blaise pascal's wager arguement?

Question

can somebody explain it to me.. and if you were to philosophically criticize it, what would you have to say about it?

Answer 1

Better to hedge your bets and play the come line....to believe in god, you're safe when it comes judgement day. If there is no god, heaven or judgement day, then no harm no foul, it doesnt matter anyway. The best bet is to believe....

Answer 2

Pascal's Wager overlooks the possibility that an omniscient deity, if existent, could see through such a self-serving reason for believing in it, if that belief was even genuine. It also casts religious faith in a negative light, suggesting that a fear-based belief in a deity, hedging your bets in other words, is preferable to risking eternal punishment after death. It also assumes that there is no chance that another god could be the "right" one! What if it's Thor? Then a lot of people are in trouble.

What it really misses is this: it assumes that non-believers go to Hell. That is not necessarily an intelligent assumption to make because atheists do not believe in the existence of god(s) because there is no evidence or proof of it. If, after death, such a person were to be confronted with that proof, he/she would cease to be a non-believer and could very well end up in Heaven.

Answer 3

Pascal's Wager claims that given the choice between believing in God and not believing, it is more rational to believe in the existence of God. If God exists and you reap a great reward for believing in him and receive a great punishment for not believing in him. If God doesn't exist your reward for being right and not believing in him is very minimal (not wasting time in church) while the disadvantages of being wrong and believing in him is also minimal (wasting time in church.) Thus, Pascal thought, by purely rational self interest a person should believe in God and it was silly to not do so.

I think there are many major problems with this argument:

-it supposes that you can rationally control what you believe, but human belief is not easily subject to rational calculations.

-it ignores the existence of other religions. A form of the wager can be used to justify almost any religion. Why not adopt a conservative form of Islam out of fear that that is the right faith?

-it ignores the possibility that Christians might be angering whatever deity exists by praying to the wrong god, and the non-christians will be the ones to enter paradise. It might be better to pray to no god and live a morally good life than to pray to the wrong god.

-it ignores the potentially great harms that can be done by religious belief

-it appeals to the worst qualities of people: fear, self-centeredness, and lack of principles (willing to abandon a belief system when a better one comes along) rather than the qualities that should be the source of religious devotion: awe, love, tranquility.

Answer 4

Pascal is saying that: " It is better to be safe than sorry."
This is of course a very weak argument if you are trying to prove the existence of God or to show the validity of a religion. But we have to remember that Pascal was a brilliant mind and this is not his only statement in life. It is just a weak argument for the purpose mentioned above. And also the fact that it is a weak argument does not make wrong what he is trying to prove.

Answer 5

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_wager

3.1 Assumes God rewards belief
3.2 Assumes Christianity is the only religion which makes such a claim
3.3 Does not constitute a true belief
3.4 Assumes one can choose belief
3.5 Opportunity costs
3.6 Atheist's Wager

To me the main problems are:
A. Do people really think god will accept someone acting like they believe to "hedge their bets"?
B. How can anyone from any religion ever pick only one god on the off chance that another religion is correct? Shouldn't everyone believe in every god to make sure they are covering all their bases?

Answer 6

it is an oxymoron the Pascal guess. It has circumstances to the like it professes on the Christianity aspect, which i trust isn't shared through maximum Christians. Unconditional Love is basically that... conditionless. Void of circumstances, barriers, expectations, regulations, etc. I say enable each and each and every of the affection into your heart and difficulty no longer about what others imagine. advantages

Answer 7

Basically, pascals wager is this:

If Christianity is wrong, it's no big deal to the Christian because they'll just find out that eternity is not as tough as they thought it would be

But, if the atheist is wrong...he's in big trouble!

That's an extremely simplified version of pascal's wager.

Answer 8

Pascal's Wager: The Argument for Believing in God.

There are four basic scenarios to be had:
1) There is a God. I believe in him.
2) There is a God. I don't believe in him.
3) There is no God. I believe in him.
4) There is no God. I don't believe in him.

We cannot know whether there is a God or not, with certainty, until after death, when we reach the Final Judgment. If we were able to know, that would solve the existence of God quite easily, and Pascal's Wager would never have been born. Let's look at the post-death path of the scenarios:

1) I live with God.
2) I am punished by God.
3) Nothing.
4) Nothing.

The summary is this: If I believe in God, then my outcome will be good (being saved) or neutral (body in ground). If I don't believe, my outcome will be bad (Punishment) or neutral (body in ground). Believing has no bad outcome. Not believing does. Is eternal punishment worth something as trivial as not believing in God? Pascal says no. The price that comes from believing is worth the avoidance of punishment. Who wants to burn just because they failed to do something as simple as acknowledging the existence of God? Nobody should (so says Pascal). It just isn't worth it to not believe.

Criticism:
Believing in the wrong God could be just as harmful, maybe moreso, than not believing in God at all. Pascal's Wager does not take into account the numerous theistic religions. Even if we were to accept his statements, we wouldn't know which religion to pick.
The Wager does not take into account polytheistic religions. If there are numerous Gods, such as in Greek Mythology, then we will suffer from the jealous rages of those we don't believe in.
Pascal's Wager requires one to believe in God for selfish reasons (namely, keeping the soul in comfort after death). This is not actual belief, but false belief. One does not actually believe in God, one just says so to get out of punishment. An omniscient God would know that the belief is false and would punish accordingly.
If belief in God is based on no reason other than a desire to avoid punishment, that doesn't say much about the appeal of the God. The God clearly is vengeful and mean, not caring and full of love. One mistake and you're burning forever. That brings about questions concerning what it would be like to live eternally with this God. Furthermore, this God is not very influential if people only believe in him because of this Wager. A truly powerful, influential God would have believers because of his kindness and the things he creates, not the desire to avoid his punishments.

These are the strongest counterarguments. I add my own, concerning the four scenarios previously seen. Taking into account various financial and time restraints caused by religious belief (go to mass, donate money; in some religions inflict self-punishment; etc.), these are the four pre-death possibilities for the God/belief scenarios (this argument could be incorporated with previous counterarguments to Pascal's Wager, but I have written it up as if it is an independent argument):
1) My time was well spent, as I will go to God.
2) My time was not well spent, as I will be punished.
3) My time was wasted.
4) My time was not wasted.

Now, instead of a simple statement concerning the benefits of belief, we see problems. If there is no God, then this life is all we have. Our time here should be worthwhile. Every minute takes on a lot more meaning. However, believing in God will have resulted in wasted time. We will be punishing ourselves for believing in God. The outcomes are now closer to even: believing in God is both good and bad, while not believing is bad and good.
Numerous counterarguments could be made (the bad outcome for not believing includes eternal suffering versus a few wasted hours every week in the case of believing; the time spent believing provides comfort; religions do good things; etc.). But if it is combined with other arguments (the hours wasted are more important due to this being our only life; our 'false belief' means we don't really want to believe, and our belief restrained us from what we wanted to do; religions do bad things as well; non-theistic religions do good things; etc.), this hurts Pascal's Wager.
Pascal's Wager is one of the weakest arguments a believer could put forth. There are much stronger ones that should be used first.

Answer 9

It essentially says that the safe wager is believing there is a God.