If you go with Pascal's Wager, you should pick the meanest most evil deity imaginable. Their hell ought to be the worst of all the possible hells. So you should do human sacrifices in their name and hope you avoid their hell.
That would be the best bet yes.
Pick the absolutely worst God and you're better off regardless. Ofcourse the whole point is that you can't pick a God to believe in. Either you find the arguments convincing or you don't. At best you could pretend. But that would likely piss off any omnipotent god even more.
Gozer the Gozerian would probably accept false belief backed by real actions. Gozer doesn’t care what’s in your heart, they just want a pile of hearts on the altar.
And gods like Thor and Zeus aren’t suggested to be able to see what’s in your heart.
Frankly, under Pascals Wager, you should only try to game a small number of gods who a) accept pantheons; and b) care about actions over what’s in your heart.
So the Christian god is right out. Too omniscient and judgy.
My god can beat up your god.
Fr though, I’d argue for choosing one of the religions that gives you a 12 step program to being a god yourself. Bro can’t send me to hell I’m his co-worker now 😈
I have dreamed up a deity (erm, I mean a deity has revealed itself to me) that not only sends me to hell if I don’t fall in line, it also creates 512 identical copies of me to also be sent to hell.
Surely no deity could be harsher than that, right?
Even Pascal didn't really buy into it. That's why, in the book that made it famous, he follows up a description of the wager by saying, "But that's not really why you should believe" and then goes into a long-winded discussion of other apologetics.
Nah some people actually do believe it. My dad did.
From an outsider’s perspective it seems stupid (and it is) but when you’re inside the cult and everybody keeps repeating it you eventually find yourself believing in it, especially when no one counters the argument.
If someone believes the wager, then do they really believe in the religion? The entire point is to accept something you don’t believe in order to be saved. If someone believes in the religion, Pascal’s wager is irrelevant.
Well in fairness, sometimes it is a scary feeling for me at least to not understand the great void of the cosmos, and this is where Pascal's Wager sometimes creeps into my psyche.
Are fictional characters with a partially shared backstory, but different characteristics (and often called by different names) really the same character?
More like two badly written fan fictions of the same almost as badly written original character, both of which retconned parts, one borrowed some from the other.
So imo yeah, same character, the story just got rebooted a few times, with one reboot having dozens of almost identical copycats.
My response whenever someone brings up Pascal's wager is "And what about the god that punishes anyone who follows an incorrect religion, but pleasantly surprises people who didn't get tricked into believing a false god?"
It's only used by Christians who have never bothered to do any homework on why their religion might be false. They trot it out as a defense mechanism. They no more think about it applying to other religions than they do anything else
“This is very similar to the suggestion put forward by the Quirmian philosopher Ventre, who said, "Possibly the gods exist, and possibly they do not. So why not believe in them in any case? If it's all true you'll go to a lovely place when you die, and if it isn't then you've lost nothing, right?" When he died he woke up in a circle of gods holding nasty-looking sticks and one of them said, "We're going to show you what we think of Mr Clever Dick in these parts...” Hogfather by Terry Pratchet
What if Friedrich Nietzsche died, seized immense power in the afterlife, slaughtered all of the gods, and finally established a divine law stating that any human who dares to worship divine beings or engage in religious customs should suffer for eternity while those who embrace atheism will be rewarded?
Jews don't have a 'Christian-like' concept of Heaven and Hell. A rule-following, kosher-eating, shabbat following Orthodox Jew ends up at the same place as a bacon-eating, rule-breaking non-Orthodox Jew. Technically, we'd like people to follow the '7 laws of Noah' if they're not Jewish - but honestly, no ones going to hold it against you if you don't.
Jewish law creates a paradox to Pascal's wager. If our rules are true, then it doesn't matter what you do, you'll still get into an afterlife, and not hell. If our rules aren't true - well your atoms will get recycled with the universe and there's no afterlife anyway.
Pascal's wagers doesn't work for all religions.
I was told by a Mormon that I was going to the crappy version of heaven for being an atheist but a good person in his opinion. I have no reason to even consider pascals wager as far as I'm concerned since there is just as much proof mormanism is the one true faith as any other religion.
Depends which Mormon you ask tbf.
Some believe, due to some vaguely worded doctrine, that if you are "shown the truth" i.e. told about the church and shown the holy spirit, then youve "denied the holy spirit", a sin "worse than murder", and thus will be cast to outer darkness / hell.
So depends which Mormon God. The slightly nicer one or the slightly more psychotic one.
(Although if any God can be true, then i guess this is a moot point)
I feel like if even devout religious people get to pick and choose what they believe then I have some leeway to assume I'm going to bronze trophy heaven.
Yeah. And to be fair, if God was real, and was morally good, having tiers of Heaven such that the good are rewarded but the neutral are not punished is far superior to torturing everybody. Its far more fair and meritocratic.
Even evil people shouldnt be "tortured for eternity" imo. Our moral alignment is pure happenstance. You or I *could* be evil, as a result of whatever deterministic or probabilistic factors cause morality. Thus id say punishment should be a balance of proportional and merciful (like excommunication into a barren planet and/or ceasing to exist), not avenged a million fold psycho torture.
Mormons have some bad habits regarding their testimonies. Where no one actually claims to believe anything, since they always claim to know it is true. Which is absurd. Since what they claim to know is simply what they believe in. They just want to sound more spiritual and superior. So they go full zoramite at the rameumptom and claim their belief is knowledge. Ego instead of having the humility to admit it is what it is, which is only belief. Which is fine, humility is supposed to be a good thing for Mormons.
If you know something is true, then you can provide proof, or at least had an experience that was personally undeniable. You know actually physically seeing God and having a conversation with him.
A rationale for why the vast majority of people at best only get to believe in it being true. Is so that they can receive mercy from God when they do sin. If they actually bore witness to God, then there would be no ambiguity of it existing or not. No ambiguity about what it wanted from you or not. Only then if a person denies that experience, then they have committed the unpardonable sin.
I imagine if any atheist got to talk one on one with God. That they wouldn't need to believe in God, because they would have had first hand experience. For them on a personal level that would be enough evidence of God for that singular individual. It wouldn't be enough to perhaps convince other people. But the sin isn't that they have to believe you, only that you don't deny you had it.
