Pascal's Wager

[LibralAteoJesus]

John
**
Sorry. I will ignore you then, you seem to hold firm you position that you CAN assert fact with no evidence, despite the actual fact I cannot engage in this kind of debate. **

You have already engaged in the debate by being an atheist. If all you will tolerate is facts, how is it that atheism is a fact with no evidence that it is a fact? It is not a fact. You have offered no evidence that it is a fact. You cannot offer evidence that it is a fact because no such evidence exists. Atheism is a belief. And it is an empty belief, because all atheism offers is one thing and nothing else? It offers eternal death. It does not offer hope. It does not offer a code of ethics. It does not even offer freedom, since it chains us to a vision of a materialistic universe that is ultimately doomed.

We cannot engage in this kind of debates because it’s a banned topic, the thread isn’t about atheism vs theism.

 

[JohnMichaels]

We cannot engage in this kind of debates because it’s a banned topic, the thread isn’t about atheism vs theism.

This is what I wanted to avoid, having to defend my position when it isn’t allowed. Also, I wouldn’t have come here to do that anyway. Would be rude.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

Libral

**We cannot engage in this kind of debates because it’s a banned topic, the thread isn’t about atheism vs theism. **

You cannot talk about Pascal’s wager argument without talking about atheism. The argument was crafted for atheists, not people who already believe in God. Pascal was very conscious of the rise of atheism in his day. He thought Descartes’ answer was a very weak one. So he crafted a much better one. He does not seek to prove that God exists. What he seeks to prove is that the heart has reasons reason cannot know. Atheism is all reason and no heart. In our day many atheists have become such total rationalists that they will condemn all forms of reason that cannot be empirically based. This is called scientism … the worship of the whore reason … who will sell her wares to the highest bidder. Only the heart is true to itself. And that is why I think it most likely, without having interviewed every person who has ever died, that I think it most likely no religious person on his deathbed will convert to atheism, whereas many atheists on their deathbed (whether they are willing to admit it or not … many cases have been documented, including the most famous atheist of the 20th Century, Jean Paul Sartre) come to their senses and begin to hope and pray for everlasting life. Pascal is only saying come to your senses now … before it is too late! You have everything to lose and everything to gain.

 

[LibralAteoJesus]

Libral

**We cannot engage in this kind of debates because it’s a banned topic, the thread isn’t about atheism vs theism. **

You cannot talk about Pascal’s wager argument without talking about atheism. The argument was crafted for atheists, not people who already believe in God. Pascal was very conscious of the rise of atheism in his day. He thought Descartes’ answer was a very weak one. So he crafted a much better one. He does not seek to prove that God exists. What he seeks to prove is that the heart has reasons reason cannot know. Atheism is all reason and no heart. In our day many atheists have become such total rationalists that they will condemn all forms of reason that cannot be empirically based. This is called scientism … the worship of the whore reason … who will sell her wares to the highest bidder. Only the heart is true to itself. And that is why I think it most likely, without having interviewed every person who has ever died, that I think it most likely no religious person on his deathbed will convert to atheism, whereas many atheists on their deathbed (whether they are willing to admit it or not … many cases have been documented, including the most famous atheist of the 20th Century, Jean Paul Sartre) come to their senses and begin to hope and pray for everlasting life. Pascal is only saying come to your senses now … before it is too late! You have everything to lose and everything to gain.

I sent you a video on your inbox on how Pascal’s wager is very silly, what if Allah turned out to be true? " come to your sense and believe in Him or else! It’s your choice."

If you find anything wrong with what I said, then you could understand my feelings towards what you are saying on the Christian God and the error of Pascal’s wager.

If some atheists say “Oh my God” on their deathbed that doesn’t mean they started believing, in terrible conditions, most of us need a higher power to count on, that’s how psychology works and remember that sickness, weakness of the body, fear and medical drugs can have their very big influence on a person’s reasoning. So they don’t cry to a higher power out of reasoning and conviction but out of lack of it at that time.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

**So they don’t cry to a higher power out of reasoning and conviction but out of lack of it at that time. **

Very true. The whore called Reason is no longer needed. The saint called Hope has arrived.

I sent you a video on your inbox on how Pascal’s wager is very silly, what if Allah turned out to be true? " come to your sense and believe in Him or else! It’s your choice."

The God they call Allah, according to the Prophet, is also the God of Abraham. Our God too.

One thing for sure, if you pray to no God and there is a God, not matter which God is the true God, you are a gonner!

