I just read his "Essay Pour Les Coniques" ( http://www.jstor.org/view/00211753/ap010001/01a00030/1?frame=noframe&userID=827e8380@uiuc.edu/01cc99332800501badc2d&dpi=3&config=jstor ) and his work in the field of conics is dead on. Why don't you believe in it? How can you not believe in analytical geometry?
2007-04-12 07:21:40 · 20 answers · asked by dmlk2 4 in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
Oh, I definitely think Pascal often got it right.
Especially with:
"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction."
But his geometry was excellent, too.
2007-04-12 07:39:50 · answer #1 · answered by Pedestal 42 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Pascal's wager says you should believe in God because you have more to win than to lose. Problem is that you may believe in the wrong God, or that perhaps God went on vacation and there is no reward or an afterlife. Then you practically spent your whole life in church while I jacked off and went partying. I am disappointed at Blaise, considering he was so smart. He could of thought of a better argument...
2007-04-12 14:24:06 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 1⤋
Pascal was a genius in mathematics. That doesn't make him right about god. Especially since he lived in the seventeenth century and didn't have access to all the work that science has done in the mean time.
2007-04-12 14:33:01 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
Pascal's argument is flawed. His conclusion is theist-centric(if thats even a word). He does not look at the wager in a world view(all religions) rather just his own.
2007-04-12 14:26:14 · answer #4 · answered by Maikeru 4 · 0⤊ 1⤋
I think the human spirit exists. I also think it conforms to our expectations, that there is no One True Faith. Goddess exists to me and I'm not worried about angry Hebrew war-gods or their celibate hanged offspring. If the Spirit exists, how can it not be universal? If you say all religions are fake, except for yours, isn't that highly illogical, improbable, and really gay?
2007-04-12 14:39:46 · answer #5 · answered by St. Toad 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Mr. Clemens ("Mark Twain") was once asked whether he feared death.
He said that he did not, in view of the fact that he had been dead for billions and billions of years before he was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.
2007-04-12 14:31:32 · answer #6 · answered by Melanie T 3 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Pascal was a bloody genius. Even geniuses make mistakes, hence the wager.
2007-04-12 14:27:37 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 2⤊ 0⤋
i don't think anyone denies geometry, it's the whole wager deal we disagree with. We imagine god is smart enough to know when we are lying to get into heaven.
We imagine he like ourselves doesn't just believe everything he's told.
2007-04-12 14:31:36 · answer #8 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
Silly Christians, don't you realize Blaise Pascal was wrong?
As far as his mathematics is concerned, he was very good!
.
2007-04-12 14:25:55 · answer #9 · answered by Weird Darryl 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
How does being a mathematician give a person knowledge in the human condition?
2007-04-12 14:43:56 · answer #10 · answered by charliecizarny 5 · 1⤊ 0⤋