If you say your above having to be subject to the pascles wager argument.....then is it valid for a child who is told to clean his/her room and they will get reward later,or if they dont they will recieve a butt whoppin;is it valid for the child to plead pascles wager and not listen to anything the parent says?
Truthfully pascles wager is just a sorry excuse to not have to be obedient to God isnt it?
2007-02-22 15:28:37 · 18 answers · asked by Maurice H 6 in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
Pascal's wager is flawed. The flaw is quite simple: It assumes a binary result. Your god or no god.
The truth is, it is a mutliplex result: 1 in 33,000 gods or no god. You can see or acknowledge your own god ONLY, while we reject all 33,000 existing religions and their gods.
It is no longer a nothing to lose proposition, even if we choose your god, the same lack of evidence makes all the other gods equally likely to punish us for choosing your god.
lacking any reson to choose your god, we continue to choose no gods at all.
2007-02-24 11:09:38 · answer #1 · answered by Jay 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Are you even familiar with Pascal's wager and what it says? I would have hoped so seeing how you post it all the time.
It assumes that there are only two choices, being a Christian and being an Atheist. And that the Christian God rewards those who profess a belief in him no matter what their motives and punish those who don't believe in him no matter what their motives are.
Pascal obviously didn't think it through to it's logical conclusion. First of all there are a near infinite amount of choices when it comes to belief in deities. How do you know which God is the correct one? What if you picked the wrong one. I don't think Anubis or Hades would be too pleased with you Pascal's wagerers, to say nothing of the Aztec Gods. If one was to follow the wager to it's logical conclusion one would be a polytheist, not a monotheist.
Secondly, don't you think a God would know that you were just professing a belief in him just to cover your own butt? Do you really think you could fool a deity? I think not. If you do, then you must think your God is pretty dumb.
And lastly, the comparison between your God sentencing someone to an eternity in Hell and a parent giving their child a spanking is a like comparing eating an apple to being strapped into an electric chair. A spanking only lasts for, what, at the most a few minutes? Whereas Hell is for eternity, it is an infinite amount of time. You cannot compare getting hit (on the butt) to being burnt alive forever. Any offense that a person can commit in this finite existence can be paid for in a finite amount of time. Therefore the idea of an eternal lake of fire where people burn in anguish and torment forever is contradictory to the concept of a just, merciful and loving creator. If you want to believe in hell then you must admit that God is not just and definitely not very merciful or loving. And if you can admit that, then how could you live with yourself knowing that this is the being you will serve ETERNALLY?
2007-02-22 16:11:53 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
But the parent can actually prove that she has the ability to implement the punishment and the reward, people that propose Pascal's wager can not prove either of the results.
Also, if the mother presents the child with 300 different rooms to clean (Gods), and told the child that she had to clean the correct one or be beaten and that there was no way to know which room was the right one.....would that be fair to the child?
2007-02-22 15:30:56 · answer #3 · answered by ? 6 · 7⤊ 0⤋
Dear, dear Maurice. I know you're trying very hard to understand. Let me fix your analogy.
Pascal's wager is like visiting at your friend's house as usual, when all of a sudden he starts bossing you around and saying you'd better do what he says or his mom is going to come home and whup you. Only you've never met his mom. In fact, you have no direct evidence that his mom is even alive other than his say-so. If he's lying, the worst that could happen is you have a bad afternoon. If he's telling the truth, you could conceivably get a whuppin'. (But you do wonder how, in all the time you've been over, you've never seen his parents...)
Is that any clearer?
2007-02-22 16:28:15 · answer #4 · answered by skepsis 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
What makes you think that God is a punisher that requires submission? Or that God's sense of self esteem is tied up in what puny, petty humans think?
I am a mother of 3 gorgeous children. They have free will in this home. If they do not do as they are told...they suffer the natural consequences of their actions. There is no need for punishment from an external source. I also do not expect them to follow my religious beliefs. I would never put them in the oven for choosing a different path. So if I am so compassionate and loving as a mere human....how much more so is God? To say God is less of a loving parent than a mere human can be is blasphemous to my understanding of God. Obedience....like everything else is a choice....and not a crime worth the death penalty in any circumstance by any measure. Get out of your bible box mentality and allow yourself to SEE God.
Besides...choosing to "love" God out of fear of punishment isn't really love now is it?
2007-02-22 15:40:12 · answer #5 · answered by Medusa 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
No, Pascal's wager is a sorry question asked only by those who have no comprehension of people who believe differently than they do. It is an overused product of blatant igorance.
Many non-Christians were once Christian but left the faith... obviously something went wrong that had nothing to do with perceived risk vs perceived rewards.
Expand your mind.
2007-02-22 15:33:50 · answer #6 · answered by KC 7 · 3⤊ 0⤋
Let us relook at Pascal's wager.
Let us assume there exists a God who knows all and you do not believe but choose to act as though you do just in case. Since the all knowing God knows you do not have faith, you lose.
Let us also assume there exists a God who knows all and you believe, just in case, but do so from a fear of punishment. Since you did so from a fear of punishment and not in faith and love, you still lose.
Let us assume no God exists and you behave well, then whatever you get for your goodness you get in life and nowhere else. Imagine that no God exists and you behave as though one does. So let us assume you turn the other cheek as you are being beaten. Rather than seek justice and end harm to yourself and potentially others, you permit injustice to continue. How is this then good?
2007-02-23 06:26:00 · answer #7 · answered by OPM 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
My problem with Pascal's wager is that even if we took the wager, we don't REALLY believe, we'd just be saying that we do to avoid "damnation." It wouldn't be real, because you either believe, or you don't. You can't just say, "Oh, OK...I'll believe then." I think that if there WAS a God, he'd see through that.
2007-02-22 15:47:42 · answer #8 · answered by Jess H 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
First of all discipling a child is completely different from obeying an invisible creature who doesnt exist.
Second of all, pascals wager has nothing to do with disciplining a child!
2007-02-22 15:32:24 · answer #9 · answered by Mayonaise 6 · 2⤊ 1⤋
I'm sure if there is a Hell there is a section specifically for people who used Pascal's wager to influence their decision.
2007-02-22 15:33:39 · answer #10 · answered by dmlk2 4 · 2⤊ 1⤋