Pascal's wager is based on the western conceptualization of God. Eastern religions, for the most part, don't have a concept of eternal suffering.
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Can Faith Be Rational?
- Thread starter SalixIncendium
- Start date
Pascal's wager is based on the western conceptualization of God. Eastern religions, for the most part, don't have a concept of eternal suffering.
Indeed. That particular professor who introduced it in an 'Introduction to Logic' philosophy class wasn't too smart. I didn't really appreciate being a student who was smarter than his prof. He said another thing or two that was worse. Some other students and I sat at the back of the class pondering how such an illogical person could be teaching a class in logic.
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Both of the senses of "faith" from my post are included in that definition.
Most of the other senses (e.g. being sincere or trustworthy - "acting in good faith") don't really have anything to do with rationality.
To say one has reasons or justifications for faith strikes me as a curious position. Why would one call it "faith" if one had reasons or justifications for it? Why not at that point just call it "belief" or even perhaps "knowledge"? To say one has reasons or justifications for faith renders the word "faith" redundant.
Alright, Zen 101:
Great Faith leads to Great Doubt. Great Doubt leads to Great Determination, and Great Determination leads to Great Awakening. Little Doubt--Little Awakening, and no doubt--no awakening.
""Before a man studies Zen, to him mountains are mountains and waters are waters; (Faith) after he gets an insight into the truth of Zen through the instruction of a good master, mountains to him are not mountains and waters are not waters; (Doubt) but after this when he really attains to the abode of rest, mountains are once more mountains and waters are waters." (Awakening and Equanimity)
One might say that Faith/belief is a good tool for invoking and giving direction to doubt, but once you have investigated doubt, what are you left with?
Great Faith leads to Great Doubt. Great Doubt leads to Great Determination, and Great Determination leads to Great Awakening. Little Doubt--Little Awakening, and no doubt--no awakening.
""Before a man studies Zen, to him mountains are mountains and waters are waters; (Faith) after he gets an insight into the truth of Zen through the instruction of a good master, mountains to him are not mountains and waters are not waters; (Doubt) but after this when he really attains to the abode of rest, mountains are once more mountains and waters are waters." (Awakening and Equanimity)
One might say that Faith/belief is a good tool for invoking and giving direction to doubt, but once you have investigated doubt, what are you left with?
Pascal's wager is butchered today by nearly everyone. Pascal himself gave it three formulations and made it quite clear that he himself did not consider it a good argument for believing in the Christian God. Today, morons teach it to trusting students as if Pascal thought he was on to a damn good reason to believe in god -- not just the Christian God, but god.
Here's what the Wager is all about. First, there are three formulations of it -- not just one. The Second formulation is the famous one, but the other two help to clarify Pascal's intent. Next, it is not meant to justify belief in god. It is meant to motivate belief in the Christian God. Pascal is clear about that.
Pascal had some atheist friends who liked to gamble. He was merely pointing out to his friends that believing in the Christian God could be approached as a bet, a wager, a gamble. In short, he was trying to "speak their language" as a means of MOTIVATING them -- but he was not trying to justify a belief in the existence of God or a god.
The way they teach Pascal these days, you would think the great mathematician was dumb as Donald Trump.
This is precisely why I believe we need to return the guillotine to its proper use as a means of dispatching incompetent professors of philosophy. Neither God nor Darwin intended there to be so many of them.
We have to stop agreeing like this.
This guy then took it to the heads or tails betting, that you can always win by double or nothing, but applied it to the race track, where it's not even odds, but $2.10 on the $2 bet. Indeed the guillotine may have helped out. I so wanted him to come to the track with me and demonstrate. Bet 2, and lose, bet 40 to get the 2 back, then bet 800 to get the 40 back, then 16000 etc.
The thing I find fascinating about Pascal's Wager is that it completely ignores what is implied by God's omniscience -- that God knows when you're faking it, rather than really believing.
Picture yourself on a ladder. You have Faith on one hand grabbing one rail, and Doubt on the other hand grabbing the other rail, with your feet standing on the rungs between presenting your conscious and unconscious understanding. In order to progress your understanding, you reach up in faith with one hand, grab on, step one foot representing unconscious understanding, then reach out with doubt on the other hand, step your other foot up representing conscious understanding. You then let go of the faith and reach up again, step up, let go of the doubt, and step up again. You need both faith and doubt, unconscious and conscious understanding, and a willingness to let go when needed in order to progress. Without the grabbing on and letting go of both faith and doubt, you can't step up your understanding.
Why would anyone insist on climbing a ladder with one hand tied behind your back?
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If faith were rational, it's hard to see how there could be more than one -- unless, of course, it's irrational, but then -- that's illogical! "Norman, correlate!"
Rather suspect that's not the kind of "faith" the OP was concerned with...
Komori
Member
If you're going to critique the Wager, at least read the Pensées first. (1) It's not an independent argument, (2) he doesn't ignore other religions, and (3) he doesn't claim that one should try to 'trick' God by feigning faith in Him. He spends a great portion of the book (and in fact starts doing this on the first page) dealing with the reasons why Christianity is the only religion worth putting your faith in. Whether you agree with that is a different matter entirely. Pascal, in fact, addresses the third point, saying, that if you cannot will yourself to believe, then you should "convince yourself, not by increase of proofs of God, but by the abatement of your passions." Moreover, for Pascal the object is not simply for one to have faith—he was a Catholic after all—but to do good deeds. Also, Pascal's Wager has nothing to do with rational faith. He in fact rejected the philosophical arguments for God and 'the God of the philosophers;' his argument was a purely pragmatic one.
As Salix points out, if my car has started 500 times in the past on cold days, and I anticipate it will once again start on a cold day, that is not faith --- that is either inductive reasoning or probabilistic reasoning. Faith is not needed to navigate life.
What? Only "irrational" qualifies as "faith?" Then why even ask the question?
Only if you don't mind going through life as a paranoid schizophrenic conspiracy theorist. (Just sayin')
Only if you don't mind going through life as a paranoid schizophrenic conspiracy theorist. (Just sayin')
Does your comment mean you are trying to go through life without making sense?
Nope. Too much doubt can be just as nonsensical as too much faith. (Maybe that's just my pragmatism kicking in?)
No, that was certainly not my point. I just think that the OP was referring rather specifically to religious faith...the faith that there is something for which no evidence can be shown, but which can be in some way trusted to produce some results in some circumstances.
I trust my light switch, too, though I've been through power-outages. I trust the codes that regulate food service in my nation, yet I've been poisoned by a couple of them (not fatally, and not often, but still...)
But is it rational to have faith that there is a being that will, if you behave in certain ways, believe certain things, refrain from doing certain things, will ensure that some essential part of you (and I use the word "essential" to try to express something important about that "essence") lives on after you die?
My answer to that last question is a flat "No!" Simply because you actually don't have any unquestioned axioms that can allow you to reason your way to that conclusion. And if you can't reason your way there, it can't be rational.