Pascal's Wager

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Scholars who know Pascal will tell you he had no intention of convincing you that God exists. His intention was to prevent you from running away from the Yes or No decision without a clear consciousness of the necessity and nature of the decision.

Read all of the Pensees, not just the wager, and you’ll understand.

Pascal knows every trick in the book for running away from the encounter with God that hounds you through life. You will see yourself in the various strategies of arrogance and gutlessness that Pascal describes in the Pensees.

You surely can put the book down and say smugly that it’s a weak argument; but unless you have great defenses and superior skills in self-deception, you won’t sleep well ever again.
 
MrWhy

It’s difficult for an atheists to think a god would be so egotistical to demand worship …

I’ve heard this objection from many atheists. It reveals a willingness on the part of atheists to deliberately falsify on a grand scale the record and purpose of Judeo-Christian spirituality.

God does demand our worship … but not because God is an egotist. God demands our worship because it is the only way we can have a meaningful relationship with Him. Do you think God created us in the hope that we would all ignore his existence? Is that your idea of a loving relationship between parents and their children … the desire of parents to sustain a loving and lifelong relationship with their children?

Note that God can only make clear to us that he wants us to worship him. He cannot force us to love Him. Every atheist has proven that … since the atheist denies there is anything there to love. That’s the atheist’s option. But then he mustn’t complain that if he chooses to ignore God all his life, God may choose to ignore him throughout eternity. The choice is the atheist’s … not God’s, God having made it clear to the atheist that he would like him to be with Him through all eternity, but will force nothing upon him.

If God were really the tyrant atheists try to make Him out to be … don’t worry, God would have found more forceful ways to threaten and terrify atheists than He has ever used in the past.
 
BOWSER

What do we risk by believing in God and taking God seriously?

…
Living a life according to false principles; failing to do things and doing others for bad reasons; wasting time that you can never get back; all that jazz?
Living a life according to false principles;

Unproven that they are false.

failing to do things and doing others for bad reasons

What do you mean by “things”?

wasting time that you can never get back

How is it wasted if you are doing good things when you take your God seriously?

all that jazz.

You don’t like jazz? This needs another thread at another web site.

I wish you would try to articulate your thoughts more fully and in greater depth. Was this question one you had never thought much about? Try again.

What do we risk by believing in God and taking God seriously?
 
Gilbert Keith:
MrWhy
Why is the atheist’s view more accurate? Just because he says it is? Accurate would imply the ability to confirm that something is more accurate rather than less accurate. Who can confirm "more accurate’? Other atheists? Circular argument.
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It’s more accurate because there is no evidence for the theist view.
The bottom line is that there is no way for the atheist to prove that God does not exist. How can he therefore be “more accurate”?
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No attempt here to prove that a god does not exist because I don’t think proof or disproof is possible. The word is not appropriate for this question. The inability to prove non-existence does not imply existence for we can imagine an almost infinite list of “things” that cannot be disproved. And that puts us back to the old burden of evidence (not proof) question. At some point in the past of many cultures and individuals the idea of a god was introduced. Adequate evidence for the existence of that god was not in supplied at those intial points, and has not appeared since. It is not the responsibility of atheists to counter a claim that was never substantiated to begin with.
His disbelief is itself a matter of belief. He has faith in a meaningless universe that leads us all down the road to eternal nothingness. What comfort is there in that? It is a nihilistic philosophy that leads nowhere more directly than to the pursuit of brutal power over others in the false belief that such power gives our lives meaning … and in the case of megalomaniacs … grandeur … you know … Hitlers, Maos, Stalins … all those atheist human titans who demand the walls and buildings be covered with gigantic pictures of themselves rather than Jesus Christ.
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Faith is not involved from the atheists view. It’s absence of faith due to inadequate evidence.

As bad as Hitler, Mao, and Stalin were, their behavoir is not evidence for the existence of a god. Some say it’s just the opposite. The history of aggressive destructive events initiated by religious cultures is not short.
 
MrWho

As bad as Hitler, Mao, and Stalin were, their behavoir is not evidence for the existence of a god. Some say it’s just the opposite.

We agree. The Catholic Church and most Christian groups would say it is proof for the existence of the devil.

