Pascal's Wager

[Bravus]

Thread for discussion of same, hopefully civil.

[Bravus]

Two blog posts of mine, two years and five months apart, from some years ago, with similar titles but different takes on the issue:

http://www.bravus.com/blog/?p=813

http://www.bravus.com/blog/?p=1498

These are not meant to finish the discussion, or even start it, but they do lay out some of my thinking in relation to it.

[Bravus]

My brother, Paul Geelan, who is an Adventist pastor, made an excellent comment on the earlier of those posts.

[Bravus]

More in the morning, I guess... sleep time here.

[BobRyan]

Well first of all it appears that everyone agrees that Pascal's wager makes it more of a common sense conclusion to favor belief in God and follow God faithfully according to the light that we have -- than to simply "hope" that there is no god after all.

Your first post says "That is the notion that if you believe in God and are wrong, you lose nothing. That is true only if believing in God makes your life here on earth better, or at the very least does not make it worse." -- which means that the "secular media notices that SDAs live longer" idea - firmly establishes that in the affirmative. (Unless one wants to make the argument "they live longer in pain and suffering due to lung cancer" or something like that).

Why should there be any rancor at all over this topic among Christians?

in Christ,

Bob

[Bravus]

Well first of all it appears that everyone agrees that Pascal's wager makes it more of a common sense conclusion to favor belief in God and follow God faithfully according to the light that we have -- than to simply "hope" that there is no god after all.

'Everyone' ain't 'everyone' - clearly there are still people with different perspectives, hence the discussion. Can't shut it down by simply decreeing that everyone agrees with you.

[Bravus]

Quote:

Your first post says "That is the notion that if you believe in God and are wrong, you lose nothing. That is true only if believing in God makes your life here on earth better, or at the very least does not make it worse." -- which means that the "secular media notices that SDAs live longer" idea - firmly establishes that in the affirmative. (Unless one wants to make the argument "they live longer in pain and suffering due to lung cancer" or something like that).

Didn't say 'longer', said 'better'. Quality vs quantity. Differences in quantity of life are on the order of less than 10%, but life can be insufferable or amazing throughout our span.

[Bravus]

There are many different issues with Pascal's Wager, and an organised discussion might need to take them one by one. Here's a mini-list.

1. Humans have described many gods, not just one. And (almost) all of them claim to be exclusively true. So it's not simply a matter of picking between god and no-god, it's a matter of picking which god. That means the odds are quite different from those Pascal imagined.

2. The argument made in one of the blog posts about quality of life, expanded in my next post.

3. The notion of 'studying the form' as one would in any other wager: what did the horse do in the last race, and the one before that? What is the history? If God has a history of not delivering on other promises, then making a wager on the promise of heaven might be a worse bet...

I'm sure there are many more.

[Bravus]

Let's take Pascal's wager in the simple terms in which he made it: there is or is not a God, and we can chose to believe or not. And belief leads to salvation.

There are four possible outcomes (I'm summarising Pascal here, not my own view):

1. There is no God and we believe - no real loss, we were always going to get nothing and we do.

2. There is no God and we don't believe - no real loss, we were always going to get nothing and we do.

3. There is a God and we don't believe - large loss, we could have had eternity and lost it.

4. There is a God and we believe - large gain, we gain eternity.

The weight of the wager is on the afterlife, though. My point was that it's crucially important to look at this life too. Since, if there is no God, this is all the life we'll ever have, it is vitally important if that's the case. That means alternatives 1 and 2 above are not the same. Let's restate it in my terms:

1a. There is no God and we believe - no real loss, we were always going to get nothing as an afterlife and we do. We may on the one hand also have had a better life in this life, having comforting beliefs and a community and so on. On the other hand, we will have given tithes and offerings to support something that is not real, and we may also have been racked with guilt and pain over things that don't matter, and so on.

2a. There is no God and we don't believe - no real loss, we were always going to get nothing as an afterlife and we do. But we have chosen to live this life to the full and to try to make it as good as possible for others.

In terms of this life, belief in God can have a cost. If there's no countervailing benefit (eternity), that is a poor wager.

My own conclusion has been that it is necessary to live a good life. A God who will damn me for a good life is not a God I want to spend eternity with. And if there was never eternity on the line, I have lived a good life.

[Guest]

Can't shut it down by simply decreeing that everyone agrees with you.

[Bravus]

I just don't know. I think there is, or could be, and that all religions have some glimmer of understanding of God, but are also polluted by lots of human distortions. Certainly the Christian God as usually portrayed simply fails the evidence test: if he's there at all, we're looking in all the wrong places.

[BobRyan]

There are many different issues with Pascal's Wager, and an organised discussion might need to take them one by one. Here's a mini-list.

1. Humans have described many gods, not just one. And (almost) all of them claim to be exclusively true. So it's not simply a matter of picking between god and no-god, it's a matter of picking which god. That means the odds are quite different from those Pascal imagined.

[BobRyan]

Let's take Pascal's wager in the simple terms in which he made it: there is or is not a God, and we can chose to believe or not. And belief leads to salvation.