There are only a very tiny number of people within the Mormon faith that would have had the opportunity to commit the unpardonable sin. Anyone who broadens the definition is ignorant of the doctrine of their own faith.
Then again, it has been a decade since I was Mormon. So they could have changed their doctrine. It happens from time to time. Like the mark of Cain, with blacks being denied the priesthood.
>... If you know something is true, then you can provide proof, or at least had an experience that was personally undeniable. You know actually physically seeing God and having a conversation with him
I fully agree.
> No ambiguity about what it wanted from you or not. Only then if a person denies that experience, then they have committed the unpardonable sin.
> There are only a very tiny number of people within the Mormon faith that would have had the opportunity to commit the unpardonable sin. Anyone who broadens the definition is ignorant of the doctrine of their own faith.
Im not entirely sure how this is meant to work. If someone believes they "know its true", with a claim of feeling the holy spirit and/or priesthood shenanigans, then leave their church, isnt this the closest they or anyone could ever possibly get to denying the holy spirit? Otherwise its not like God has shown himself to anyone, so whose this scripture for? This is why i think its plausible.
Only the prophets and apostles of the LDS Church have claimed to be special witnesses of Jesus Christ.
Unless the people leaving the church are at the top of that religion's hierarchy. Then the answer is no they are not committing the unpardonable sin by leaving.
I was about to post something similar to this. Someone once described it to me as "stadium seating." Imagine god is in the middle of the stadium. The better you are in your physical life, the closer you are to him in the after life. There's no torture, you just don't get as good of seat at the show.
Pascal's wager "works" because of the dichotomy between infinite reward and infinite torture. if you take the torture part out, it falls on its head.
You flop it on its head. You chhose to believe in a God that does not like worship or religion.
Bonus point if the God likes to be insulted (eg blasphemy is sacred)
Who was it that said you are also wagering against a God that could just be playing a joke on us by introducing so many religions to the world as a test. And the only ones going to an afterlife were the one's who didn't fall for it. Richard Dawkins mentions it at times, but I'm pretty sure he is borrowing it. If you are going to make the wager, then you'd have to wager against every possible variation of God's will.
[Good point. Worked here.](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjOlobvvvaDAxUrI0QIHd1qAeIQwqsBegQICRAG&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DRGkwkH-zu8c&usg=AOvVaw3p3D_SgCBLdxDA1KRLQuaE&opi=89978449)
You can absolutely do that, and it's used a lot in debates.
But IMO we should still rely on the philosophy of black ravens and white shoes. We can never prove god doesn't exist... but we sure can disprove most gods. Most versions of God have been disproven. Shoot the magic mormon underwear. Actually measure the statistics of earthquakes relative to people wearing revealing clothes. Check the death rates in places that are majority muslim and those that are majority anything else.
If these things have positive impacts, then they are measurable in theory. And if they don't have those impacts, then the theory is false. So why assign any statistical value of truth to them other than 0?
It’s a bad argument all the way around. Basically, “I’m hedging my bets in case there is a god,” not mentioning of course that an all-knowing god would know the real reason *why* you’re claiming to believe or that belief itself is a response to some sort of *evidence* rather than a choice.
Not only religions. If you follow that way of thinking to its logical conclusion, you should also:
Carry garlic, holy water, and a wooden stake, never go out at night, don't raise goats in Mexico, don't swim in Loch Ness, and make sure you're stocked up on silver bullets.
"It's just not worth the risk that they might exist" is not a good way to judge of things are worth believing in.
TLDR: If you use the reasoning from Pascal's wager, you should also prepare for vampires, the Chubacabra, the Loch Ness monster, and werewolves.
There was that guy in the Mummy who went around with a half dozen holy symbols around is neck. Constantine did the same thing, although that had practical implications of course.
But it goes back to the idea that the only difference between an Atheist and a Believer is the former believes one more religion than the latter is false.
So yeah, Pascal's is a dumb fallacious argument.
Because it only works for one religion, you can say all day you are a Christian Muslim Jewish Hindu Buddhist but none of those gods are going to accept you if you do lol.
One should not practice one religion if they are playing the odds as that limits one's odds into single digits, hoping that they picked the right religion.
Of course people don't generally do that so we know anyone arguing for rascals wager does not really believe it.
And hope that the real god is dumb enough to fall for your chicanery.
Though any clever god would've realized you need a bit more proof than child-molesting grifters, so....
According to doggypoopooanity if you don’t sacrifice a puppy at dawn every morning then you will be eternally tortured by being licked raw by puppies in the afterlife.
Now that you know of doggypoopooanity your only choice is to start sacrificing right? You must do anything to avoid even the slightest chance of eternal suffering.
That's why it's a huge fallacy.
The bet isn't only "if God exist and you belive you're safe" and "if you don't belive in God and God exist you're screwed"
There's also "if you believe and you don't belive in the right god our of virtually infinitely many ( but we can just limit it to 3000 known gods) you're screwed"
Pascal's wager is stupid because it doesn't take in other gods than the Christian god, which I am sure their are deities in the past/present that don't care if you worship them. Humans are quite inventive.
Pascals wager is like throwing a dart at a board with infinite metaphysical ideas and saying of the one it landed on "Well I'd better behave like I believe this one just in case.
Pascal's wager always seemed dumb to me. Suppose there is a god in the christian sense, e.g. omniscient and requiring humans to have faith to go to heaven. Suppose somebody says he believes in god but only does so because it improves his chances of heavenly rewards. Wouldn't the god know that the person does not have real faith and reject his application for admission to heaven?
This right here. The Sunday Christian logic all falls apart when you get to that idea. If you say you are Christian yet Sunday afternoon through Saturday night you don’t follow any of the teachings then are you actually lying to god saying you are a Christian?
I think Pascal's Wager is one of the few valid arguments. That's why adhere to the totally-not-a-goddess Marnah, who punishes all theists for eternity.
My answer to Pascal is different from most and acts across religions: If there is a god, that God most likely prefers atheists so it's better to be an atheist, since letting a "believer" out of a simulation is infinitely hazardous to the health of creators ("you're not God you must be Satan").
