To Any Atheist Familar With Pascals Wager....?

Question

"If you believe in God and turn out to be incorrect, you have lost nothing--but if you don't believe in God and turn out to be incorrect, you will go to hell. Therefore it is foolish to be an atheist."

Why is it that you wont believe in a religion.... True, one of the flaws is no one knows what religion is rite so why have the wrong religion and still be screwed....Correct? Well do Christians know there religion is correct? no, do Jews know there religion is correct? i think not...Its based on belief..... so why dont you just go with the one thats has the most convincing evidence....Why be stubborn and not have one at all?

2nd Flaw... the statement that "If you believe in God and turn out to be incorrect, you have lost nothing" is not true. say you beleive in the wrong God and the true god may punish you.... once again why not go with the oldest religion... that starts the only words in religion God Created the Heavens and the "Earth"....

Why not just pick a religion that has the most convincing peice to it... and Do that instead of just not believ in nothing i mean cause that does say better safe than sorry rite?

If they are not the oldest religions then how is it possible that no other religion before that clamied that there God created the Earth besides Scientoligy and believe me id rather be a Scientoligist than Atheist. but jesus was a jew which it is stated he is the father the son and the holy spirit you can only determine that god is a jew sonce jesus is also the father...

If Pascals Wager never intended it to be used for religion why do Atheist use it against Christianity to say the Flaws....

Im in no religion but i beleive in God.... That He is the creaor of everything.... Do I Beleive Everything in the bible no but think logically.... A Freak Accident Created us.... Ok and Im Gonna Win An Oscar...

Christianity started over 2000 years ago when jesus is said to be on the cross u call 2000 years ago fairly new and the only other dated religion b4 that is Judiasm... Prove otherwise....

Dude the point with atheist you dont actually think about what people say your just hell bent that there is no god never will be... its useless.

Hinduism was created by Satan he was pretending to be someone else since he is known as the king of all lies.... he lied to and told him to create that specific religion.... do your research... and dont just type what you hear.

ill gove you the link to the site atheist are arguing it.... rite here!!!!!

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/mathew/arguments.html#hitler

the bible is evidence itself.... is it true who knows? but whats the deal with not beleiving at all ur not losing a single thing.. except beleiving in god.

im guessing u missed the part where i dont believe in the bible....i believ in god the person who created me.... hunduism is a spiritual religion... what was god(spirit) ou wanna get into egyption where is the 12 plagues PROVEN to have happened egypt(spell) were the creator of hinduism was..... it may have dated back that far.... but the pharohs having slaves is what caused the plagues..... which was sent from god..

And the guy that answered the question with a question i guess ur stumped no explanation guy?

Answer 1

Oh, crap. Give me a moment to get a coffee, because Blase Pascal never intended the wager to be an argument for religion.
A moment please.
OK, Pascal makes it very clear in his introduction to the wager that he chose the question of God's existence for an example because it is unanswerable. In other words it is fundamentally agnostic.
In fact if the wager is approached in any other context it fails.
What the "Wager" is, is the first clear use of a payoff table in decision theory.
The idea is that if I can not be sure of the correctness of a decision I should make up a payoff table and hedge my bets.
Do you understand. Only if you are agnostic is it valid.
It was never intended as a theological argument.
Forget about all the arguments about the validity of the truth table, or about other Gods.
Forget about the Idea of faking your way into Heaven by betting the odds.
The reasons why it is not a good argument for believing in Gods are deeper in the logic. You need to accept that God is unprovable,agnostic and by default atheist, for the wager to be a wager.
--------------
I would really like to thank you for the link. I suggest you check out the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy on Pascal's Wager.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pascal-wager/
It is a bit of a read, but if you make it through you will actually understand the wager, and what it means.

Answer 2

You're trying to have Paschal's cake and eat it too. You point out the flaws, then ignore them. "Most convincing" is a matter of opinion, right? You could still choose wrong, your choice could be a fraud or a delusion, and if the "real God" is petty enough, you could be in worse trouble than the atheists who at least didn't offend the big guy by engaging in abominations.

Why is it so important to choose one fantasy over another? Why couldn't living a compassionate, mutually respectful, egalitarian (but god-free) life be perfectly acceptable to whatever deity might possibly be in charge? How would YOU know any differently about how "God" thinks?

If NO religion offers a "convincing" argument, then "none of the above" is a perfectly reasonable choice. And "oldest" is also debatable. Hinduism is chronologically much older than Judaism, and BOTH have creation myths. If you're making a pitch for Christianity, remember, it borrowed the Hebrew scriptures for its own purposes. It can't claim credit for their provenance. If it were possible to determine which religion was the "best", wouldn't everyone have already chosen it?

Answer 3

As you say:

"so why dont (sic) you just go with the one thats has the most convincing evidence"

If you would care to show me any religion that has some convincing evidence I will consider it. All the ones I have looked at to date are severely flawed and obviously wrong.

