The purpose of Pascal’s wager is not an argument as to whether or not you believe in God; rather it is a statement. It is simply stating that if there is even a small chance that there is a God, then the most rational thing to do would be to believe in God. Some people seem to be stuck on the fact that Pascal’s wager does not mention which god it is talking about, but by recalling the fact that, Pascal is a Catholic Philosopher; one must assume that the Christian God is the subject in this case. So let’s go ahead and assume that he is talking about the Christian God. Christians believe that after death you either go to heaven, where there will be no more suffering, no more pain and there will be no more need nor want for anything, you will have everything good. Or you will go to hell, where there will be the gnashing of teeth from the worst kind of pain and suffering; anyone can imagine. Therefore, it would be fair to say that choosing to believe in God; would be the rational thing to do. Yes God is all knowing and yes he would know if you believe or not, but by choosing to start behaving like you believe; you have already started to believe in something. Now that you have started believing that it is rational to behave like you believe; you are half way there to fully believing In the Christian God. Now all you have to do is ask the questions and find the answers that will help you fully believe in God. Okay, So you have found the answers and believe in God now, you live a good, faithful, honest, humble, grateful, generous, sincere truthful lives, then you die and it turns out that indeed God does exists. You win the prize; you go to heaven and get to enjoy a wonderful afterlife! If it turns out that God does not exists, well at least you lived your life in a good way and you were all the better for it; it’s a win win situation. On the other hand, if you continue to live like there is no God than the alternative is, well you get the picture. Upon considering Pascal’s Wager, it has become clear to me. Pascal was only trying to convince people to live with compassion towards others, to love each other as you love yourself, to be kind, fair, forgiving, and trust worthy of each other. Whether there is a God or not is irrelevant in Pascal’s Wager, the point is that if you live as if there is a God; and it turned out that there was no God at least we would have made our world a much better planet to live on.
The only thing that I agree on is that each and every one of us should be sensitive, caring, respectful, etc....of every one else! In other words, treat others how you want and expect others to treat you! There does not have to be a god to live the right way in life! Why people chose to believe in something that they can not see or even prove, boggles my mind, but who am I to fight what others feel and believe? I definitely do not want someone to do the same to me, although I can prove and show the things that I believe in. All in all, I do think it is important to live and believe in what ever it is that will get us through in our life. I do believe that ''heaven'' and ''hell'' were words that derived from life itself! How else would anyone describe the horrible and good things that go on in our daily lives?
Its like when people say “I’d rather believe in God and have him not exist than not believe in him just to find at death that he DOES exist.. the best bet is to believe, if there is a god, heaven and afterlife....you're safe. And if there is no god and afterlife, then no harm done.The wagerwager holds that it is safer to believe in god than not to believe. Because god might exist, and if he does, then he will save the believers and send the non-believers to hell . Weakness:God can see through our lack of faith an will possibly judge us for that. Also,which god do you bet on? Lots of possible gods. Can one, and should one, really believe in God on the basis of a wager? Pascal argued that failure to accept God's existence risks losing everything with no payoff on any count. The best bet, then, is to accept the existence of God
This wager is basically showing you where you stand on the existence of god, the believers are blessed and go to heaven, and the non-believers are punished and sent to hell. The strengths I see are if you believe you are in the “safe zone” and if there is no god or heaven nothing happens and no harm is going to happen. The weaknesses are that anyone can choose to believe when really they are not. If there is a god, he knows who is a believer and those who are faking it so they can be safe.
