The argument rests upon mere logic. It is a new form of Pascal’s wager. It runs as follows:
The likelihood that hell (by hell I mean eternal sufferings) is real is extremely low, because it is presumably a fiction which has nothing to do with God or the devil, but originated in the mind of a wicked guy.
BUT, such a likelihood is not infinitely low.
But, eternal sufferings never end up. It can be said that it lasts an INFINITE time.
But, the less likely an event is, the more important the event has to be for its likelihood to be reasonable. Take, for instance, lottery. A likelihood NOT infinitely low of some event is at any time reasonable if this event involves some infinite aspect. Hell is such an event (infinite time of sufferings).
Therefore, belief in hell appears to be required.
You could object: but more than one religion has a hell, and one cannot be a follower of all these!
In that case, you should choose the most reasonable religion, that one which is the most likely to be true.
I am setting forth this reasoning to you, but I am not convinced by it, and I hope it has some flaw, because I dislike the conclusion where it leads.
Circularity (begging the question). “Reasonable†could be construed as “likely to be trueâ€â€”when we say “It is reasonable to say such and suchâ€, we really do mean it is reasonable to say because it is likely to be the truth. Reasonableness is tied to “likely to be trueâ€. So, this part of the argument [you should choose the most reasonable religion, that one which is the most likely to be true.] is still unsettled and problematic until the circularity is remedied.
My problem with the concept of “hell†is no one gets to report back its truth (or falsity). Lottery, at least, is empirical, and can be verified temporally, with a reference to the winner to boot. Any propositions about hell or eternal sufferings take the form of “anytime/anywhereâ€. So, there is no way to prove its falsehood, nor its truth—since its truth rides on the very fact that one gets to avoid eternal sufferings, but only when the person dies.
The “extremely low/infinitely lasting†connection: Believe it or not, even diseases with extremely low occurrence, but with fatal or seriously debilitating consequences are not given that kind of priority or importance such that everyone is “required†to do something. In fact, most do not do anything at all to prepare for it. And that’s reasonable, statistically, empirically. Somehow, I wonder why this argument of “eternal suffering†rests itself on probability----which must necessarily involve empirical knowledge of some sort—to be convincing.
The real breaker is that God could punish eternally all the theist just as likely or perhapse even more likely than those that aren’t of sect X of religion Y.
Wait why do you think that saveing the atheist makes any more sense than saveing the catholics, or the mormons, or the thirteen memebers of some Japanesse cult?
Besides, God if he exist, seems to me to be acting in such a manner as to encourage Atheism.
I mean haveing a chat with one dude on a mountain, sending a son, and then just hopeing word sort of gets around (without even provideing his messangers clear arguemtns) seems like a rather odd if not childish way to do it for a supream being unless his goal was for a lot of people not to know whats up.
Pascal’s Wager is a very weak argument for believing in god. He makes his argument on complete assumptions such as if god does exist then automatically heaven and hell exist. He gives no reason as to why they exist automatically, he just makes the assumption that they do.
Furthermore, Pascal also assumes that believing in god alone is enough to get into heaven. This is another assumption. For all we know god might only allow christians in heaven, muslims, etc. (though I doubt this is the case, if a god does indeed exist)
I never saw why people even consider Pascal’s wager as noteworthy…
But in my version, it is the very existence of hell that is concerned, as well as the truth of all religions which threaten with hell all non-believers.
It’s funny, but as I learned in Judaism, and as many Rabbi’s say, there is no Hell. It’s actualy a christian idea, so as far as: “[…] as well as the truth of all religions which threaten with hell all non-believers,” is not true. Not all religions threaten non-believers with Hell. There is, according to Judaism, a one year period of “spiritual cleansing” which is described in spirtual hell, type terms (interputed differently by different Rabbis; one example, is of an individual watching his/her life, and then, watching his/her life as it could have been; I shudder at the thought). But I’m an atheist anyway, so to move on, let’s examine your argument.
First, it does not logically follow that, because an event is less likely to occur it is more important; we are the ones to assign importance to any event in every case - and unlikeliness does not nessistate importance. Second, the lottery does not have an infinite aspect to it; furthermore, it does not follow that if hell is an infinite duration it is more likely to exist. You have assigned the concept of Hell with infinite time (as a property of hell) which in no way had any effect on the original concept in the first place. Lastly, given how long something lasts does not make it any more or less likely to exist.
As always the operative word is “believe”. As some wise poster already stated Nobody has come from “beyond” to give us empirical proof.
With the advances in nanotechnlogy, it is getting easier all the time to explain away many of the old time “manifestations”
So botton line is IF you want to believe, if for some internal reason you NEEd to belive in Hell, go for it. Personally I belive that both Heaven and Earth are righ here on our planet.
J
Then we’re back to the question of plurality of religion----which one should one follow? Each one claims to be the one likely to be true.
Er… …no. We’re still within the “problems with the argument”. So, can’t capsize Pascal’s boat just yet----just trying to cause a little leak, which, of course, anyone could quickly plug with the magical “infinity”.
Well, like I said, there is an empirical evidence that winning in lottery is true—yet many people use the rationale of extremely low occurence as a reason to not participate. One’s chance of encountering hell is remotely possible. The question is, how to convince people to believe in hell, even with extremely low occurence. And you’re answer is, Because if it is true, the suffering is eternal. But how did we make the jump from the probability that it is going to happen—to if it happens, one will suffer forever. How did we jump from “it is” to “if it is”?
Apologize for not being clear. Most of the so-called visions of hell, possesions by devils and other manifestations of the kind, can be explained now. Before the new techonology, explanations of hysteria, hallucinations or powerful self-hypnotic states were usually given. Now scientists are finding that by stimulating certain parts of the brain, possesive states and visions can be replicated. So as of know I will delay my belief in devils or hell.
JOSE
Pascal's wager isn't an argument to convince the atheist. It is a brief statement about why belief in God is 'preferable' on some level, and it's directed towards the person without belief who views that lacking as an affliction- in other words, people who want to believe, because they see that they ought to, or they are envious of something they see in believers.
The point of the wager is to illustrate one of the ways the faithless sort is he addressing can see the merit in Christianity without yet believing it's tenets. I don't see it as an aggressive argument, but a sympathetic argument- he's justifying some of the feelings of lacking in the faithless folks he's talking about. What is far more interesting is the methods he describes for the faithless person to cultivate faith in himself.
Well, it's not deductively sound, it's only effective as an inductive argument. Suppose I tell you to give me 5 dollars, or else I will use my mind powers to crash a plane into your house and kill your family. If you were rich enough, then theorectically there comes a point where parting with the 5 bucks is a safer bet than risking your house- the chance that I have mind powers is very small, but on the other hand, it's only five bucks.
For Pascal's argument to work, you have to factor in other things that formal logic doesn't allow you to refer to- for example, the fact that there are hundreds of millions of people who believe in Hell, including some of the greatest minds in history, whereas only one person (at the most!) believes in my mind powers. This is a pure appeal to authority. However, Pascal's wager does count as a [i]good reason[/i] for the fence-sitter to give Christianity another shot.
…no. We’re still within the “problems with the argument”. So, can’t capsize Pascal’s boat just yet----just trying to cause a little leak, which, of course, anyone could quickly plug with the magical “infinity”.