Pascal’s wager intends to expose the reasons why any rational person must believe in the existence of God due to the indisputable consequences. Nonetheless, his concept is not only disputable but complete nonsense. Pascal believed the wager to be impossible to avoid because every person must make the decision to hold belief or disbelief in regards to whether that ultimate artisan of creation and eternity really exists.
I will now elaborate on what Pascal’s wager is at its least descriptive.
i) Those who hold belief in God obtain an infinite gain if God exists
ii) Those who hold disbelief obtain infinite loss if God exists
iii)Those who hold belief in God obtain only a finite loss if God does not exist
iv) Those who hold disbelief in God obtain only a finite gain if God does not exist
Pascal’s definition of finite gain or loss establishes that the gain or loss is only to be experienced of and for the individual for a brief moment. On the contrary, an infinite gain or loss is experienced for eternity for all of those who held belief or disbelief in a unity. There are two detrimental fallacies Pascal may have failed to defend.
It is impossible to determine whether there is a finite gain or loss if God does not exist
It is impossible to determine whether we can distinguish a gain or loss, or even what is finite or infinite, once we have discovered the empirical truth regarding God’s existence which seems to only be certain after our death. This leads to speculation of how we can determine what is finite or infinite in our non-existence.
It does not establish what happens to those of a different belief or disbelief
What if you hold belief in a God that does not exist and in obvious relation, disbelief in the God that does exist? Do you have a finite or infinite gain? How are you to determine whether you in fact gained or lost infinitely when you know if you were right or wrong about your faith only in death? Abrahamic monotheisms have diverged into such a wide range of divergin beliefs and inconsistencies that it seems to me impossible to me to hold belief in one true version when all you’re really doing is raising the stakes when your beliefs meet Pascal’s wager.
Okay, while everyone else is asleep I’ll grab the low hanging fruit. Not too many syllables in the reply though please, I have the syntactic comprehension of a fiddler crab.
is actually not true. If god’s gate policy was “Hi, believe in me…? You do…? Nice, go on through.” then sure, infinite gain. However, the entry policy, at least according to the resources on our plane of existence, are far from that easy. Basically, God, omniscient, could get absolutely everyone, from saint to psychokiller, on technicalities. On a good day, sure, “day-dreamed about killing your dad once, no biggie, enjoy.” But on a bad day, well, down you go sunshine. Okay, all God’s days are probably good. But from a mortal pov., preparing for the big day, in thought, word and deed, well, the believer’s screwed, he has no concrete idea what God constitutes as behavior suitable for infinite reward, nor can ever have one.
I suppose I could quibble, but I’ll let this one go.
Finite loss in that life is finite. Say I had an absolute belief in god, and an absolute belief in hell. The entirety of my life would be spent in terror of transgression, and absolute watchfulness of my thoughts and actions. But still, putting a value on this cannot help but be subjective, so technically yes, Impossible.
See 3. Substitute gain for loss and forget the rest.
I’d presume belief=other falls under 2. infinite loss. Heresy or apostacy being qualified as a big no-no in the religious paradigm.
This assumes God is an idiot, we are presented with this world – nature, and there is nothing to suggest there is any divinity here at all. A wise intelligent person would not judge someone upon that basis, so i’d expect a wiser god to be at least at that mark.
The God in the bible is an alien species.
He needs feminized and obedient species who worships him. Nothing too rebellious. He does not care if he doesn’t have any evidence, because your beliefs are irrelevant, only your obedience. “Believing in Him” is the sign of ultimate obedience. And also He thinks it’s funny not to provide evidence.
All the worlds religions are not different, but based on the Same God, Jehovah the Bloodthirsty, who undergoes minor cosmetic alterations and appearances. Allah, Zeus, Sun God Ra, Aztec Main God, Zardoz, Krishna, are all the same God in different costumes.
If 1 is incorrect and they are all different Gods, Pascals wager still applies. Because taking a 1/3 chance is still better than taking no chance at all.
As Tab pointed out, that is not a part of the scenario. There is typically an offer, but not a guarantee. So a “possibility of infinite reward”.
Again, the “possibility of infinite suffering”.
By “if God does not exist”, it is meant “if there is no afterlife involving the lack of suffering”, then the only reward in the belief would be finite due to a finite existence.
Again, assuming that it is the afterlife that is being discussed, not merely the existence of “a God”.
Pascal’s Wager wasn’t infinitely defined. It has to be surmised that he was referring to an afterlife condition of either existing as permanent serenity or as permanent suffering as a consequence of God - Heaven or Hell.
So I would say that you are disproving somewhat of a strawman.
Pascal’s wager is an example of some of the stupidest nonsense to ever come out of philosophy. Right there alongside the ontological arguments, justified true belief, logical positivism and the whole “freedom vs determinism” thing.