Pascal's Wager

[LibralAteoJesus]

“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.)

That could be true actually

 

[MPat]

Living a good life means living in accord with the virtues, which you can do even without believing in God.

The point is that “Wager of Marcus Aurelius” is worse than “Pascal’s Wager”:

1. Whatever one thinks, “Live a good life!” is more vague than “Try to believe!”.
2. If one thinks that “Which religion should I choose?” is a good answer to Pascal’s Wager, it is going to be still better answer to “Wager of Marcus Aurelius”, for now one has as “candidates” not just every religion, but also every single kind of secular morality. At the very least, Pascal does not allow “Moral Code of the Builder of Communism” as a “candidate”…
3. If one thinks that generating a belief is hard, we know that “living a good life” is even harder… We do not get many claiming that they have tried to generate the belief but failed, but we do know that all of us are failing to be perfectly virtuous.

While this does include making a sincere effort to investigate the possibility of God existing, pascal’s wager does not provide this evidence,

That’s why I wrote: “Make a sincere effort to find out if God exists and start believing if you find some evidence that you should believe He does.”, not just “some evidence that He exists”. I think that Pascal’s Wager should count as “some” evidence that one should believe.

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.

Not really. The point is that in many situations one has a choice between acting as if one believed in God and acting as if one didn’t. For example, one can either go to the Mass on Sunday (as if one believed) or one can stay at home (as if one didn’t believe). Or one can steal some money (as if one didn’t believe) or avoid doing so (as if one believed). Sure, sometimes we have more options for both categories, but the principle is the same. Thus Pascal’s Wager does not only apply if belief is the only thing that matters.

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.

The previous point should be a sufficient answer. Pascal’s Wager is not about “faith alone”.

 

[MPat]

Yes, of course… Isn’t everyone’s actions based on what they think to be true,

No, not always. Whenever “caution” or “probability” are involved, we deal with “modified wagers”.

For example, imagine a murder trial. The evidence indicating that the defendant is guilty is insufficient, but the evidence that he is innocent (for example, alibi) is even weaker. What would the judge (or jury, or some other similar body) do? Yes, declare the defendant “not guilty” - seemingly contrary to the evidence. But that is a rational thing to do, since that is what the “modified wager” is telling us.

Also, “modified wagers” are what all kinds of statistical hypothesis testing are based on. After all, the common “alpha” is 0.05, not 0.5.

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?

Well, can you make “modified wagers” to show that we should believe such stories? Try to construct one.

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

That has been answered already. Yet, if one is too lazy to make a real effort to investigate, one can make another “modified wager” and choose Catholicism, because Heaven in Islam seems to be worse than Heaven in Catholicism.

 

[LibralAteoJesus]

That has been answered already. Yet, if one is too lazy to make a real effort to investigate, one can make another “modified wager” and choose Catholicism, because Heaven in Islam seems to be worse than Heaven in Catholicism.

How is Heaven in Islam worse than the one in Catholicism?

 

[MPat]

How is Heaven in Islam worse than the one in Catholicism?

Heaven in Islam has been described (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jannah), thus it can be imagined. Things that can be imagined are likely to be worse than things that have been described as too good to imagine (“But, as it is written: That eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man, what things God hath prepared for them that love him.” - 1 Corinthians 2:9).

Though, of course, as you can see from the “smiles”, this argument was not meant to be as serious as others.

 

[LibralAteoJesus]

Heaven in Islam has been described (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jannah), thus it can be imagined. Things that can be imagined are likely to be worse than things that have been described as too good to imagine (“But, as it is written: That eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man, what things God hath prepared for them that love him.” - 1 Corinthians 2:9).

Though, of course, as you can see from the “smiles”, this argument was not meant to be as serious as others.

The Islamic description of Jannah doesn’t fit with everyone’s dreams.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

The reasons for choosing Christianity over Islam, as Pascal might say, are many. Three come to mind immediately as I recall from the lips of Pascal himself.

The first is the performance of miracles by Christ. These are well documented in the gospels. The principal miracle, of course, was the Resurrection of Christ from the dead. Mohammed never performed miracles. He was a warrior first and foremost.

The second is the fulfillment of the prophecies from the Old Testament through the New Testament. Everything in the OT points to the coming of a Messiah. Everything in the NT points to the arrival of Jesus the Messiah. Even Christ performed prophecies, including the prophecy of his own resurrection from the dead. He also prophesied the destruction of Jerusalem. Mohammed never claimed the power of prophecy so far as I can remember. If I err, someone will correct me, I’m sure!

The third sign of Christianity being the true religion is the powerful emphasis on building a loving relationship with God and with each other. A true God would emphasize love over all else. Christ proved himself the ultimate lover when he died for our sins on the cross. That dying planted the seed of love that would spread throughout the world in the centuries to come. Christianity grew and flourished without any conquest other than the conquest of love. Islam grew, right from the start, with Jihad as its principle of growth.

It seems to me that right now, as far as choosing a contender for the true religion, Christianity is the front runner and the one most likely to be a truly universal (catholic) religion in the centuries to come.

That is how Pascal has argued why we should choose the true God if we are at all puzzled and worried about which God to choose. Pascal considered it a feeble objection to raise against the decision to choose a religion that one might choose the wrong religion and be damned for doing so. It is true that one might opt for a false religion, but it is also true that one might reasonably find the true one. It is not wisdom to sit safely on the fence, refusing to choose any religion on the principle that God is going to favor those who refuse to gamble. Indeed, by refusing to choose, one has already chosen to gamble on the notion that picking no religion is safer than picking a false one.

 

[JohnMichaels]

The Islamic description of Jannah doesn’t fit with everyone’s dreams.

they had me at hello

“everything one longs for in this world will be there in Paradise”

They’d lose me soon enough, but what a wonderful thought.