Pascal’s wager has been used often in the Christian community to argue for a person to believe in God and accept Jesus as a personal savior. Even though, these people may not have known they were quoting Pascal’s wager, I have heard this argument many times in my forty plus years, used on non-believers. While the argument is eloquent in its simplicity, (believe in God and if he exists you will be rewarded, and if God does not exist then you have lost nothing for the believing) it is fundamentally flawed. Right now on this planet there are almost seven billion people and a wide array of cultures and beliefs. These beliefs are as diverse as the cultures that created them and some are far older than Judaism and Christianity. So in reply to Pascal and his wager I would say, “Which God of the many do I take the wager on?” In the 17th century when Pascal wrote this in France, his state was very much a Catholic believing nation. Also, during this time, the divide among Protestants and Catholics were very polarized as each held the doctrine that the other was wrong and there by going to hell. So even in believing in the Christian God, there are problems of which one should I believe in? Now if you take into account Judaism and Islam, the problem dramatically increases. Now it is not just a problem of whether I believe in God or not, but do I believe in the existence of Jesus Christ or not. Within Pascal’s wager, this can become a serious problem because a wrong disbelieving answer can lead to damnation! If the search for God and more importantly, the right God is expanded, then Pascal’s wager is even more problematic. At least with the Abrahamic faiths there is consensus about who God is, but if the search for God is expanded, there is now not a glimmer of similarity between deities and faith. Buddhism talks about a God and a number of lesser Gods. Their faith is well established and ancient. There are is a very strong morale base just like in Christianity. But now you are talking about a completely different God figure. Shintoism and Confuciusism both have similar traits of morale code as discussed by Pascal. So based on his premise that no harm will come if you believe and live the morale life even if there is not a God, hold true. But again, these religions are very different than anything Pascal was talking about. So in conclusion, which God? There are about seven billion people on this planet now and uncounted billions that have come before. Are all those people going to hell because they did not believe in the right God or is it something more profound that Pascal almost stumbled upon? Maybe in the believing and morale acting you are saved rather than with an individual religion.
Joseph ni Pascal's wager was ment to be a simple way to weigh your concious. It seems to say, if you want to live faithful, honest, humble, and all the moralities associated with that type of person, why not beleive in his religon or his god and gain a reward. Yet he promises the pleasures, glory, and luxury to those who chose other wise. By him stating "IF" god exits as an option leaves room to question did he have boubts about his god. The wager gives believers the possibility that god might not exist, so we've "wasted" piety? Thats not a frim way to convince people to believe.
Evan Redburrow said.... Pacals wager was meant for people in his generation were any man or women would come to understand his philosophy. Pascal thought it was one of his strong arugments. For him we have to understand his background and where he was living among war, curropt people. Pacals wager didn't intend for this a rolling the dice certainly was not to keep your faith because odds your fifty fifty. Also this pacals belief is your in for the truth of the word of god. Their is no half step into heaven, you have to be devoted unto the christian life in order to clean your soul and have ever lasting life. We are better people for beleiving in any religion, whether we see it or not.
The wager is to suggest rational reasoning to believing in God. The statement that the reward for believe out way the penalty for not believing, and believing at the risk of God not existing in the end is no bad effect at all.
Pascal’s theory has many upsides and a few down sides. The upside is I don’t take it as he was saying you have to go to church just live life as a good person and you might be rewarded with some grate form of afterlife. If you are not rewarded with this grate after life hey at least you lived life as a good person and tried to do your best by others right? The down side is there might have been a few choices you would have made differently if you would not have had an eternal punishment. Another down side is if you do just live your life like there is no God and it turns out that there is well you have a eternity to reflect on how you wish you could have changed your was.
Pascal Wager is a graph that shows what happens if you do not believe in god and somewhat of a consequence. If you believe in god you go to heaven, but if you do not you are going to hell. It also gives you the idea that If you do believe in god but he does not exist then you have nothing to lose because you would have lived a good life. If you do not believe in him and he does exist you go to hell or have lived your life a rotten way. He tried to convince people and show them that the right way was to believe in God . I believe this graph is strange. When it comes to talking about religion, there are so many answers and things that can not be explained. How can you be so sure god exist, how can you be so sure he does not. If I were to have seen this chart, I would not have felt convinced of it's purpose. People have many different beliefs and you can not put it into a chart and say, hey this is ow it goes. How does Pascal know it's true? is he god to know? I believe it is not a good chart at all.
The use of Pascal's wager points on strenths and weakness was good example. Yes if you believe in God and are afraid of what is or what may happen after death to you and your family, we would do whatever it is written or what God said. Their are some people out there who have been in acoma and have gone through the after life. But only do they know what is to expect, we can or do not have to listen to them. It's good to be afraid of something and to be a good person to yourself and to others.
