Pascal's Wager

[empther]

I don’t know if this point has been made, I was gone all day, however…

Pascal’s Wager is not in the Bible. Anybody find it yet?

So why isn’t it in there if it will give some people a head start to believing?

Because it gives a weak basis for faith which will likely collapse when things go wrong.

It’s like Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn made a speech at Harvard. There had just been a major power failure in the New York area. Many stores were looted. Solzhenitsyn said Americans’s respect for law and order couldn’t be that great if all it took was a power failure to turn thousands of them into burglars.

So the Bible skips Pascal’s Wager and goes straight to a sound belief in God.

What’s that? What about the people who can’t arrive at a sound belief?
Would they trust Pascal’s Wager then? Have you ever heard of anybody like that?

( Somebody inclined to do evil won’t be persuaded to not do so because of Pascal’s Wager, which they would not think about in the first place. )

 

[Peter_Plato]

I don’t know if this point has been made, I was gone all day, however…

Pascal’s Wager is not in the Bible. Anybody find it yet?

So why isn’t it in there if it will give some people a head start to believing?

Because it gives a weak basis for faith which will likely collapse when things go wrong.

It’s like Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn made a speech at Harvard. There had just been a major power failure in the New York area. Many stores were looted. Solzhenitsyn said Americans’s respect for law and order couldn’t be that great if all it took was a power failure to turn thousands of them into burglars.

So the Bible skips Pascal’s Wager and goes straight to a sound belief in God.

What’s that? What about the people who can’t arrive at a sound belief?
Would they trust Pascal’s Wager then? Have you ever heard of anybody like that?

( Somebody inclined to do evil won’t be persuaded to not do so because of Pascal’s Wager, which they would not think about in the first place. )

Parable of the Unjust Steward

Jesus told his disciples: “There was a rich man whose steward was accused of wasting his possessions. So he called him in and asked him, ‘What is this I hear about you? Give an account of your management, because you cannot be steward any longer.’

“The steward said to himself, ‘What shall I do now? My master is taking away my job. I’m not strong enough to dig, and I’m ashamed to beg— I know what I’ll do so that, when I lose my job here, people will welcome me into their houses.’

“So he called in each one of his master’s debtors. He asked the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’

“‘Nine hundred gallons of olive oil,’ he replied.

“The steward told him, ‘Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it four hundred and fifty.’

“Then he asked the second, ‘And how much do you owe?’

“‘A thousand bushels of wheat,’ he replied.

“He told him, ‘Take your bill and make it eight hundred.’

"The master commended the dishonest steward because he had acted shrewdly. For the people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the people of the light. (Luke 16:1-8)

 

[ServantPD]

Reason, believing in a god is more reasonable than believing in a higher god? Why is that? Since when?

Also the appeal thing was a joke, I don’t think it’s really a god issue.

Since logic came into the world. A God that fits into the main arguments of His existence requires Him to be supreme and eternal on His transcendence, and unless you don’t know what “eternal” means, nothing can be more than eternal. You’re applying material logic to transcendence, that is being blind and deaf to reason.

Now, let’s not deviate much further from the topic.

 

[LibralAteoJesus]

**Libral

I don’t think this is the case, you say you were an atheist for 25 years, if so you should be able to know that mind convictions aren’t some sort of a bet or a choice you do.
You just believe or disbelieve because you have reasons to believe or to disbelieve.**

All the time I was an atheist I did not believe I had no choice but to be an atheist. In fact, I was constantly looking for reasons to not be an atheist. I have never been a psychological determinist. When I chose to read Chesterton and others in greater depth, I saw how shallow my atheism was, that I had not thought things through, and that on top of everything else, for being an atheist, I was a little too humble to be good at it. The lack of humility among all the atheists I knew troubled me greatly, and I chose then no longer to be counted in their company. Ever since, I have found Christians to be generally a good deal more agreeable, and generally a good deal more humble (not all, but most).