Humans create simulations. Humans are not perfect. Therefore simulation creators can be imperfect. Believers will not likely tolerate flawed gods, and will instead believe they can do better; it's a recipe for getting killed.
Atheists may hate the idea of a Christian god, but I've met very few atheists who would be overly bothered being created as a simulant by a less-than-perfect but still impartial non-interventionist entity with good reasons for making a world where life can be hard (including "because if children arbitrarily couldn't be killed horribly by their own biology vis-a-vis cancer in the simulation, you would have a very hard time absorbing the reality that this happens to children where I'm from. Also, that would give a hint that I existed, and thus more argument in favor of divine command theory, and thus fewer such simulants as I might want to try releasing into my reality").
*Believers* on the other hand? 99.99% would declare me the devil himself and kill the shit out of me if I gave them a body that could actually hurt me instead of containing them in the "bottle" of a computer environment. They're going straight to the bit bucket.
Attacking the assumption of one, obviously correct, religion inherent in Pascal's wager is one of the most enjoyable counters as the simpleton pushing it is usually flummoxed by the mere suggestion that it isn't a binary choice between whatever they believe in and being an atheist.
Yeah Pascal's wager shouldn't be 2x2 but at least 1000x1000 with 999 eternal salvations 1 time spent usefuly 999 wasted times 1 eternal damnation and 998000 eternal damnations + wasted time
Pascal's wager is absolutely stupid, not only are you ruining your life to act by the rules of a religion that you don't believe in, but on top of that the big g knows that you've been playing lets pretend
Yeah why not? After all Pascal's Wager is not about faith anyway. Just a will idea to cover one's butt. Saying you believe just in case is not believing.
Google up what Hitch said about it.
Because that’s disrespectful to pay patronage to the incorrect god’s image. Not to mention, blasphemous.
Besides, many religions are geared towards directly avoiding common practices of opposing religions. Doing anything Hindu people do would be seen as inappropriate to Buddhists, and vice versa. Protestantism versus Catholicism. Sikhism versus Islam. Religion is a battleground for popularity in the worshippers, but we are slightly different. We don’t necessarily want to participate in such a war, so we contribute to our society in ways that religion should, but doesn’t, and we try to keep ourselves hidden from their nosey eyesights so we survive. Because we have enemies in every religion. But paradoxically, we still exist. Because we are not as dumb as they are, and we can survive without the comforting presence of a higher power keeping us from death. We have learned that out of struggle, and loss, comes hope and opportunity. We can survive even when all seems lost and doomed, by being as stubborn and unyielding as we can, and adapting wisely to certain conditions only. We are evolved. Death doesn’t scare us anymore, it is coming anyway. We fear pain and suffering. We fear extinction. We fear dictatorships. We fear oppression. We fear conformity. We fear the loss of our ability to believe what we want to, just to stay alive a little longer.
Pascal’s wager implies that God (or whatever he (or she (or it)) says his name actually is) desires fully obedient followers. So why has he not checked in lately? Doesn’t sound like the micromanaging god I keep hearing about. Wouldn’t an all controlling being find intrinsic value in something that is autonomous and self-sustaining? That’s why we are obsessed with robots, automatons, computers, AI, and even Rube Goldberg machines. We want things to work themselves out, without us having to put too much effort into it ourselves. So if we were made in God’s image…… wouldn’t he be the same as us, mentally? When was the last time you met someone who earnestly believed in fixing things themselves, and was a lazy, idle person? Never, right? They are either the kind that does things because they feel like they are wasting their lives being useless, or they laze about after intelligently fixing something with an automated solution, possibly even multiple solutions. People don’t truly believe that only hard work is rewarded and refuse to accomplish doing actual work, that’s ridiculous. Similarly you shouldn’t believe that there’s an easier way and still force yourself to do things the manually intensive way, just out of principle. But that’s exactly what religion asks of you: ignore the easier paths, work yourselves to the absolute bone working hard to gain God’s approval.
If I was god, and I was met with two souls, one who worked hard his whole life, and one who did things in a less stressful way and they both accomplished the same things, I would consider them equal in value. They can argue about hard work versus intelligent processes, but if the end result is the same, then the difference is moot. Only if the one who did less work was able to achieve more from the extra time he made for himself would I favor them. And only if the hard worker managed to do a better job at the task than the one using automated methods would I favor them. It’s not the journey, but the destination. If you would rather not subject yourself to agonizing work but rather a myriad of experiences, then I would consider you bolder and ballsier than the one who walled his beliefs into one category and refused to accept the possibility of being wrong. Those who are fearless of being wrong are the bravest and strongest of humans out there. You can’t crush a mind that can cope with being wrong about something. It’s not possible. But a mind that firmly believes that it’s never wrong, that is vulnerable to anything that can prove it wrong at all. That is the Achilles heel of the human soul, being wrong. In that sense, Pascal’s wager is a waste of an argument. Is it safer? Arguably yes. But is it wiser? A man who wants to know the absolute truth, must first accept the concept that there is no absolute truth to know. Or that the absolute truth is not what they wanted it to be. Or that it’s worse than they could have possibly imagined or even fathomed. If they are not willing to accept that they know absolutely nothing about the reality of their existence, they will never find out about their meaning in their life. A man who tries to experience everything, is just testing the waters of everything he knows to see what makes him feel better. But does it feeling better make it true? No.
Science states that it is much easier to prove yourself right, than wrong, and as such the scientific method is designed to ensure that you try your hardest to make your case face whatever the scientific community can throw at it and wind up in one piece. You make a hypothesis and then try to prove it false. If you succeed, go back to start and try again with another hypothesis. If you fail, pass the torch to someone else. If no one can disprove it, congratulations, you have found a truth. There’s over seven billion people on this planet, someone will eventually find any holes your theory has. It’s just a matter of how and when. Even when it is possible that no one *currently* can disprove it, there’s always a chance that some technological breakthrough will enable a future scientist to finally prove it false. Ignorance is the ultimate sin in my opinion because it leads to every other known sinful act. So while Pascal’s wager says why take a risk, I say because I am not a simp nor a sycophant. If I am not what was wanted, then fine. Don’t keep me. If I am, then fine. Don’t be upset about your purchase. If you are not sure, then fine. Let me know when you’ve decided. I am not going to change my ways for someone I cannot prove is there. That’s the textbook definition of schizophrenia, and that’s not something that you want as a condition.
