Risk Analysis

[Dywyddyr]

Is there not one substantial truth, seeing there are so many
things which are not the truth itself?

Huh?
Is there not one definite unicorn, seeing as there are so many things which are not unicorns?

 

[Mind Over Matter]

The end of this discourse.--Now, what harm will befall you in taking this side? You will be faithful, humble, grateful, generous, a sincere friend, truthful. Certainly you will not have those poisonous pleasures, glory and luxury; but will you not have others? I will tell you that you will thereby gain in this life, and that, at each step you take on this road, you will see so great certainty of gain, so much nothingness in what you risk, that you will at last recognise that you have wagered for something certain and infinite, for which you have given nothing.

This is what the wager offers at the end of accepting the wager. It is not merely a wager, but a state of salvation that has grown out of the wager. One takes the plunge, and realizes the payoff. Nothing insincere about it. In fact, it would be more insincere not to take the plunge, since the reason for not taking the plunge makes no sense whatever ... because there is no payoff.

You cannot win if you do not wager. But you have to wager. You either wager there is a God, or you wager there is no God. What is the payoff for wagering there is no God?

Nothing! Or if anything ... HELL!

 

[Mind Over Matter]

You are speaking with the benefit of hindsight.

"anticipating" does not always mean foreknowledge!

And you seem to be alluding to Sartre's eventual renunciation of his existentialist philosophy and turning to Christianity.
(Supposedly Camus had made arrangements for a baptism too shortly before his death.)

That is news to me!

I agree that commitment is inevitable, but it is not clear to what or to what extent.

In the context of this thread to - or not to - belief in God.

This is an issue that is very much alive for me. It may sound proud, but I would gauge Pascal's stance to be one I was at until about two years ago.
I, too, thought "Well, just close your eyes and jump" - and at the time, it made sense, and I did it. But not for long. My "religious experiment" felt too much like a charade, it was a brute act of will, devoid of heart.

It sounds as if you had a negative attitude rather than being genuinely open-minded..

What Pascal says there simply strikes me as too simplistic.

Either we're committed to belief in God or we're not. Belief in God is strong or weak but it is still distinct from unbelief or disbelief.

 

[wynn]

MoM-

I'm not going to reply to your posts here until you reply to my post #100.

 

[keith1]

....What is the payoff for wagering there is no God?....

Only a child or a buffoon needs a candy treat to instill incentive to a task. Only Pavlov's dog need show a stimulation response.

Belief in God is strong or weak but it is still distinct from unbelief or disbelief.

The only one making that distinction is a god-believer. Delusion spreads it's own prejudice before it.

 

[Mind Over Matter]

My Dear Signal.

Pascal, thought 233 Our soul is cast into a body, where it finds
number, dimension. Thereupon it reasons, and calls this nature
necessity, and can believe nothing else.
None of this has been agreed upon with the atheist.

That "our souls are cast into a body" is something that is not universally accepted, yet it is necessary to go with Pascal's wager.

Atheists usually believe that we are our bodies, or at least that when the body dies, there is nothing more to us, to life.
So from this perspective, it is also meaningless to be concerned about what might happen to one after death.

So firstly, as far as the wager goes, it would need to be established that "our soul is cast into a body".

agree with you but Pascal preferred to attack atheism lock, stock and barrel rather than deal with details. He was probably right because his wager is that we have everything to lose - especially an afterlife - by not believing in God.

Unity joined to infinity adds nothing to it, no more than one foot to
an infinite measure. The finite is annihilated in the presence of the
infinite, and becomes a pure nothing.
That sounds like some atheists reversed.

Pascal wasn't infallible! The finite does not become a pure nothing.

We know that there is an infinite, and are ignorant of its nature.
This has not been established either.
As we know it to be false that numbers are finite, it is therefore true
that there is an infinity in number. But we do not know what it is. It
is false that it is even, it is false that it is odd; for the addition
of a unit can make no change in its nature. Yet it is a number, and
every number is odd or even (this is certainly true of every finite
number). So we may well know that there is a God without knowing what
He is. Is there not one substantial truth, seeing there are so many
things which are not the truth itself?

If one doesn't know what something is, what point is there in saying that it is and that one knows it is?

The point is that no reasonable person claims to know and understand God fully but that is a far cry from knowing nothing! The immense value of life shows that He is benevolent.

