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Liger Watch. Addressing Pascal's Wager
9 years ago
Alrighty boys and girls settle in for some more serious discussion from the lil Liger. Today I was looking around through various groups and their Journals and I came across one on the Christian-Furs group which used Pascal's Wager as a reason for believing in Christianity. For those on familiar here's Pascal's Wager.
1. If God does not exist and we believe in him, we ultimately neither gain nor lose anything.
2. If God does not exist and we do not believe in him, we ultimately neither gain nor lose anything.
3. If God exists and we believe in Him, we will be eternally rewarded.
4. If God exists and we do not believe in Him, we will face eternal judgement.
Therefore it is stated that belief in god is the best position to hold as being wrong yields no negative consequences and being right about it nets great reward and avoids harsh punishment. However there are flaws with the argument as often presented here.
1. Assumes that spending your life believing in a nonexistent god is not a loss. When in fact is is. You spent your life believing and perpetuating something which as it turned out was not true. You lost precious time of your life to this belief. Time that could have been spent enriching your life and or someone else's.
2. Is more or less similar to one. If god doesn't exist and you don't waste your time worshiping the nonexistent god than you gain quite a lot of time in your life to devote to something that actually is real and of consequence.
3. Yes if God exist and you believe in him you get the big reward. Eternity in Paradise. But maybe that might be just a little tainted by the next one.
4. If god exist but you do not believe in him than you face an eternity of punishment for this. Simply because you could not bring yourself to believe in him and worship him you are punished. It doesn't matter if you otherwise led a just an noble life. You are punished.
So the only reason to believe in Pascal's Wager really is out of fear of eternal punishment for the crime of not spending your life on your knees as it were. But ask yourself this. Would anything worthy of being called a God be that vain? If it were would it really be worth your worship? Why worship a deity that possesses such vile human flaws. In my opinion nothing Worthy of worship would ever demand it or punish anyone simply for not receiving it. A parent does not demand their child love them after all.
Beyond all that the argument breaks down further when we consider that there are many faiths. Many would be gods to worship. Many of these are mutually exclusive. You can't believe and worship them all as many demand they be believed and worshiped alone. And it's impossible for all of them to be right. But it is possible for all of them to be wrong.
At any rate that's my take on Pascal's Wager. What do you guys think? Leave a comment below and let me know. ^^
1. If God does not exist and we believe in him, we ultimately neither gain nor lose anything.
2. If God does not exist and we do not believe in him, we ultimately neither gain nor lose anything.
3. If God exists and we believe in Him, we will be eternally rewarded.
4. If God exists and we do not believe in Him, we will face eternal judgement.
Therefore it is stated that belief in god is the best position to hold as being wrong yields no negative consequences and being right about it nets great reward and avoids harsh punishment. However there are flaws with the argument as often presented here.
1. Assumes that spending your life believing in a nonexistent god is not a loss. When in fact is is. You spent your life believing and perpetuating something which as it turned out was not true. You lost precious time of your life to this belief. Time that could have been spent enriching your life and or someone else's.
2. Is more or less similar to one. If god doesn't exist and you don't waste your time worshiping the nonexistent god than you gain quite a lot of time in your life to devote to something that actually is real and of consequence.
3. Yes if God exist and you believe in him you get the big reward. Eternity in Paradise. But maybe that might be just a little tainted by the next one.
4. If god exist but you do not believe in him than you face an eternity of punishment for this. Simply because you could not bring yourself to believe in him and worship him you are punished. It doesn't matter if you otherwise led a just an noble life. You are punished.
So the only reason to believe in Pascal's Wager really is out of fear of eternal punishment for the crime of not spending your life on your knees as it were. But ask yourself this. Would anything worthy of being called a God be that vain? If it were would it really be worth your worship? Why worship a deity that possesses such vile human flaws. In my opinion nothing Worthy of worship would ever demand it or punish anyone simply for not receiving it. A parent does not demand their child love them after all.
Beyond all that the argument breaks down further when we consider that there are many faiths. Many would be gods to worship. Many of these are mutually exclusive. You can't believe and worship them all as many demand they be believed and worshiped alone. And it's impossible for all of them to be right. But it is possible for all of them to be wrong.
At any rate that's my take on Pascal's Wager. What do you guys think? Leave a comment below and let me know. ^^
Believe what you want. Just don't expect ME to believe it and don't try an legislate your religious beliefs into law.
worship if you want, believe in whatever you want, but as long as it doesn't hurt anyone, be happy with what you do.
that's what i think about it.
(i believe in many gods, i don't worship any of them, i just like their stories, and what they have to teach us about them.)
=^w^=
But yes there are cases where we can take some useful wisdom from religious text. The trick is to treat them like any other work of fiction. I don't believe in Superman but I think it's worth learning a thing or two from. ^^ And in that vain I do quite love stories of the Greek and Egyptian pantheons. ^^ Humanity has had innumerable gods over it's existence and at very least it's produced a lot of interesting stories. ^^
Suppose 1000 theistic faiths exist in the world that are mutually exclusive i.e. belief in one is incompatible with belief in all others. (This number is arbitrary and, considering sectarian fighting in many religions, may actually be low.)
If I believe in faith X, and one of them is true, I have a 999/1000 chance of having picked the wrong faith, and declaring myself an enemy to the one true god.
If I profess belief that none of the faiths is true (atheism), and one of them is true, I have declared myself an enemy to the one true god with certainty.
If I decline to participate in any religion nor profess that they are all false (agnosticism), and one of them is true, I have at least not declared myself an enemy of the one true god, though I am not one of the faithful.
> If the true god is benevolent towards those who do not follow Him/Her/It, but have not declared themselves enemies, then I will be in a good position regardless of which one it turns out to be.
> If the true god is malevolent towards all those who do not follow Him/Her/It, then that is an evil deity I would not want to ally with in the first place.
If no gods exist, then all resources spent on theistic religion are wasted, and it is best to not profess a strong belief in either direction.
And that's as much of my resources as I'm willing to spend on this post about religion. ;) *hugs*
*whispers* (I'm one)