Pascal's Wager again

[Zzyzx]

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In one of the threads a member indicated that philosophical arguments, including Pascal's Wager, rule out the possibility of God not existing.

Blaise Pascal actually wrote (but did not publish) "If you gain, you gain all. If you lose, you lose nothing. Wager then, without hesitation, that He exists."

He did NOT use this as an argument that God exists. Instead, his argument is that whether God exists or not one should "bet" on existence. Betting is not argument for existence – but a gamble on what is (admittedly to Pascal) unknown.

I maintain that his proposal is faulty even in that:

1) The wager assumes a singular god (to bet on or against) when thousands of gods have been proposed, some of whom are said to require exclusive right to be worshiped and condemn worshipers of competing gods. Thus, it cannot be determined which of the proposed gods to worship. In other words, first pick one of the gods (with less than 1/10 percent chance of being right), then decide whether to bet for or against. Or, repeat this thousands of times . . .

2) There is no assurance that any god requires belief (or betting) by humans – and could require exactly the opposite – (disapproval of gullibility or naivete). Who knows such thing beyond speculation and opinion (ancient or modern)?

3) "Lose nothing" is incorrect unless ALL that is required by the god is betting / wagering that it exists (without "putting up" or "anteing" anything at all). In fact, however, some (at least) of the gods are said to require "true belief" (much more than just a bet) and most religions add all sorts of conditions to be followed by worshipers.


The argument may sound compelling in church when assumptions are made about which god to believe exists and what the god requires of believers.

Question for debate: Is the argument compelling or convincing in debate?

[Haven]

I've actually heard of that book and I've also done some research into Bart Ehrman since many people who formally identified as Christians like to use his research to support their viewpoints so I'm familiar with a number of his arguments. If I understood it correctly he is saying that since we don't have the originals then we can't know what was really said.

That's not really what Ehrman was saying. Ehrman's main point (in Misquoting Jesus) was that there are so many textual variations, later insertions (after the gospels were written), and legendary accretions that we can't be sure of what the original writings said, and also we can't know whether the originals themselves were accurate or were "sales" distortions of Jesus' words.

However in a debate ( I can find the link later - it was with James White) Bart also admits that the NT is the most documented book in antiquity by a significant margin. (I.E. the writings of Plato, Homer, Aristotle, etc. all have less supporting evidence and manuscripts than the NT does)

That's kinda the case, but keep in mind that most of the NT copies are from after the year 1,000, and so are nowhere near the originals. If only early manuscripts (those from within 200 years of the originals) are counted, then the NT doesn't really stand out from other ancient documents in number of copies.

I've seen the debate with White. White is a fundamentalist apologist with an M.Div. and Th.D. from an unaccredited evangelical diploma mill. White's position is colored by his deeply held religious beliefs and so, in my opinion, deserves extra skepticism.

[ScioVeritas]

[Replying to post 45 by arian]

I will admit, there were things about church and the people that were great and some of my fondest memories have been at church activities. However for me now if I were to look at going back into it, I feel I would be giving up a lot of time and effort and re-embracing something that was psychologically harmful to me. I feel I am so much better off in my life now without the yoke of Christianity and can't see how Pascal's Wager is in any way an appealing argument, not only to me but anyone who is not already a Christian.

Might I ask why you considered it a "yoke"? That seems to imply it was a burden to maintain and I'm curious why you saw it like that?

[OnceConvinced]

Might I ask why you considered it a "yoke"? That seems to imply it was a burden to maintain and I'm curious why you saw it like that?

Well I believe it comes with a lot of baggage. Certain beliefs that can hold you back or affect your way of thinking. Some of it's very negative. eg believing that many of my thoughts and desires are sinful, when I know now they are only just human nature. And of course we could get into a big debate about the fine print in the bible and the things that are required of us. Some claim it's just about faith, others claim there are a lot of things that need to be done. Rules you must follow. So much stuff that you are expected to believe that just conflict with what I see in reality. I would have to push aside reality and embrace what I see as a fantasy world.

This is why I liken it to a yoke.

[ttruscott]

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There's no moral justification for eternally torturing someone; and the use of this odious concept as a fear tactic in Christianity is one of the worst aspects of the religion.

