Pascals Wager is a sound argument.

[KWED]

No one is saying Worship God by "pretending to Worship". It's about leaping one direction or the other. You either strive to find the truth or you bet on it not existing and hence ignore it. The former is rational for various reasons he presents. The latter not. And he goes into details of all sorts of counter arguments to what he says.

So if you "strive for the truth" and all the evidence and rational argument points to no god so that is what you accept, are you still supposed to pretend to believe in one of them, just in case? If so, which one, and does it matter which one you choose?

 

[KWED]

That is way over-simplification since he has chapter(s) on how he is not asking us to pretend to believe in God nor deceive yourself into believing God with no proof.

So how is a confirmed atheist on the basis of evidence and reason supposed to believe in a god they believe does not exist?
You claim to know what Pascal is actually arguing, so you can explain it to me.

 

[KWED]

Well, in the original proposition, the 'gain' and 'loss' was filled in by religious mythology. That was a mistake, because it causes people to reject the logic when they reject the religious mythology. So I removed the religious mythology leaving only the logical proposition.

The problem is that the basic argument you present is incompatible with the issue of belief in god. If we take the religious element from it, it ceases to be relevant.

 

[KWED]

He uses Christianity as a variable, try to keep up with the thread. He doesn't assume for it to be true, just uses it as an example, if it's the truth, what would be expected of you.

Ah, so you admit that the wager isn't "heads or tails", as Pascal claims. It is actually "try and choose the right one from hundreds of improbable options".

So as you accept that his argument is fundamentally flawed, why are you still claiming it is sound?

 

[Link]

I made a thread with my understanding of it: Pascal's Wage Reloaded. | Religious Forums

 

[KWED]

No, he specifically states that his attempt is to defend Christianity. In the leadup to the "wager," he expounds on the importance of the Eucharist and recognizing Jesus as God. He also contrasts the beliefs he argues for against those of the "Turks" (i.e. Islam).

Ooh, you and your pesky facts.

 

[Link]

So if you "strive for the truth" and all the evidence and rational argument points to no god so that is what you accept, are you still supposed to pretend to believe in one of them, just in case? If so, which one, and does it matter which one you choose?

There is no pretending in it. This is lie spread about it. See my new thread.

 

[KWED]

For example, let's say Islam is true. It would mean Christians and Jews should not risk not knowing it to be true, and strive to find the truth. The example I would provide for this would be different then his examples of assuming Christianity is true. For example, I would describe a different path to truth then his assumption of Christianity.

But his argument applies in all cases, he just uses Christianity (assumption is true), and so how would that work if Christianity is true.

It's very clear. Western Academia misconstrued it.

So Pascal was saying that whichever religion you find the most convincing is necessarily the right one.

 

[KWED]

There is no pretending in it. This is lie spread about it. See my new thread.

But P'sW relies on me choosing a god to believe in. How do I do that if I don't believe in any?

 

[Link]

So how is a confirmed atheist on the basis of evidence and reason supposed to believe in a god they believe does not exist?
You claim to know what Pascal is actually arguing, so you can explain it to me.

They aren't supposed to. The quest even if you never see God and he don't exist, sill has to embarked with utmost effort, because the risk is too much and wager shows whatever loss in this world, it was worth it, since risk was always too much.

 

[Link]

So Pascal was saying that whichever religion you find the most convincing is necessarily the right one.

Nope, he just used it as a variable and example, and it happened he also believed in it and his society believed that to be the truth.

 

[PureX]

The problem is that the basic argument you present is incompatible with the issue of belief in god. If we take the religious element from it, it ceases to be relevant.

Lots of people can trust in the idea of a God without religion. And lots of people gain real benefits from it. Which makes the proposition very relevant.

 

[Link]

Lots of people can trust in the idea of a God without religion. And lots of people gain real benefits from it. Which makes the proposition very relevant.

This is true too. Your version is different, but I like in itself.

 

[Link]

Here I pasted this from my new thread, since none of you going there lol:

Given the possibility of hell and heaven, we should strive to find the truth and be sure and live a life trying to find God and his religion. The reason being hell is too much to risk and missing heaven too much to risk for temporary pleasures we would give up in this world. Say there is no true religion and we sought our whole lives to find it and strived to find the truth, the loss, is just some time in this world devoted to this quest. Yet, if we decided to ignore this and bet on hell and heaven not to exist and there not being consequences for our disbelief, and turns out there is, the consequences are too much.

