spamandham

But why should we suspect any of the world's religions have it right? Since they are all baseless, the 'real god' might very well be one that is looking for only diamonds in the rough - those willing to embrace reason regardless of personal consequence. Perhaps that's why he remains invisible.

Perhaps the 'real god' will destroy everyone but atheists, and atheists will be rewarded with an eternal orgasm.

That's why Pascal's wager fails in both theory and practice.

aa5874

Sometimes this same idea crosses my mind, but instead of using the words 'good sense' I substitute with 'honesty'.

Just imagine a God who decides that he will not make himself known, deliberately. He will not help anyone, he will not answer any prayers and do any miracles. Now all those who claimed God answered their prayers, helped or healed them would be dishonest and would be punished for their dishonesty.

And in any event, Pascal's Wager does not even make any allowance for this deliberate unknown God, and there might be more than one of them.

Chuck Rightmire

What is really sad is the practical part of this. Pascal says you don't lose anything by believing. But look at all the man hours many people waste on their knees or building cathedrals or studying theology.

smjr

IMO Pascal must have been a man driven by fear and guilt, which is where the church wants you.

Fear and guilt...imagine living your life that way - religious types do. How sad.

Kropotkin

God rewards non-belief and punishes belief. He gave man religion as a test to weed out the submissive, the sycophantic, fearful, superstitious, credulous believers from the thoughtful, questioning and reasonable. God has no place in heaven for the irrational and deluded, heaven is reserved for skeptical questioning minds who settled on non-belief or agnosticism.

Pascal is burning in hell.

Jubal_DiGriz

The worse aspect of Pascal's Wager from a theological perspective is that it encourages selfish behavior. That's a problem, especially in the Abrahamic religions, which demand selfless devotion of God. If a person worships God solely to get into heaven, that's not good enough. They have to live their life by the Law (Jews), devote their life and be born again in Christ (Christians), or fear, obey, and love (Islam). In none of these is lip service rewarded, or bargaining with God.

As mentioned earlier, Christianity is actually the worst choice of the three, because of the commandment forbidding the worship of idols. If Christianity isn't right, then Jesus isn't God, and that's idol worship plain and simple (holding others before God and such). so that's an express ticket to Hell. So even if you maintain that there's only one god and is name is Yahweh, you still have a better chance with Judaism or Islam (Jews can go to Muslim heaven, by the way, depending on who you ask.)

If Hinduism is right, then never requesting the assistance and wisdom of a gods is a one-way ticket to the bottom of the wheel. Fancy spending the next couple of millennia without a nervous system?

If Buddhism is right, then attaching yourself to worldly things (like charity, church, and a suffering Jesus) will keep you trapped in the painful illusion that is the world.

In Zoroastrianism, the more your sins, the more have to be burned away before you can go into heaven, and not respecting Ahura Mazda is certainly sinful. When was the last time you worshiped fire?

And most of the other religions don't particular matter in terms of an afterlife, although gods tend to be angry if you don't give them respect, and make your life (or afterlife) miserable in various ways. And sometimes just worshiping the wrong god in the same pantheon is enough to get them going.

Atheists, on the other hand, think they're all ancient, superstitious methods for understanding how the world works, are no longer needed, and are largely unconcerned with an afterlife because such a thing is almost certainly ridiculous.

From Stephen F. Roberts:

DancesWithCoffeeCups

Don't forget the 10% of ones earnings that many sects require.

camp freddie

I like the Pratchett refutation (from Hogfather according to Wikipedia).

When the Pascal-like character dies, he finds himself surrounded by gods carrying heavy sticks and saying, "We're going to show you what we think of Mr. Clever Dick in these parts".

HelpingHand

Just a few observations.

1 Homer's observation is not the best rebuttal of Pascal's Wager. It's not about 'believing in the wrong God', it's about genuinely believing versus believing because of Pascal's Wager.
If I as an atheist would follow Pascal's Wager and I decide to attend Gundulf's church and pray together with Gundulf and support the charity organisations he supports etc. without really believing in Gundulf's God, then God , being omniscient would of course see through me and , knowing Gundulf's loving God, He will send me straight to hell.

2 If you're a Christian and it turns out your God doesn't exist, but another One does, but He will still allow you into His heaven, wouldn't that mean that most other religions are in fact far more advanced than Christianity in realising that they are not the only way. That other religions have in fact evolved beyond the idea of a jealous, vengeful, exclusive tribal god.
IOW are Christians also prepared to acknowledge that their God also cares about people from other religions? Would you think, Gundulf, that a Hindu can rightfully make the same observation as you have?
I think that's a very important question.

Greetings

Walter

Wayne Delia

The more I read the Pensee's, the more I am convinced that Pascal, in proposing the wager, did it tongue-in-cheek, sort of a Jonathan Swift "Modest Proposal" which, instead of being understood as the satire it was, surprisingly was welcomed and accepted after it served the very valuable purpose of convincing believers of the truth of what they already believed by excluding all other possible belief options from the false dichotomy. It seems similar to Will Rogers' advice on buying stock: an investor should only buy stocks which go up in value, and if a stock doesn't go up in value, don't buy it. There's a huge logical fallacy in there, which is amusing to those who understand logical fallacies, but to those who do not, it might seem like sound financial advice.

Pascal, I believe, was a lot smarter than he let on in that section of the Pensee's.

WMD