Pascals Wager(belief in a nonexistant god)

Discussion in 'Religion, Beliefs and Spirituality' started by Rupert, Nov 28, 2007.

  1. to start off, im not an athiest or a devout christain. if anything, im still forming my beliefs about god.

    however, last week in class we learned about Pascals Wager. It's basically states that it is impossible to know what God is or even if a God exists. It goes on to state that since its impossible to comprehend such a god, it is in your best interest to believe in that god to ensure you end up in heaven.

    So if your an atheist you dont believe that god exists.

    However even if that god does exist, you wouldnt be able to understand or comprehend him, which I believe means you cant believe in him.

    What do you think about that. Is it worth worshiping something you dont believe in "just in case"?
     
  2. Absolutely not... several people have presented this idea to me in the past, and it doesn't make sense at all. For one, why pretend to believe something you really don't? If someone is 100% atheist, then they know for sure in their mind that there is no God. Think about it this way... there's plenty of indigenous folky religions that condone animal or even human sacrifice. People used to kill members of their society because they firmly believed it would please God. So should we go around killing people all the time "just in case" these old religions are right? No, because that isn't what we believe.

    But that's not even the biggest reason why this is nonsense. Most religions require faith in their believers. Take Christianity for example.... you can't just read the Bible and tell people you believe in Jesus. It goes a lot deeper than that. According to Christians, you must genuinely believe that Jesus died for your sins and everything else that goes along with the religion. You can't just pretend and still get into heaven. In other words, you can worship all you want and follow all the rituals and ethics of the religion, but unless you actually believe it, it's not going to do any good.
     
  3. if there is an almighty god then i would think he can tell your intentions very easily and know if you want to get into heaven for the right or wrong reasons but i dont really know what to believe. im on the fence with religions. im looking into buddhism as time goes on.
     
  4. This is absolutely the worst arguement possible. The type of "belief" it encourages is fake, forced, and false. Anyone who believes, "just in case" has taken the most dishonorable reason to believe.
     
  5. if there is a god, then i think he( or whatever) would judge it worse to fiegn belief or force belief of him for personal gain than to be true to yourself.
     
  6. Can't make yourself believe in God, IMO. From a rational point of view Pascal was right, of course, but really in my heart of hearts I know I couldn't follow his advice if I were an atheist.
     


  7. If there is an almighty god, then i believe him to be the last person justified to judge my actions. Everything would be predetermined by him already; our decisions, our actions, personalities and choices would simply all be a product of his rule. Our social, our cultural and our biological background, everything that is us - is him, so it all would bein him and through him- set by grand design specifically for our relative individual life.

    Every course we take, every action - is traced back to him. complexity influenced with simplicity by him because he is god, so then as a god, he cannot allow for chance to rule in place.

    Consider this, a person is born a migdet, from the time he is born, he wont get laid as much in his lifetime as a ordinary guy, the same can be said for ugly people (but to a certain degree.)

    If there is an almightly God, then i believe - he would accept all (all criminals included) coz despite the wrongs i do, i am only a subject of greater forces.. coz our social actions choices decisions we make around any aspect in our lives is all governed by complicated individual development from the time wer'e small,

    Consider a wife beater, can he alone be blamed? no, you would have to blame his father before him, and HIS father before him - and ultimately blam god himself for setting it all in place? he was a product of many shaping factors, of which - God supposedly predestined a path for him to follow.

    But i see god as a small factor in our history, at the point of the kickstart of our intelligence or our evolution, there is no other point where we actually need him. (consider nature, its a string of slight events determined by time, leading to a natural event which occurs - not because of divine providence or influence)

    So then i see it as that my choice of non belief, should be justified - because HE set things in order long ago for my life which today determines all my reasoning.
     
  8. No, check my link above.
     
  9. Gopher,Please, do not disrespect the sex lives of ugly dwarves. We get laid plenty!
     
  10. [​IMG]

    This is how the wager is portrayed. Pretty straight forward.
    If your goal is to go with what is right, and since neither side can be proven, then really you should go for believing that there is a god right? Heaven sounds like a nice place.

    But of course this assumes that there is only one god to believe in. Theists seem to think that it is possible to choose between yes-god and no-god, but not possible to choose between godA and godB and godC. Given the myriad of religions and ideas of various gods, there is necessarily at least one party who is wrong.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_deities
    http://www.amazon.com/Encyclopedia-Gods-Over-Deities-World/dp/0816029091

    Because it is a binary reality (either there is a god or there is not) and also since neither option can be proven true or false by any means, it is necessary to maintain 50/50 proportions for the probability of yes-god and no-god. However, the "yes-god" part is where it gets complicated. Pascal's Wager does not account for the different "types" of gods. This is what I think it really should look like:

    [​IMG]

    Seems to me that this would be a dead give away for those "middle of the road" agnostic types. If you really want to base your decision on what's most likely, how is it rational to justify going with God A? Its slice of pie is so tiny. In fact the slices in the "yes-god" section should be infinitesimal, given the ability to instantly claim the existence of an entirely "new" god.

    The flying spaghetti monster, the invisible pink unicorn are examples of "made up" gods of recent years. They are equally as likely to be existent as gods A, B, and C.
     
  11. I don't know what pascal meant when he came up with his wager, but my take on goes like this: God may or may not exist and there isn't any way to be certain. To believe in god, not to worship, not to join religion, not to change the way you actively live in any way, just simply to say, "yeah I think there is some ultimate force out there" is less likely to be harmful then saying, "hell no, god doesn't exist." If there is no god you aren't hurt by believing(remember its simple belief, not religion) but if there is a god you might be fucked by saying he didn't exist. How far you want to push your belief should be based on how likely it is god exists. Its a risk/reward scenario, with your imortal soul as the wager. The less evidence you see of a divine pressence, the less reason to believe but until it can be completely disprooved, the risk of not believing makes it worthwhile to at least acknowledge some existance.
     
  12. I found this interesting article on the subject, hope you all enjoy.

    [web]http://skeptically.org/thinkersonreligion/id6.html[/web]
     

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