Scorpion

Interesting, I've always thought Pascal was offering it as a serious argument - but then again, I've never read the original text myself. Are there any details that you could share that makes you think so?

-S-

Wiploc

:notworthy:

crc

~M~

have any of you guys read any of the recent scholarship on the issue? from your responses, it seems evident that a learned defender of the argument could basically spank you all. Seriously.

this is is in the forum, btw. the issue is not existence.

Alf

You are free to give it a try - or - if you don't feel you qualify as a learned defender yourself you could bring in someone who you considered to be such a person - and then give it a try.

I am not convinced we would get any spanking.

Alf

Craigart14

Well, Pascal was speaking, I think, only of the choice between Catholicism and atheism. Christians, what if you're wrong? What if God decides to hold you responsible for the excesses of your religion? We are always hearing from fundie types that (fill in the blank) is God's punishment for (fill in the blank). God drowns New Orleans because America allows homosexuality. What if believers are wrong? What if God didn't really want anyone tortured and killed in his name? Maybe he's still angry over the millions of victims of jihad, the Crusades and the Inquisition, not to mention all the indigenous peoples who were wiped out as Christianity expanded? What if he is smoldering with fantasies of revenge and punishment while he awaits your arrival?

Craig

Wiploc

But note that this argument doesn't actually weigh against Christianity. That is to say that nobody has invented a toment worse than eternal Hellfire; therefore Christianity really is the worst religion (the one a decent person would least desire to be true); and therefore Christianity is the religion selected for belief by the shopping-for-horror logic of Pascal's Wager.

crc

J. T.

Recent scholarship on Pascal's Wager? I don't have time to read that because I am studying the relative strengths and weaknesses of the "I'll be your friend," gambit vs the "Chicken" technique.

Tell me you're wrong, ~M~, and I'll be your friend. Pleeaaase.

Chicken.

Wiploc

:notworthy::notworthy::notworthy:

crc

~M~

addendum: what i meant to say is that this topic has nothing to do with the actual existence of god. this is moreso an area of thought for the philosophy forum.

Clutch

If "tenable" means "can be intelligently defended", then I submit that belief in the existence of haunted houses and the efficacy of astrology is tenable. Indeed, the beliefs that one has squared the circle and that 1=2 are tenable, by this definition.

Thus your proposed resolution, ~M~, struck me as quite obviously vague, allowing for a trivial affirmative answer -- certain no less vague than wiploc's. Indeed, it seems to me that Pascal himself already gave an intelligent defense of the Wager argument. On the principle that what's actual is possible, it follows that it's possible to give an intelligent defense of the Wager; and if that means the argument is tenable... we can stop there, having learned nothing about what you, ~M~, have in mind as specific responses to the specific objections floated on this thread.