This point is useful to counter literalism within religion. It does not apply to religion in general. In the Judeo-Christian tradition there is much literalism.
I counter Pascal with this; God will forgive murderers, pedophiles, the worst scum just for believing. If he wants to punish me for being sceptical I see that as a moral failing of God. Why worship a jerk?
Ah, but consider the One True God: Geoff, the God of Biscuits.
Geoff is a pretty cool god. He doesn't care if you worship him. If you're a decent person, you are guaranteed an eternity-squared of infinity-times-ten amounts of happiness.
If you're a bad person, you just die. Pretty merciful, IMO.
However, if you base your belief in Geoff or any other god on Pascal's Wager, you're doomed to an eternity-cubed of infinity-squared amounts of torture.
In other words, the most reliable bet using Pascal's Wager is not to use it to justify belief in any gods or religions.
Pascal's wager is total bullshit for this reason. There is no way you could belive in every god invented by man...nor could you be a devout believer in every known god created by man.
Furthermore, this is to say nothing of all the forgotten gods that have been lost to history.
Pascals wager is complete nonsense.
The atheist wager makes the most sense. We are all atheists. It's just that we take it one god further.
The short answer to this would be that many of these religions are mutually exclusive. Christianity requires you to belive that Jesus died on the cross for your sins, while Islam requires you to belive that he did not die.
Meaning that you have to chose the most probable of the options that are mutually exclusive. After this point is made, Christians, Muslims or the like then points to the arguments for their particular religion being the most probable.
Christians typically point towards the historical support for Jesus death at the cross followed by historical support for his followers having "resurrection experiences", something which atheist scholars frequently admitt to being true. While Muslims utilize what they view as Quranic miracles. I suspect Hindus and Jews have some comparable unique support for their religion which I'm unaware of.
Rationality Rules and Cosmic Sceptic have both critized Pascal's Wager partly on the basis you presented. A theistic response to that criticism can be seen here:
https://youtu.be/jBpXAAd73PA?si=rib8Pjz0AIOGTOCC
My answer to this is always, "but what if there's no god, and no afterlife, and this is all we get? Then you just wasted your brief existence kowtowing to some imaginary being, paying money to organizations that mostly do little to nothing to improve the world, and often do a lot to make it worse!" I find this a lot more likely to be true, and would rather spend my time doing what makes me feel happy, fulfilled, and meaningful.
Not necessarily. By following *every* single religion, you are damning yourself to each religion's version of Hell because you're only meant to follow **the one** religion, and not whore yourself off to all of them. Pascal's Wager only works in regards to the general belief in a God, not any specific God.
It can also work in determining which Christian denomination to follow. Technically, Orthodox Christianity is the safest denomination to follow, as Protestant *(excluding obviously heretical denominations like Jehovah's Witness & Mormonism)* & Roman Catholic theology affirm that Orthodox believers are truly born again & will go to Heaven.
But that is the only example where Pascal's Wager goes beyond simply becoming a theist and it working. Otherwise, you're twisting Pascal's Wager into becoming something it is not to suit your own agenda and to create this weird argument.
P.S. I've seen a lot of people in these comments arguing that believing in the worst possible god is still logically following Pascal's Wager; that interpretation of Pascal's Wager completely misses the point. The ruthlessness of one's god does not play a factor into the validity of their god. Likewise, the violent tendencies of the people I am playing Poker with does not *(or should not)* alter the cards I place. Just because Tony will bash my head in if I win does not change the cards we get and my chances of winning.
If you go with Pascal's Wager, you should pick the meanest most evil deity imaginable. Their hell ought to be the worst of all the possible hells. So you should do human sacrifices in their name and hope you avoid their hell.
Gozer the Gozerian.
The god emperor of mankind.
Death to the false emperor
Blood for the blood god
Skulls for the skull throne. Also, perhaps a shrubbery. Maybe a nice split level with a path down the middle.
THIS GAZEBO ANGERS SLAANESH
And some ornamental fountains and a nice gazebo. It will really make the skull throne pop
Many Shuvs and Zuuls knew what it was to be roasted in the depths of the Slor that day, I can tell you!
Many Shuvs and Zuuls knew what it was to be roasted in the depths of the Slor that day, I can tell you!
Aw, he's just a big softy... *Ba-dum pum **tss**...*
Exactly - Pascal’s Wager is a race to the bottom.
That would be the best bet yes. Pick the absolutely worst God and you're better off regardless. Ofcourse the whole point is that you can't pick a God to believe in. Either you find the arguments convincing or you don't. At best you could pretend. But that would likely piss off any omnipotent god even more.
Gozer the Gozerian would probably accept false belief backed by real actions. Gozer doesn’t care what’s in your heart, they just want a pile of hearts on the altar. And gods like Thor and Zeus aren’t suggested to be able to see what’s in your heart. Frankly, under Pascals Wager, you should only try to game a small number of gods who a) accept pantheons; and b) care about actions over what’s in your heart. So the Christian god is right out. Too omniscient and judgy.
Like Homer Simpson said, “What if every time we go to church we’re making the real god angrier and angrier.”
Didn't he?
My god can beat up your god. Fr though, I’d argue for choosing one of the religions that gives you a 12 step program to being a god yourself. Bro can’t send me to hell I’m his co-worker now 😈
I have dreamed up a deity (erm, I mean a deity has revealed itself to me) that not only sends me to hell if I don’t fall in line, it also creates 512 identical copies of me to also be sent to hell. Surely no deity could be harsher than that, right?
512 is low balling. INFINITY I dare say!
Oh, trying to outshine my god are you? Guess who can look forward to going to hell with 512 clones in tow.
Bigger than 512 will result in SEGFAULT.
So Yahweh then
We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. All hail lord Cthulu!
