Pascals Wager?

Question

I see a lot of Christians using Pascals Wager here. Bu tI ask them this, wht if you are wrong and Islam is right? Or perhaps Judaism? Or maybe even the Druidic or Egyptian religions from 2000+ years ago?

Answer 1

Because christians want to believe the way they do. They cannot come to terms with other ideas or the truth that they will lay in the ground and be bug food and rot

Answer 2

Best to answer this with a quote from my book "The Plain Truth About God-101" (what the church doesn't want you to know!)

Christianity and Islam (as well as their individual sects) claim to be the only right path to God. Although this vision is arousing a lot of enthusiasm amongst their adherents, it is important to know that these are not the only views.
We need only look at the Eastern religions.
Therefore, the other option is that all world religions are pieces of the same puzzle.
Theoretically, two possibilities exist. A proper evaluation of such opposite views as Eastern and Western Religion must be done before we decide on a course of action.
If the first is true (all religions lead us to the same goal), and we choose the second (only one of them is right), we have not lost anything. Despite our ignorance, we will arrive at the same happy end as the other travelers who have chosen different spiritual paths.
A less happy situation would be given by the second possibility, that a single spiritual path is valid and we have chosen the wrong one. In this case we are courting a spiritual disaster.
(A third possibility, that all spiritual paths are wrong, is denied by the nature of our spiritual quest itself. This search demands a real fulfillment, otherwise our hunger for ultimate truth could not be justified and all religions would be nothing but fantasy.)
By default then, because one option is so unpalatable, (that there is nothing after life) we would have to choose the view that all religions lead us to the same goal.
The following pages are not meant merely to generate rational proofs for justifying one or another alternative.
No matter how complex and logical the proofs of one or the other causes might be, it is possible to find counterpoints of the same nature. At a rational level, these disputes could fill many books with no benefit to anyone.
None can be persuaded or converted to one or another religious perspective only through rational proof and logic. This may be possible in science, but not in religion, otherwise everyone would already be of one faith.
However, rational proofs have to be considered because we are rational beings. Reason should not be rejected and faith proclaimed the only way of knowing truth. No divorce between reason and faith should be accepted because they are complementary and work together. Neither should exclude the other.
As a result, we do not have to reject the proof of reason in our spiritual quests, whatever their nature might be. Rather than generating sterile debates, the information presented here should help you clarify your own views toward comparative religion and develop a critical ability to analyze today's spiritual market.
The comparative analysis presented here is focused on Christianity, Islam, Judaism and the major Eastern Religions because they play a major role in defining today's world spirituality.
Some may believe that a comparative analysis like this may fuel religious hatred and intolerance, but this is wrong. Religious tolerance and freedom cannot be built on ignorance but rather should be built on the understanding of commonalities. Therefore, as Jesus said: "Loving the person is possible even if one rejects his or her religious convictions!"

Or this;

**Perhaps the greatest sin of the Western churches (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) has been the particular brand of narcissism that impels so many to feel they have God all sewn up and put in their back pocket.
People who think that they not only have a ticket to heaven, but anyone who disagrees with them is going straight to hell!
They believe in God, but do not believe that God is bigger than their own theology. In their arrogance they do not realized that God is not theirs to possess!
-Paraphrased from M. Scott Peck.

Answer 3

Pascal's wager works best for Christianity.

All other religions depend on us earning our way to "heaven" (whatever form they believe in) by doing good deeds and avoiding bad deeds.

So if I am a committed Christian, by obeying Jesus, I am automatically doing good deeds and avoiding bad deeds.

Therefore Pascal's Wager indicates that whatever religion is right, I still win.

Cordially,
John

Answer 4

Pascal's Wager is based on the idea that choosing one of the world's many religions gives you a nonzero chance of pleasing a possible creator-God, whereas atheism is presumed to give you zero utility if God exists. The idea of Pascal's wager is not that one would be fully assured of the correctness of one's chosen religion, but rather that nonzero > zero utility.

Answer 5

Obviously you have never read Pascal's Wager.....it does not argue for a CHRISTIAN God.....just the existance of God. There is only ONE God......

Muslums, Jews and Christians all worship the same ONE God. About the Druidic or Egyptian religions---well, most are no longer in business any longer! ;)

Answer 6

Pascal Wager only tries to show why it makes sense to believe in God. It doesn't say anything about which God. You want to read Thomas Aquinas or Augustine for why to believe in The Holy Trinity.

Answer 7

exactly. Pascal's wager is BS. There are a lots of us atheists out there who have realized none of the thousands of Gods since the beginning of time are right. Check out Epicurious' Riddle. Makes way more sense than Pascal's Wager if you ask me. Check out www.ffrf.org and www.whydoesgodhateamputees.com.. my god is better than your god!! BS! I also recommend Sam Harris' book- The End of Faith.

Answer 8

Pascal's argument is seriously flawed. The religious environment that Pascal lived in was simple. Belief and disbelief only boiled down to two choices: Roman Catholicism and atheism. With a finite choice, his argument would be sound. But on Pascal's own premise that God is infinitely incomprehensible, then in theory, there would be an infinite number of possible theologies about God, all of which are equally probable.

First, let us look at the more obvious possibilities we know of today - possibilities that were either unknown to, or ignored by, Pascal. In the Calvinistic theological doctrine of predestination, it makes no difference what one chooses to believe since, in the final analysis, who actually gets rewarded is an arbitrary choice of God. Furthermore we know of many more gods of many different religions, all of which have different schemes of rewards and punishments. Given that there are more than 2,500 gods known to man , and given Pascal's own assumptions that one cannot comprehend God (or gods), then it follows that, even the best case scenario (i.e. that God exists and that one of the known Gods and theologies happen to be the correct one) the chances of making a successful choice is less than one in 2,500.