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The purpose of Pascal’s wager is not an argument as to whether or not you believe in God; rather it is a statement. It is simply stating that if there is even a small chance that there is a God, then the most rational thing to do would be to believe in God. Some people seem to be stuck on the fact that Pascal’s wager does not mention which god it is talking about, but by recalling the fact that, Pascal is a Catholic Philosopher; one must assume that the Christian God is the subject in this case.
So let’s go ahead and assume that he is talking about the Christian God. Christians believe that after death you either go to heaven, where there will be no more suffering, no more pain and there will be no more need nor want for anything, you will have everything good. Or you will go to hell, where there will be the gnashing of teeth from the worst kind of pain and suffering; anyone can imagine. Therefore, it would be fair to say that choosing to believe in God; would be the rational thing to do. Yes God is all knowing and yes he would know if you believe or not, but by choosing to start behaving like you believe; you have already started to believe in something. Now that you have started believing that it is rational to behave like you believe; you are half way there to fully believing In the Christian God. Now all you have to do is ask the questions and find the answers that will help you fully believe in God.
Okay, So you have found the answers and believe in God now, you live a good, faithful, honest, humble, grateful, generous, sincere truthful lives, then you die and it turns out that indeed God does exists. You win the prize; you go to heaven and get to enjoy a wonderful afterlife! If it turns out that God does not exists, well at least you lived your life in a good way and you were all the better for it; it’s a win win situation. On the other hand, if you continue to live like there is no God than the alternative is, well you get the picture.
Upon considering Pascal’s Wager, it has become clear to me. Pascal was only trying to convince people to live with compassion towards others, to love each other as you love yourself, to be kind, fair, forgiving, and trust worthy of each other. Whether there is a God or not is irrelevant in Pascal’s Wager, the point is that if you live as if there is a God; and it turned out that there was no God at least we would have made our world a much better planet to live on.
The only thing that I agree on is that each and every one of us should be sensitive, caring, respectful, etc....of every one else! In other words, treat others how you want and expect others to treat you! There does not have to be a god to live the right way in life! Why people chose to believe in something that they can not see or even prove, boggles my mind, but who am I to fight what others feel and believe? I definitely do not want someone to do the same to me, although I can prove and show the things that I believe in. All in all, I do think it is important to live and believe in what ever it is that will get us through in our life. I do believe that ''heaven'' and ''hell'' were words that derived from life itself! How else would anyone describe the horrible and good things that go on in our daily lives?
Its like when people say “I’d rather believe in God and have him not exist than not believe in him just to find at death that he DOES exist.. the best bet is to believe, if there is a god, heaven and afterlife....you're safe. And if there is no god and afterlife, then no harm done.The wagerwager holds that it is safer to believe in god than not to believe. Because god might exist, and if he does, then he will save the believers and send the non-believers to hell .
Weakness:God can see through our lack of faith an will possibly judge us for that. Also,which god do you bet on? Lots of possible gods. Can one, and should one, really believe in God on the basis of a wager? Pascal argued that failure to accept God's existence risks losing everything with no payoff on any count. The best bet, then, is to accept the existence of God
This wager is basically showing you where you stand on the existence of god, the believers are blessed and go to heaven, and the non-believers are punished and sent to hell. The strengths I see are if you believe you are in the “safe zone” and if there is no god or heaven nothing happens and no harm is going to happen. The weaknesses are that anyone can choose to believe when really they are not. If there is a god, he knows who is a believer and those who are faking it so they can be safe.
Pascal’s wager has been used often in the Christian community to argue for a person to believe in God and accept Jesus as a personal savior. Even though, these people may not have known they were quoting Pascal’s wager, I have heard this argument many times in my forty plus years, used on non-believers. While the argument is eloquent in its simplicity, (believe in God and if he exists you will be rewarded, and if God does not exist then you have lost nothing for the believing) it is fundamentally flawed. Right now on this planet there are almost seven billion people and a wide array of cultures and beliefs. These beliefs are as diverse as the cultures that created them and some are far older than Judaism and Christianity. So in reply to Pascal and his wager I would say, “Which God of the many do I take the wager on?” In the 17th century when Pascal wrote this in France, his state was very much a Catholic believing nation. Also, during this time, the divide among Protestants and Catholics were very polarized as each held the doctrine that the other was wrong and there by going to hell.
