatitude, or fulfillment with Christ. This beatitude is beyond measure, so the “stakes” are immeasurably high.

In light of beatitude, anything and everything else is void, or completely lacking. That is why this void can be expressed as “eternal damnation”. **Only in light of the magnitude of the good does the loss have meaning. **

You can also say that loss is just nothing and you would be right, but **you might not realize the depth of that nothingness without seeing the beatific vision. **

Is that making sense?

 

[inocente]

So, if you agree that judgement can end with hell, do you think it is charitable or uncharitable to warn someone who acts in the way that increases probability of going to hell?

I can’t found Pascal making that claim, so this is off-topic. Of course giving cautionary advice is charitable, but not only did Pascal not talk of punishment, no one has yet provided an argument that the God of infinite mercy punishes people for eternity for the heinous offense of using the free-will He himself gave them.

*I’m afraid God is not bound by any UN document.

For example, preamble says “as a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations, to the end that every individual and every organ of society, keeping this Declaration constantly in mind, shall strive by teaching and education to promote respect for these rights and freedoms”. God is neither an “individual” nor an “organ of society”.*

If God disagreed, then freedom of thought must perforce be immoral, and freedom of conscience and freedom of belief must be immoral, and the Church would be doing the opposite of God’s will in Dignitatis humanae.

Surely human dignity is Catholic 101? And you’re arguing small-print?

Now, of course, there are many variants of the same Pascal’s Wager. It is possible to leave the “wrong atheist” option at “no heaven”. It is possible to change the discussed consequences from “heaven” and “hell” to “has thanked God” and “committed an injustice by failing to thank God”. They are also valid. If you prefer one of them, that’s fine.

No, Pascal wrote one wager. If you guys want to distort it beyond recognition, I think you shouldn’t try to pass it off as anything to do with him when he called it terror and opposed it totally.

 

[goout]

No one has been able to quote Pascal claiming an unbeliever suffers eternal damnation.

Instead, he says the unbeliever gets nothing, while the believer gets eternal life.

That’s a totally different argument. It’s the difference between trying to train a puppy by striking it when it gets things wrong, or instead giving it treats when it does right. It’s the difference between telling someone, don’t do as I ask and I’ll kill your children, or instead offering do this and I’ll buy you dinner.

Only it’s a much more extreme difference, the threat that if you don’t believe in my religion you’ll get tortured for ever and ever, instead of Pascal’s if you do believe and are a good person, you’ll get eternal bliss.

It’s not a different argument, it’s a matter of different expressions of the same reality.
For me personally, to be deprived of beatitude is damnation. I’m fine with that expression. I don’t evangelize in those terms because it’s not effective. ok,

No matter how attractive or benign Pascal’s “nothing” might be, it’s an infinite void in proportion to infinite beatitude.

 

[MPat]

I can’t found Pascal making that claim, so this is off-topic.

No, Pascal wrote one wager. If you guys want to distort it beyond recognition, I think you shouldn’t try to pass it off as anything to do with him when he called it terror and opposed it totally.

Why? Just because there is one variant of Pascal’s Wager that Pascal himself made does not mean that other variants do not exist.

Or are you claiming some sort of a strange “copyright” for philosophical arguments…?

Of course giving cautionary advice is charitable, but not only did Pascal not talk of punishment, no one has yet provided an argument that the God of infinite mercy punishes people for eternity for the heinous offense of using the free-will He himself gave them.

First, not for “using”, but for “misusing”.

Second, if a philosophical argument is necessary, there is a series of blog posts by Edward Feser - “How to go to hell” (edwardfeser.blogspot.lt/2016/10/how-to-go-to-hell_29.html), “Does God damn you?” (edwardfeser.blogspot.lt/2016/11/does-god-damn-you.html), “Why not annihilation?” (edwardfeser.blogspot.lt/2016/12/why-not-annihilation.html), “A Hartless God?” (edwardfeser.blogspot.lt/2017/01/a-hartless-god.html). Further discussion would probably have to happen on a different thread.

Third, if there is a question about what Church itself teaches, Catechism paragraph 1033 (vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P2O.HTM) says: “To die in mortal sin without repenting and accepting God’s merciful love means remaining separated from him for ever by our own free choice. This state of definitive self-exclusion from communion with God and the blessed is called ‘hell.’”. Thus Catholic Church does teach what you seem to deny.

If God disagreed, then freedom of thought must perforce be immoral, and freedom of conscience and freedom of belief must be immoral, and the Church would be doing the opposite of God’s will in Dignitatis humanae.

