(August 28, 2012 at 4:27 pm)Rayaan Wrote:(August 28, 2012 at 3:04 pm)MysticKnight Wrote: Now of course, none of this is reason for people to believe in the religion, but it's a logical and reasonable reason to take it seriously if and only if one doesn't know it's wrong.Nah, I don't think Pascal's wager is a reasonable logic to use.
Pascal's wager can be used to argue for almost any religion and it doesn't explain why one religion has a greater likelihood of being the correct religion over the others. For example, a Christian might use this argument by only counting Christianity into the wager while excluding the other faiths which he doesn't believe in. That's the problem, and that's why Pascal's wager is not a rational argument even on a basic level. It seems to imply that our faith is just a type of gamble for salvation and that it is reliant on a type of calculation of risk and possibilities based on pre-conceived ideas.
I agree with what you have said but I'm not agreeing with pascal's wager, I'm saying it should be reformed to something on the lines of:
"If any of x religions are true, there is consequence, so either become sure one of them is right or sure all of them are wrong".
And that it shouldn't be a wager but rather just a motivation to see if a religion is true or false.