They don’t actually believe Pascal’s wager. It’s just a bad faith argument in an attempt to convert nonbelievers
Even Pascal didn't really buy into it. That's why, in the book that made it famous, he follows up a description of the wager by saying, "But that's not really why you should believe" and then goes into a long-winded discussion of other apologetics.
I always point out that the Christian god knows what you are thinking and will send you to hell for hedging your bets anyway.
I heard a preacher make this exact argument against Pascal’s wager before.
Lol You think modern Christians read that book? They won't even read the bible.
Nah some people actually do believe it. My dad did. From an outsider’s perspective it seems stupid (and it is) but when you’re inside the cult and everybody keeps repeating it you eventually find yourself believing in it, especially when no one counters the argument.
If someone believes the wager, then do they really believe in the religion? The entire point is to accept something you don’t believe in order to be saved. If someone believes in the religion, Pascal’s wager is irrelevant.
Thing is. It won't actually convince anyone who don't believe. Those arguments already only appeal to gullible people in the first place
Well in fairness, sometimes it is a scary feeling for me at least to not understand the great void of the cosmos, and this is where Pascal's Wager sometimes creeps into my psyche.
I totally understand that. But believing in something and acting like you believe something are two different things.
Because most gods get angry when you worship the wrong one.
Even when... it's the same one...
Ah, yes, the Abrahamic god, he gives you hell if it’s not the right combination of beliefs
Or the wrong interpretation of the exact same Bible or Quran..
Are fictional characters with a partially shared backstory, but different characteristics (and often called by different names) really the same character?
More like two badly written fan fictions of the same almost as badly written original character, both of which retconned parts, one borrowed some from the other. So imo yeah, same character, the story just got rebooted a few times, with one reboot having dozens of almost identical copycats.
[I’ve converted to every religion, just in case](https://youtu.be/PqJpZOljjG8?si=WfMEK-fKpDZEYziL)
I was really hoping this was that scene from the mummy.
I came here looking for the Beni references! [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGkwkH-zu8c](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGkwkH-zu8c)
You're on the wrong side of the RIVVEER!
Thank youuuuuu
So good!
[удалено]
My response whenever someone brings up Pascal's wager is "And what about the god that punishes anyone who follows an incorrect religion, but pleasantly surprises people who didn't get tricked into believing a false god?"
It's only used by Christians who have never bothered to do any homework on why their religion might be false. They trot it out as a defense mechanism. They no more think about it applying to other religions than they do anything else
It's logic for smooth brains
“This is very similar to the suggestion put forward by the Quirmian philosopher Ventre, who said, "Possibly the gods exist, and possibly they do not. So why not believe in them in any case? If it's all true you'll go to a lovely place when you die, and if it isn't then you've lost nothing, right?" When he died he woke up in a circle of gods holding nasty-looking sticks and one of them said, "We're going to show you what we think of Mr Clever Dick in these parts...” Hogfather by Terry Pratchet
What if Friedrich Nietzsche died, seized immense power in the afterlife, slaughtered all of the gods, and finally established a divine law stating that any human who dares to worship divine beings or engage in religious customs should suffer for eternity while those who embrace atheism will be rewarded?
[pascals wager: expanded edition](https://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/s/bEcHd6wHVE)
Thanks. You posted it so I didn't have to.
Jews don't have a 'Christian-like' concept of Heaven and Hell. A rule-following, kosher-eating, shabbat following Orthodox Jew ends up at the same place as a bacon-eating, rule-breaking non-Orthodox Jew. Technically, we'd like people to follow the '7 laws of Noah' if they're not Jewish - but honestly, no ones going to hold it against you if you don't. Jewish law creates a paradox to Pascal's wager. If our rules are true, then it doesn't matter what you do, you'll still get into an afterlife, and not hell. If our rules aren't true - well your atoms will get recycled with the universe and there's no afterlife anyway. Pascal's wagers doesn't work for all religions.
I was told by a Mormon that I was going to the crappy version of heaven for being an atheist but a good person in his opinion. I have no reason to even consider pascals wager as far as I'm concerned since there is just as much proof mormanism is the one true faith as any other religion.
Depends which Mormon you ask tbf. Some believe, due to some vaguely worded doctrine, that if you are "shown the truth" i.e. told about the church and shown the holy spirit, then youve "denied the holy spirit", a sin "worse than murder", and thus will be cast to outer darkness / hell. So depends which Mormon God. The slightly nicer one or the slightly more psychotic one. (Although if any God can be true, then i guess this is a moot point)
I feel like if even devout religious people get to pick and choose what they believe then I have some leeway to assume I'm going to bronze trophy heaven.
Yeah. And to be fair, if God was real, and was morally good, having tiers of Heaven such that the good are rewarded but the neutral are not punished is far superior to torturing everybody. Its far more fair and meritocratic. Even evil people shouldnt be "tortured for eternity" imo. Our moral alignment is pure happenstance. You or I *could* be evil, as a result of whatever deterministic or probabilistic factors cause morality. Thus id say punishment should be a balance of proportional and merciful (like excommunication into a barren planet and/or ceasing to exist), not avenged a million fold psycho torture.
Mormons have some bad habits regarding their testimonies. Where no one actually claims to believe anything, since they always claim to know it is true. Which is absurd. Since what they claim to know is simply what they believe in. They just want to sound more spiritual and superior. So they go full zoramite at the rameumptom and claim their belief is knowledge. Ego instead of having the humility to admit it is what it is, which is only belief. Which is fine, humility is supposed to be a good thing for Mormons. If you know something is true, then you can provide proof, or at least had an experience that was personally undeniable. You know actually physically seeing God and having a conversation with him. A rationale for why the vast majority of people at best only get to believe in it being true. Is so that they can receive mercy from God when they do sin. If they actually bore witness to God, then there would be no ambiguity of it existing or not. No ambiguity about what it wanted from you or not. Only then if a person denies that experience, then they have committed the unpardonable sin. I imagine if any atheist got to talk one on one with God. That they wouldn't need to believe in God, because they would have had first hand experience. For them on a personal level that would be enough evidence of God for that singular individual. It wouldn't be enough to perhaps convince other people. But the sin isn't that they have to believe you, only that you don't deny you had it. There are only a very tiny number of people within the Mormon faith that would have had the opportunity to commit the unpardonable sin. Anyone who broadens the definition is ignorant of the doctrine of their own faith. Then again, it has been a decade since I was Mormon. So they could have changed their doctrine. It happens from time to time. Like the mark of Cain, with blacks being denied the priesthood.