Let’s look what that document actually says:

• “Religious freedom, in turn, which men demand as necessary to fulfill their duty to worship God, has to do with immunity from coercion in civil society. Therefore it leaves untouched traditional Catholic doctrine on the moral duty of men and societies toward the true religion and toward the one Church of Christ.”
• “This Vatican Council declares that the human person has a right to religious freedom. This freedom means that all men are to be immune from coercion on the part of individuals or of social groups and of any human power, in such wise that no one is to be forced to act in a manner contrary to his own beliefs, whether privately or publicly, whether alone or in association with others, within due limits.”

In other words, it is a right giving some immunities from the state and other human institutions. It does not give immunities from God - in a sense, it is the right of God to judge that those rights protect.

And, as I have pointed out Universal Declaration of Human Rights does not disagree on this point.

 

[Vera_Ljuba]

Do you know the Christian etymology of the word “obedience”? Hint: slavishness is not part of it.

Just what is “Christian etymology”? The word comes from: “Latin: oboedire” and it means: “compliance with an order, request, or law or submission to another’s authority”. The reason is irrelevant, it can be expectation of a reward, of fear of retribution, or a combination of both. It is just another name for the “carrot and stick” principle.

It would be refreshing if your guys would not try to pull this “straw man” card, or “caricature” card every time you have no answer… but I guess, it is too much to ask for.

 

[inocente]

Again:
This particular wager makes a moral evaluation. In other words, it recognizes the good at hand, which is eternal and immeasurable beatitude. Recognizing the good at hand, we can make a moral evaluation pursuant to that, or a “wager”, as the OP has cast it with Pascal.

Ok, “wager” then. What is a wager?
Any gambler with a modicum of expertise weighs the opportunities with the goal of profiting by the wager. No sane person gambles with the goal of losing. The point of plunging into risk (or wagering) is to profit.

Put into Christian terms, the goal of moral evaluation is beatitude, or fulfillment with Christ. This beatitude is beyond measure, so the “stakes” are immeasurably high.

In light of beatitude, anything and everything else is void, or completely lacking. That is why this void can be expressed as “eternal damnation”. **Only in light of the magnitude of the good does the loss have meaning. **

You can also say that loss is just nothing and you would be right, but **you might not realize the depth of that nothingness without seeing the beatific vision. **

Is that making sense?

What you are describing is major clinical depression. Feeling worthless, guilty, alone and suicidal. Only without any release, and for all eternity.

That’s a torture well-beyond beyond my imagination. Yet it is being wished on people just for rejecting a religion. Not for murder or rape or anything substantial or meaningful. Torture beyond imagination just for using free-will.

It’s the reverse of Pascal’s wager, and from his writings I think he would be horrified.

That’s all I can say that won’t get me an instant ban , I’m unsubscribing.

Why? Just because there is one variant of Pascal’s Wager that Pascal himself made does not mean that other variants do not exist.

Just because an argument exists doesn’t mean it has any merit. For instance anti-Semitic arguments have no merit.

First, not for “using”, but for “misusing”.

Second, if a philosophical argument is necessary, there is a series of blog posts by Edward Feser - “How to go to hell” (edwardfeser.blogspot.lt/2016/10/how-to-go-to-hell_29.html*), “Does God damn you?” (edwardfeser.blogspot.lt/2016/11/does-god-damn-you.html), “Why not annihilation?” (edwardfeser.blogspot.lt/2016/12/why-not-annihilation.html), “A Hartless God?” (edwardfeser.blogspot.lt/2017/01/a-hartless-god.html). Further discussion would probably have to happen on a different thread.

Third, if there is a question about what Church itself teaches, Catechism paragraph 1033 (vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P2O.HTM) says: “To die in mortal sin without repenting and accepting God’s merciful love means remaining separated from him for ever by our own free choice. This state of definitive self-exclusion from communion with God and the blessed is called ‘hell.’”. Thus Catholic Church does teach what you seem to deny.

The CCC says its purpose is to teach Catholics, so I assume it means when Catholics die. I think you’ll find that Muslims and Buddhists are not bound by it, any more than you’re bound by their teaching. At funerals of atheists, the local priest has always commended them into God’s arms. I trust him to know.

*Let’s look what that document actually says:

• “Religious freedom, in turn, which men demand as necessary to fulfill their duty to worship God, has to do with immunity from coercion in civil society. Therefore it leaves untouched traditional Catholic doctrine on the moral duty of men and societies toward the true religion and toward the one Church of Christ.”
• “This Vatican Council declares that the human person has a right to religious freedom. This freedom means that all men are to be immune from coercion on the part of individuals or of social groups and of any human power, in such wise that no one is to be forced to act in a manner contrary to his own beliefs, whether privately or publicly, whether alone or in association with others, within due limits.”

