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Pascal's Wager
#1
Pascal's Wager
Pascal's Wager (God is a safe bet)
"If you believe in God and turn out to be incorrect, you have lost nothing--but if you don't believe in God and turn out to be incorrect, you will go to hell. Therefore it is foolish to be an atheist."

This argument is known as Pascal's Wager. It has several flaws.

Firstly, it does not indicate which religion to follow. Indeed, there are many mutually exclusive and contradictory religions out there. This is often described as the "avoiding the wrong hell" problem. If a person is a follower of one religion, he may end up in another religion's version of hell.

Even if we assume that there's a God, that doesn't imply that there's one unique God. Which should we believe in? If we believe in all of them, how will we decide which commandments to follow?

Secondly, the statement that "If you believe in God and turn out to be incorrect, you have lost nothing" is not true. Suppose you're believing in the wrong God--the true God might punish you for your foolishness. Consider also the deaths that have resulted from people rejecting medicine in favor of prayer.

Another flaw in the argument is that it is based on the assumption that the two possibilities are equally likely--or at least, that they are of comparable likelihood. If, in fact, the possibility of there being a God is close to zero, the argument becomes much less persuasive. So sadly the argument is only likely to convince those who believe already.

Also, many feel that for intellectually honest people, belief is based on evidence, with some amount of intuition. It is not a matter of will or cost-benefit analysis.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence - Carl Sagan

Mankind's intelligence walks hand in hand with it's stupidity.

Being an atheist says nothing about your overall intelligence, it just means you don't believe in god. Atheists can be as bright as any scientist and as stupid as any creationist.

You never really know just how stupid someone is, until you've argued with them.
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#2
RE: Pascal's Wager
Another problem with Pascal's wager is that it implies sort of deceiving god. If you don't believe then you can't make yourself believe. You can say you believe all you want, but is a god supposed to be omnipotent and know if you disbelieve?
"The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason." Benjamin Franklin

::Blogs:: Boston Atheism Examiner - Boston Atheists Blog | :Tongueodcast:: Boston Atheists Report
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#3
RE: Pascal's Wager
Technically the wager does favour theists over atheists (marginally). However it doesn't hold up to counter arguments.

Consider a god that was so proud of his creation, he decided to hide himself from the world, and let it run by natural processes. Rational people argued that nature was powerful, and a god was not needed. There was certainly no reason to believe in one. Irrational people argued that nature was beautiful, it had to have a designer. The god favoured the rational over the irrational, because although they were wrong, they showed correct judgement of the world he had created for them. The irrational followed blind faith without reason, and even though they were correct, they were still blinded.
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#4
RE: Pascal's Wager
I always thought Pascal's Wager a very selfish arguement to be put forward by theists. "You should believe x because the reward is better than not believing in x". Why selfish? Because those who use this arguement seem happy to feign belief, and essentially 'use' Jesus and God for their own benefit.
How could somebody call themselves christian when they're only doing something, not out of the goodness of their heart, but so they can get to heaven.
Atheism as a Religion
-------------------
A man also or woman that hath a Macintosh, shall surely be put to death: they shall stone them with used and abandoned Windows 3.1 floppy disks: their blood shall be upon them. Leviticus 20:27
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#5
RE: Pascal's Wager
(September 1, 2008 at 8:43 am)Ace Wrote: Pascal's Wager (God is a safe bet)
"If you believe in God and turn out to be incorrect, you have lost nothing--but if you don't believe in God and turn out to be incorrect, you will go to hell. Therefore it is foolish to be an atheist."
I don't believe that anyone has said that you'd be foolish to be an atheist. I believe the idea is that it means that you're better off choosing to believe in God than not.

As for your objections - Each of those are seperate issues and address which religion one chooses to follow. Pascal's wager is about the decision to believe in God and that in general you're better off believing than not. For example; suppose you choose to be an atheist and God doesn't exist. Then you've lost nothing. Now suppose that you are an atheist and there was a God. Then you're sunk. Now suppose that you choose to believe but you chose the wrong God. You may be better off since God might give you brownie points for at least making an effort to find Him and do what's right. Pascal's wager assumes that you'll be better off choosing to believe in God than not believing God since if you chose to believe in God but chose the wrong one then at least you have the backup plan of hoping that God will be forgiving. Had you chose to not believe and there is a God then you don't have that backup plan.

And as far as all the religions go; Basically Buddhism is more of a philosophy than a religion. Most other religeous people are either Christian, Jewish or Muslims. Each of those are based on the same God so if you chose one of them you have the ten commandments to follow and you have the right God to follow.
Quote:Another flaw in the argument is that it is based on the assumption that the two possibilities are equally likely--or at least, that they are of comparable likelihood. If, in fact, the possibility of there being a God is close to zero, the argument becomes much less persuasive.
Probability is only meaningful when there are a large number of instances of an outcome. Its not like you can keep dying in different realities (ones with God and ones without God) and testing to see which ones had a God. Its like getting cancer. Oncologists will tell you that the stats are meaningless to the individual because there are only two possibilities - you will live or you will die. Of course that doesn't prevent the patients from want to know the stats. That's just being human.