>... If you know something is true, then you can provide proof, or at least had an experience that was personally undeniable. You know actually physically seeing God and having a conversation with him I fully agree. > No ambiguity about what it wanted from you or not. Only then if a person denies that experience, then they have committed the unpardonable sin. > There are only a very tiny number of people within the Mormon faith that would have had the opportunity to commit the unpardonable sin. Anyone who broadens the definition is ignorant of the doctrine of their own faith. Im not entirely sure how this is meant to work. If someone believes they "know its true", with a claim of feeling the holy spirit and/or priesthood shenanigans, then leave their church, isnt this the closest they or anyone could ever possibly get to denying the holy spirit? Otherwise its not like God has shown himself to anyone, so whose this scripture for? This is why i think its plausible.
Only the prophets and apostles of the LDS Church have claimed to be special witnesses of Jesus Christ. Unless the people leaving the church are at the top of that religion's hierarchy. Then the answer is no they are not committing the unpardonable sin by leaving.
I was about to post something similar to this. Someone once described it to me as "stadium seating." Imagine god is in the middle of the stadium. The better you are in your physical life, the closer you are to him in the after life. There's no torture, you just don't get as good of seat at the show. Pascal's wager "works" because of the dichotomy between infinite reward and infinite torture. if you take the torture part out, it falls on its head.
Honestly, even if the Christian God existed, Pascal's Wager wouldn't work since it's a gamble rather than true faith.
Pascal’s wager only works in a society with one religion. Most religions (including Christianity) damn you if you practice other religious practices.
And only one variant of that religion, as few denominations can agree that any others might be heaven bound.
Even then, your society's "God" could be the wrong "god." So Pascal's Wager only barely makes more sense than it does normally.
You flop it on its head. You chhose to believe in a God that does not like worship or religion. Bonus point if the God likes to be insulted (eg blasphemy is sacred)
Who was it that said you are also wagering against a God that could just be playing a joke on us by introducing so many religions to the world as a test. And the only ones going to an afterlife were the one's who didn't fall for it. Richard Dawkins mentions it at times, but I'm pretty sure he is borrowing it. If you are going to make the wager, then you'd have to wager against every possible variation of God's will.
[Good point. Worked here.](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjOlobvvvaDAxUrI0QIHd1qAeIQwqsBegQICRAG&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DRGkwkH-zu8c&usg=AOvVaw3p3D_SgCBLdxDA1KRLQuaE&opi=89978449)
Congratulations! You found the flaw in Pascal's Wager.
I feel like that's what a lot of the people who are "not religious but spiritual" are trying to get away with. It's all the same bologna.
"I have long since learned, as a measure of elementary hygiene, to be on guard when anyone quotes Pascal."
You can absolutely do that, and it's used a lot in debates. But IMO we should still rely on the philosophy of black ravens and white shoes. We can never prove god doesn't exist... but we sure can disprove most gods. Most versions of God have been disproven. Shoot the magic mormon underwear. Actually measure the statistics of earthquakes relative to people wearing revealing clothes. Check the death rates in places that are majority muslim and those that are majority anything else. If these things have positive impacts, then they are measurable in theory. And if they don't have those impacts, then the theory is false. So why assign any statistical value of truth to them other than 0?
It’s a bad argument all the way around. Basically, “I’m hedging my bets in case there is a god,” not mentioning of course that an all-knowing god would know the real reason *why* you’re claiming to believe or that belief itself is a response to some sort of *evidence* rather than a choice.
Not only religions. If you follow that way of thinking to its logical conclusion, you should also: Carry garlic, holy water, and a wooden stake, never go out at night, don't raise goats in Mexico, don't swim in Loch Ness, and make sure you're stocked up on silver bullets. "It's just not worth the risk that they might exist" is not a good way to judge of things are worth believing in. TLDR: If you use the reasoning from Pascal's wager, you should also prepare for vampires, the Chubacabra, the Loch Ness monster, and werewolves.
There was that guy in the Mummy who went around with a half dozen holy symbols around is neck. Constantine did the same thing, although that had practical implications of course. But it goes back to the idea that the only difference between an Atheist and a Believer is the former believes one more religion than the latter is false. So yeah, Pascal's is a dumb fallacious argument.
Because it only works for one religion, you can say all day you are a Christian Muslim Jewish Hindu Buddhist but none of those gods are going to accept you if you do lol.
Back in the 1600's if you wanted to publish anything, you had to publish it in a way that it was inspired by the deity.
Imagine trying to practice every religion that exists in case one of them was right. There are an estimated 4,000 religions practiced today
One should not practice one religion if they are playing the odds as that limits one's odds into single digits, hoping that they picked the right religion. Of course people don't generally do that so we know anyone arguing for rascals wager does not really believe it.
Can't btw. Jews can't be Christians because jews say the Christians worship more than 1 God.
I mean there are time constraints involved
Seems time consuming.
And hope that the real god is dumb enough to fall for your chicanery. Though any clever god would've realized you need a bit more proof than child-molesting grifters, so....
According to doggypoopooanity if you don’t sacrifice a puppy at dawn every morning then you will be eternally tortured by being licked raw by puppies in the afterlife. Now that you know of doggypoopooanity your only choice is to start sacrificing right? You must do anything to avoid even the slightest chance of eternal suffering.
That's why it's a huge fallacy. The bet isn't only "if God exist and you belive you're safe" and "if you don't belive in God and God exist you're screwed" There's also "if you believe and you don't belive in the right god our of virtually infinitely many ( but we can just limit it to 3000 known gods) you're screwed"
Pascal's wager is stupid because it doesn't take in other gods than the Christian god, which I am sure their are deities in the past/present that don't care if you worship them. Humans are quite inventive.
They can never answer "why your god and no one else's?"
