Pascal's wager

branie

What is your opinion on this?

Joe1919

If I can remember, what Pascal says is basically (my version) (1) You cannot prove that God exists (2) You cannot prove that God does not exist (3) Therefore the reasonable person would say …well…God may exist or he may not exist……….therefore I cant be sure………what should I do……or believe……

Now Pascal could be considered to be an early "Pragmatist", he says basically "considering that I can't really prove the existence or non-existence of God, what's in my own best interest to believe?" and he basically thinks he's better off believing in God.(as he run the risk of eternal punishment if he does not).

Although many people don't take Pascal seriously, I think he is interesting in that, in my opinion, belief in religion is as much about how it fits into a person life than actual proofs.
For example, football is about 30 or 22 people chasing a bag of wind around a field and it makes no scientific sense why millions of people support this primitive idea. But………?

Religion may be more than just about proofs and more about motivation………..

Its interesting that one of Religions earliest and greatest critics, David Hume said "reason is or ought to be a slave of the passions" (decisions on morals and religion may be more about feeling and emotion than about reason). For many people (and remember, people are different), religion is more about "what they want to believe" or "what's convenient to believe" than hard evidence.

LaVidaLoca

is to my mind the philosophical equivalent of John Lennon's "Double Fantasy" album. Something so bad by formerly great artist that it actually makes you doubt what you saw in them in the first place.

Personally I defer to Russell's Flying Teapot on this one: Beleif in God is not an option an intellectually honest person can "hedge their bets" on, any more than belief in a flying teapot orbiting the earth is. There's no evidence for it whatsoever, and a huge amount of evidence that contradicts it, (at least a God in the interventionist, infintely loving Christian sense of the word.)

Therefore, God, if he rather surprisingly did turn out to exist, would Im sure let me off the hook. He'd say, "Well Mr. VidaLoca, at least you didnt tell lies and pretend you beleived in me. You stood by the courage of your rationalist convictions, and were wrong. And then he'd give my 75 virgins. Or Grapes, if it was actually a misprint as they say.

Graymavyn

If there was only the possibility of one God, a great idea.
What if you follow his advice, believe in a god and God ends up existing, only a different god then you picked to believe in?. If there is a God, he'll probable be none to happy with your shameless hedging. And if that one God is old testament Christain God, you're in for some amount of trouble if you pick the wrong one.

bogwalrus

i have never heard of pascals wager til this thread so maybe i am at a good position to answer completely off the cuff.and why not he says.

The duality of man. So many different views on life with such little substance and meaning. I could if i wanted to believe that a being created all that is and will be. I could then live in this biosphere called earth manufactured by the great lord where i would live my days in awe of his greatness but not knowing the reason for my existence only knowing that he created it and that the limit is his boundary not mine.i would live a life of splendor and ignorant happiness somewhat subdued by the limits of being a mere product of some creators fantasy to be worshiped.And then of course when life had ran its course the beauty i would see and expect to see up until (and after) death would be a hopeful gaze of infinite bliss. But how different a view on life can be to the so called non believer. The person who lives by the same morals as most christians but gets dismissed due to certain dogmas and self held beliefs. the person who acts very similar in every way both on academic levels and political stances but who does not conform to the communal ideologies on life after death and salvation. This is the tragedy of a flawed over indulged race of humans where voices are not heard and ego's are the controlling factors in society. So be there an almighty being or not, it seems irrelevant, as the only beings that can actually solve the problems that grieve so many humans in this world is unfortunately humans not salvation and prayer.