Jamie_L

Well, I can't take full credit for it. Although I thought most of it up on my own, someone else had beat me to it. I first saw it in that form here at II, where it was referred to as "Smith's Wager". I'm not sure who "Smith" was.

Jamie

Godless Sodomite

That would be George Smith from his book, Atheism: The Case Against God

-Jerry

Harumi

Lol.

As a matter of fact, I wrote a thirteen page essay for school debunking Pascal's wager. I compared Smith's Wager and Pascal's wager and deemed Smith's wager to be the better choice.

Of course, there are problems with both wagers, but nevertheless, my essay was good. My teacher who read it couldn't find anything wrong with it, and she grades hard!

philechat

Pascal's Wager requires several assumptions that I cannot agree with. And these premises must first be addressed before the argument could actually take effects. They are the very reasons it can be ripped off the wall quite easily.

First of all, it is considered a pragmatic argument, that we are to weigh the "gain" and "loss" of each beliefs before we commit to one position. It basically uses the most banal, market-based (monetary) approach to address profound spiritual and existential questions, an approach that is in direct conflict with Christian principles.

We may first wonder that if a God exists, would He be satisfied with such a selfish and utilitarian choice, which is based not on the love of Him but on the person's own gain. Such a person, like one who enters the relationship based only on another's supposed wealth, would not fool an omniscient being like God.

Then there is the problem with probabilistic mathematics. We have not set up an objective criterion to determine the probablity of (the Christian) God's existence. The sheer number of believers cannot be a criterion because it changes from moment to moment, and this "change" does not change the probability of existence of an eternal being.

Then there are the competing gods theory, for there are many mutually exclusive religion (like Christianity and Islam and even Mormanism) which promise believers to heaven and non-believers (including believers of other religions) to hell. It is quite probable that one wagers on the wrong god and ends up in another god's hell. Sincretism would not work since it assumes that the gods would tolerate those who worship false or enemy gods, which is also a false assumption.

Also, a believer has no idea about the required commitment to a given god, especially considering a fractured religion like Christianity. The god may want church-going 7 times a day rather than once a week, or an animal sacrifice every month, or a prayer five times a day. The scriptures of Christianity is often conflicted about God's requirement, which may lead to hell many "not-so-committed" or under-informed Christians.

And it assumes that humans have free will, a doctrine that is unclear even in modern times. For if we do not know what constitutes "free will" and "good deeds", we will not be able to derive a standard of conduct that will please the God, nor the criterion we could choose between good and bad deed.

Finally, (and not least ) we may ask whether we should have all the Christians immediately killed or not. If say they are all going to heaven (a place that is said to be without all the terror and suffering of this world) after death as Christians, wouldn't they fare better to leave this life the sooner the better, to avoid further sinning and possible deconversion? (So do be careful of afterlife-based thinking. Do not be offended with this "logical" conclusion from our philosophy class...it was a pure speculation)

[ December 17, 2002: Message edited by: philechat ]</p>