Pascal's Wager Revisited

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You are going to continue being spectacularly unconvincing with this approach. Despite numerous attempts from non-theists to explain why they don’t agree with you, you still find it necessary to tell us what we believe. It’s beginning to come across as a bit stubborn, or perhaps ignorant of the topic. If you can’t sincerely put yourself in our positions, or at least admit when you’re wrong, how can you possibly expect us to take your arguments seriously?

I’m not an atheist because I don’t want to believe in your God or immortality. When I was Catholic, this religion was very comforting. It was great to think that I, and everyone I love will live forever. What a comforting belief! I’d love for that to be true. However, while these beliefs made me feel good, I can’t possibly believe in them anymore, because I no longer see any compelling evidence. It’s really that simple.

You cannot be wrong about Santa Claus because it is verifiable that Santa does not exist (go to the North Pole and find out!), whereas it is not verifiable that God does not exist.

Perhaps not, but it is verifiable whether souls exist or not. Which after all, is the most important belief if Pascal’s Wager is to make any sense whatsoever. Look, if souls exists, all you have to do is prove that there are aspects of the mind that are in no way linked to the brain. It seems reasonable to think these supernatural mental functions would be unaffected by damages to the brain, loss of consciousness, etc. This is very much a verifiable claim!
 
Perhaps not, but it is verifiable whether souls exist or not. Which after all, is the most important belief if Pascal’s Wager is to make any sense whatsoever. Look, if souls exists, all you have to do is prove that there are aspects of the mind that are in no way linked to the brain. It seems reasonable to think these supernatural mental functions would be unaffected by damages to the brain, loss of consciousness, etc. This is very much a verifiable claim!

Not to an atheist, surely!
 
Nepenthe

And one last attempt to get through - nontheists don’t generally not want to think the supernatural is unreasonable - we simply do not have any evidence or reason to think it is.

Then how do you explain the many atheists on their deathbeds who suddenly overcome that “lack of evidence” and start to pray? That is because they suddenly **cease to not want to believe **in God and the soul and start to believe because -]they want/-] to believe? And why do they suddenly want to believe?

Because they have nothing to lose and everything to gain?
 
Not to an atheist, surely!

Incredible! You still know exactly what we want to believe! Is it so impossible that the real thoughts and beliefs of atheists differ from what your straw-man arguments allow?

Modern neuroscience suggests that every function of the mind is fundamentally linked to the brain. States of total unconsciousness (such as when you’re under general anesthesia) would support the notion that even self-awareness arises from brain activity, and can likewise be reduced or temporarily ceased by altering that activity. However, if somewhere along the line, the evidence strongly suggests that there is an aspect of the mind that does not correspond to the brain, I would follow the logical implications of that fact. I know that most atheists would do the same. The trouble is, that evidence does not exist.
 
No. Simply because they don’t want to die. Nobody does (okay, a few examples notwithstanding, like the guy who built and uh, successfully used, a homemade guillotine behind his house last year :whacky:. And prolonged pain does some very odd stuff to the mind as well. Not everyone in extreme circumstance can quite make it to acceptance, indeed very few, considering how strong the will to live is! And if a new wonderdrug, or supernatural entity, or ANYthing can give many who are dying hope, then it is a completely human response, and not to to take lightly with your “how do you explain THIS then?” - I’d even call such arguments pejorative and uncharitable.

Myself, I’m rather looking forward to a nice, eternal dirt nap, and I do know what it is to be seriously ill and injured, both very nearly to death - yet not once did I suddenly ‘convert’. The only time I have ever wished, even a little, for a life after death was so that my spouse and I could get together every few millenia and zoom around on a date, or possibly so I could keep on reading after kicking the bucket - but all in all, I find the long, infinitely unbroken peace of simply ending most comforting.
 
Nepenthe said:
Myself, I’m rather looking forward to a nice, eternal dirt nap, and I do know what it is to be seriously ill and injured, both very nearly to death - yet not once did I suddenly ‘convert’.
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I have to admit that the one time, when I was near death, I did “convert”.

When I was first checked in, the nurse asked me my religion. I remember my jaw dropping when she asked me that. She explained that she was only asking so I wouldn’t miss out on any religious observances. I told her I didn’t have a religion, and we left it at that.

Fast forward 20 hours… my girlfriend and her sister (who had taken me to the hospital) had left about about 18 hours before. All the conversations with the nurses and doctors had lasted for about 15 minutes. All I had to read was National Inquirer magazines from the waiting room.

The doctors and nurses seemed to be very concerned about my condition, but all I was concerned about was how bored I was. That’s when it dawned on me that talking to a chaplain would be more interesting than finding out if Suzanne Sommers had ever had liposuction. Even if only a little. So, I told the nurse to change my status to Catholic.

No chaplain arrived, but I had the joy of hearing the nurse profess how wonderful it is that people reach out when they are desperate, and how she thinks that there are really no atheists in the world, only scared and hurt…

Fortunately, when my girlfriend visited the second time, she brought a couple of books that I liked, and the nurse’s shift ended about an hour afterwards. No one else brought up the subject of religion after she left, so all was well.
 
