Rejecting Pascal's Wager

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Originally Posted by BalanceFx

Its also better to believe in lucifer then to not because he could be god. So could set. Or ra. Odin.

They all have very different things you need to do to stay in their good graces and many of those things conflict....

You may have an issue.

I remember reading (maybe here?) a line about how when expanded to consider multiple religions, Pascal's Wager leads us to choose the religion with the best description of "heaven" and worst description of "hell".

I listed my issues with Pascal's Wager a while back in another thread:

Originally Posted by 9-10ths_Penguin

- it assumes only two options (i.e. either Catholicism is entirely correct or no gods exist at all) when there are an infinite number of conceivable options with widely varying consequences for belief or non-belief. Pascal presents a false dichotomy.

- it ignores aspects of the theology it attempts to apply. Specifically, the Catholic belief that while God instituted the Sacraments, He is not bound by them and can therefore save whoever He wants regardless of whether the person is in full communion with the Catholic Church or not. Therefore, even in Pascal's flawed binary Catholicism-or-nothing model, the expected value of reward in the afterlife for a non-religious becomes (X * +infinity) + (Y * -infinity), where X and Y are unknown probabilities of Heaven and Hell respectively. Acceptance of the Church no longer dominates in all cases, and therefore each option must be evaluated on its own merits.

- it ignores what happens if the probability of the existence of God can be shown to be infinitessimally small, at which point the expected value of both acceptance and rejection become undefined. In this case, acceptance of religion cannot be shown to dominate.

- it is inconsistent with common sense and normal logic generally... unless Pascal also claims that when a person is confronted by a neighbor demanding money now and promising infinite future reward or punishment depending on compliance, the person should pay up without giving any consideration on the likelihood that the neighbor can back up his threats.

[Rolling_Stone]

Originally Posted by Scott C.

science_is_my_god said that if there was a God, then God created his mind, logic, and reasoning. He's arguing therefore, that whatever he thinks or does not think about God is merely a function of how God created him. If this were true, then certainly God could not condemn him for not believing in God. (Let me be clear that I'm not condemning him or anyone else, I'm just following the logic).

The same argument could be used by anyone who commits a horrific act - God created them the way they are with their logic, reasoning, etc. and they are merely acting out as they were designed to do. That clearly contradicts the notion that God gave us free will.

Our actions and beliefs are more than what a computer does when it takes the inputs, processes the data according to the programming, and takes whatever actions it was programmed to do. A computer does not have free will. It does what it was programmed to do. science_is_my_god seems to be saying that if there is a God, then he programmed us like computers and we therefore should not be held accountable for what we do.

If God had created us in this fashion, I would have to agree that it would not be fair for God to hold us accountable for what we believe or do. But, we have free will and are accountable to God.

Having said that, I would agree that parts of me seem to be programmed in the genes. I think parts of my personality are not the results of free will, but are the results of the programming over which I had no control. But, nevertheless, there is a spirit "us" in addition to the physical "us". The spirit "us" has the capacity and free will to work with the physical "us" to direct our actions for good or bad.

Ya know, Scott, one of the reasons I like The Urantia Book is because of its similarities to Mormon theology as you represent it here.

[science_is_my_god]

Originally Posted by Scott C.

science_is_my_god said that if there was a God, then God created his mind, logic, and reasoning. He's arguing therefore, that whatever he thinks or does not think about God is merely a function of how God created him. If this were true, then certainly God could not condemn him for not believing in God. (Let me be clear that I'm not condemning him or anyone else, I'm just following the logic).

The same argument could be used by anyone who commits a horrific act - God created them the way they are with their logic, reasoning, etc. and they are merely acting out as they were designed to do. That clearly contradicts the notion that God gave us free will.

Our actions and beliefs are more than what a computer does when it takes the inputs, processes the data according to the programming, and takes whatever actions it was programmed to do. A computer does not have free will. It does what it was programmed to do. science_is_my_god seems to be saying that if there is a God, then he programmed us like computers and we therefore should not be held accountable for what we do.

If God had created us in this fashion, I would have to agree that it would not be fair for God to hold us accountable for what we believe or do. But, we have free will and are accountable to God.

Having said that, I would agree that parts of me seem to be programmed in the genes. I think parts of my personality are not the results of free will, but are the results of the programming over which I had no control. But, nevertheless, there is a spirit "us" in addition to the physical "us". The spirit "us" has the capacity and free will to work with the physical "us" to direct our actions for good or bad.

No, because we can actually see and comprehend what we are doing (at least most of us).
What I am saying is illogical is the fact that he would expect us to believe in something we cannot comprehend. And if I have a free will (I'm pretty sure I do), and god is omniscient (all knowing), doesn't he know that his creation (me) will be destined to burn in hell? If he does not know this, he is not all-knowing, but if he does, then why would he create me in the first place? Just to live a meaningless life and then spend the rest of eternity in hellfire? I call that sadistic.

[Rolling_Stone]

Originally Posted by science_is_my_god

No, because we can actually see and comprehend what we are doing (at least most of us).
What I am saying is illogical is the fact that he would expect us to believe in something we cannot comprehend. And if I have a free will (I'm pretty sure I do), and god is omniscient (all knowing), doesn't he know that his creation (me) will be destined to burn in hell? If he does not know this, he is not all-knowing, but if he does, then why would he create me in the first place? Just to live a meaningless life and then spend the rest of eternity in hellfire? I call that sadistic.

I call it "funny." People believe things they cannot comprehend all the time, relativity and QM, for example. Also funny is putting the same God you cannot comprehend in box, telling him how to be who He is. For all you know, God is self-limited so that through us he can escape the finality infinity. Funniest of all, at least to me, is that you believe the God you do not believe in would validate the existence of evil by personally responding to it. Sounds a wee bit vain to me. It would be easier, and more just, IMV, to simply withdraw his sustaining presence and let entropy do the rest.

[gnostic]

If I believe in something, then I will believe it.

The Pascal's Wager is accepting something that you don't believe in.

I would call that hypocrisy. And I would be lying too. So the PW don't suit me.

[BruceDLimber]

Greetings!

Pascal's Wager should be rejected and ignored not because of whether God exists or not (in my view He definitely does), but because IMHO it's totally immoral to base one's actions on either hope of salvation or fear of perdition!

Rather, our actions should be done purely out of the love of God & humanity and our own desire to be good, whole persons REGARDLESS of any that consequences that may ensue.

Peace,

Bruce

[logician]

Originally Posted by BruceDLimber

Greetings!

Rather, our actions should be done out of our own desire to be good, whole persons REGARDLESS of any that consequences that may ensue.

Peace,

Bruce

Capitalism is in trouble.

[Orontes]

Originally Posted by science_is_my_god

Pascal's Wager states that it is better to believe in god because if you are wrong, you lose nothing, but if you are right, you gain eternal life. These are my thoughts. If a god created everything, he created my personality, my mind, and my logic. So...

Originally Posted by Orontes

Hello,

Creatio ex nihilo is not necessitated by or a part of 'Pascal's Wager'. You are introducing a foreign element into the position and launching a critique from that introduction. This would make it a red herring fallacy. The pragmatic theism position Pascal puts forward does not imply a specific dogma.

Originally Posted by Poisonshady313

So then what's the cost of one not believing and there being a god, accordnig to Pascal?

Hello,

According to Pascal, what one has to lose is the true and the good. No sectarian content is applied.