That aside, any claim asserted, positive or negative, requires proof. If I say there is a chair in my house. You are not required to believe it unless you go into my house and see there is no chair there. But the case is different with God because God cannot be seen as a chair can be seen. Nor is the claim ever made by theists that you can find God through the end of a telescope or on a petri dish in a lab. But the atheist insists that if God cannot be proven that way, then God cannot exist.

That is paramount to saying that two thousand years ago atoms never existed because we could not see them, even though Leucippus and Democritus had imagined them. We still cannot see them. But we now believe they exist.

Why can’t we approach God the same way … at first with imagination … and later with first hand experience of the living God in our lives even though we cannot see Him through a telescope or on a petri dish?

The atheist does not want to know God, and that is the main reason why he sees no evidence of God. Pascal was trying to break through that wall of opposition by showing atheists that they have nothing to lose and everything to gain by embracing the idea of God.

It is interesting to me that no famous atheist philosopher/scientist/mathematician has ever successfully refuted Pascal, or even tried to refute him. Not Bertrand Russell, not George Santayana, not Albert Einstein.

Pascal argument is irrefutable, not because of its logical brilliance so much as its common sense and appeal to every human’s natural sel-interest.

Hence the oft-repeated saying … “There are no atheists in the foxholes.” If you don’t think this is true, talk to a military chaplain, or a prison chaplain on death row.
 
Gilbert Keith:
BOWSER

What do we risk by believing in God and taking God seriously?

…
Living a life according to false principles; failing to do things and doing others for bad reasons; wasting time that you can never get back; all that jazz?
Living a life according to false principles;

Unproven that they are false.

failing to do things and doing others for bad reasons

What do you mean by “things”?

wasting time that you can never get back

How is it wasted if you are doing good things when you take your God seriously?

all that jazz.

You don’t like jazz? This needs another thread at another web site.

I wish you would try to articulate your thoughts more fully and in greater depth. Was this question one you had never thought much about? Try again.

What do we risk by believing in God and taking God seriously?
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You asked me: what do we risk by believing in God? That is to say, what are the possible negative consequences in the case where one believes in God and God does not exist. Assuming we’re talking about a theistic (since there’s no reward for believing in a deistic God in the form of an afterlife) God, then possible negative consequences are:

Wasting time. For example, due to the Wager I become a Christian and do certain things - such as attend mass - which I would not otherwise do, and which without a Christian God are really just wastes of time.

Living according to false principles. Ex hypothesi religious principles are based on false principles. Moreover since there are some religious principles which are next to impossible to justify in the absence of a divine command (eg not mixing milk and meat), we can conclude that these rules are false.

Those two really cover the important bits, or at least some of them. I’m really just explaining my previous post, and you should have been able to understand the argument - unless, perhaps, your will has ordered your intellect to create justifications for what you want to believe. ; )

And more importantly, I’ve argued several times that economic rationality has no bearing on which beliefs about the world are rational to hold.
 
Gilbert Keith:
It is interesting to me that no famous atheist philosopher/scientist/mathematician has ever successfully refuted Pascal, or even tried to refute him. Not Bertrand Russell, not George Santayana, not Albert Einstein.
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Most of them probably had better things to do than refute this particular argument.
Pascal argument is irrefutable, not because of its logical brilliance so much as its common sense and appeal to every human’s natural sel-interest.
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Asserting that it is irrefutable would seem to require that you be able to mount a convincing response to criticisms of it (as opposed to just reasserting what you’ve said before)
Hence the oft-repeated saying … “There are no atheists in the foxholes.” If you don’t think this is true, talk to a military chaplain, or a prison chaplain on death row.
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I’m sure you’ve heard of the MAAF - the Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers.

maaf.info/
 
BOWSER

Wasting time. For example, due to the Wager I become a Christian and do certain things - such as attend mass - which I would not otherwise do, and which without a Christian God are really just wastes of time.

Your main reason why believing in God and taking God seriously is that it would be wasting time?

Well, one thing our religion does is give us a ready-made guide to living the good life. The ten commandments of Moses, and the two commandments of Jesus, if taken seriously, remove from us the obligation of inventing a moral system which is the product of our own personal whims and which contains no element of required reciprocity with our fellow human beings.