 

[LibralAteoJesus]

**

One thing for sure, if you pray to no God and there is a God, not matter which God is the true God, you are a gonner!**

Out of the many Gods, you would still have a very tiny little percentage better than the non-believer, following Pascal’s wager, it’s just one god less.

“Live a good life. If there are gods
and they are just, then they will
not care how devout you have
been, but will welcome you based
on the virtues you have lived by. If there
are gods, but unjust, then you should not
want to worship them. If there are no gods,
then you will be gone, but will have lived a
noble life that will live on in the memories
of your loved ones.” Marcus Aurelius

 

[Charlemagne_II]

libral

**“Live a good life. If there are gods
and they are just, then they will
not care how devout you have
been, but will welcome you based
on the virtues you have lived by. If there
are gods, but unjust, then you should not
want to worship them. If there are no gods,
then you will be gone, but will have lived a
noble life that will live on in the memories
of your loved ones.” Marcus Aurelius **

That is the whore Reason speaking. Do not listen to her.

Now here the voice of a true God who offers love and will not be spurned with impunity.

“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

 

[LibralAteoJesus]

libral

**“Live a good life. If there are gods
and they are just, then they will
not care how devout you have
been, but will welcome you based
on the virtues you have lived by. If there
are gods, but unjust, then you should not
want to worship them. If there are no gods,
then you will be gone, but will have lived a
noble life that will live on in the memories
of your loved ones.” Marcus Aurelius **

That is the whore Reason speaking. Do not listen to her.

Now here the voice of a true God who offers love and will not be spurned with impunity.

“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

Perhaps you could be right, there is nothing to lose in saying on our deathbed “God whatever you are, forgive our sins” ( even without believing it) and then we gain a ticket to Heaven? cool!

 

[Charlemagne_II]

Libral

**Perhaps you could be right, there is nothing to lose in saying on our deathbed “God whatever you are, forgive our sins” ( even without believing it) and then we gain a ticket to Heaven? cool! **

Um, I think one would have to be sincere. One would have to acknowledge to God on one’s deathbed that one has played the fool. At such times, unless one really is a fool, the desperation of the moment would make one suddenly sincere, unless one is irrevocably and obstinately foolish. In which case, honoring the atheist’s choice, God would leave him forever in the outer darkness.

The atheist who repents sincerely has been given a final grace. He can accept or refuse it.

 

[MPat]

I’m not going to say those reasons, this would be an irrelevant debate to the main post and it might get closed.

Maybe that too, but the point is that you do not know those reasons unless someone tells you… And, of course, your opponent can easily claim that he believes something for irrational reasons. Don’t agree with them in advance!

Yes, Pascal’s wager is irrelevant to me. Only the third reason I mentioned (you can check it) was a matter of choice.

OK, so, we have agreed that the Pascal’s Wager is irrelevant to you… What are we going to argue about next…?

 

[empther]

From post 94

Quote:
Originally Posted by empther View Post
DVDs, personal homes and so on are as good as it gets on Earth,
but all these physical comforts are trivial things compared to the joys of Heaven.

I once skimmed a book written by the wife of a Protestant minister about what it will be like in Heaven.
Among other things, she said we’d be given videotapes about Jesus’s actual movements around the Holy Land which we would take back to our personal mansions to view at leisure.
I asked myself, “How many trillions of years could I do that before getting bored?”
The woman could not rise up to a faint glimmer of the real nature of eternal bliss.

( How easy it is to slam smart alecky remarks. )

Oh, so you don’t know then? Ok
You claimed a person would be without things in hell, and specifically named them. This implies he would be WITH those things if he went to Heaven.

You’re making that up out of thin air.
I did not imply that, nor did I say that. On the contrary, I went to great lengths to show that people’s ideas about what Heaven is like, as in the example of the minister’s wife’s book about videotapes and mansions, falls far short of what Heaven is like.

But you’re saying, you don’t know.

Seems to contradict what you just said. That’s fence sitting.

 

[MPat]

Out of the many Gods, you would still have a very tiny little percentage better than the non-believer, following Pascal’s wager, it’s just one god less.