The worst thing about being an atheist is that you can never say Ha! I told you so! Smile
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#6
RE: Pascal's Wager
(September 1, 2008 at 8:45 pm)Pete Wrote: The worst thing about being an atheist is that you can never say Ha! I told you so! Smile

The best thing about being an atheist is that you can nevery say Ha! i told you so! Tongue

All good points you raised Pete, but the burden of proof still lies with the theists to prove their claim that God exists.
Atheism as a Religion
-------------------
A man also or woman that hath a Macintosh, shall surely be put to death: they shall stone them with used and abandoned Windows 3.1 floppy disks: their blood shall be upon them. Leviticus 20:27
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#7
RE: Pascal's Wager
(September 1, 2008 at 9:26 pm)Jason Jarred Wrote: All good points you raised Pete, but the burden of proof still lies with the theists to prove their claim that God exists.
I'm not sure that its more that theist claim that God exists rather than that's what they believe. In my case its the later. But I don't see the need for proof myself. For example I know that the laws of nature can never be proved. Our own justice system makes life and death decisions based on other than proof. In that sense I'm not sure of where the need for proof comes in. Certain things in this universe are simply not subject to proof.

In the end it boils down to epistemology, i.e. what one accepts as evidence.
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#8
RE: Pascal's Wager
(September 1, 2008 at 9:39 pm)Pete Wrote: I'm not sure that its more that theist claim that God exists rather than that's what they believe. In my case its the later. But I don't see the need for proof myself. For example I know that the laws of nature can never be proved. Our own justice system makes life and death decisions based on other than proof. In that sense I'm not sure of where the need for proof comes in. Certain things in this universe are simply not subject to proof.

In the end it boils down to epistemology, i.e. what one accepts as evidence.

I generally don't care what others believe, but personally I like my beliefs to be based on fact (ie observable, demonstrable, replicable evidence. Scientific!).
However, at the point at which others beliefs begin to affect my life adversely, is the point at which I begin to ask those people to justify that their beliefs are also based on fact, particularly when their beliefs contradict mine. It is disturbing that when many of those people are questioned, they refuse or are unable to answer the questions, and are unwilling to question their own beliefs (though many people fall into this category, not just theists).
Pascal's wager however, well I don't really care if people decide to buy into that, but again - as long as they don't go on to push their beliefs in my face.

As far as I'm aware we have theories, based on observable scientific fact, demonstrable and replicable evidence to explain many of the 'laws of nature'. Isn't the term 'law of nature' another way of describing the theories that have become accepted due to the overwhelming amount of evidence presented? funny how you would claim that a theory/law cannot be proved, when the very definition of a theory or law (in the sense you have used it) is that it is proved, and keeps reocurring each and every time it's tested!
Atheism as a Religion
-------------------
A man also or woman that hath a Macintosh, shall surely be put to death: they shall stone them with used and abandoned Windows 3.1 floppy disks: their blood shall be upon them. Leviticus 20:27
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#9
RE: Pascal's Wager
(September 1, 2008 at 9:55 pm)Jason Jarred Wrote: I generally don't care what others believe, but personally I like my beliefs to be based on fact (ie observable, demonstrable, replicable evidence. Scientific!).
Observable: Nobody has ever observed the infationary epoc of the Big-Bang.

Demonstratable: The existance of virtual particles can't be demonstrated.

Replicable: Ball lightning can't be replicated .. at least not yet.

Quote:However, at the point at which others beliefs begin to affect my life adversely, ..
That's never happend to me personally. What kinds of things are you thinking of?
Quote:It is disturbing that when many of those people are questioned, they refuse or are unable to answer the questions, and are unwilling to question their own beliefs (though many people fall into this category, not just theists).
Why do you find that disturbing? Are atheists willing to question their own beliefs? I find it more frustrating than disturbing.
Quote:Pascal's wager however, well I don't really care if people decide to buy into that, but again - as long as they don't go on to push their beliefs in my face.
Its sad that some theists think they need to do that.
Quote:As far as I'm aware we have theories, based on observable scientific fact, demonstrable and replicable evidence to explain many of the 'laws of nature'. Isn't the term 'law of nature' another way of describing the theories that have become accepted due to the overwhelming amount of evidence presented? funny how you would claim that a theory/law cannot be proved, when the very definition of a theory or law (in the sense you have used it) is that it is proved, and keeps reocurring each and every time it's tested!
Instead of my explaining this, how about I upload the first chapter of one of my texts on theoretical physics which discusses the philosophy and logic of physics. Its a wonderful chapter on the philosophy of physics and will give you a clear explanation of what I'm referring to. The author is really good at that. And its only a few pages long. The author is a well known physicist and highly respected.

The article is located here - http://www.geocities.com/pmb_phy/philosophy_physics.pdf
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#10
RE: Pascal's Wager
(September 1, 2008 at 8:45 pm)Pete Wrote: The worst thing about being an atheist is that you can never say Ha! I told you so! Smile

What if atheists ended up in heaven and theists ended up in hell?Tongue

God is an atheistBig Grin So he would understand why I'm an atheist.

God does not believe in a higher power than himself so that makes him an atheist. And don't bother mentioning that he can't be an atheist since he's god. to animals we'd probably be looked at as gods. We travel the skies and space, We understand and comprehend things that they could never understand. We can heal many kinds of injurys, if animals were self aware they would probably look at us as gods. Your god sounds like an atheist, He does not believe in a higher power. The same as I do not, So he should understand why I'm an atheist. So what if I ended up in heaven?

Also if I do end up in hell It wouldn't matter anyway. If god had a divine plan then I was already due to go to hell before I was born. Which doesn't make much sense for an all powerful, all knowing and all loving god.

Also for all we know god is just a spaghetti monster. You can't dis-prove the spaghetti monster being god can you? So you have to consider the fact that your wrong and that there's a flying spaghetti monster.

This is the problem with imagination, it's endless!

Imagination = God = Atheists debating god's existance = Endless arguments.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence - Carl Sagan

Mankind's intelligence walks hand in hand with it's stupidity.

Being an atheist says nothing about your overall intelligence, it just means you don't believe in god. Atheists can be as bright as any scientist and as stupid as any creationist.

You never really know just how stupid someone is, until you've argued with them.
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