There are four possible outcomes (I'm summarising Pascal here, not my own view):

1. There is no God and we believe - no real loss, we were always going to get nothing and we do.

2. There is no God and we don't believe - no real loss, we were always going to get nothing and we do.

...

The weight of the wager is on the afterlife, though. My point was that it's crucially important to look at this life too. Since, if there is no God, this is all the life we'll ever have, it is vitally important if that's the case. That means alternatives 1 and 2 above are not the same. Let's restate it in my terms:

1a. There is no God and we believe - no real loss, we were always going to get nothing as an afterlife and we do. We may on the one hand also have had a better life in this life, having comforting beliefs and a community and so on. On the other hand, we will have given tithes and offerings to support something that is not real, and we may also have been racked with guilt and pain over things that don't matter, and so on.

[Neil D]

Let's take Pascal's wager in the simple terms in which he made it: there is or is not a God, and we can chose to believe or not. And belief leads to salvation.

There are four possible outcome: [snip]

In terms of this life, belief in God can have a cost. If there's no countervailing benefit (eternity), that is a poor wager.

My own conclusion has been that it is necessary to live a good life. A God who will damn me for a good life is not a God I want to spend eternity with. And if there was never eternity on the line, I have lived a good life.

...and while I agree that quality living in this life is important, the emphasis of Pascal's wager is on the future life while ignoring the current life...That is why the bible also hints at "taste the Lord and see that He is good"...It occurs to me that our experience with our interactions with God Himself are not to be examined for fear that they may not concure with other's experience...Hence, the occurance of denominations [?] or the "us vs them" experience....which also causes me to think, why so many varied personal experiences?...Is God so big that there are more ways of salvation?

[Bravus]

Indeed a God that wants you to live a selfish evil life would not be fun to live with.

That's true, but it's a bit flipped around from what I was talking about. My point was that a God who would damn someone for living a good and virtuous life (but not quite believing the right thing) is not a God I'd want to spend eternity with.

[phkrause]

That's what I'm reading him saying.

[BobRyan]

In John 14 Jesus said "I am the way the TRUTH and the Life --- no one comes to the Father except by ME".

In 2Thess2 Paul warns us that those who live at the end of time are "turned over to strong delusions that they might believe a lie because they did not receive a love of the Truth so as to be saved".

God is arguing against the idea of progressing to less and less Truth - and arguing in favor of progressing to more and more Truth.

Pascal's wager simply proves that the pagans and atheists are "without excuse" as God tells us in Romans 1 -- because even by their own logic - it makes more sense to seek out and follow God.

in Christ,

Bob

[Bravus]

No. You have either not read or not understood the arguments I have made.

And quoting proof texts from the Bible rather misses the point, when the question is whether God exists at all, since God's existence would be a necessary precondition for Bible quotes being authoritative.

It's not possible to evaluate a framework from 'within'.

[Bravus]

Apologies - of course there's a third option:you've read and understood but simply disagree. Fair enough, but the thing is that you haven't clearly stated or argued that disagreement. You have written as though all your points have been conceded when they have not.

[BobRyan]

Indeed - I have posted that I differ with you on some of the conclusions. I have shown in each scenario that if you take the failing scenario where God exists but the person rejects him or did not select the one true God - the person is no worse off than taking the atheist position.

And as even Pascal points out - in each scenario the "upside" for the "select God and win" option far outstrips the atheist-and-then-hole-in-ground solution. Because "obviously" eternal life beats eternal hole in ground.

I think this is the part that is apparent to all.

I then show that God Himself points this out in Romans 1 just dealing with observations in nature alone.

in Christ,

Bob

[BobRyan]

And when we take the "best case for atheist" (no god) and so thus we have the "worst case for Christian" we still get the following -

Quote:

Originally Posted By: Bravus

Let's take Pascal's wager in the simple terms in which he made it: there is or is not a God, and we can chose to believe or not. And belief leads to salvation.

There are four possible outcomes (I'm summarising Pascal here, not my own view):

1. There is no God and we believe - no real loss, we were always going to get nothing and we do.

2. There is no God and we don't believe - no real loss, we were always going to get nothing and we do.

...

The weight of the wager is on the afterlife, though. My point was that it's crucially important to look at this life too. Since, if there is no God, this is all the life we'll ever have, it is vitally important if that's the case. That means alternatives 1 and 2 above are not the same. Let's restate it in my terms:

1a. There is no God and we believe - no real loss, we were always going to get nothing as an afterlife and we do. We may on the one hand also have had a better life in this life, having comforting beliefs and a community and so on. On the other hand, we will have given tithes and offerings to support something that is not real, and we may also have been racked with guilt and pain over things that don't matter, and so on.

But good people make good society. Even among atheists those who are moral and hold to higher standards of conduct make the neighborhood a safer and happier place even if it is a neighborhood of all-atheists.

And those Christians that tithe instead of throwing money away on gambling, smoking, drinking, etc - are still better off even in a non-God world.

Still better to be a Christian since even non-Christian observes can see studies showing that it means living longer and healthier lives. And certainly true if we must compare it with some smoking, drinking lung-cancer, aids prone atheist neighbors who see themselves as "living life to its fullest" in that scenario.