Which is better? To believe something that is contradictory to reality, or not believe any of it.

Edit:

The oldest mainsteam religion is Hinduism by the way. Egyptian religions predate them, and I believe Zoroastrianism is the oldest deity worship and Jainism predate that.

Even if I limit myself to the Abrahamic religions the oldest is Judaism.


You are picking the end point that you want to get to and then selecting an argument to justify it. Pretty weak even by Pascal's Wager standards.

Answer 4

Lots of things have changed since Pascal.
First, Pascal thought heaven was a good thing, it's not. Heaven is populated by folks like Jerry Fallwell, Jim Baker, Jim Jones, Oral Roberts, and other pukes like that.
Second, Pascal didn't have much regard for living in reality, he just wanted to couch his bets on heaven and hell. There are lots more people today that just want to "keep it real".
Third, shouldn't you be listening to your God and spend a lot more time taking care of his children rather then waste your time here arguing about trivia.

Answer 5

The search function works perfectly well and you could have saved yourself 5 points

Why don't you become an atheist because you might be worshipping the wrong god and the real one would prefer you not to worship any god rather than the wrong one. Worshipping the wrong god is a one way ticket to hell!

Answer 6

1. Judaism or Christianity are no more convincing than any other religion.

2. Neither is the oldest religion.

3. Where is the proof that 'god' rewards belief?

4. What makes you think that 'god' won't see past your hedging yourself?

5. *drink*

Answer 7

Why would I throw away my life by relying on a wild guess? I can't force myself to believe in a religion.

Also, there is no convincing evidence that points to any religion. All religions seem to be equally false.

Answer 8

even then, the gods portrayed or nothing but sadistic. I'd rather he burn me in hell then. there are much to lose with religion. Religion restricts many things. If you're pretty much secular i guess it's okay. But when i see those who spend almost every minute of their life preaching or doing something related to god. I always wonder to myself what if in the end they realize god doesn't exist(or even if they dont realize and there's really no god). Wouldn't they have wasted their whole life on nothing then?

Answer 9

Evolution and science have the most convincing evidence and atheism is the closest religion to it

Answer 10

So are you also suggesting that the gods will be just as happy with wishy-washy, lukewarm, "safety" belief as they would be with genuine, whole-hearted belief?

And are you suggesting that Christianity is the oldest religion? You'd be awfully wrong on that point as well. Christianity is fairly new.


EDIT: Do more research. Hinduism was around way before Christianity and its God were.

And atheists don't use Pascal's Wager to argue religion; Christians use it as a way of trying to convince non-believers to believe.

HInduism:
"Prehistoric religion:
(3000-1000 BCE)

The earliest evidence for elements of the Hindu faith dates back as far as 3000 BCE." (BBC)

"Although today's Hinduism differs significantly from earlier forms of Indian religion, Hinduism's roots date back as far as 2000 BC, making it one of the oldest surviving religions." (religionfacts.com)

"Evidence that Hinduism must have existed even circa 10000 B.C. is available: The importance attached to the river Saraswati and the numerous references to it in the Vedas indicates that the Rig Veda was being composed well before 6500 B.C." (about.com)

"The classical theory of the origins of Hinduism traces the religion's roots to the Indus valley civilization circa 4000 to 2200 BCE. The development of Hinduism was influenced by many invasions over thousands of years. The major influences occurred when light-skinned, nomadic "Aryan" Indo-European tribes invaded Northern India (circa 1500 BCE) from the steppes of Russia and Central Asia. They brought with them their religion of Vedism. These beliefs mingled with the more advanced, indigenous Indian native beliefs, often called the "Indus valley culture.". This theory was initially proposed by Christian scholars in the 19th century. Their conclusions were biased by their pre-existing belief in the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament). The Book of Genesis, which they interpreted literally, appears to place the creation of the earth at circa 4,000 BCE, and the Noahic flood at circa 2,500 BCE. These dates put severe constraints on the date of the "Aryan invasion," and the development of the four Veda and Upanishad Hindu religious texts." (religioustolerance.org)

Satan is a construct of Christianity. Is that how Christians negate things that they disagree with? Blame it on Satan? So with all of the information that points to Hinduism being older than Christianity, Satan did it? The legs of your argument grow weaker and weaker. Are you even aware that Hinduism is so old, that no one knows for sure who started it? And don't pull out this "The Bible is true because it says it's true" crap either. You've opened this can of worms, and circular reasoning won't help you out of it now. You say we supposedly won't lose anything by believing in your God, but you'll be the one who looks silly if it's Odin, Vishnu, Zeus, or Mithras at the gates instead of your God.

I am not missing anything by not believing in your God. I consider my life to have really started the minute I left him in the dust.