Sorry if that sentiment is hurtful to any atheist, but it is the truth about my journey from Nogod to God. I bet on God, and I won a treasure of happiness.

I don’t see anything fascinating in Chesterton and C.S Lewis myths on atheists and atheism, obviously they had the same misunderstanding as you do, you said it, your atheism was shallow.

You should rarely judge a religion by the behaviors of it’s followers, if you see few violent Buddhists you don’t judge the entire belief system unless it is the system itself that orders violence according to the religious books and rules, you can figure that out when doing an objective study on that religion.

Atheism and theism both have no rules, they have subcategories of beliefs and teachings.

 

[tafan]

I don’t know if this point has been made, I was gone all day, however…

Pascal’s Wager is not in the Bible. Anybody find it yet?

So why isn’t it in there if it will give some people a head start to believing?

Because it gives a weak basis for faith which will likely collapse when things go wrong.

It’s like Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn made a speech at Harvard. There had just been a major power failure in the New York area. Many stores were looted. Solzhenitsyn said Americans’s respect for law and order couldn’t be that great if all it took was a power failure to turn thousands of them into burglars.

So the Bible skips Pascal’s Wager and goes straight to a sound belief in God.

What’s that? What about the people who can’t arrive at a sound belief?
Would they trust Pascal’s Wager then? Have you ever heard of anybody like that?

( Somebody inclined to do evil won’t be persuaded to not do so because of Pascal’s Wager, which they would not think about in the first place. )

empther, I find your strong dislike for Pascal’s Wager strange. I can understand the atheists and agnostics, but I cannot understand a Catholic’s dislike for it.
Pascal’s wager is not meant to be a basis for one’s faith, it is meant to be a starting point for one’s faith. Pascal was quite explicit about this (see my quote from the wager below). There are at least two (myself and jmconder) participants in this thread who made Pascal’s wager (without even knowing what that it existed at the time) at one point in our lives. I know many other people who did the same.

Why do you care so much how we came to the faith? None of us rely on Pascal’s Wager as our basis for faith. It is just that we reached a point, once in our lives, where we thought that Catholicism was the “best bet”. I was born a cradle Catholic, but effectively fell away. I discovered that I had nothing to loose by coming back and possibly had everything to gain. Exactly what Pascal said. And it worked, just as Pascal said it would. I started going to mass, confession, studying the faith, etc. And guess what: the faith took hold, just as Pascal said it might.

These are people who know the way which you would follow, and who are cured of an ill of which you would be cured. Follow the way by which they began; by acting as if they believed, taking the holy water, having masses said, etc. Even this will naturally make you believe, and deaden your acuteness.

Boldness added by me.

Answer me this: do you really think many people come to the faith, all at once, in one blinding event of light and truth? It seems a very “protestant” attitude towards salvation. Conversion is a life-long process. We are all called to holiness. Most of us will spend our whole lives (and then time in purgatory) getting there. Do you really think it matters how we got started?

You ask for where it is in the bible, and Peter Pablo gave one excellent parable. I will give another:
The parable of the workers who are hired in the morning, mid-day, and at the end of the day. They all receive their day’s wages. God does not care how/when they got started, only that they arrived.

God bless

 

[Mumbles140]

Claimimg that if a God exists, he’s the one who has Hell and not believing in Him you’ll end up there, is an extraordinary claim out of thousands of other contrary claims that any of the ancient or current beliefs can offer.

I already mentioned the reasons against Pascal’s wager, that God and faith isn’t a bet and that you should not limit the bet with only one possibily out of billions, what if evil aliens exist and if you don’t believe in them they will experiment on you?
What if? What if ? What if?.. The list is too long.

If a person believes and rejected to follow god then he isn’t an atheist.