That strikes me as a colossal waste of time and energy compared with going to Mass every Sunday and examining one’s conscience now and then.

Are you really just saying that religion turns you off because you want to sleep in every Sunday morning?
 
Gilbert Keith:
BOWSER

Wasting time. For example, due to the Wager I become a Christian and do certain things - such as attend mass - which I would not otherwise do, and which without a Christian God are really just wastes of time.

Your main reason why believing in God and taking God seriously is that it would be wasting time?

Well, one thing our religion does is give us a ready-made guide to living the good life. The ten commandments of Moses, and the two commandments of Jesus, if taken seriously, remove from us the obligation of inventing a moral system which is the product of our own personal whims and which contains no element of required reciprocity with our fellow human beings.

That strikes me as a colossal waste of time and energy compared with going to Mass every Sunday and examining one’s conscience now and then.

Are you really just saying that religion turns you off because you want to sleep in every Sunday morning?
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Yes, religion does provide a set of ready-made moral rules. But if there is no God, why should we accept them? And if we do accept them, aren’t we living according to false principles? And isn’t that a bad thing?

Incidentally, I don’t exactly see how atheism entails either nihilism, egoism, or relativism; and I do think that spending time wondering “What is the good life?” is time well spent, and time spent living according to baseless principles is time ill spent.

And yes, if there is no God, religious ceremonies are a waste of time, and that’s not a good thing. For example, if someone told you that you would die in two weeks, you would probably try not to waste your time on pointless things - you’ve got no time left to waste. As for myself, I don’t see the big difference between two weeks and eighty years. The game ends when we die, and every second is precious. I don’t want to spend my life on wastes of time - such as attending Mass in a godless universe.
 
BOWSER

The game ends when we die, and every second is precious. I don’t want to spend my life on wastes of time - such as attending Mass in a godless universe.

Ah, but then you die and discover that God exists!

What then?

You have truly wasted your life!!!
 
*Yes, religion does provide a set of ready-made moral rules. But if there is no God, why should we accept them? And if we do accept them, aren’t we living according to false principles? And isn’t that a bad thing?
*Specifically, what are the false principles of Catholicism, and how do you know they are false?

You seem to be appealing to our loyalty to truth rather than to falsity. How can you prove atheism is true? You are only an atheist because you want to be, not because reason works against God. We are usually loyal to something or someone who acts in our interests, not against us. What loyalty do you owe to a truth that offers you nothing more certain than death and eternal nothingness? Is atheism user-friendly? I don’t think so. Do you get up every morning thanking the universe for death and the eternal nothingness that it promises you? That is the only big doctrine that atheism guarantees. It does not and cannot offer anything else with the same certainty. Atheism makes us slaves not to God, but to an indifferent, sometimes downright cruel and hopeless universe. It does not free us from God; it binds us rather with the chains of fate and determinism to an end worse than death … eternal nothingness.

Try as you might, you cannot put a happy face on the death of an atheist.
 
______________God exists_______God does not exist
Believe in God________A______________B
Don’t believe in God____C______________D

Now, you first asked me: what do we risk be taking God sincerely? Essentially, what are the possible negative consequences of B? I gave a few - false principles and wasted time. You responded by saying that not-God is bad - but that would be a negative consequences in both B and D and hence have no effect on our decision. You then presented some negative consequences of C - which has nothing to do with B. You’ve pointed out some benefits of A - which again, is a generally accepted conclusio and has nothing to do with B.

I don’t really know too much about the specifics of Catholicism, though I suppose belief in original sin and whatever is entailed by that would count as a false principle if there is no God.

And I have repeatedly stated that it is a bad argument to claim that because it is in my interest for X to be true that I should believe X is true. Do you have a response?

Lastly, death is rarely a happy occasion. Death is loss and pain and I see no reason for it to be a happy sort of thing (unless the deceased was an evil sort of person who rather deserved what was coming to them).
 
Enter the browser,

the reverse of living a lie based on Christian principals is based on the principal that there is no god and that what is right or wrong is only right or wrong according to an indivudal.

I have never met a true athiest becasue not a single one of them lives a life attempting to achieve what an athiest should choose, doing whatever they want becasue they can.