 

[Mind Over Matter]

My problem with PW is that it takes too much at once, too much in one step.
There is no real sense of graduality.

But it is a question of all or nothing. Pascal is making the point that there cannot be half measures: either we survive after death or we don't. The gambler's stakes cannot be higher: win or lose all!

In comparison, in some Eastern traditions, they would expect a person first to gradually come to a point of mundane goodness, for mundane happiness' sake (which is something people can generally understand and strive for), and only after they have stabilized themselves at that level, begin to endeavor toward higher spiritual topics.

Abrahamic religions, on the other hand, expect people to make an enormous commitment right at the beginning, a commitment they do not understand and do not really know how to act on it on a daily basis.

The distinction between loving and ignoring your neighbour is clear enough.

Abrahamic religions are like enrolling an infant into kindergarden, grade school, highschool and college all at once, before the child even began attending to kindergarden.
So from the beginning on, the child already feels the pressure of being successful at college - even if that is still far away in the future, and all the requirements for it yet need to be fulfilled.

If you can't see very far you don't know where you're heading. We have to hitch our wagon to a star!

Although this perspective in Abrahamic religions is understandable - they have no notion of (serial) reincarnation, and are strictly limited to this one lifetime. With such an outlook, it indeed seems all or nothing, now or never.
With such an outlook, it is also easy to come to the point of presuming certainty about God.

I agree but it's also easy to go to the other extreme and presume certainty about God's non-existence even though there are many factors to be taken into account. Only the fool oversimplifies the issue.

(There is a parallel to this in those Western Buddhists who do not believe in reincarnation - they believe they will attain nirvana in this lifetime for sure, and it seems this also leads them to believe they have already attained it, even with very little practice and sins and impurities still in full bloom.)

There is hardly any limit to what people will believe - which is to be expected when life is such a great mystery!

 

[Mind Over Matter]

MoM-

I'm not going to reply to your posts here until you reply to my post #100.

My Dear One.
Thanks very much for telling me! Sometimes it's hard to keep track if we're on several threads at the same time.

 

[wynn]

agree with you but Pascal preferred to attack atheism lock, stock and barrel rather than deal with details. He was probably right because his wager is that we have everything to lose - especially an afterlife - by not believing in God.

Then to Pascal, the distinction between loving and ignoring your neighbour was not clear enough.

 

[wynn]

But it is a question of all or nothing. Pascal is making the point that there cannot be half measures: either we survive after death or we don't. The gambler's stakes cannot be higher: win or lose all!

Only if God is evil.

 

[Mind Over Matter]

This also from the Pensees.

"It is impossible that our rational part should be other than spiritual; and if anyone maintain that we are simply corporeal, this would far more exclude us from the knowledge of things, there being nothing so inconceivable as to say that matter knows itself. It is impossible to imagine how it should know itself."

Pascal challenges the atheist to prove that his rationale part is material. I have yet to see any such proof, except that the brain is the seat of intellect.

How does an atheist explain how man can conceive the origin of the universe, the future fate of the universe, the possibility of God, the immortality of the soul, without there being some part of man that transcends mere matter ... that connects man not only to the vast universe, but to the possibility of Something far more vast than the universe?

If that is all illusion … why does the illusion not only exist, but persist in spite of every effort to crush it?

 

[Dywyddyr]

Pascal challenges the atheist to prove that his rationale part is material.

Did you actually read what you posted?
Because, to me, this:

"It is impossible that our rational part should be other than spiritual; and if anyone maintain that we are simply corporeal, this would far more exclude us from the knowledge of things, there being nothing so inconceivable as to say that matter knows itself. It is impossible to imagine how it should know itself."

doesn't so much "challenge atheists" as make an unsupported claim.

 

[iceaura]

It would suck to be a Baal worshipper conned into this bet - no win.

 

[Fraggle Rocker]

It is impossible that our rational part should be other than spiritual; and if anyone maintain that we are simply corporeal, this would far more exclude us from the knowledge of things, there being nothing so inconceivable as to say that matter knows itself. It is impossible to imagine how it should know itself.

What preposterous bullshit. You've just lowered my opinion of Pascal tremendously.

Pascal challenges the atheist to prove that his rationale part is material.

As opposed to what? "Spiritual" is a meaningless word since it refers to something imaginary.

How does an atheist explain how man can conceive the origin of the universe, the future fate of the universe . . . .

