PASCAL'S WAGER

  • Thread starter Thread starter Carl
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Carl:
I have yet to hear a successful refutation of Pascal’s argument…
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Carl, if you’re Catholic you don’t need to look any further than the teachings of the Catholic Church for a refutation.

Pascal offers us a complete plan for salvation. Just profess a belief in the existence of God whenever the subject comes up and you’re saved. That’s it. No baptism, no confession, no repentance, no belief that Jesus died for our sins is necessary. Is this consistent with Catholicism? I don’t think so. Do you?

That’s why I think Catholics should reject Pascal’s Wager. As an atheist I reject it because it has this very questionable premise: in exchange for a simple profession of belief in his existence God will give me some sort of infinite reward in the afterlife.

Why should we accept this premise? Isn’t it also possible that God doesn’t care whether we believe he exists or not? Or that he has some other criteria for deciding who goes to heaven and who goes to hell? How does Pascal know what God wants us to do?

Finally, I can’t help feeling that if God does exist I would be better off facing him having lived my life as an honest atheist standing up for what I believe to be true than an insincere theist more focused on saving himself than on truth.
 
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Carl:
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BLB_Oregon:
“Faith” that gambles nothing is meaningless.
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So true.
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Carl, would I be correct in assuming you have accepted BLB_Oregon’s refutation? That is, you now consider Pascal’s Wager to be successfully refuted?
 
DREW

Carl, would I be correct in assuming you have accepted BLB_Oregon’s refutation? That is, you now consider Pascal’s Wager to be successfully refuted?

No.
 
“The heart has reasons of which the mind knows nothing.” Blaise Pascal

Anyone who doubts Pascal’s Christianity should re-read post #42. Cardinal O’Connor liked him.
 
Please disregard post #63 and read this in its place:

How does Pascal know what God wants us to do?

Pascal read the Gospels. That’s how we all know what God wants us to do … most of all love God and one another.

If anyone can find another religion that has that message as the center of its Gospel (not floating around or incidental) I’d like to know about it.
 
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