Nepenthe said:
Myself, I’m rather looking forward to a nice, eternal dirt nap, and I do know what it is to be seriously ill and injured, both very nearly to death - yet not once did I suddenly ‘convert’. The only time I have ever wished, even a little, for a life after death was so that my spouse and I could get together every few millenia and zoom around on a date, or possibly so I could keep on reading after kicking the bucket - but all in all, I find the long, infinitely unbroken peace of simply ending most comforting.
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Aren’t you going to be in for a shock.

Many Christians and non Christians approach matters of Eternal existence at their own level,you affirm or reject ideas that many Christians hold dear just as I do.

There is,however, another Christian who does not look at things the same way for he has already completed the journey beyond affirmations or negations and into the great Christian realm where the eternal encompasses the temporal,the first being Christ and in his followers,some more and some less.

The hollow shell of our outward form contains the greatness of God and the First Cause and great Christians have always framed it that same way -

“My will and desire were revolved, as a wheel that is equally turned, by the Love which moves the sun and other stars.”
Dante

It is not intellectual affirmation or rejection that makes us most like Christ but that outgoing generosity to meet the greater existence pouring in on us,and boy, does this world make it difficult -

feastofsaints.com/perfectjoy.htm

The non believers or those of weak faith will not get it and if all you can do is wait to be turned into dirt then so be it,it just means you have not tried hard enough or have given in to people who think the same way.That is why the greatest error in Christianity is not belief or unbelief but a mediocre one.
 
As I have said before, if Dante’s constructionist fiction has any resemblance to the afterlife (however nutty that is), I’m hoping to get situated with the Virtuous pagans/heathens. That sounds like -the- spot to be, and forget the rest of all that.

And I do not know what happens after death - and neither do you, You just believe it very strongly, and that’s a pretty big difference. Once more, one thing we can all be very sure about, we’re all going to find out eventually. 😉
 
Nepenthe said:
As I have said before, if Dante’s constructionist fiction has any resemblance to the afterlife (however nutty that is), I’m hoping to get situated with the Virtuous pagans/heathens. That sounds like -the- spot to be, and forget the rest of all that.

And I do not know what happens after death - and neither do you, You just believe it very strongly, and that’s a pretty big difference. Once more, one thing we can all be very sure about, we’re all going to find out eventually. 😉
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Let I said,you will never get the point of life to know why death has no sting for a Christian.

Most here don’t like creation while trying to speak for it or rather making investigation of natural phenomena a means to an end,mostly intellectual pretension in point of fact.For St Francis and many other Christians,creation rings with the great dynamic behind it rather than treating it like a dead body and empirical forensics -

webster.edu/~barrettb/canticle.htm

My Christian heritage is saturated in this freewheeling energy that shines through humanity when it is most creative,it is in our poetry,art and music as well as our science.It is those who take the journey outside their self-imposed walls who enjoy the place where the Eternal meets the temporal -

usccb.org/nab/bible/job/job38.htm

The poetry of Dante needs no qualification and will look silly to those who cannot enjoy anything unless it is put in defintions for them.
 
Death has no sting for me either. PAIN I do fear, but not death - and I have experienced enough to know which one is the really scary part…it’s pain.

And I would never say a word against the marvel of Dante’s work. Or Petrarch’s, or Boccaccio’s, just to cover very briefly that great time of change.
 
Nepenthe

The only time I have ever wished, even a little, for a life after death was so that my spouse and I could get together every few millenia and zoom around on a date, or possibly so I could keep on reading after kicking the bucket - but all in all, I find the long, infinitely unbroken peace of simply ending most comforting.

I guess that’s the most positive thing atheism has to offer. I hope and pray for more.
 
Nepenthe
*
And I do not know what happens after death - and neither do you, You just believe it very strongly, and that’s a pretty big difference. Once more, one thing we can all be very sure about, we’re all going to find out eventually.*

All? I agree. We’ll all find out because we’ll *all *still be alive in spirit.
 
JustHuman

*Incredible! You still know exactly what we want to believe! Is it so impossible that the real thoughts and beliefs of atheists differ from what your straw-man arguments allow?

Modern neuroscience suggests that every function of the mind is fundamentally linked to the brain. States of total unconsciousness (such as when you’re under general anesthesia) would support the notion that even self-awareness arises from brain activity, and can likewise be reduced or temporarily ceased by altering that activity. However, if somewhere along the line, the evidence strongly suggests that there is an aspect of the mind that does not correspond to the brain, I would follow the logical implications of that fact. I know that most atheists would do the same. The trouble is, that evidence does not exist.*

What’s really incredible is the fervor with which atheists argue that if the soul exists we we should be able to detect its nerve endings in the brain.

Maybe atheists are using the wrong organ. Maybe they should approach God with the heart rather than with the brain. I notice they never do.
 