Every person who I have ever met who describes themselves as an atheist does not go out of their way to live their life according to the principals that atheism demands, whereas Christians or religious people generally speaking attempt to live out their lives according to the code of that reliegeon.

Religon calls upon us to improve or go against in some respects what our base animal instincts are, whereas atheism actually requires us to live according to those instincts, therefore it is harder for a person to live their life according to Christian principals than atheistic principals in many regards.

Simple fact is that atheists are too scared to live their life according to logic of their beliefs.
 
Tim Hayes:
I have never met a true athiest becasue not a single one of them lives a life attempting to achieve what an athiest should choose, doing whatever they want becasue they can. … Simple fact is that atheists are too scared to live their life according to logic of their beliefs
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That is due to two facts.
  1. Noone lives an isolated life. We all interact with our environment, were teached as children, and have our instincts (what you may call “natural law”).
  2. Atheism does not demand, “do what ever you want”. You confuse that with LaVeyan Satanism. Atheism makes only one statement, i.e. that there are no gods. Or, as I see it, there are no supernatural or mystical things in this universe. What an athiest should choose depends on a lot of things, but not on atheism.
For you Christians God and thus your religion plays an important role, the most important role in your life I suppose. Do you therefore think that for Atheists Atheism plays an equal role in their lives? Atheism is not the centerstone of our existence. It is just, how we see the universe, not a codex to build a life upon.
 
BOWSER

*And I have repeatedly stated that it is a bad argument to claim that because it is in my interest for X to be true that I should believe X is true. Do you have a response?
This is not exactly what I said, and I’m sorry I didn’t make that clear to you early on. Rather, the truth should be a good thing for us, not a bad thing. In that sense, we choose democracy (or republicanism) as the true political system because it is good for us. We choose certain foods as the truest type of nutrition because they are good for us. We choose certain types of exercise (walking, running, etc.) because they are more truly able to maintain our health than other forms of exercise (boxing, for example).

By the same token, we choose God rather than Nogod because God is good for us, whereas Nogod does no earthly good for us that I can detect (nor have you proven your case other than to argue that Nogod allows you to sleep in Sunday mornings … a very negligible benefit and for the atheist a possibly self destructive habit in the long run when he reaches the brink of eternity).

We should always act in our self interest, in the short run or the long run. There is nothing ignoble about doing so.

The Devil wants us to sleep in. He tells us to pull those comfy covers over our head and all will be well. But, of course, Jesus had Satan well pegged in the Gospel of John when he called him a liar and a murderer…
 
AnAtheist

Do you therefore think that for Atheists Atheism plays an equal role in their lives? Atheism is not the centerstone of our existence. It is just, how we see the universe, not a codex to build a life upon.

Atheism is not the centerstone of our existence.

I think it is. And judging by the amount of time and labor atheists spend defending atheism and attacking religion, I think it is disengenuous to deny it.

It is just, how we see the universe, not a codex to build a life upon.

This too is false. Ask any atheist to show the advantage of atheism over theism and he will immediately begin to build his case … the most common argument being that the atheist is released from the chains of traditional morality so that he can build his own ethic by his own whim … there being no authority he acknowledges exterior to his own genius.

That is a false codex to build a life upon … freewheeling morality and a keen sense that the world will be a better place to live in when religion has finally disappeared from it.

Dostoevsky was right. If there is no God, everything is permitted (at least what you can get away with). Stalin’s enforcement of official atheism in Russia was the base upon which he built his own authority to become a monster of humanity. It was his codex … and anybody who didn’t like it was never heard from again.
 
Gilbert Keith said:
Atheism is not the centerstone of our existence.

I think it is. And judging by the amount of time and labor atheists spend defending atheism and attacking religion, I think it is disengenuous to deny it.
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You may think so, but that is not a valid argument. You should see the reason behind the “attack”. First it is not an attack on religion, per se, it is the attack on the corollaries of religion, which are tried to be imposed upon the non-religious by many (though not all) believers. Just look at euthanasia, abortion, sex and other, rather important facets of life.

The atheists do not try to force the believers to undego abortion if they do not want to. They do not try to force the believers to follow certain sexual practices against their desire. They do not try to force the believers to accept euthanasia for themselves or their loved ones.

The opposite is not true, unfortunately. The problem is that believers want to change everyone to conform to their version of morality, regardless of the fact that it is simply unacceptable to others.