In other words, it is a right giving some immunities from the state and other human institutions. It does not give immunities from God - in a sense, it is the right of God to judge that those rights protect.

And, as I have pointed out Universal Declaration of Human Rights does not disagree on this point.*
If God was against freedom of religion then freedom would be immoral and the Church would be opposing God in Dignitatis humanae.

As the Church does not oppose God, it follows that God must be for freedom of religion.

The wager invented on this thread attempts to intimidate people into your religion, and so is against freedom of thought. Therefore logically it is against both God and Church. It is the reverse of Pascals’ wager, and Pascal was against coercion in any form. I hope people reflect that enthusiasm can sometimes lead them astray.

I’m unsubscribing now, see you around, thanks for the conversation.

 

[tonyrey]

What you are describing is major clinical depression. Feeling worthless, guilty, alone and suicidal. Only without any release, and for all eternity.

That’s a torture well-beyond beyond my imagination. Yet it is being wished on people just for rejecting a religion. Not for murder or rape or anything substantial or meaningful. Torture beyond imagination just for using free-will.

Hell is not “wished on people just for rejecting a religion” or “murder or rape or anything substantial or meaningful”. It is the inevitable result of pride leading to a premeditated decision to reject God’s love in favour of being independent, answerable to no higher authority and having a kingdom of one’s own which is a source of pleasure and satisfaction but also isolation and frustration.

 

[tonyrey]

Reasonable discussion.

On what principles is the discussion based?

 

[tonyrey]

We weren’t the ones who brought up the threat of the “bogeyman”…

If the OP is unreasonable that fact should have been pointed out instead of attacking Pascal’s wager.

To justify that, you appealed to a doctrine described by an expert on Catholic doctrine as “anything but Catholic”

.Experts are not infallible.

And I found Pascal never even made that claim, and argued the exact reverse. It wasn’t me who distorted his argument to create the bogeyman. No point trying to blame me for checking the facts. If you want to debate your eternal damnation argument then start a thread, but it can’t be passed off as if it’s Pascal’s when it turns out he argued the reverse. The OP says “If you don’t believe in God, and you are wrong, you will suffer eternal damnation”.

Part of the value of these discussions is that we make discoveries. In your first post on this thread you stated that “The Wager perverts Christ beyond recognition”.

 

[MPat]

What you are describing is major clinical depression. Feeling worthless, guilty, alone and suicidal. Only without any release, and for all eternity.

That’s a torture well-beyond beyond my imagination. Yet it is being wished on people just for rejecting a religion. Not for murder or rape or anything substantial or meaningful. Torture beyond imagination just for using free-will.

There are many mistakes here (tonyrey just pointed out one, the very posts you cited have an answer to other), but let’s look at this:

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.

Where should someone who really thinks like that (naturally, that is not something we can check - I doubt even he himself can be 100% certain about that) and does not change his mind go after death? To heaven with God he despises? Or away from Him - which is what hell is?

Just because an argument exists doesn’t mean it has any merit. For instance anti-Semitic arguments have no merit.

Just because an argument exists also doesn’t mean it can be simply dismissed without looking…

The CCC says its purpose is to teach Catholics, so I assume it means when Catholics die. I think you’ll find that Muslims and Buddhists are not bound by it, any more than you’re bound by their teaching. At funerals of atheists, the local priest has always commended them into God’s arms. I trust him to know.

You must be confusing Catechism with Code of Canon Law which does not bind non-Catholics. Catechism “binds” in the same way in which a Physics textbook “binds” - you don’t get an exemption from, let’s say, laws of thermodynamics just because you do not believe they exist.

Also, it would have been a good idea to actually read what Catechism says in those places I cited. It does not say anything about where atheists specifically go after death. It tells us that hell exists.

If God was against freedom of religion then freedom would be immoral and the Church would be opposing God in Dignitatis humanae.

As the Church does not oppose God, it follows that God must be for freedom of religion.

The post you responded to is sufficient to answer that.

To justify that, you appealed to a doctrine described by an expert on Catholic doctrine as “anything but Catholic”.

I am not sure what makes you think that the author is “an expert on Catholic doctrine”… It is written that he belongs to “Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary” and, from what I read (the thread forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=295192 seems to be relevant), it doesn’t even look that certain that it really is in communion with the Church…

 

[Bradski]

On what principles is the discussion based?

You agree on the definitions of good and evil, find a common starting point and then debate the matter using reasonable arguments.

 

[tonyrey]

You agree on the definitions of good and evil, find a common starting point and then debate the matter using reasonable arguments.

How would you define good and evil, Brad? Do you believe in the principles of liberty, equality and fraternity?