So even in believing in the Christian God, there are problems of which one should I believe in? Now if you take into account Judaism and Islam, the problem dramatically increases. Now it is not just a problem of whether I believe in God or not, but do I believe in the existence of Jesus Christ or not. Within Pascal’s wager, this can become a serious problem because a wrong disbelieving answer can lead to damnation!
If the search for God and more importantly, the right God is expanded, then Pascal’s wager is even more problematic. At least with the Abrahamic faiths there is consensus about who God is, but if the search for God is expanded, there is now not a glimmer of similarity between deities and faith. Buddhism talks about a God and a number of lesser Gods. Their faith is well established and ancient. There are is a very strong morale base just like in Christianity. But now you are talking about a completely different God figure. Shintoism and Confuciusism both have similar traits of morale code as discussed by Pascal. So based on his premise that no harm will come if you believe and live the morale life even if there is not a God, hold true. But again, these religions are very different than anything Pascal was talking about.
So in conclusion, which God? There are about seven billion people on this planet now and uncounted billions that have come before. Are all those people going to hell because they did not believe in the right God or is it something more profound that Pascal almost stumbled upon? Maybe in the believing and morale acting you are saved rather than with an individual religion.
Joseph ni
Pascal's wager was ment to be a simple way to weigh your concious. It seems to say, if you want to live faithful, honest, humble, and all the moralities associated with that type of person, why not beleive in his religon or his god and gain a reward. Yet he promises the pleasures, glory, and luxury to those who chose other wise. By him stating "IF" god exits as an option leaves room to question did he have boubts about his god. The wager gives believers the possibility that god might not exist, so we've "wasted" piety? Thats not a frim way to convince people to believe.
Evan Redburrow said....
Pacals wager was meant for people in his generation were any man or women would come to understand his philosophy. Pascal thought it was one of his strong arugments. For him we have to understand his background and where he was living among war, curropt people. Pacals wager didn't intend for this a rolling the dice certainly was not to keep your faith because odds your fifty fifty. Also this pacals belief is your in for the truth of the word of god. Their is no half step into heaven, you have to be devoted unto the christian life in order to clean your soul and have ever lasting life. We are better people for beleiving in any religion, whether we see it or not.
The wager is to suggest rational reasoning to believing in God. The statement that the reward for believe out way the penalty for not believing, and believing at the risk of God not existing in the end is no bad effect at all.
Pascal’s theory has many upsides and a few down sides. The upside is I don’t take it as he was saying you have to go to church just live life as a good person and you might be rewarded with some grate form of afterlife. If you are not rewarded with this grate after life hey at least you lived life as a good person and tried to do your best by others right? The down side is there might have been a few choices you would have made differently if you would not have had an eternal punishment. Another down side is if you do just live your life like there is no God and it turns out that there is well you have a eternity to reflect on how you wish you could have changed your was.
Pascal Wager is a graph that shows what happens if you do not believe in god and somewhat of a consequence. If you believe in god you go to heaven, but if you do not you are going to hell. It also gives you the idea that If you do believe in god but he does not exist then you have nothing to lose because you would have lived a good life. If you do not believe in him and he does exist you go to hell or have lived your life a rotten way. He tried to convince people and show them that the right way was to believe in God . I believe this graph is strange. When it comes to talking about religion, there are so many answers and things that can not be explained. How can you be so sure god exist, how can you be so sure he does not. If I were to have seen this chart, I would not have felt convinced of it's purpose. People have many different beliefs and you can not put it into a chart and say, hey this is ow it goes. How does Pascal know it's true? is he god to know? I believe it is not a good chart at all.
The use of Pascal's wager points on strenths and weakness was good example. Yes if you believe in God and are afraid of what is or what may happen after death to you and your family, we would do whatever it is written or what God said. Their are some people out there who have been in acoma and have gone through the after life. But only do they know what is to expect, we can or do not have to listen to them. It's good to be afraid of something and to be a good person to yourself and to others.
my comment above-sorry
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