“The heart has reasons that reason cannot know.” Blaise Pascal
 
Charlemagne_II said:
“The heart has reasons that reason cannot know.” Blaise Pascal
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Thank you Charlesmagne II, some of the most eloquent Christian writings contain the same theme and especially the dizzying use of opposites by the dynamic writer known and loved among the later Chrisitians contemplatives as Dionysius the Areopagite -

“Again, ascending yet higher, we maintain that it is neither soul nor intellect; nor has it imagination, opinion reason or understanding; nor can it be expressed or conceived, since it is neither number nor order; nor greatness nor smallness; nor equality nor inequality; nor similarity nor dissimilarity; neither is it standing, nor moving, nor at rest; neither has it power nor is power, nor is light; neither does it live nor is it life; neither is it essence, nor eternity nor time; nor is it subject to intelligible contact; nor is it science nor truth, nor kingship nor wisdom; neither one nor oneness, nor godhead nor goodness; nor is it spirit according to our understanding, nor filiation, nor paternity; nor anything else known to us or to any other beings of the things that are or the things that are not; neither does anything that is know it as it is; nor does it know existing things according to existing knowledge; neither can the reason attain to it, nor name it, nor know it; neither is it darkness nor light, nor the false nor the true; nor can any affirmation or negation be applied to it, for although we may affirm or deny the things below it, we can neither affirm nor deny it, inasmuch as the all-perfect and unique Cause of all things transcends all affirmation, and the simple pre-eminence of Its absolute nature is outside of every negation- free from every limitation and beyond them all.” Dionysius

That is why I love the Perfect Joy of St Francis as an analogy,affirming the things of God with the head is one thing,affirming it with the heart in difficult circumstances is something else yet it is Eternal Love that rings through existence.It is like trying to describe ‘time’ as I know what it is but any attempt to pin it down fails hence the heart knows what reasoning cannot and that is what I see when I read Dionysius.
 
selylidne said:
You’ve added the requirement now that we “consciously” will ourselves to believe. My above argument attempted to show that all or nearly all of our beliefs are selected by will, at least subconsciously. If you think about the process consciously, nothing changes however, because it is necessary to (usually) trust people. We evolved to believe things that way because it’s greatly to our advantage. You can test this right now by deciding to disbelieve everything people tell you today until you examine the matter yourself; you’ll quickly see the value in choosing to believe.
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I can’t choose to disbelieve any more than I can choose to believe. When we believe something, we believe it to be true. When we disbelieve, we believe it to be false. How can you believe something that you don’t think is true? How could you disbelieve something you thought was true?

Best,
Leela
 
How can you believe something that you don’t think is true?

Pascal’s argument is that you can’t be certain it is true that God does not exist. There’s no way you can do that.

In the absence of certainty as to whether or not God exists, it is vastly better to Give God the benefit of the doubt so far as intellect is concerned. Once that benefit is given, the yearning of the heart takes over and a relationship grows with God that proves more fully the ability of the finite to grow toward the Infinite. This growth is something the atheist never experiences, and so from the outside the atheist cannot see how God proves himself more fully to us in our heart than in our head.

So long as the intellect is allowed to rule the roost, it’s true that intellect, always seeking to grasp and contain what it can, will by itself reject the Infinite because it cannot grasp and contain it. Yet intellect is still the tool of will. The *willful *rejection of God comes before the intellect begins to cobble together its case against God. The psychology of that rejection varies from person to person. Sometimes the rejection is mild, and at other times severe.

I speculate that atheism is in every case the scab of a deep wound suffered in life. That wound never heals in some cases. In other cases it does heal. And then there is the case of healing at the hour of death, when the will softens and allows the intellect to lower its resistance and the heart to open itself to reconciliation with the Father.

I suspect that many hardened atheists convert on their deathbed … not that they would give anyone the satisfaction of knowing it. I suspect that no Christian converts to atheism on his deathbed. If he did, we would most likely hear about it.

Pascal is right. The heart has reasons that reason cannot understand.
 
crowonsnow

Sure there is. Same way a Christian does it for Athena, Brahma and invisible unicorns.

Please don’t sidetrack the theme of this thread. We are talking about the idea of God per se. We are not talking about which god to choose. That is a separate issue, which incidentally was answered in an earlier post.

If you choose the wrong god, you risk damnation. If you choose no god, you assure damnation.

The wager is for God rather than Nogod.
 
Charlemagne_II said:
crowonsnow

Sure there is. Same way a Christian does it for Athena, Brahma and invisible unicorns.

Please don’t sidetrack the theme of this thread. We are talking about the idea of God per se. We are not talking about which god to choose. That is a separate issue, which incidentally was answered in an earlier post.

If you choose the wrong god, you risk damnation. If you choose no god, you assure damnation.

The wager is for God rather than Nogod.
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But it’s not just God versus No God. It’s a God that will damn you for not believing in him versus no gods or another God who will not damn you for not believing in him. Well, in that case, based on Pascal’s reasoning I suppose we’d have to pick the God who would damn us over the one who would not damn us for disbelief since there is no incentive to believe in a God who wouldn’t damn us for disbelief. (Maybe that’s why so many religions have such a tenet.)

At any rate, I wouldn’t respect such a coersive God or find him worthy of worship.

Best,
Leela
 
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