1. Actually, I’d say most religions have some form of an afterlife (including reincarnation), often times including some form of judgment for how you lived your life.
2. Replace God with evil aliens - you are still citing the idea of punishment for disbelief, so I don’t see how that’s a different possibility.
3. That was precisely the point I was making at the end of my post, and trying to remember that when debating with atheists so I don’t offend or misrepresent.

 

[empther]

From post 44

empther, I find your strong dislike for Pascal’s Wager strange. I can understand the atheists and agnostics, but I cannot understand a Catholic’s dislike for it.

…( more words )…

Why do you care so much how we came to the faith? None of us rely on Pascal’s Wager as our basis for faith.

So we agree! Pascal’s Wager just don’t make it.

 

[empther]

From post 41

Parable of the Unjust Steward

**"The master commended the dishonest steward because he had acted shrewdly. **

**??? ** :coffeeread:

Has absolutely nothing to do with Pascal’s Wager.

 

[Judas_Thaddeus]

I have used it in Yahoo Answers in the R&S section, even gave the mathematical formula:Expected Value = (Value1 × Probability1) + (Value2 × Probability2)
It can’t prove that God exists or not, admittingly, but it does at least measure
the consequences of believing or not believing “IF God really does exist.”

Atheists have criticized the Pascal Wager, both the mathematics and
philosophy of it, so the odds of converting atheists are minimal.

HOWEVER, I find it to be a great tool against Mormonism. Think about
it…If Mormonism is correct and I am wrong, then we non-Mormons will
go to the heavenly Telestial ( or Terrestrial, can’t remember ) Kingdom,
BUT if we non-Mormons are correct and Mormonism is wrong, then the
Mormons are in serious spiritual peril (to put it politely).

 

[empther]

Judas Thaddeus,

I have long wondered why St. Jude was named the patron Saint of “hopeless causes”.
What happened in his life to earn this title?

Do you have any ideas? I’m just curious.

 

[jmjconder]

Pascal’s wager is not meant to be a basis for one’s faith, it is meant to be a starting point for one’s faith. Pascal was quite explicit about this (see my quote from the wager below). There are at least two (myself and jmconder) participants in this thread who made Pascal’s wager (without even knowing what that it existed at the time) at one point in our lives. I know many other people who did the same.

**Describe the world if everyone lived (authentic or not) by Pascal’s Wager. Would the world be more peaceful? **

 

[Charlemagne_II]

empther

Pascal’s Wager is not in the Bible. Anybody find it yet?

Did you find the cosmological argument of Aquinas in the Bible?
**
So why isn’t it in there if it will give some people a head start to believing?**

“Fools say in their hearts, ‘There is no God.’” Psalms 14:1

That’s basically what Pascal is saying. It’s foolish to throw away your chances on eternity when you cannot know for certain there is no eternity. If you are going to bet, bet wisely on God rather than Nogod.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

Judas

Atheists have criticized the Pascal Wager, both the mathematics and
philosophy of it, so the odds of converting atheists are minimal.

That’s true and it’s not true. The rabid atheist will not buy into it or any other argument why he should believe in God.

As the atheist arrives on his deathbed, the odds of buying into it increase exponentially.

 

[tafan]

From post 44

So we agree! Pascal’s Wager just don’t make it.

No we don’t agree. You seem intent on ignoring all if my questions and my main point:which is that Pascal’s wager is not written to be a basis if faith, it is written to be a starting point, to help someone choose.

 

[tafan]

**Describe the world if everyone lived (authentic or not) by Pascal’s Wager. Would the world be more peaceful? **

I don’t have a good answer, for a couple of reasons.
I don’t see Pascal’s Wager as something to live by. As I have said, its a starting point. Oh, I will admit, at least once in my life it has been a “restart”. You find yourself supposedly deserted, alone, and faith is lacking a bit, and then you realize that the first thing to do is tackle you lack of faith.

More importantly, I could not begin to describe the world if it truly lived by the Catholic faith. Such a scenario is just too hypothetical for me, beyond saying it would be much, much better than it is.