In case you slept through the last half millennium, we have invented telescopes, spectrometers and lots of other instruments that provide a wealth of evidence about the nature of the universe.

. . . . the possibility of God, the immortality of the soul . . . .

Belief in the supernatural is very likely an instinct. Either it was a survival advantage in some long ago era whose dangers we can't imagine, or it was just one more random mutation passed down through a genetic bottleneck.

. . . . without there being some part of man that transcends mere matter . . . .

I just don't understand your leap of logic there. You've encountered a phenomenon that you can't explain using what you've learned, so you just throw up your hands and say, "Oh well, I guess that proves that there is an invisible, illogical supernatural universe." Duh??? Why can't it mean that there are maybe just a few things in the natural, logical universe that we haven't figured out yet? We've only had science for about 500 years, and the instruments that have made cosmology a science are even newer than that.

... that connects man not only to the vast universe, but to the possibility of Something far more vast than the universe?

Your "reasoning," to put it charitably, is utterly unconvincing. It's the "Lazy Mind Syndrome" that underlies religion and all supernaturalism, "Oh shit, I can't figure this out. God must have done it then."

If that is all illusion … why does the illusion not only exist, but persist in spite of every effort to crush it?

Read Jung. Some people try to answer questions instead of saying God did it.

Many people cling to their childish faith in the supernatural because it makes them comfortable. After all, who wouldn't be a little happier if they could be sure that their parent, spouse, child or friend who just got run over by a dumptruck is still alive and having a wonderful time learning to fly and play the harp? I'd be a lot more charitable toward Christians if they didn't keep telling me that my beloved dogs are gone forever, but my hateful parents are kicking back on Cloud Nine.

 

[Mind Over Matter]

Then to Pascal, the distinction between loving and ignoring your neighbour was not clear enough.

I think rather than posing Pascal's Wager in terms of 'belief in a deity' it would be more persuasive if it was 'behaving and living as if there was a deity'.

As most religions are more concerned with how you live your life rather than what you believe (unless God is a Protestant!) so it would make more sense to be agnostic and act like there is a God rather than just having ingenuine belief in a God as some kind of hell insurance.

 

[iceaura]

"Spiritual" is a meaningless word since it refers to something imaginary.

That's like saying "musical" is a meaningless word.

Neither the theist or the atheist is justified in underestimating the natural world.

 

[wynn]

I think rather than posing Pascal's Wager in terms of 'belief in a deity' it would be more persuasive if it was 'behaving and living as if there was a deity'.

As most religions are more concerned with how you live your life rather than what you believe (unless God is a Protestant!) so it would make more sense to be agnostic and act like there is a God rather than just having ingenuine belief in a God as some kind of hell insurance.

Only if you believe that God is evil.

 

[Rav]

Originally Posted by Rav
Bible Jesus doesn't teach that it's OK to sit around and philosophize endlessly,

jesus did..

So you're saying that Jesus wasn't living and preaching the truth, merely engaging in philosophical debate for intellectual edification?

Of course, I'm reasonably positive that you don't think that, which means that you either accidentally or purposefully misunderstood my point.

 

[Fraggle Rocker]

That's like saying "musical" is a meaningless word.

Music is not imaginary. It's a combination of melody, harmony and rhythm, all of which are defined rather unremarkably by physics and mathematics. In fact one person described music succinctly as "the sound of mathematics."

Music isn't even dependent on the existence of humans. Many bird calls satisfy the definition.

 

[Mind Over Matter]

Many atheists argue that if Pascal's Wager is correct then God values blind belief in a deity without any real reason to do so besides avoiding going to hell

Pascal's argument is no different than the position every atheist finds himself in as he nears death. Has he blown it by refusing to acknowledge and engage with God? Jean Paul Sartre and Antony Flew, two of the most famous atheists of the 20th century, as death approached found themselves nearer to God than they ever had been before.

In peril of losing God forever, they began to engage with Him.

This is Pascal's approach to all atheists. Live as though you had eight hour left to live. The mind gets wonderfully focused on what really matters in that condition. Instead of thinking you can get along just fine without God, you begin to think just the opposite. If there is a God and He wants a relationship with me and I have refused His advances into my heart ... how ungrateful I have been ... and what reward can I expect for such arrogance?

Better to live as if there is a God, learn gradually that indeed He exists and loves me and is worthy of my love ... that way lies my own best interest ... which is also God's own interest ... that I be with Him rather than without Him.