Did Pascal really think about it?

[Minimalist]

Study up on Pascal. He was anything but 'dumb'.

All I care about is the "catholic" part.

Fuck 'em all.

[Alex K]

Study up on Pascal. He was anything but 'dumb'.

All I care about is the "catholic" part.

Fuck 'em all.

So almost everyone in Europe prior to the 1520s (except the jews and muslims) is an idiot by default in your book?

[Tonus]

And yet Pascal's Wager still has many fans.

When you cannot demonstrate god, you have to turn to cheap stunts like "you can't know for sure that he isn't there."

[Esquilax]

When you cannot demonstrate god, you have to turn to cheap stunts like "you can't know for sure that he isn't there."

It's basically the beating heart of all religious arguments now; arguments from ignorance, deistic sophistry, and false equivocations. If we aren't hearing about how much science and atheism are religions, it's an attempt to poke holes in our current knowledge, as if that proves god.

Truth is, there hasn't been a single truthful argument for the existence of god since science really started getting its shit together. Religion has already hit its breaking point in terms of argumentation, imagine how much harder its going to get to defend that position, once we start peering into those places they hidden their god thus far.

Eventually all they'll have left is "beyond the reach of science," which is already the favored tactic of dopes like Sword of Christ and this Disciplus bloke. Vagaries and word games.

[Minimalist]

All I care about is the "catholic" part.

Fuck 'em all.

So almost everyone in Europe prior to the 1520s (except the jews and muslims) is an idiot by default in your book?

Nah. I don't like the jews or muslims, either.

[truthBtold]

People are scared of growing balls of there own.. pascals wager states::
If you are spineless, its ok to let a fear of hell dictate how to live your life.
if you can fool yourself and believe a fairy tale, you have nothing to worry about.. welcome to forever...

[KUSA]

Study up on Pascal. He was anything but 'dumb'.

All I care about is the "catholic" part.

Fuck 'em all.

You must have been an Alter boy. Your hate is understandable.

[Psychonaut]

I can't help but wonder if old man Blaise just stuck his fingers in his ears and sung loudly whenever a strong argument was put against his wager.

No. Like Stimbo says, his 'wager' was most likely meant as a joke. The fact that so many people take it seriously it testament to Poe's law.

I did say that I hope he was joking, if that's any consolation.
I do find it odd that such a mind would take an argument like that seriously, I'm going to have to research this further to gain an accurate perspective.

[Tonus]

People are scared of growing balls of there own.. pascals wager states::
If you are spineless, its ok to let a fear of hell dictate how to live your life.
if you can fool yourself and believe a fairy tale, you have nothing to worry about.. welcome to forever...

The wager actually covers both ends of the spectrum, which is why I compared it to a lottery, although it's a step beyond that. It is a carrot/switch situation:

Step 1: "This lottery has never had a drawing but we swear it will one day! And they offer a jackpot of eternal life and 72 virgins, each reading his/her own copy of the Kama Sutra! Buy your ticket now!"

If the person expresses doubt about the fact that there has never been a drawing and therefore the lottery is a fake?

Step 2: "If you don't buy a ticket before the drawing, anyone not in the drawing will be sent to hell, where you will spend eternity trying to fix continuity errors in the Twilight Dawn movies!!!"

Irrational hope and irrational fear. They shouldn't work, but our minds tend to accept many irrational things. Hence... religion.

[Cyberman]

A much more realistic version of Pascal's Folly, if wagers are your thing, could be the relatively little-known Atheists' Wager.