 

[empther]

No we don’t agree. You seem intent on ignoring all if my questions and my main point:which is that Pascal’s wager is not written to be a basis if faith, it is written to be a starting point, to help someone choose.

Written by Pascal, you mean.
Interesting that neither the Bible nor the Catechism of the Catholic Church use it as a starting point. It must not be very useful in practice.

 

[tafan]

Written by Pascal, you mean.
Interesting that neither the Bible nor the Catechism of the Catholic Church use it as a starting point. It must not be very useful in practice.

How do you think most people start down the path of conversion?

 

[empther]

How do you think most people start down the path of conversion?

Not through Pascal’s Wager.

I went to Catholic schools K-12.

On the first day of kindergarten, we didn’t have a clue who God was, let alone believe in him.
By the time we graduated from high school, we all had some belief in God, some more, some less.

We believed what our parents, teachers, and priests told us.

I imagine other people are converted the same way. They listen to what other people say.

Go to Wal-Mart and shout out: “Who can tell me about Pascal’s Wager?” Betcha nobody has a clue what you’re shouting about.
Then explain Pascal’s Wager to them. Betcha they all say, "I never thought about it that way.

If Pascal’s Wager worked, there would be no atheists.

 

[tafan]

Not through Pascal’s Wager.

I went to Catholic schools K-12.

On the first day of kindergarten, we didn’t have a clue who God was, let alone believe in him.
By the time we graduated from high school, we all had some belief in God, some more, some less.

We believed what our parents, teachers, and priests told us.

I imagine other people are converted the same way. They listen to what other people say.

Go to Wal-Mart and shout out: “Who can tell me about Pascal’s Wager?” Betcha nobody has a clue what you’re shouting about.
Then explain Pascal’s Wager to them. Betcha they all say, "I never thought about it that way.

If Pascal’s Wager worked, there would be no atheists.

Well, its good that you had a steady progression of faith your whole life and never fell back and doubted. Not all of us have been that fortunate. Some of us, like Peter at a point of being very disheartened had to say “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.”

Others have to be brought down even lower, and as the prodigal son says “How many of my father’s hired servants have bread enough and to spare, but I perish here with hunger”.

Some of us have to follow psalm 34:8 “Taste and see that the Lord is good” (note the “taste” first, and then the “see”).

Some of us, find a way of knowing God as this option presented by the Catechism:

33 The human person: With his openness to truth and beauty, his sense of moral goodness, his freedom and the voice of his conscience, with his longings for the infinite and for happiness, man questions himself about God’s existence. In all this he discerns signs of his spiritual soul. The soul, the “seed of eternity we bear in ourselves, irreducible to the merely material,” can have its origin only in God"

(boldness added by me)

Some of us have had to consider St Paul’s words in Romans 8:18 “I consider the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is revealed to us”.

Pascal Wager, is at most, a slight variation from all of these.

Finally, your last statement is really absurd. Surely the Bible, the Catholic Church’s teachings “work”, yet there are atheists in this world. Why do you insist on such a high standard for any other writing? Am I to say that every uninspired writing by any Catholic is not worthy of reading and understanding because, despite it, there are still atheists in the world?

 

[Charlemagne_II]

empther

If Pascal’s Wager worked, there would be no atheists.

It does work. There’s an old saying from World War II. You don’t hear it anymore, but it’s still true.

“There are no atheists in the foxholes.” So the Wager does indeed work when the circumstances are right, and it occurs to people in dire straits to adopt Pascal’s Wager even if they never heard of it. Pascal himself had a near death experience (his carriage dangled from the edge of a bridge) that could well have given the impetus to the Wager. What Pascal is promoting in Pensees is the need to think the Wager before the near death crisis is upon us. Some atheists will see the point. Others, the younger one, think they are going to live forever and laugh it off. But, as with Jean Paul Sartre and Antony Flew, when death approaches that atheistic smile gets wiped off their faces.