So about that Pascal's Wager?

Question

Who digs it?

MmMmMmMm Yegar

Answer 1

this Pascal thing is hysterical

Answer 2

Life is like a gigantic poker tournament.

There are three sets of tables.

The first is called "Wealth and Power". The rules go like this. You can play whatever hands you want, you can even cheat. You might even get away with it. But the point of those tables is to rack up the chips. Then along comes a tap on the shoulder and you gotta get up and leave the game. No ifs, no ands, no buts, no maybes. You're outta there. But all those chips you won stay put. You can give 'em to othjer players, but you cannot take a single one with you outta the game.

The second set of tables is called "Fame and Glory". The rules are the same, except that each time you win a chip you get to put your mark on it. Eventually that tap on the shoulder comes and you gotta leave the game. The chips stay behind, but at least those who play with them can see your mark and maybe even remember you.

The third set of table is called "Long Chance Jackpot". The rules here are different. You play every hand exactly as it is dealt. You do not cheat. You just do the best you can with the hand. You can even, if you want, help others to play better with their hands. There are no chips. Eventually the tap comes and you leave the game.

If the atheists are right and you're worm food, the first tables might seem to make a lot of sense. You can at least have a heckuva good time while you exist. Of course, when you cease to exist that part won't matter, will it? And of course, if you're wrong, you're in deep, dark-brown doo-doo.

If the religionists are right, and you're headed to an afterlife, then the third table is the best one because it DOES allow you take something with you, just not chips. You take the lessons you learned, like honesty, imagination, caring and faith in a better hand next time.

Set of tables no.1 (wealth and power), that's matchstick poker whether you're an atheist OR a believer.

Set of tables no. 2 (fame and glory), that's penny-ante poker whether you're an atheist OR a believer.

Set no. 3 (Long Chance Jackpot), aaahhhh there's the payoff! If you're an atheist and your view is right, at least you've mastered a real challenging game; not that it'll matter, being as you're now worm food. BUT, if you're a believer and you're the one who's right.....JACKPOT! You win the lottery. The whole simoleon!

And that's Paschal's Wager.

Answer 3

Even Bush's justifications for invading Iraq haven't been refuted as many times as Pascal's Wager. For the wager to work, Pascal makes an a priori assumption that the probabilities of the existence of Pascal's Christian God’s existence or non-existence are the same. That's like saying the probability of winning on a Lotto ticket is 50-50. there are an infinite number of possible deities or superior life forms mistaken to be deities, etc., and there is absolutely no basis to assume that if a God exists, it can only be the Christian God of the Christian Hell as Pascal imagines it. There is no data to observe from which to calculate probabilities, so Pascal was speaking as a proselytizing Christian, not a mathematician, when he proposed this "wager."

Many intelligent and otherwise scientifically-minded people turn off their rational facility and revert to the neurological conditioning of childhood when it comes to religious propositions they can and cannot recognize as absurd. Note Pascal does not propose a wager about Zeus or Jupiter or Odin, but about the God he was conditioned from infancy to assume in his Western European Christian culture.

So I don't think much of the "wager." It's something I was taught the fallacies of by my 8th grade math teacher, who happened to be a Pentecostal lay minister. But given that religious zealots abhor the heavy lifting of critical thinking and have been rendered inacpable of recognizing false propositions by years of conditioning to accept nonsense without close examination, I am never surprised when believers think Pascal's Wager is a brilliant proposition.

Answer 4

Pascal's argument:
You believe in God.
If God exists, you go to heaven: your gain is infinite.
If God does not exist, your loss (the investment in your mistaken belief) is finite and therefore negligible.
You do not believe in God.
If God exists, you go to hell: your loss is infinite.
If God does not exist, your gain is finite and therefore negligible.

Believing in God is not the problem. Acting on your belief and living out your faith so that God can increase the value in your soul is the problem. Any other option, causes you to lose the expected value in your soul for not having lived a life that encompasses His Plan for your heaven with Him. It's not about a gamble, an option or a risk. It's about love, and the value built up in the soul from a life lived out in the gift of love from God. Love is in Him and of Him. Invest in the love of God, and He will be generous to a fault.

Answer 5

Early method of scaring people into believing in god.

Unfortunately faith born of fear causes all sorts of social problems and maladjustments. It's seen a big push for violence and death.

As a persuasive campaign it's useful, but as a practical discussion it's as weak as they come.

Answer 6

(sigh) It should never have been buried in the first place. It should have been left hanging from the rope of logic it died on so people could see it for the false argument it is.

Answer 7

I don't know about this wager thing......but I'm sure not going to give someone 5 grand to "insure" my way in to heaven. Only Jesus could do that. I'd rather have them pass me the tequila.

Answer 8

Any god who would introduce free will and then condemn people to eternal torture for not following something introduced by hearsay, deserves no cooperation of any kind.

Answer 9

It's just a meaningless conglomeration of words.

Answer 10

Ha ha Bryan...I get in enough trouble on my own...I am not taking a side on that one.

PEG