“Live a good life. If there are gods
and they are just, then they will
not care how devout you have
been, but will welcome you based
on the virtues you have lived by. If there
are gods, but unjust, then you should not
want to worship them. If there are no gods,
then you will be gone, but will have lived a
noble life that will live on in the memories
of your loved ones.” Marcus Aurelius

There are several problems with this approach:

1. “Live a good life.” still looks suspiciously similar to “Act as if God existed.” - and that is exactly what Pascal’s Wager is supposed to support.
2. “Live a good life.” does not explain what does “a good life” actually mean. Could it include some duties concerning God? For example, “Make a sincere effort to find out if God exists and start believing if you find some evidence that you should believe He does.”…? And what if this “some evidence” could include the Pascal’s Wager…?
3. This argument is not very useful if one does not actually “live a good life”. And it does not say what is a “sufficiently good life”. Are you sure anything less than complete perfection is “good enough”…?

Perhaps you could be right, there is nothing to lose in saying on our deathbed “God whatever you are, forgive our sins” ( even without believing it) and then we gain a ticket to Heaven? cool!

Are you sure one is going to be able to remember to say that after living in the contrary way…? That’s a bit like saying that one can cross any road at any time and in any place, since one can always jump away from any car. Unfortunately, things do not tend to work that way… It is a bet - and not a very good one…

 

[JohnMichaels]

Here’s some other things you’ll be without in hell:

Food, water, clothes, homes, diversions, time by yourself (the devil is always screaming in your face), change of scenery, any scenery at all, rest, and friends.

Sounds pretty boring to me.

Here you list things a person in Hell would be without.
Does sound pretty boring. Implies someone NOT in hell, would be with those things. I ask you to elaborate on your detail & you give me

DVDs, personal homes and so on are as good as it gets on Earth,
but all these physical comforts are trivial things compared to the joys of Heaven.

Now you’re implying anyone who dies is without these things you categorize as “as good as it gets on Earth” So, either way I guess…no DVD’s for anyone
On a side note, if a DVD is one of the things you consider as good as it gets, you may want to try amazon.com once in awhile

So here we are. My conclusion was you indeed did not know what is in store for anyone who reaches the kingdom of heaven. You allude to it yourself.

On the contrary, I went to great lengths to show that people’s ideas about what Heaven is like… falls far short of what Heaven is like…

You know, you don’t know, you never knew. I mean really…how do you expect me to follow what you say if you can’t?

Cheers!

 

[Gorgias]

Also saying “My God exists and Heaven is real”, doesn’t make it true.

Agreed.

Saying, “to me” is an expression of my opinion which you disagree with, whatever it’s true or not that would be another issue.

Ok… that’s fair. So, “reality, to me” isn’t an assertion about reality, but about your opinion. Important distinction, that! So… your actions, vis-a-vis eternal realities, are conditioned on a personal opinion? Hmm…

 

[SentinelofTruth]

MPat:

There are several problems with this approach:

1. “Live a good life.” still looks suspiciously similar to “Act as if God existed.” - and that is exactly what Pascal’s Wager is supposed to support.
2. “Live a good life.” does not explain what does “a good life” actually mean. Could it include some duties concerning God? For example, “Make a sincere effort to find out if God exists and start believing if you find some evidence that you should believe He does.”…? And what if this “some evidence” could include the Pascal’s Wager…?
3. This argument is not very useful if one does not actually “live a good life”. And it does not say what is a “sufficiently good life”. Are you sure anything less than complete perfection is “good enough”…?

Living a good life means living in accord with the virtues, which you can do even without believing in God. While this does include making a sincere effort to investigate the possibility of God existing, pascal’s wager does not provide this evidence, it only shows that if there is a God who cares only about what you believe and not about whether you are a good person, then you have better odds of eternal happiness. Unfortunately, the wager is useless because a) God is fairer than that, and b) If he was not I would not want to be in his presence eternally.

 

[LibralAteoJesus]

Agreed.

Ok… that’s fair. So, “reality, to me” isn’t an assertion about reality, but about your opinion. Important distinction, that! So… your actions, vis-a-vis eternal realities, are conditioned on a personal opinion? Hmm…

Yes, of course… Isn’t everyone’s actions based on what they think to be true, I don’t think any supernatural and spiritual thing to be be true… But if you ask what if I’m wrong about how I see this natural reality, I ask you the same question, what if you are wrong about the other stories that you consider to be unrealistic fairy tales and myths? You might be able to prove that they are fabricated stories but you can’t disprove that it’s impossible for them to be real… Do you live by this little possibility that they could be real?

Living a good life means living in accord with the virtues, which you can do even without believing in God. While this does include making a sincere effort to investigate the possibility of God existing, pascal’s wager does not provide this evidence, it only shows that if there is a God who cares only about what you believe and not about whether you are a good person, then you have better odds of eternal happiness. Unfortunately, the wager is useless because a) God is fairer than that, and b) If he was not I would not want to be in his presence eternally.