Whether someone wishes to worship a deity (and which deity in particular) is of no consequence for the atheists. Most of us defend your right to worship (a la Voltaire). Without the corollaries mentioned above it would be an unimportant point.

It is also funny to observe what a low opinion religious people have concerning others (and themselves!). They think that without a transcendent reward/punishment (carrot-and-stick) principle everyone would indulge in a hedonistic or sociopathic lifestyle. They think that without the threat/blackmail of eternal torture everyone would be egotistic, walk over their fellow human beings. If this worldview is not incorrect, unsupported, I don’t know what is.
 
The other advantage to Catholicism, a strong point for me, is the preaching of its leader, Jesus Christ, and the example He set. Authentic love is not an inherent human trait; kindmess is a learned trait. The Passion is the best teacher to me of authentic love that I know.

Even if it were all false from a mystical perspective, the meditation and prayers of the Rosary, for example, have clarified my perception and my ability to authentically love. This has incidently brought other gifts to my life–some peace, some joy even though i am an imperfect follower.

The theology all points to Him and it is positive through and through if practiced Honestly, that big green book is like a scientist’s handbook and the practices and theorems therein are like scientific experiments that bring us closer to the Truth. Just try them, the beliefs, the ideas, the Way, the prayers, the mass. Start with an open mind and see what comes of practicing the faith in earnest–if only the earnestness you can muster at this time.

May God bless all atheists who seek Him.
 
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Hitetlen:
which are tried to be imposed upon the non-religious by many (though not all) believers. Just look at euthanasia, abortion, sex and other, rather important facets of life.

The atheists do not try to force the believers to undego abortion if they do not want to. They do not try to force the believers to follow certain sexual practices against their desire. They do not try to force the believers to accept euthanasia for themselves or their loved ones.
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You are not being truthful here. Catholicism does not force anyone to be Catholic. Catholicism offers the truth. It has for 2 thousand years. While men may err and try to force, the Catholic religion is one that offers the truth, not forces. nThis is your own bias showing and not an accurate depiction of the Church’s teachings. naughty.

Atheist regimes however have forced their views. Even now I believe that condom education is forced on peoples throughout the world, tied to aid.
 
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Hitetlen:
First it is not an attack on religion, per se, it is the attack on the corollaries of religion, which are tried to be imposed upon the non-religious by many (though not all) believers. Just look at euthanasia, abortion, sex and other, rather important facets of life.

The atheists do not try to force the believers to undego abortion if they do not want to. They do not try to force the believers to follow certain sexual practices against their desire. They do not try to force the believers to accept euthanasia for themselves or their loved ones.

The opposite is not true, unfortunately. The problem is that believers want to change everyone to conform to their version of morality, regardless of the fact that it is simply unacceptable to others…

Whether someone wishes to worship a deity (and which deity in particular) is of no consequence for the atheists. Most of us defend your right to worship (a la Voltaire). Without the corollaries mentioned above it would be an unimportant point
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Unimportant point? Your problem is not religion itself, but ethics, which proceeds from knowledge of God? I suspect that both really trouble you, but the ethics make for a good whipping post.

It is the proper role of relgion to delineate what is right and wrong, is it not? So, if you really don’t have a beef with religion itself, you ought not to have a problem with one of its functions.

Also, it’s a HUGE difference between saying something is wrong and forcing people to do things. So, your attempt to counterargue is spurious.
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Hitetlen:
It is also funny to observe what a low opinion religious people have concerning others (and themselves!). They think that without a transcendent reward/punishment (carrot-and-stick) principle everyone would indulge in a hedonistic or sociopathic lifestyle. They think that without the threat/blackmail of eternal torture everyone would be egotistic, walk over their fellow human beings. If this worldview is not incorrect, unsupported, I don’t know what is.
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Unfortunately, your view from the outside does not tell the whole story. Christianity has appeal because Jesus Christ loves each and every person. Jesus loves you, Hitetlen. When we, with an honest inward view, see our faults and our failings but know that we have been redeemed by Christ’s suffering and death, it is very uplifting. When we see our strengths and know that they were given to us by a generous God, it’s a cause for joy and thanksgiving.

Peace,
JohnPaul
 
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