Pascal's Wager - Does this make sense?

[iNow]

Yes. Make it bigger. Will you please also write it in crayon this time?

[Wulphstein]

On 8/3/2019 at 7:35 AM, swansont said:

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Moderator Note

A great many post having nothing to do with Pascal’s wager have been moved to the trash

 

swansont,

Do you deny that this is an accurate representation of Pascal's wager?

5 minutes ago, iNow said:

Yes. Make it bigger. Will you please also write it in crayon this time?

LOL

On 7/27/2019 at 6:35 AM, jimmydasaint said:

Another critique comes from atheist circles. Richard Dawkins postulated the possibility of a god that might reward honest disbelief and punish blind or feigned faith.

There is no evidence of any kind to support this postulate.  It shouldn't even be considered.

[moth]

The diagram might be interesting if you replaced the word god with a reasonable definition of god.

Without an indication of which god, or more likely which version of the christian god are you talking about,  it's pretty tired.

 

Edited August 5, 2019 by moth
left out "the word"

[Ken Fabian]

Wulphstein - Pascals wager as presented is missing believing/not believing in Krishna, Odin, Zeus etc. Achieving/missing out on better re-birth rather than eternal joy/suffering should be considered, or not getting to Valhalla; it is a very narrowly Christian kind of question, with biases built in. Also I understand a lot of Christians are "no-Hellers", that do not promote any belief in eternal suffering as an outcome.

[Wulphstein]

16 minutes ago, Ken Fabian said:

Wulphstein - Pascals wager as presented is missing believing/not believing in Krishna, Odin, Zeus etc. Achieving/missing out on better re-birth rather than eternal joy/suffering should be considered, or not getting to Valhalla; it is a very narrowly Christian kind of question, with biases built in. Also I understand a lot of Christians are "no-Hellers", that do not promote any belief in eternal suffering as an outcome.

Krishna, Odin, Zeus are not meeting anybody's spirit when they are at death's door.  But there are thousands of videos and millions of testimonials, whole books written, even a neurosurgeon, who are eyewitness of GOD, Jesus, and others.  If you want, I can refer you to that evidence and those testimonials.

It is impossible for me to understand skeptics who claim that near death experience testimonials are not important to the subject of "what happens when we die", which is what Pacal's wager is meant to address.  There might be ten million gods, but how many have been seen lately?

Edited August 5, 2019 by Wulphstein

[moth]

5 minutes ago, Wulphstein said:

Krishna, Odin, Zeus are not meeting anybody's spirit when they are at death's door.  

How do you know this.

 

 

[Wulphstein]

3 minutes ago, moth said:

How do you know this.

 

 

If anyone has had a near death experience with Krishna, Odin, Zeus, I haven't heard about it.  Have you?

[moth]

The Odyssey of homer (if i remember correctly), is full of that stuff.

It's pretty irrelevant anyway. the number of people who believe a statement is no evidence  of the truth of that statement. 

[Wulphstein]

2 minutes ago, moth said:

The Odyssey of homer (if i remember correctly), is full of that stuff.

It's pretty irrelevant anyway. the number of people who believe a statement is no evidence  of the truth of that statement. 

What does Odyssey of homer have to do with near death experiences? 

Somebody's heart stops and they meet GOD or Jesus, and you think that is equivalent to Odyssey of homer?  Are you trying to be .....

Edited August 5, 2019 by Wulphstein

[moth]

It's been many years since i read Homer, but poseiden tried to kill Odysseus several times.

As i said before it's irrelevant. the number of people who believe a statement is not evidence  of the truth of that statement. 

Edited August 5, 2019 by moth
spelling

[Wulphstein]

39 minutes ago, moth said:

It's been many years since i read Homer, but poseiden tried to kill Odysseus several times.

As i said before it's irrelevant. the number of people who believe a statement is not evidence  of the truth of that statement. 

I think a moderator should remind you that you are going off topic.

[hypervalent_iodine]

42 minutes ago, Wulphstein said:

I think a moderator should remind you that you are going off topic.

!

Moderator Note

Actually, I think you are by far the largest offender here. Your posts amount to little more than thinly veiled preaching, and I would ask for it to stop. We aren't interested in whatever testimonials you might have as they are entirely anecdotal and unverifiable. In short, they prove nothing and they aren't relevant.

Do not respond to this mod note within the thread. If you take issue with this post, please report it or PM staff. I will be removing any more off topic posts. 

 

[John Cuthber]

The trouble with Pascal's wager is that it's only a 1 in 3000 shot that you follow the right religion.
Statistically, your God has already condemned you by accident of birth.

You might as well have a good time.

 

[swansont]

7 hours ago, Wulphstein said:

swansont,

Do you deny that this is an accurate representation of Pascal's wager?

 

!

Moderator Note

Was this post one of the ones that was moved? (That's a rhetorical question.)

Get over it already.

 

[Prometheus]

8 hours ago, Wulphstein said:

Do you deny that this is an accurate representation of Pascal's wager?

 

More like this (though it still misses several thousand entries):

[John Cuthber]

On 7/27/2019 at 2:35 PM, jimmydasaint said:

The gist of the Wager is that, according to Pascal, one cannot come to the knowledge of God’s existence through reason alone, so the wise thing to do is to live your life as if God does exist because such a life has everything to gain and nothing to lose.

There's the problem.

"live your life as if God does exist".

We don't actually know what (if anything) God wants.
So, do I go to church on Friday, Saturday or Sunday? (and a thousand other similar questions.)
You can't actually meet the requirement except by luck, and that makes it a very poor bet.

 

 

17 hours ago, Wulphstein said:

Do you deny that this is an accurate representation of Pascal's wager?

Yes, of course I deny it, because I'm not an idiot and I like a lie-in on Sundays.
So I know that the column on the right is incorrect.
It should say "miserably dull sermon spoils roughly 14% of your life"
and " doing what you choose on Sundays."

So, even the straw man is factually incorrect.

[Ken Fabian]

Besides the multiple choices that involve other gods and religious doctrines, I mentioned "no-Heller" Christianity. Not even all Christians agree that eternal suffering is a possible outcome. And if a God really has expectations of us, He/She/It could make It's requirements inarguable by providing clarity and certainty. Meanwhile notions like fires, Earthquakes and floods are punishments for moral failures or lack of faith, and personal life achievements are attributed to God's favour remain widespread amongst many Christians - except of course when they are not.

But I don't intend wasting more time on this argument.

Edited August 5, 2019 by Ken Fabian

[Strange]

Apparently, Marcus Aurelius commented on Pascal's wager about 2,000 years ago:

Quote

Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones.

 

[truthseeker]

Pascal does make sense. But one can fall into thinking incorrectly of falsely believing in God's existence out of selfishness or fear. Either you have genuine 100% faith or you don't. One can't pretend in this.

[iNow]

1 minute ago, truthseeker said:

Pascal does make sense.

Making such an absolute assertion without addressing any of the the countless many valid counterpoints offered prior to your post, however, does not.