Exactly, it is opposed to the Catholic teaching about salvation as well.

The wager
The philosophy uses the following logic
(excerpts from Pensées , part III, §233):

1. “God is, or He is not”
2. A Game is being played… where heads or
   tails will turn up.
3. According to reason, you can defend
   neither of the propositions.
4. You must wager. (It’s not optional.)
5. 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.
6. 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.

• Switch the word God by Allah or any other proposed God and see how it will work.

 

[Gorgias]

I ask you the same question, what if you are wrong about the other stories that you consider to be unrealistic fairy tales and myths? You might be able to prove that they are fabricated stories but you can’t disprove that it’s impossible for them to be real… Do you live by this little possibility that they could be real?

Your question raises the issue of what is ‘proof’ and ‘disproof’ in this context. Can there be the kind of ‘proof’ that a mathematician deals with, or even the kind of physical evidence that a scientist collects? Of course not. However, I’m not certain that I’m following your claim, here: one can prove ‘fabricated stories’ but one cannot prove ‘they aren’t real?’ I’m not certain what that means – are you asserting fabricated (and presumably fictional) stories that are, by some strange coincidence, also real? Help me understand what you think you’re challenging me with…

“God is, or He is not”… 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.

• Switch the word God by Allah or any other proposed God and see how it will work.

You know, this is a common challenge to Pascal’s Wager; to tell you the truth, I think it does nothing to damage Pascal’s approach here. This question – the ‘what if I choose the wrong god?’ objection - asks a question that Pascal considers and rejects in the notes to the Pensees. However, I would assert that it asks a different question than the one that Pascal offers. In fact, I would state that there are two questions to be posed in our context: first, the question of belief in God, given the possibility of heaven and hell; and only second, once that question has been resolved, the question of ‘which system of belief?’

Therefore, the primary question is one of belief in a God. Once you answer that question, along the lines of Pascal’s inquiry perhaps, then it’s incumbent on you to ask the next question. However, noting that there are many faith traditions in the world doesn’t provide sufficient reason to ignore the first question! Imagine that I’m on a hunger strike, and you’re trying to convince me that it’s in my own best interest of my health to eat. If I replied, “but you want me to have a steak for my health, and someone else wants me to have a pizza, and still another wants me to have falafel! How can you claim that I should eat, if there are a multitude of possible choices out there?!?” … would you take that as a rational rebuttal of your assertion? Of course not…

 

[Charlemagne_II]

Gorgias

** Imagine that I’m on a hunger strike, and you’re trying to convince me that it’s in my own best interest of my health to eat. If I replied, “but you want me to have a steak for my health, and someone else wants me to have a pizza, and still another wants me to have falafel! How can you claim that I should eat, if there are a multitude of possible choices out there?!?” … would you take that as a rational rebuttal of your assertion? Of course not…**

Excellent analogy!

 

[LibralAteoJesus]

Gorgias

** Imagine that I’m on a hunger strike, and you’re trying to convince me that it’s in my own best interest of my health to eat. If I replied, “but you want me to have a steak for my health, and someone else wants me to have a pizza, and still another wants me to have falafel! How can you claim that I should eat, if there are a multitude of possible choices out there?!?” … would you take that as a rational rebuttal of your assertion? Of course not…**

Excellent analogy!

But you are talking about undeniable things in this analogy, things that aren’t supernatural, also we can choose outside these three options, I can eat “Horus” for example.

 

[Gorgias]

But you are talking about undeniable things in this analogy, things that aren’t supernatural, also we can choose outside these three options, I can eat “Horus” for example.

“Undeniable things?” That’s certainly not necessarily the case! What if I’m allergic to chickpeas, or lactose intolerant, or unable to handle proteins after a long fast, or a host of other issues? In that case, there are a bunch of deniable alternatives – but the main question (whether I should decide to eat or not) is the only one that’s undeniable (and more to the point, it’s the only question in play at first!).

You can certainly eat ‘Horus’, if you so wish; but first, you need to decide whether there’s a god there to eat. And that’s the whole point of Pascal’s Wager.

(Now, Pascal would make a claim for Christianity, for sure, but he doesn’t claim that a choice among religions is impossible to be reached by reason. Rather, he only claims that a proof of the existence of God is not one that relies only on reason. Big difference there, and for the most part, it’s the reason why your objection fails.)