Reverse Pascals Wager

[Captain Scarlet]

Part of what makes us human is overcoming adversity, being able to grow as people, struggling, feeling loss as well as great joy. Could anyone really say they want to go to heaven. Mindless worshipping living in joy forever! It make hell seem attractive. So a reverse to Pascals wager:

1. There is very little chance a god exists
2. If you dont believe, and you are right that no god exists, at least you have not wasted your time nor been brainwashed by organised relgion
3. If you dont believe, and god does exist, at least you dont need to go to the equivalent of a superntural padded white cell piping in harp muzac all day long

[Tiberius]

The first premise is wrong, unless you have some rational reason to make a claim to know the certainty of the existence of gods. The third premise assumes the existence of heaven, that you go there by believing, and that it is some sort of supernatural prison. If those assumptions are untrue, I don't quite see the point of this argument.

[Entropist]

Mindless worshipping living in joy forever! It make hell seem attractive.

"Heaven... heaven is a place... a place where nothing... nothing ever happens..."

[Welsh cake]

1. There is very little chance a god exists
2. If you dont believe, and you are right that no god exists, at least you have not wasted your time nor been brainwashed by organised relgion
3. If you dont believe, and god does exist, at least you dont need to go to the equivalent of a superntural padded white cell piping in harp muzac all day long

That's still Pascals wager, just without the eternal consequences.

[Minimalist]

Blaise Pascal was a catholic....something these xtian shitwits who trot out his "wager" would do well to consider. He wasn't talking about your version of god either!

[Captain Scarlet]

The first premise is wrong, unless you have some rational reason to make a claim to know the certainty of the existence of gods. The third premise assumes the existence of heaven, that you go there by believing, and that it is some sort of supernatural prison. If those assumptions are untrue, I don't quite see the point of this argument.

Thank you Adrian for that forensic rebuttal. Fortunatley not everything I write is a syllogism; it was meant to be a little more light hearted than that. So the real point here is as humans, and given what makes us the people/s we are, what is so great about heaven as a concept. It all seems so sterile.

[DeistPaladin]

I think our version of Pascal's Wager should be:

If God is just, what does the unbeliever have to fear?
If God is not just, what does the believer hope to serve?

Long version:

Ok, let's assume there's a god. Let's assume there's an afterlife. Let's assume said afterlife is the judgment day model that Islamo-Christians are so fond of. All that assumed, what is this judgment based on?

If God is just, than our character would be fairly evaluated regardless of how much we suck up. What kind of a judge let's criminals go just because they say "you're so great!"? If this is the case, God's favor couldn't be bought with praise and faith. Our character would have to be evaluated without prejudice. If this is the case, what do we need religion for? We can follow our own moral compass and be just fine by trying to live as best as we can, just like if there were no afterlife.

If God evaluates our character on our faith, then Islamo-Christians abandon all pretense that they serve a just god. Heaven becomes a reward for the suck-ups while Hell is a purile punishment for those who won't kiss his ass. Religion has a purpose but only in being sycophantic to an unjust god.

[Entropist]

What I find amusing about Pascal's so-called wager is it reduces faith (which is presumably central to Christianity) to a mere bet. Religion, in the end, is reduced to a bunch of threats (with either empty claims, or physical and psychological violence).

But also, what would be analogous to Pascal's wager? His idea comes from placing bets in the real world, so why not convert the analogy back into the real world and see how it plays out:

You are at a horse race and you are about to place a bet on one horse. Unlike Pascal's wager though, there is more than just two horses to bet on-- there are thousands in this race.* [see note below] Pascal is disingenuous because he only focuses on one particular god. There is only one peculiar thing with this race however: only one of the horses is visible, while every other one of the horses is invisible. The money you are placing on the bet is your entire life savings. Now, if I were the one collecting the money for placed bets, and I asked you which horse you would place your money on, which one do you think you would choose? The idea of a metaphysical bet is, like all other metaphysical arguments, non-sense.

And one other funny thing about Pascal's wager: Pascal was initially not a believer-- or at best, was something more akin to a deist. He did come to convert to Christianity-- but not by calculating the pros and cons, not by any cosmological argument, not by any ontological argument, not by any "proof" of the Christian god's existence, etc. etc. etc. No, rather, he had something that some might call a "mystical experience" which led to his immediate conversion.

This is almost always the case: Reason never brought them to Christianity in the first place. Which is why Christian apologetics strikes me as funny. But there is a downside to this as well: if reason didn't get them there, it probably won't get them out either (usually only an experience or set of certain experiences leads one out, not reason).

~ ~ ~

* NOTE: Non-believers ought not buy into the Christian trademarked "God" (capitalized)-- "god" is a title, a position-- not a name (US Americans may refer to Obama as "Mr. President" but this is a title, not his actual name). The Christian god is one god among thousands of others and deserves no special privilege of having "God" as its god. That particular god should be referred to by name, as Yahweh, or Jesus, or Elohim, etc. It is just a god, not "God."

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...what is so great about heaven as a concept. It all seems so sterile.

Wolves, like many other social animals, will attach themselves to what they perceive as a strong leader. This is of course for survival purposes. In religion, survival is them projected beyond death into some other metaphysical realm. It is biological instinct run amok. Hence the sad fixation on "worshipping" the supreme alpha dog of the universe.

[Cego_Colher]

isn't betting a sin anyway?

[Paul the Human]

Not if you're Catholic. They love Bingo!