Rejecting Pascal's Wager

[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 why then does my mind and my logic reject his existence even though he knows with my personality I value logic above faith? Using that same logic a god supposedly created, this means one of three things:

1. God did it by accident. (so long for omnipotence)

2. God doesn't want my belief in him.

3. God is sadistic and creates this this way for no reason.

Anyways, I wanted to know what people's thoughts were on Pascal's Wager.
Do you think it is or is not a good way to justify a god's belief?

[Bouncing Ball]

I would start thinking about pascal's wager once I could actually choose what to believe.. Before that, it has no use to me at all.

[science_is_my_god]

Originally Posted by Bouncing Ball

I would start thinking about pascal's wager once I could actually choose what to believe.. Before that, it has no use to me at all.

Good point, but when do you think you will choose what you believe? What makes you sure you will ever believe in something?

[Bouncing Ball]

Originally Posted by science_is_my_god

Good point, but when do you think you will choose what you believe? What makes you sure you will ever believe in something?

Never, nothing

[science_is_my_god]

Originally Posted by Bouncing Ball

Never, nothing

Exactly my point.

You have done well young Jedi. May the frubals be with you!

[Troublemane]

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 why then does my mind and my logic reject his existence even though he knows with my personality I value logic above faith? Using that same logic a god supposedly created, this means one of three things:

1. God did it by accident. (so long for omnipotence)

2. God doesn't want my belief in him.

3. God is sadistic and creates this this way for no reason.

Anyways, I wanted to know what people's thoughts were on Pascal's Wager.
Do you think it is or is not a good way to justify a god's belief?

I think Pascal's wager is just a pragmatist view and not intended as a formal argument meant to convince anyone of God's existence. It certainly does not sound compelling enough to believe that Pascal or anyone who is a proponent actually believes in God, does it? I mean to invoke Pascal's wager sounds almost as if you are saying "look, just go through the motions even if you dont really believe, just because it is more advantageous in case there really is a God."---Hardly a strong case for proving anything.

As far as your 3 points listed above go, I think they can be safely dismissed if God is not a separate person from yourself and the rest of existence. If God turns out to be an actual, bearded old man living in the sky (as per George Carlin, PBUH), then yeah, it would be a mystery as to why he created us to doubt his existence.

But if God is existence itself, then all contradictions disappear, due to the fact that God's consciousness is not separate from anyone or anything, so God's actions are never against anyone separate from himself. Cause and effect are equally God interacting with God. I think it is merely due to our inherent finiteness that we are ignorant of the action of the Whole, which is itself the Deity.

thats just my opinion

[science_is_my_god]

Well, if you call existence "god", then I beleive in "god", I just like to use a different name. I call it the "universe". But let's not forget that there are rules to the universe, and logic is one of them.

[stephenw]

Originally Posted by science_is_my_god

Well, if you call existence "god", then I beleive in "god", I just like to use a different name. I call it the "universe". But let's not forget that there are rules to the universe, and logic is one of them.

Are there not things that defy logic?

[Jayhawker Soule]

Pascal's Wager - it's more substantive than the caricature.