I contend for a Christian system in which no one is tortured forever. Intense suffering yes but torture is found in the intent of the giver of the pain, not from the pov of the sufferer, especially if their pain comes upon them as a judgment upon their serious crimes. A child rapist may torture his victim by causing unearned suffering for his own pleasure but he cannot claim to be the victim of torture himself for his sentence of incarceration and the electric chair by a duly chosen judge.

Banishment to hell is the fate only of those who have chosen to reject GOD's promise of salvation for their sin. Their sin is no worse than the sins of the sinful elect but the sinful elect have chosen by their free will to be under the promise of salvation (so they can be saved) but the eternally evil have chosen to not be under the promise and rejected it as a lie (so they can never be saved, that is brought to repentance).

The abiding principle is that a little leaven will leaven the whole lump and its application to sin is that sin will corrupt and destroy any system it is found within, like a computer virus in a program. That is why hell must be forever since it holds the eternally demonic so that they cannot contaminate the heavenly state of a full, loving and holy telepathic communion called the marriage of The Son with His bride, the Holy Church.

IF the eternally evil cannot be taught to quit their sin nor annihilated since they were created as eternal spirits, banishment from the area of the heavenly communion is a morally justified answer. Since the heavenly communion will fill all of created reality, they must be banished to the outer darkness, to out past the edge of all of created reality.

That some folk take the fact that this place is one of suffering to mean therefore GOD is punishing them with eternal torture proves they know nothing of GOD at all. The banishment is the only necessary part of HIS judgment, the suffering is a natural result of being in the outer darkness, like being banished to the bottom of the ocean would also have the natural result of getting them wet.

Every person had the same opportunity and ability to accept YHWH as their GOD and to receive HIS free gift of election to heaven by salvation from any future sin OR to reject HIM as a false god making false promises while knowing HIS warnings that such a free will decision would make them eternally evil and they would have to be banished to hell for ever.

Wanting to have the deep communion of a marriage with HIS creation, of which earthly marriage is a shadow, means HE must let us chose him by free will with an ability to reject HIM if we did NOT want to marry HIM. What to do with the rejecters who were now eternally evil is the problem and banishment was the chosen answer to the problem. That that is a righteous judgment by a perfectly righteous judge is why most Christians accept that it is a morally justified solution since, even though it is a place of great suffering, it is not a place of torture.

Peace, Ted

[ttruscott]

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Since we'll experience life for eternity, a few moments of being a Christian isn't anything to worry about. Besides, you won't remember living in this first age after your body dies in this one.

IF we don't remember the lessons of our suffering and the suffering itself on earth WHY ARE WE MADE TO SUFFER AT ALL? Vicarious sadistic enjoyment? What are you claiming here?

This is the third time I've asked this question... tell us his reason for our suffering which will be of no use to anyone or admit he is a sadistic monster.

[Psalm139]

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Since we'll experience life for eternity, a few moments of being a Christian isn't anything to worry about. Besides, you won't remember living in this first age after your body dies in this one.

IF we don't remember the lessons of our suffering and the suffering itself on earth WHY ARE WE MADE TO SUFFER AT ALL? Vicarious sadistic enjoyment? What are you claiming here?

This is the third time I've asked this question... tell us his reason for our suffering which will be of no use to anyone or admit he is a sadistic monster.

The tree of the knowledge of good and evil is the world that we're living in. The tree of life is our true created existence as invisible waves in a designed program called Eternal Life. By making this world more believable for His people, God planned all the things that make them suffer such as childbirth, diseases, pestilence, accidents, storms, earthquakes, etc. to make it appear real while He uses His prophets and saints to teach us that we're living in a simulation that isn't real at all.

In the next age, we won't experience living like we do in this world. We will all understand that we're created people and not real ones. We will enjoy every vision and dream He places us in without ever knowing what death, decay, destruction, disease, pestilence, accidents, stormy weather, earthquakes, anger, rejection, etc. Here's the promise that our memories will be wiped clean when we die in this world;

Isaiah 65
16: So that he who blesses himself in the land shall bless himself by the God of truth, and he who takes an oath in the land shall swear by the God of truth; because the former troubles are forgotten and are hid from my eyes.
17: "For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth; and the former things shall not be remembered or come into mind.
18: But be glad and rejoice for ever in that which I create; for behold, I create Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her people a joy.
19: I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and be glad in my people; no more shall be heard in it the sound of weeping and the cry of distress.