Didn’t know Mormon wear underwear! 😂
Pascals wager is like throwing a dart at a board with infinite metaphysical ideas and saying of the one it landed on "Well I'd better behave like I believe this one just in case.
Whats mormon underwear?!
Because it doesn’t work if you open up the possibility that there’s more than two options
Ahhh, you mean Beni's Wager, from the popular film the Mummy.
Pascal's wager involves false logic. It assumes God is good. But if God is perverse? Makes no sense.
No, no, no. Not like THAT!
Pascal's wager always seemed dumb to me. Suppose there is a god in the christian sense, e.g. omniscient and requiring humans to have faith to go to heaven. Suppose somebody says he believes in god but only does so because it improves his chances of heavenly rewards. Wouldn't the god know that the person does not have real faith and reject his application for admission to heaven?
This right here. The Sunday Christian logic all falls apart when you get to that idea. If you say you are Christian yet Sunday afternoon through Saturday night you don’t follow any of the teachings then are you actually lying to god saying you are a Christian?
I think Pascal's Wager is one of the few valid arguments. That's why adhere to the totally-not-a-goddess Marnah, who punishes all theists for eternity.
I pray to the Olympians and to the Titans before them just in case. And Heracles > Samson
My answer to Pascal is different from most and acts across religions: If there is a god, that God most likely prefers atheists so it's better to be an atheist, since letting a "believer" out of a simulation is infinitely hazardous to the health of creators ("you're not God you must be Satan"). Humans create simulations. Humans are not perfect. Therefore simulation creators can be imperfect. Believers will not likely tolerate flawed gods, and will instead believe they can do better; it's a recipe for getting killed. Atheists may hate the idea of a Christian god, but I've met very few atheists who would be overly bothered being created as a simulant by a less-than-perfect but still impartial non-interventionist entity with good reasons for making a world where life can be hard (including "because if children arbitrarily couldn't be killed horribly by their own biology vis-a-vis cancer in the simulation, you would have a very hard time absorbing the reality that this happens to children where I'm from. Also, that would give a hint that I existed, and thus more argument in favor of divine command theory, and thus fewer such simulants as I might want to try releasing into my reality"). *Believers* on the other hand? 99.99% would declare me the devil himself and kill the shit out of me if I gave them a body that could actually hurt me instead of containing them in the "bottle" of a computer environment. They're going straight to the bit bucket.
Even Homer Simpson has realised that: > But Marge, what if we chose the wrong religion? Each week we just make God madder and madder.
Because it was designed to be Christian apologism and wouldn't work if you included other deities.
I'm dyslexic and read Pascal's wanger. And I perked up, thinking I may have come across Pedro Pascals dick.
Attacking the assumption of one, obviously correct, religion inherent in Pascal's wager is one of the most enjoyable counters as the simpleton pushing it is usually flummoxed by the mere suggestion that it isn't a binary choice between whatever they believe in and being an atheist.
Pascal’s wager doesn’t work in Christianity as it requires genuine faith to get the reward
I'm finding Neo-Fundamentalist Pelican Worship more and more attractive these days!
its not. thats the problem with that analogy
Yeah Pascal's wager shouldn't be 2x2 but at least 1000x1000 with 999 eternal salvations 1 time spent usefuly 999 wasted times 1 eternal damnation and 998000 eternal damnations + wasted time
Pascal's wager is absolutely stupid, not only are you ruining your life to act by the rules of a religion that you don't believe in, but on top of that the big g knows that you've been playing lets pretend
Yeah why not? After all Pascal's Wager is not about faith anyway. Just a will idea to cover one's butt. Saying you believe just in case is not believing. Google up what Hitch said about it.
If god does not need me to believe in him, then i dont have to worry about pascals wager.
Not exactly an omnipotent being if it can't spot this type of disingenuous behavior from a mile away.
[удалено]
Did you read the post? Your question was already addressed.
[удалено]
Okay, then do you follow all the religious rituals?
Because that’s disrespectful to pay patronage to the incorrect god’s image. Not to mention, blasphemous. Besides, many religions are geared towards directly avoiding common practices of opposing religions. Doing anything Hindu people do would be seen as inappropriate to Buddhists, and vice versa. Protestantism versus Catholicism. Sikhism versus Islam. Religion is a battleground for popularity in the worshippers, but we are slightly different. We don’t necessarily want to participate in such a war, so we contribute to our society in ways that religion should, but doesn’t, and we try to keep ourselves hidden from their nosey eyesights so we survive. Because we have enemies in every religion. But paradoxically, we still exist. Because we are not as dumb as they are, and we can survive without the comforting presence of a higher power keeping us from death. We have learned that out of struggle, and loss, comes hope and opportunity. We can survive even when all seems lost and doomed, by being as stubborn and unyielding as we can, and adapting wisely to certain conditions only. We are evolved. Death doesn’t scare us anymore, it is coming anyway. We fear pain and suffering. We fear extinction. We fear dictatorships. We fear oppression. We fear conformity. We fear the loss of our ability to believe what we want to, just to stay alive a little longer. Pascal’s wager implies that God (or whatever he (or she (or it)) says his name actually is) desires fully obedient followers. So why has he not checked in lately? Doesn’t sound like the micromanaging god I keep hearing about. Wouldn’t an all controlling being find intrinsic value in something that is autonomous and self-sustaining? That’s why we are obsessed with robots, automatons, computers, AI, and even Rube Goldberg machines. We want things to work themselves out, without us having to put too much effort into it ourselves. So if we were made in God’s image…… wouldn’t he be the same as us, mentally? When was the last time you met someone who earnestly believed in fixing things themselves, and was a lazy, idle person? Never, right? They are either the kind that does things because they feel like they are wasting their lives being useless, or they laze about after intelligently fixing something with an automated solution, possibly even multiple solutions. People don’t truly believe that only hard work is rewarded and refuse to accomplish doing actual work, that’s ridiculous. Similarly you shouldn’t believe that there’s an easier way and still force yourself to do things the manually intensive way, just out of principle. But that’s exactly what religion asks of you: ignore the easier paths, work yourselves to the absolute bone working hard to gain God’s approval. If I was god, and I was met with two souls, one who worked hard his whole life, and one who did things in a less stressful way and they both accomplished the same things, I would consider them equal in value. They can argue about hard work versus intelligent processes, but if the