Second, Pascal's negative theology does not exclude the possibility that the true God and true theology is not one that is currently known to the world. For instance it is possible to think of a God who rewards, say, only those who purposely step on sidewalk cracks. This sounds absurd, but given the premise that we cannot understand God, this possible theology cannot be dismissed. In such a case, the choice of what God to believe would be irrelevant as one would be rewarded on a premise totally distinct from what one actually believes. Furthermore as many atheist philosophers have pointed out, it is also possible to conceive of a deity who rewards intellectual honesty, a God who rewards atheists with eternal bliss simply because they dared to follow where the evidence leads - that given the available evidence, no God exists! Finally we should also note that given Pascal's premise, it is possible to conceive of a God who is evil and who punishes the good and rewards the evil.

Thus Pascal's call for us not to consider the evidence but to simply believe on prudential grounds fails. As the atheist philosopher, J.L. Mackie wrote:

Once the full range of such possibilities is taken into account, Pascal's argument from comparative expectations falls to the ground. The cultivation of non-rational belief is not even practically reasonable.

This is a call for the rejection of Pascal's wager. A call for all of us to use our reason to decide whether the central claims of Christianity are true or false. It is also a reminder that our choices have a moral dimension that cannot be ignored.

We have seen that many important details about Jesus' life given in the gospels are either false or historically suspect. And we will examine Christian Theology as it is and show that it is a confused irrational system. The balance of evidence, far from being inconclusive, shows that the major teachings and claims of Christianity are false. These parts show that one of the main assumptions of Pascal's wager, that we cannot know the truth or falsity or religious claims and are thus forced to make a wager, is false.

As we have mentioned above, there is a moral dimension to Pascal's wager. We have seen Christianity, in all its forms - Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodox, Protestantism and the Fringe Churches - has inflicted tremendous harm on civilization. When one makes a wager to believe, then one becomes morally responsible for the propagation of suffering that Christianity have been bringing and will continue to bring upon the world.

The Roman Catholic Church continues its horrible track record of bringing misery to its followers and to non-Catholics. It's illogical stance on contraception leads to millions of unwanted pregnancies and, indirectly, to many thousands maternal and infant deaths. It also means that poor third world countries with Catholic majorities, such as the Philippines and Brazil, continue to be burdened by overpopulation, poverty, hunger and disease. It is widely recognized that the opposition of the Catholic Church to the use of condoms in the fight against HIV/AIDS is at least partially responsible for the high rate of new infections in Africa and elsewhere. Its irrational position on this has led to the pronouncement that if a husband infected with HIV/AIDS wants a normal conjugal relationship with his wife, he should do so without a condom. Life takes a back seat to theological nonsense. The moribund structure of the Church also allows for the horrendously high number of sex abuse committed by its clergy on innocent young Catholics. The recently departed pope, John Paul II bears a huge responsibility for this continuing infliction of suffering on humankind.

The Fundamentalist Protestant churches inflict their own brand of horror on the world. With scientific creationism and intelligent design creationism, they are trying to bring science, and the world, back into the dark ages where faith and ignorance reign supreme. The fundamental irrationalism of this branch of Christianity has meant that many of the flock have been fleeced by TV evangelists, some of whose have sexual escapades comparable to the infamous Pope Alexander VI. This irrationalism breeds belief in the efficacy of faith healing to the detriment, and death, of many. Needless to say, fundamentalism breeds intolerance.

The fundamentalists have joined forces with the Catholic Church in their absolutist opposition to abortion, leading the current fundamentalist leaning U.S. government to withhold funds from organizations that aid poor women in third world countries. It has been estimated that almost 5,000 women needlessly die each year due to this misnamed "culture of life" policy.

This moral responsibility for all these also partially falls on the so-called liberal Christians. While this group of Christians may do little harm directly, they provide the raw material (in "lukewarm" believers who are already positively disposed towards Christianity) from which fundamentalism builds itself. Furthermore by putting a "respectable" veneer on religious discourse, they prevent a much needed and long overdue logical, philosophical and scientific demolition of religious claims - since to even attempt to question religion per se is considered politically incorrect. As Sam Harris rightly noted in his book The End of Faith:

Religious moderates are, in a large part, responsible for the religious conflict in our world, because their beliefs provide the context in which scriptural literalism and religious violence can never be adequately opposed.

It is time for liberal Christians to think through their belief system, whether applying words which lose all sense of their normal meaning just to keep some semblance of the religious life, is really worth the harm they indirectly help inflict on the world.

Furthermore amidst all this proven negative effects of Christianity, it is hard to see if there is much good that comes out of it. Some believers have tried to argue that Christians lead healthier lives than non-Christians, but the studies cited have been shown to be seriously flawed. Furthermore it is debatable whether Christianity actually makes a person moral. History seems to tell us otherwise. Many of the popes throughout history had been morally deficient human beings; so too were many of the church fathers, Protestant reformers and some modern evangelical preachers. For they preached intolerance and hate and sometimes actively encouraged the torture and murders of innocent people. Indeed recent sociological studies have shown that there is a negative correlation between religiosity and morality.

The world today, perhaps more than ever, is in need of our undivided, moral and rational, attention. The problems of the world, both natural and man-made are many: famine, floods, the greenhouse effect, the ozone hole and the irreversible extinction of countless species of plants and animals. The only chance the world has is for humankind to understand that this world is all we have, there is no other, no afterlife. Only we can solve the world's problems. The solutions for the problems of the world and for life in general are not to be found in Christianity. Christianity, in fact, is part of the problem.

On both intellectual and moral grounds the only course for a person to take is the rejection of Pascal's wager.

Answer 9

good point.

Answer 10

ur right.