JPD

Not if the penalty for belief in one God is despatch to eternal torment by another God no. The probability of that cannot be calculated to any lesser or greater extent than that of the God you believe in rewarding/penalising belief. What if there is more than one God operating and the probability of a favourable outcome relies on belief in them all? You also do not know the degree to which utilisation of Pascal's wager is punishable.

rhutchin

Again, the Wager is not a method to determine which god to believe. One can use the Wager to determine the rationality of believing in God but not to determine which god is God.

JPD

Of course it isn't so what use does it actually have? You haven't been able to demonstrate that the risk of an unfavourable outcome through the wager's application is any less than through exercising any other (of the infinite potential) options. Why limit your comprehension to the printed word when it cannot provide any evidence that empirical observation is unable to?

aa5874

You keep on changing and twisting rhutchin. You wrote in a previous post that the Wager says it is better to have believed in a God (whoever that God is)....
Now it has been pointed out that belief in one God may be unbelief to another God which ultimately results in Eternal Torment, you have become irrational.
Let me show you what the uknown authors wrote in Exodus 21 v3, 'Thou shall have no other gods before me'.

Pascal's Wager is invalid, it is useless. It serves no purpose whatsoever. No single person can explain what is meant by 'Belief in God' or which God to believe in . There are numerous Christian Gods ; Satan included.l

aa5874

Rhutchin, you are no authority on God. You cannot claim to know what God will do to anyone. Your belief is not infallible. Pascal's Wager is invalid. There is no Eternal Torment as described in the Christian Bible. No Christian God exist.

Rhutchin, you have shown repeatedly that your God is Man-made.
Anything you say about your God, another Human will contradict and no Christian God can say or do anything about that. Humans will continue to define who or what these Gods are. Humans have never been in contact with any Christian Gods at any time.

HRG

But you can't believe in "God" without knowing which concept is denoted by these three letters. You can only - for instance - believe in the "Christian god, Roman Catholic, progressive variant", or in the "Spinoza god, Deus sive natura, impersonal".

Regards, HRG.

rhutchin

It doesn't matter to the Wager. All that the person brings to the Wager is the concept that "God" is alleged to offer escape from eternal torment and the reward of eternal happiness. In one sense, reason cannot tell you whether to believe or not believe because it cannot prove that "God" exists or that God does not exist. The person is in the position of saying, "I don't know whether "God" exists or not." In that situation, the Wager tells the person that belief is the only real option simply because not believing would be so disasterous in the case where God is real.

JPD

So let's start off an infinite series of wagers which take into account all possible scenarios. Let's start with:

"If a God called 'X' exists that has the power to send a believer in another God 'Y' to hell, it would be sensible to believe in God 'X'"

"If a God called 'Y' exists that has the power to send a believer in another God 'X' to hell, it would be sensible to believe in God 'Y'"

"If a God called 'W' exists that punishes belief in it with eternal torment, it would be sensible to not believe in God 'W'"

Would you like to continue the series?

rhutchin

Again, the information we have about God is that which we find in the Bible. the Bible is the authority on God. So, we both agree that I am not an authority on God. We can know what God will do in those instances where the Bible tells us what God will do. The Bible does tell us what God will do in specific situations.

That is true. My faith depends on the Bible being true. If the Bible is not true, then my faith is in vain.

Can you prove these claims?

Again, what we know about God is that which we find in the Bible. You can speculate that the Bible is not true, but you are unable to prove that to be the case. Clearly, there are man-made gods out there. If there were not a real God, there would be no reason to have counterfeits.

JPD

Fascinating - and you imagine, even for one millisecond, that that constitutes ANY kind of proof for the existence of God?

The origination of a concept, and any attempts to prove or disprove that concept, are merely that. Your God concept and any counterfeits have equal worth. Demonstrate that what you suppose to be your God is not a counterfeit, or that what you suppose to be counterfeits actually are.