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May 25, 2011 at 8:57 AM #699803May 25, 2011 at 9:22 AM #698635
afx114
Participant[quote=zippythepinhead]This is a very interesting article. Still, the Possibilians share the same problem as other permutations of athiests/agnostics: there is no future in it (at least not a good one). Why not spend your time studying reasons for faith in something with the promise of a payoff? Christianity, for example.[/quote]
Pascal’s Wager is a weak argument — essentially belief in God as a cost/benefit analysis. It states that belief costs nothing, yet the potential reward is infinite. There are a few problems with this argument:
* It presupposes that belief costs nothing. Considering what little time we have here in the real world, spending your limited hours worshiping/praying/churching is quite a big cost.
* What if you’re right that there is an afterlife but it turns out that you’ve spent your real life worshiping the wrong God and preparing for the wrong afterlife? What a bummer it would be if you spent your life as a Christian only to find out the Hindus had it right.
* Do you think that if God exists, he appreciates people believing in him simply to hedge their bets? This strikes me as quite an insincere way to worship God.
So with Pascal’s Wager, you are not gambling nothing against an infinite payoff, you are gambling a large chunk of your real life against a payoff which may not even exist.
May 25, 2011 at 9:22 AM #698728Participant[quote=zippythepinhead]This is a very interesting article. Still, the Possibilians share the same problem as other permutations of athiests/agnostics: there is no future in it (at least not a good one). Why not spend your time studying reasons for faith in something with the promise of a payoff? Christianity, for example.[/quote]
Pascal’s Wager is a weak argument — essentially belief in God as a cost/benefit analysis. It states that belief costs nothing, yet the potential reward is infinite. There are a few problems with this argument:
* It presupposes that belief costs nothing. Considering what little time we have here in the real world, spending your limited hours worshiping/praying/churching is quite a big cost.
* What if you’re right that there is an afterlife but it turns out that you’ve spent your real life worshiping the wrong God and preparing for the wrong afterlife? What a bummer it would be if you spent your life as a Christian only to find out the Hindus had it right.
* Do you think that if God exists, he appreciates people believing in him simply to hedge their bets? This strikes me as quite an insincere way to worship God.
So with Pascal’s Wager, you are not gambling nothing against an infinite payoff, you are gambling a large chunk of your real life against a payoff which may not even exist.
May 25, 2011 at 9:22 AM #699315Participant[quote=zippythepinhead]This is a very interesting article. Still, the Possibilians share the same problem as other permutations of athiests/agnostics: there is no future in it (at least not a good one). Why not spend your time studying reasons for faith in something with the promise of a payoff? Christianity, for example.[/quote]
Pascal’s Wager is a weak argument — essentially belief in God as a cost/benefit analysis. It states that belief costs nothing, yet the potential reward is infinite. There are a few problems with this argument:
* It presupposes that belief costs nothing. Considering what little time we have here in the real world, spending your limited hours worshiping/praying/churching is quite a big cost.
* What if you’re right that there is an afterlife but it turns out that you’ve spent your real life worshiping the wrong God and preparing for the wrong afterlife? What a bummer it would be if you spent your life as a Christian only to find out the Hindus had it right.
* Do you think that if God exists, he appreciates people believing in him simply to hedge their bets? This strikes me as quite an insincere way to worship God.
So with Pascal’s Wager, you are not gambling nothing against an infinite payoff, you are gambling a large chunk of your real life against a payoff which may not even exist.
May 25, 2011 at 9:22 AM #699463Participant[quote=zippythepinhead]This is a very interesting article. Still, the Possibilians share the same problem as other permutations of athiests/agnostics: there is no future in it (at least not a good one). Why not spend your time studying reasons for faith in something with the promise of a payoff? Christianity, for example.[/quote]
Pascal’s Wager is a weak argument — essentially belief in God as a cost/benefit analysis. It states that belief costs nothing, yet the potential reward is infinite. There are a few problems with this argument:
* It presupposes that belief costs nothing. Considering what little time we have here in the real world, spending your limited hours worshiping/praying/churching is quite a big cost.
* What if you’re right that there is an afterlife but it turns out that you’ve spent your real life worshiping the wrong God and preparing for the wrong afterlife? What a bummer it would be if you spent your life as a Christian only to find out the Hindus had it right.
* Do you think that if God exists, he appreciates people believing in him simply to hedge their bets? This strikes me as quite an insincere way to worship God.
So with Pascal’s Wager, you are not gambling nothing against an infinite payoff, you are gambling a large chunk of your real life against a payoff which may not even exist.
May 25, 2011 at 9:22 AM #699818Participant[quote=zippythepinhead]This is a very interesting article. Still, the Possibilians share the same problem as other permutations of athiests/agnostics: there is no future in it (at least not a good one). Why not spend your time studying reasons for faith in something with the promise of a payoff? Christianity, for example.[/quote]
Pascal’s Wager is a weak argument — essentially belief in God as a cost/benefit analysis. It states that belief costs nothing, yet the potential reward is infinite. There are a few problems with this argument:
* It presupposes that belief costs nothing. Considering what little time we have here in the real world, spending your limited hours worshiping/praying/churching is quite a big cost.
* What if you’re right that there is an afterlife but it turns out that you’ve spent your real life worshiping the wrong God and preparing for the wrong afterlife? What a bummer it would be if you spent your life as a Christian only to find out the Hindus had it right.
* Do you think that if God exists, he appreciates people believing in him simply to hedge their bets? This strikes me as quite an insincere way to worship God.
So with Pascal’s Wager, you are not gambling nothing against an infinite payoff, you are gambling a large chunk of your real life against a payoff which may not even exist.