[arian]

The purpose of my post was not to try and convince you of the accuracy of Jesus' claims as reported in the Gospels. I was only stating that following those two assumptions leads to the C.S. Lewis trilemma. Since I maintain that the Gospels are an accurate depiction of what Jesus said then for me those are the three options that make sense and leads into leaning toward Lord because liar is ruled out and if it is a delusion then oh well, no loss for me. This is where Pascal's Wager comes into play.

Lewis' famous "lord, liar, or lunatic" is a false trilemma. It leaves out several options, including:

1) The gospels weren't accurate records of Jesus' claims
2) Jesus believed his words to be true, but was simply mistaken (not insane)
3) Jesus, as worshiped in the Christian religion, was largely a fictional construct

And again, Pascal's Wager would only work if there were only one possible god concept. Since this isn't the case, it's absurd.

Do you have any support for those 3 options? Or are they just hypothetical situations you're using?

There's a lot of support for the idea that the gospels weren't accurate records of Jesus' life. See this video by Biblical scholar Bart Ehrman:

Ehrman's Misquoting Jesus is also a good introductory book on the subject.

Oh yes, the Biblical scholar heir Bart Ehrman preaching/teaching in the Bible-Belt is very significant for Bible readers to understand that the gospels weren't accurate records of Jesus life. And his revolutionary eye opening book: "Misquoting Jesus" is a good introductory book to Anton Lavey's "The Satanic Bible".

I like (in the video you provided) how he mentions Jesus words recorded in the gospels to; "Yes Jesus existed, and that he was Jew living in Jerusalem, but, .. " he then continued; "just as a Detective investigating a crime: There is a dead body with blood splattered everywhere, but a good investigator will not look at the obvious to solve the crime, but search fo small things like a lint, .. or a strand of hair to determine what is happening here!" (in my words, not his)

So let's see what he really meant by this shall we?

We know about Jesus, about Him living in and around Jerusalem, we know he was murdered by His own people the Jews, we know he was resurrected, but as we nit-pick the different recollections in the Gospels, we notice small, but just as significant as a detective who finds a piece of hair or a lint at the crime scene, these tiny variation's in the stories could reveal a lot, right?

So let's see what he could be saying with this? The detective finds a piece of blond hair near the blood drenched body of a black male. Him being one of the best German detectives on the job, sends the strand of blond hair to the lab for testing, the works, DNA, drugs etc. He gets the results within a few hours:

The dead homo-sapiens is a dark black male, dark curly hair.

Now the hair tested was from a white blond female who just happens to be at the Police Station reporting some kind of crime, so she is very much alive.

Conclusion: There is no dead black male in the living room, .. unless (snicker, snicker as he does in the video) the dead black male laying there in a pool of blood somehow miraculously changed from a white German blond blue-eyed female to a black dark skinned Negro male!?

The same with Jesus, the Gospels reveal small but significant variations in their recollections, so what's his conclusion? That's right, The Bible is a book of contradiction, there is no God, there never was a Jesus, the entire Biblical story can be trashed, because Herr Biblical scholar Bart Ehrman who has PhD in Bible study found some discrepancies between the recollections in the gospels.

Thank you for that so 'illuminating' revelation, and I mean what would we do without all these German studies that are going on in Evolution, In Bio-engineering, .. in the human genome projects, .. the Blue-brain Transhumanist projects (hoping to capture the 'mind' of the Homo Sapiens and store it separate on disk for eternal life sake), .. all the arms, legs cut off for anything even a splinter-so-they-could-enjoy-life with-bionic arms and legs projects, .. all the radiation and chemo therapy mass-human-to-see-what-mutates world-wide projects, .. the Chernobyl experiments, .. the Orion/Venus/Mars projects, .. the LHC CERN projects creating parallel universes and thousands of other ongoing projects?

Yes, so much support, anything to help the evolving overpopulated Homo Sapiens into the gas chambers. lol

I for one advise you to take Pascal's Wager, .. just from observing the alternatives, I say take it!

[Zzyzx]

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We know about Jesus, about Him living in and around Jerusalem, we know he was murdered by His own people the Jews, we know he was resurrected,

Correction: We know there are unverified STORIES about Jesus, about his execution, and his supposed "resurrection."

