Pascal's Wager

Discuss philosophical questions regarding theism (and atheism), and discuss religion as it relates to philosophy. This includes any philosophical discussions that happen to be about god, gods, or a 'higher power' or the belief of them. This also generally includes philosophical topics about organized or ritualistic mysticism or about organized, common or ritualistic beliefs in the existence of supernatural phenomenon.
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WanderingGaze22
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Pascal's Wager

Post by WanderingGaze22 »

Imagine an atheist comes across a priest who tells them they shouldn't be. The priest's argument is as follows: "If you are a believer in God, and God exists, you will go to heaven. If you do not believe, you risk the possibly going to the Inferno. Your earthly life is rather short. At the most, you will live a century. However, the afterlife is long, an eternity in fact. Therefore, you might as well invest your short earthly life as a believer, because if there is no God, you don't lose much time, but if there is a God, you gain an eternity in Heaven." Is the priest's gamble worth it? Does is seem convincing to consider becoming a believer? Below is a link to a book that debates God's existence. Use as a reference to delve into this though experiment.

https://gccaz.summon.serialssolutions.c ... g_u9470912
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Pattern-chaser
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Re: Pascal's Wager

Post by Pattern-chaser »

Pascal's Wager fails if God differentiates between (true) belief, and 'belief' feigned for selfish purposes.

The more authoritarian Western Abrahamic faiths would certainly require and demand true belief. On God's behalf, of course....
Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"
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JackDaydream
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Re: Pascal's Wager

Post by JackDaydream »

@Wandering Gaze

The problem which I have always seen with Pascal's wager is that it seems to involve fear. It seems to involve lack of certainty about God, with a view to it being better to choose the option of belief in God, just in case this is necessary for consequences in any possible afterlife.
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chewybrian
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Re: Pascal's Wager

Post by chewybrian »

Pascal's wager seems to present a false dichotomy, as if God could only exist in the exact way that I understand Him to exist. It's possible that if there is a God, He doesn't care what opinion, if any, that I hold about Him, or He might be angry at me for thinking about Him. He might judge me on entirely different grounds than whether I have faith or not, and might even be terribly unfair about His reasons for saving some and not others.
"What if we pick the wrong religion? Every week we're just making God madder and madder!", Homer Simpson
"If determinism holds, then past events have conspired to cause me to hold this view--it is out of my control. Either I am right about free will, or it is not my fault that I am wrong."
Gee
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Re: Pascal's Wager

Post by Gee »

chewybrian wrote: December 4th, 2021, 9:02 am Pascal's wager seems to present a false dichotomy, as if God could only exist in the exact way that I understand Him to exist. It's possible that if there is a God, He doesn't care what opinion, if any, that I hold about Him, or He might be angry at me for thinking about Him. He might judge me on entirely different grounds than whether I have faith or not, and might even be terribly unfair about His reasons for saving some and not others.
"What if we pick the wrong religion? Every week we're just making God madder and madder!", Homer Simpson
I love the quote by Homer Simpson. Never heard that before. :lol:

Gee
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LuckyR
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Re: Pascal's Wager

Post by LuckyR »

WanderingGaze22 wrote: December 4th, 2021, 3:23 am Imagine an atheist comes across a priest who tells them they shouldn't be. The priest's argument is as follows: "If you are a believer in God, and God exists, you will go to heaven. If you do not believe, you risk the possibly going to the Inferno. Your earthly life is rather short. At the most, you will live a century. However, the afterlife is long, an eternity in fact. Therefore, you might as well invest your short earthly life as a believer, because if there is no God, you don't lose much time, but if there is a God, you gain an eternity in Heaven." Is the priest's gamble worth it? Does is seem convincing to consider becoming a believer? Below is a link to a book that debates God's existence. Use as a reference to delve into this though experiment.

https://gccaz.summon.serialssolutions.c ... g_u9470912
Pascal's wager is completely logical... except not for gods. Maybe for kings or a totalitarian state or some other human decision makers, but any god fooled by the wager doesn't deserve to be called a god.
"As usual... it depends."
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