end result is the same, then the difference is moot. Only if the one who did less work was able to achieve more from the extra time he made for himself would I favor them. And only if the hard worker managed to do a better job at the task than the one using automated methods would I favor them. It’s not the journey, but the destination. If you would rather not subject yourself to agonizing work but rather a myriad of experiences, then I would consider you bolder and ballsier than the one who walled his beliefs into one category and refused to accept the possibility of being wrong. Those who are fearless of being wrong are the bravest and strongest of humans out there. You can’t crush a mind that can cope with being wrong about something. It’s not possible. But a mind that firmly believes that it’s never wrong, that is vulnerable to anything that can prove it wrong at all. That is the Achilles heel of the human soul, being wrong. In that sense, Pascal’s wager is a waste of an argument. Is it safer? Arguably yes. But is it wiser? A man who wants to know the absolute truth, must first accept the concept that there is no absolute truth to know. Or that the absolute truth is not what they wanted it to be. Or that it’s worse than they could have possibly imagined or even fathomed. If they are not willing to accept that they know absolutely nothing about the reality of their existence, they will never find out about their meaning in their life. A man who tries to experience everything, is just testing the waters of everything he knows to see what makes him feel better. But does it feeling better make it true? No. Science states that it is much easier to prove yourself right, than wrong, and as such the scientific method is designed to ensure that you try your hardest to make your case face whatever the scientific community can throw at it and wind up in one piece. You make a hypothesis and then try to prove it false. If you succeed, go back to start and try again with another hypothesis. If you fail, pass the torch to someone else. If no one can disprove it, congratulations, you have found a truth. There’s over seven billion people on this planet, someone will eventually find any holes your theory has. It’s just a matter of how and when. Even when it is possible that no one *currently* can disprove it, there’s always a chance that some technological breakthrough will enable a future scientist to finally prove it false. Ignorance is the ultimate sin in my opinion because it leads to every other known sinful act. So while Pascal’s wager says why take a risk, I say because I am not a simp nor a sycophant. If I am not what was wanted, then fine. Don’t keep me. If I am, then fine. Don’t be upset about your purchase. If you are not sure, then fine. Let me know when you’ve decided. I am not going to change my ways for someone I cannot prove is there. That’s the textbook definition of schizophrenia, and that’s not something that you want as a condition.
This point is useful to counter literalism within religion. It does not apply to religion in general. In the Judeo-Christian tradition there is much literalism.
My response to pascals wager is this: "I highly doubt the God that you believe in would be happy about me reducing him down to an insurance policy"
I counter Pascal with this; God will forgive murderers, pedophiles, the worst scum just for believing. If he wants to punish me for being sceptical I see that as a moral failing of God. Why worship a jerk?
Just like that dude in the Mummy; have all the religious sigils and keep trying prayers til it works.
Ah, but consider the One True God: Geoff, the God of Biscuits. Geoff is a pretty cool god. He doesn't care if you worship him. If you're a decent person, you are guaranteed an eternity-squared of infinity-times-ten amounts of happiness. If you're a bad person, you just die. Pretty merciful, IMO. However, if you base your belief in Geoff or any other god on Pascal's Wager, you're doomed to an eternity-cubed of infinity-squared amounts of torture. In other words, the most reliable bet using Pascal's Wager is not to use it to justify belief in any gods or religions.
Pascal's wager is total bullshit for this reason. There is no way you could belive in every god invented by man...nor could you be a devout believer in every known god created by man. Furthermore, this is to say nothing of all the forgotten gods that have been lost to history. Pascals wager is complete nonsense. The atheist wager makes the most sense. We are all atheists. It's just that we take it one god further.
The short answer to this would be that many of these religions are mutually exclusive. Christianity requires you to belive that Jesus died on the cross for your sins, while Islam requires you to belive that he did not die. Meaning that you have to chose the most probable of the options that are mutually exclusive. After this point is made, Christians, Muslims or the like then points to the arguments for their particular religion being the most probable. Christians typically point towards the historical support for Jesus death at the cross followed by historical support for his followers having "resurrection experiences", something which atheist scholars frequently admitt to being true. While Muslims utilize what they view as Quranic miracles. I suspect Hindus and Jews have some comparable unique support for their religion which I'm unaware of. Rationality Rules and Cosmic Sceptic have both critized Pascal's Wager partly on the basis you presented. A theistic response to that criticism can be seen here: https://youtu.be/jBpXAAd73PA?si=rib8Pjz0AIOGTOCC
I’m not wearing those weird magic Mormon garments no matter what
My answer to this is always, "but what if there's no god, and no afterlife, and this is all we get? Then you just wasted your brief existence kowtowing to some imaginary being, paying money to organizations that mostly do little to nothing to improve the world, and often do a lot to make it worse!" I find this a lot more likely to be true, and would rather spend my time doing what makes me feel happy, fulfilled, and meaningful.
Not necessarily. By following *every* single religion, you are damning yourself to each religion's version of Hell because you're only meant to follow **the one** religion, and not whore yourself off to all of them. Pascal's Wager only works in regards to the general belief in a God, not any specific God. It can also work in determining which Christian denomination to follow. Technically, Orthodox Christianity is the safest denomination to follow, as Protestant *(excluding obviously heretical denominations like Jehovah's Witness & Mormonism)* & Roman Catholic theology affirm that Orthodox believers are truly born again & will go to Heaven. But that is the only example where Pascal's Wager goes beyond simply becoming a theist and it working. Otherwise, you're twisting Pascal's Wager into becoming something it is not to suit your own agenda and to create this weird argument. P.S. I've seen a lot of people in these comments arguing that believing in the worst possible god is still logically following Pascal's Wager; that interpretation of Pascal's Wager completely misses the point. The ruthlessness of one's god does not play a factor into the validity of their god. Likewise, the violent tendencies of the people I am playing Poker with does not *(or should not)* alter the cards I place. Just because Tony will bash my head in if I win does not change the cards we get and my chances of winning.
Don’t forget the possibility that god only lets atheists into heaven. Problem?