May 25, 2011 at 12:33 PM #698675zippythepinhead
ParticipantPascals wager appeals to natural reason and not supernatural Faith; it is not an argument for the existence of God. It is just the beginning and one that Jesus himself appeals to. God will not be content with this but will use it.
The wager does cost something, but very little in my opinion. In 30 or 40 years most people reading this will be dead. In 30 or 40 billion years, we may have this to say “today is first day of the rest of my eternity”. Someone one said, “it is not a fool who gives up when he cannot keep in order to gain what he cannot lose”. Everything is relevant to the proposition that there is a God which is the starting point.
“The wager can be recast to appeal to a higher motive than fear of hell. One could wager as follow: If God exists, he deserves all my allegiance in Faith. And I don’t know whether he exists or not. Therefore, to avoid a terrible in- justice of refusing God his rights, I will believe. Thus, we simply substitute the higher motive of love of justice and fear of injustice for the love of heaven and the fear of hell, and everything in the wager remains unchanged”.
(Peter Kreeft)May 25, 2011 at 12:33 PM #698768ParticipantPascals wager appeals to natural reason and not supernatural Faith; it is not an argument for the existence of God. It is just the beginning and one that Jesus himself appeals to. God will not be content with this but will use it.
The wager does cost something, but very little in my opinion. In 30 or 40 years most people reading this will be dead. In 30 or 40 billion years, we may have this to say “today is first day of the rest of my eternity”. Someone one said, “it is not a fool who gives up when he cannot keep in order to gain what he cannot lose”. Everything is relevant to the proposition that there is a God which is the starting point.
“The wager can be recast to appeal to a higher motive than fear of hell. One could wager as follow: If God exists, he deserves all my allegiance in Faith. And I don’t know whether he exists or not. Therefore, to avoid a terrible in- justice of refusing God his rights, I will believe. Thus, we simply substitute the higher motive of love of justice and fear of injustice for the love of heaven and the fear of hell, and everything in the wager remains unchanged”.
(Peter Kreeft)May 25, 2011 at 12:33 PM #699355ParticipantPascals wager appeals to natural reason and not supernatural Faith; it is not an argument for the existence of God. It is just the beginning and one that Jesus himself appeals to. God will not be content with this but will use it.
The wager does cost something, but very little in my opinion. In 30 or 40 years most people reading this will be dead. In 30 or 40 billion years, we may have this to say “today is first day of the rest of my eternity”. Someone one said, “it is not a fool who gives up when he cannot keep in order to gain what he cannot lose”. Everything is relevant to the proposition that there is a God which is the starting point.
“The wager can be recast to appeal to a higher motive than fear of hell. One could wager as follow: If God exists, he deserves all my allegiance in Faith. And I don’t know whether he exists or not. Therefore, to avoid a terrible in- justice of refusing God his rights, I will believe. Thus, we simply substitute the higher motive of love of justice and fear of injustice for the love of heaven and the fear of hell, and everything in the wager remains unchanged”.
(Peter Kreeft)May 25, 2011 at 12:33 PM #699503ParticipantPascals wager appeals to natural reason and not supernatural Faith; it is not an argument for the existence of God. It is just the beginning and one that Jesus himself appeals to. God will not be content with this but will use it.
The wager does cost something, but very little in my opinion. In 30 or 40 years most people reading this will be dead. In 30 or 40 billion years, we may have this to say “today is first day of the rest of my eternity”. Someone one said, “it is not a fool who gives up when he cannot keep in order to gain what he cannot lose”. Everything is relevant to the proposition that there is a God which is the starting point.
“The wager can be recast to appeal to a higher motive than fear of hell. One could wager as follow: If God exists, he deserves all my allegiance in Faith. And I don’t know whether he exists or not. Therefore, to avoid a terrible in- justice of refusing God his rights, I will believe. Thus, we simply substitute the higher motive of love of justice and fear of injustice for the love of heaven and the fear of hell, and everything in the wager remains unchanged”.
(Peter Kreeft)May 25, 2011 at 12:33 PM #699857ParticipantPascals wager appeals to natural reason and not supernatural Faith; it is not an argument for the existence of God. It is just the beginning and one that Jesus himself appeals to. God will not be content with this but will use it.
The wager does cost something, but very little in my opinion. In 30 or 40 years most people reading this will be dead. In 30 or 40 billion years, we may have this to say “today is first day of the rest of my eternity”. Someone one said, “it is not a fool who gives up when he cannot keep in order to gain what he cannot lose”. Everything is relevant to the proposition that there is a God which is the starting point.
“The wager can be recast to appeal to a higher motive than fear of hell. One could wager as follow: If God exists, he deserves all my allegiance in Faith. And I don’t know whether he exists or not. Therefore, to avoid a terrible in- justice of refusing God his rights, I will believe. Thus, we simply substitute the higher motive of love of justice and fear of injustice for the love of heaven and the fear of hell, and everything in the wager remains unchanged”.
(Peter Kreeft)May 25, 2011 at 1:18 PM #698700scaredyclassic
ParticipantLame. The cost of that type of belief is very high–you become a cosmic weenie. I’d rather rot in hell.
May 25, 2011 at 1:18 PM #698793ParticipantLame. The cost of that type of belief is very high–you become a cosmic weenie. I’d rather rot in hell.
May 25, 2011 at 1:18 PM #699380ParticipantLame. The cost of that type of belief is very high–you become a cosmic weenie. I’d rather rot in hell.
May 25, 2011 at 1:18 PM #699528ParticipantLame. The cost of that type of belief is very high–you become a cosmic weenie. I’d rather rot in hell.
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