admice

I'm not good at philosophy, so forgive me.

regarding Pascal's wager: It involves a value judgement (don't know if these are cocol or uncoool in philosophy). One feature is that one has to decide/determine that hell would be bad/worse.

Pascal is making the assumption that hell would be an undesirable consequence. This is not necessarily the case.

In my own case, i prefer the consequences of disbelief to that of belief, even if god (some kind) exists. e.g. worshipping a god that had created the world as it is-nope, can't accept that. Also, people not taking responsibility for this world and our actions, rather looking to the 'afterlife'. I believe the consequences of this too serious to take the chance that a god may exist and make it all better later, but if it doesn't exist-whoops, too late now, destroyed the planet.

any thoughts?

stretch

There are lots of problems with Pascal's wager. In terms of probability theory, it doesn't hold water.

But you are kind of mixing apples and oranges when you are comparing measurements of 'afterlife' benefits to assessment of 'current' life. That's not quite the way the wager is structured.

ex-xian

Could you talk about this a litte more? Pascal's wager is one of the things that is preventing me from giving up theism.

stretch

Maybe on the weekend I'll have the time to write something semi-detailed ...

of course, you don't have to look at Pascal's wager from a completely mathematical perspective.

There's a book by Nicholas Rescher that you might be interested in that looks at several aspects of Pascal's wager ...

ex-xian

I'm sure I would appreciate any aspects, but since I am a math major I'd like to see someone's response.

stretch

Well, if you's a math major, try this site :

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pascal-wager/

Dr. Retard

The classic response: it ignores other possibilities. Maybe you'll go to Hell for believing in God. Maybe atheists get heaven. Maybe you'll go to Hell for having a moustache. These are all possible. And, unless you have some reason for thinking Christianity is more worthy of consideration than these other possibilities, then you cannot ignore them. Pascal says that "reason can decide nothing here", so presumably he'd have to take them seriously. So if you should convert to Christianity to avoid Christian Hell, you should likewise convert to Islam, become an atheist, and shave your moustache...just in case.

Neilium

Hi, (longtime lurker, first-time poster),

If I've got my facts straight (I last read Pascal nearly 20 years ago), the easiest attack on Pascal's Wager was that if you accept the bet, well then, which god to pray to? The bet isn't a simple binary one, and betting on God (considering who Pascal was and when he lived, I'll assume we're talking about a Christian God) and then finding out the Vikings were right all along definitely skunks the deal; you were right about a divine creator, but you're still eternally damned at the hands of Thor.

I should add, and throw out there for discussion, I think my reading of Pascal was rather subjective, in that I never got the impression the wager was ever intended to function as a persuasive arguement for faith in god. Pascal states repeatedly that reason offers no substitution for faith. Once again, this was 20 years ago for me, but I remember correctly Pascal spends a lot of time on the problem that faith isn't as simple as accepting a wager.

Got to get back to work, but looking forward to my thoughts being cut to ribbons. Have at it.

-neil(ium)

stretch

Hi Neil,

It's been a couple of years since I've read Pascal ... and Pascal's Pensées are a bit disjointed ... but from Pascal's perspective, he was only considering the context of a single possibility of the nature of God ... which of course is a pretty limiting set-up of the problem.

There are lots of angles from which you can look at the problems with Pascal's wager ... even in the context of a maintained assumption of a single God with only one possible set of characteristics, the wager is flawed from a purely mathematical/statistical perspective.

And as you say, he was using it mostly as a 'come-on' in order to interest people in the possibility of some sort of initial spark of faith' based on fear of punishment / promise of reward.

words in italics added in edit of post

ReasonableDoubt

Well I haven't read Pascal in a long time, but I, like Xianseeker, believe it to be a reason to hold onto theism.
About- how do we know what God to worship- and that maybe he would reward atheists or arbitrarily choose some other criteria upon which to award eternal life...
I think it starts with the proposition of God being one, with the traditional properties associated with him of being omnibenevolent, omniscient, omnipotent, etc. Only a being with these qualities is worthy of worship. If you worship this being, you will be rewarded. If you despise the being, or disbelieve it exists at all, you will not be rewarded.
His argument doesn't hinge on choosing the "right" God of Christianity, or Islam or what have you. It basically boils down to the intent of the person. If the person intends to seek God as the being which no greater can be conceived, the wager can make some sense. Even if one comes from a polytheistic background, the desire can be there to serve and worship the "essence" or basic qualities of God, and to do what is right.
After all it would be incoherent for the situation to be that there is a God who is evil, and decides that those who attempt to worship him here on earth shall be punished. Granted, that may indeed be the case, but we're all screwed then and there's not much that can be done about it. You're taking a bet that you bet that God is love, etc., and that he wants our worship. That is the God to "lay your odds on."

So really what does it matter if you take Pascal's wager and hope you are right? You may be right, maybe wrong. If you are wrong, you may have nothing to lose, or it could possibly be that you are punished b/c you chose the wrong god, or worshiped incorrectly, etc.
But if you disbelieve in any God at all, you might have a lesser chance of things "turning out for good" if there is a heaven.
Anyway I know it is not completely rational, there are problems with it, but i do think it is a better argument for theism than many out there.