Although most scholars and theologians seem to agree that Jesus probably existed, although there are no records and no mention of him outside Christian controlled literature. There is no confirmation that he was anything more than a wandering preacher – who was probably executed after preaching against Jewish priesthood and Roman officials.

Tales about him coming back to life are contained ONLY in Christian literature promoting the religion. No one else seems to have noticed the "miraculous" event (or any of the other claimed "miracles") other than vague mention in documents of questionable authenticity.

Claiming to KNOW about Jesus and the circumstances of his execution and his "resurrection" seems to go well beyond actual knowledge -- and into belief / faith / dogma / speculation.

[arian]

[Replying to post 45 by arian]

I will admit, there were things about church and the people that were great and some of my fondest memories have been at church activities. However for me now if I were to look at going back into it, I feel I would be giving up a lot of time and effort and re-embracing something that was psychologically harmful to me.

Well yes, I guess some Christian cults do put a lot of psychological stress on their members, like the J.W's (I use them because my church was very similar to the strict practices of the J.W's) and they even teach them how to smile and pretend to be joyous to cover up what is obviously burdening them. This is why when I had all the answers to their deception (most of them don't even know they are preaching deception) and when I show them either from a scientific or Biblical perspective (or both), instead of rejoicing about this new knowledge of truth, they panic and try to find a booklet by one of their holy-Prophets that would contain an answer to what I just said. But after a few weeks in which they even contacted 'headquarters, the "Tower of higher wisdom", and they don't have the answers either, they drop that big smile and the angel-like sheepskin, and show how rude, angry and unhappy they really are!
So I don't know what Christian cult you belonged to, but yes, I can understand that huge burden lifted once we actually leave.

But didn't you at least try to find out a few things during or after you left? You know, like if what they taught was really what Jesus taught?
Like after I left for some time, like years, and went back you know to visit friends and relatives, I right away noticed many things that I never seen as a member, especially how we used to act in church and how we acted outside of it.
Like that we don't have TV's but 'them other churches do', .. yet we snuck out to watch movies, or how some holy-members would 'build-in' their TV's into the wall behind a locked cabinet and pull it out to watch. This and a hundred other even more hypocritical things became obvious to me, so yea, .. going back would not be on my list, and I made sure they knew that.

Over the years I tested the water if they would even consider taking me back, .. you know, kind of hinted to them about the 'Prodigals son' story, lol but boy they made it pretty clear that I would no longer be welcomed, and they even went as far as calling me a threat to the Denomination, that I would surely cause another split (even if it was for the right reasons. I guess being together on a single mind doing evil, teaching false doctrines is better then splitting, .. you know, because God wouldn't like that, lol.

I feel I am so much better off in my life now without the yoke of Christianity and can't see how Pascal's Wager is in any way an appealing argument, not only to me but anyone who is not already a Christian.

Ah, .. but you haven't tasted of the fruit in knowing and walking in the truth, if you had, or have even the slightest interest in knowing the Truth, you might feel the same way about your present "so much better off" situation, .. don't you think? Besides, isn't that what people say after turning away from a destructive path of drugs sex and all that riotous living and become a member of the Christian Religion say? "I feel I am so much better off in my life now without the yoke of sex, drugs and all the partying!"

I don't know my friend, but I just see so many people make the same mistakes over and over again, and so they don't look like fools, they stick it out in this new lifestyle, and put on that 'Happy Sheepskin' again!? I mean I hope that's not your case, I'm just sayin' you know!?

Take care.

[ttruscott]

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Since we'll experience life for eternity, a few moments of being a Christian isn't anything to worry about. Besides, you won't remember living in this first age after your body dies in this one.

IF we don't remember the lessons of our suffering and the suffering itself on earth WHY ARE WE MADE TO SUFFER AT ALL? Vicarious sadistic enjoyment? What are you claiming here?

This is the third time I've asked this question... tell us his reason for our suffering which will be of no use to anyone or admit he is a sadistic monster.

The tree of the knowledge of good and evil is the world that we're living in.

...

Again with the what and ignoring my question WHY! You obviously have no answer from the god who tells you everything... so is the failure in his communication or your understanding? Might as well prepare - If I meet you on another forum, this question will be brought up again and again and again.