Now he's not saying to trick yourself to believing as he has chapters just saying this is not what he means and explains what to do.

There is a complication in that, all sorts of religions can be true. I will modify it in that, everyone has to adapt their best to their ability to find truth. My tool kit will be different then Pascal's presentation of it (ie. hang around philosophers, etc)

Mine is as follows.

(1) Seek to to perfect your reading comprehension skills, take logic classes, learn to understand text, and learn how the mechanisms of how expressions work, etc, very important to contextualize, hyperbola, learn some statements as absolutes can be just majority, things like that.

(2) Read ALOT.

(3) Reflect over things yourself, try to come up with your own arguments, not just rely on others.

(4) Gives holy books many chances, try to solve their so called problems, and if some of them are unsolvable, keep searching a holy book out there without problems.

(5) Charitable reading, assume the best and never the worse.

(6) Tell yourself not to be stubborn and research really to find truth

(7) Don't follow what you don't know (if you mix falsehood with truth, knowledge of truth becomes hard since you believe in falsehood just as strong).

(8) Accept proofs when shown and search it, talk to people.

(9) Try to gain mystic experiences from all sorts of religions out there, heck even use the damn misguided Jinn if you need to get started to see truth!

(10) Devote your life to it and make it a priority, If you seek God, and don't find, you lose hardly anything if anything at all compared to losing out if he exists.

Lastly living a life like this, even no truth, no God, it's honorable to have searched and meaningful in itself. You may even have fun and meaning doing it. (I added this part to his argument)

 

[KWED]

It doesn't have to be true and he elaborates we should approach truth which is why he discussed how Muslims should not risk it and come to Christianity as well. Hell-fire is equivalent in both, so he already dealt with this assumption.

So it is an argument for Catholicism over other religions.

 

[Link]

So it is an argument for Catholicism over other religions.

Not really, but whatever dude, if you don't want to understand it, it's up to you.

 

[KWED]

This is not true, there can be an array of potential gods/creators and he is arguing we better strive to find the right one because there exists potential of hell and heaven. This doesn't mean other Creators (hypothetical true only God) can't exist in religions where there is no hell.

I'll ask again - if we have striven to find the truth, and it appears that the truth is "no gods", where does the wager leave us?

 

[Link]

I'll ask again - if we have striven to find the truth, and it appears that the truth is "no gods", where does the wager leave us?

Keep searching, if you are sure no God exists, the argument doesn't work. But only if 100% sure. Rounding down. So if 99.999999999999999999999999999999% sure God doesn't exist, it still works. Only way is 100% sure no God exists or no heaven and hell exists.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Keep searching, if you are sure no God exists, the argument doesn't work. But only if 100% sure. Rounding down. So if 99.999999999999999999999999999999% sure God doesn't exist, it still works. Only way is 100% sure no God exists or no heaven and hell exists.

That would only be true if you were 100% sure that there is no downside to false belief.

Pascal's conclusion only works if you're perfectly certain that you're no worse off believing in the wrong god than you are believing in no gods at all.

Imagine a jealous god (not yours) who works like this:

- worship of him is rewarded greatly
- non-belief is neither worshipped nor punished
- worship of any other gods is punished greatly

Unless you can demonstrate with 100% certainty that that god doesn't exist, you can't demonstrate that worship is necessarily the better choice than non-worship.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Here's the thing about Pascal's Wager: it's an extreme example of a failure of critical thinking called anchoring bias.

Is giving up your entire life a huge cost? Of course it is. But Pascal uses the tactic that's still successfully used by infomercial salespeople: he gets you thinking of a much larger amount (the "regular" price or the reward/cost of Heaven/Hell) and tries to get you to think of the price (the "sale" price or a lifetime of devoting yourself to Pascal's religion) only in terms of that larger amount.

The only real difference is that Pascal argues that if you make that "anchor" amount large enough - infinitely large - somehow, anchoring bias stops being irrational and it magically becomes rational to accept what's being sold without even putting any thought into the merits of the claim.

Blaise Pascal's argument is the argument of a con man.