Nanotechnology was just an example…You can look it up in andy science book.
My point is…as I already stated as there is no empirical evidence and nobody has come from either plane (Heaven or Hell) only people who NEED to believe in a higher power for their own personal idiosincracies or internal psychological needs - to avoid taking personal RESPONSIBILIty for their own lives - no matter whant anybody says will believe what the Need to.
Yeah. The force of Pascal’s argument hinges on the psychological. As Uccisore pointed out----it uses reasoning that formal logic wouldn’t allow.
This quality isn't exclusive to the religious. Plenty of unbelievers abandon religion to avoid taking responsibility, or to satisfy some psychological need. Forming beliefs as psychological crutches is a part of the human condition, and you can find adherents to [i]every[/i] creed doing it.
In other words, the NEED to deny the existence of Hell can be just as strong, wouldn’t you say?
Once we acknowledge that people on both sides of the theism fence can have beliefs for the wrong reasons, Pascal’s tool for belief can be seen as a much more honest, even necessary thing.
The Underground Man: I have not forgotten you.
I do not make such a claim. I don’t know whether there is some sublety in English grammar that I did not grasp, but I said: “all religions which” instead of “all religions, which”.
Perhaps I should have said “every” instead of “all”.
I don’t make such a claim, and it is not at all involved in my argument. My argument rests only on the principle that hell is important.
Sure, but I was just intended to illustrate the rationale of the argument. It seems reasonable to bet if the reward is very high, even if the odds of success are very low. There are at least some people who are sensitive to this rationale.
Sure, but it is not at all the point. We ought to believe in hell, not because my argument makes it likely to exist, but because the horrific and in some respect infinite consequences of disbelief outweigh the odds that hell does not exist.
We have to make a rational and objective assessment of religions threatening us with eternal suffering to see which of them is the most likely to be true.
Empirical evidence is not involved in the rationale of the argument. It appears to be an a priori argument. However, I ask you not to dismiss it a priori just by saying that an argument has to rest ncessarily upon experience.
Perhaps they follow another way of reasoning than* Pascal’s. Or perhaps they just believe that the prize does not outweigh the odds of losing. In the former case, my argument will fail for them. In the latter case, my argument still holds.
Hell is presumably false, but the odds are not high enough (and can’t be) to outweigh its horrific consequences if it happens to be true.
- Is it the conjunction “than” that is used with “another”? [/i]
By the way, I find the argument despicable, but not because it is a gross fallacy. Because it asks us to subscribe to something very unlikely just to avoid very unpleasant consequences.
my personal preference is to avoid gambling, especially with my afterlife.
think about it this way, there’s 1000’s of religions and only one of them is right, you purchase your afterlife ticket from christian sect A, but christian sect ZA was the right one to choose. Too bad you wasted your life believing in the wrong version of god!
I take that back, I’d have better chances of winning the lottery than picking a church that could grant an afterlife.
Well, Samkhya. Let me try another counter arguement to help you out of this position.
A Hell after life is one of many logically possible extreem horrors. It is also possible that makeing a deep sigh will be some butterfly effect cause massive weather phenomina like hurricanes. It’s possible that high fructose corn syurp actually kills the soul while leaveing body and mind in tact. It’s possible that if you don’t tip a certian waiter exactly 15% he will go nuts and eventually become a world tyrant that starts a chain of tyrants that last forever and ever.
Is it really possible that one should be forced to hold one’s breath, refrian from certian random foods (or just eating in general), and work out one’s tip to the penny?
It seems I could make a similar ‘it might do something really really really horrible’ argument to reccomend or disreccomend any action or beleif.
I think you have to add a minimum evidence threshold to your lottery schema in order for it to be of any use to keep me or others from makeing any old hypothetical story and beleiveing based on it.
Your answer is interesting and helpful, but the founders of “hell religions” claim to have received inspiration from God, and they are not there for us to test them.
You know, every idea has an unconscious origin. An accurate introspection shows that ideas just pop up into our minds. The self is not the real cause of ideas, it is rather a kind of witness of what brain activity produces.
So, there seems to be no way for us to ascertain whether a given idea was caused by God or just by the brain.
Hmm, that’s a good point. Of course I could just claim divine inspiration for one of those examples, then you could claim I did that just for the sake of argument, then I could try to find alterior motives for the religion orginisers, but all and all this line seems pretty unprofitable. Let’s avoid it.
What may be more interesting are the ‘real cases.’ For example, (not to use Hitler but) Hitler was around in WWI fighting. I imagen that at some point some German soider, perhapse even a German Jewish soilder probably did some farily common war action and saved his life. Maybe even a non-violent one like medical attention.
In this case, by saveing someone’s life he is causeing a horror, likely for himself. He may even of had some evidence (Hilter was a bit of a nutter all along), but he had better evidence to the contrary.
I find this similar to the religion case. I have some evidence that I will go to hell if I don’t accept one form or another of Christianity. The claims of the relgions founders. Anicdotal evidence reported to me about visits from beyond the grave. Even a certian amount of personal experiance from an earlier time in my life. However, I have clear evidence of probably harm if I become Christian. Cheifly, subsribeing to faith based thinking will hurt me as a critical thinker. For this claim I have the testomony of a respected expert. Lot’s of personal experiance, and even more anicdotal evidence.
So for me:
“Hell” x .00000001 < “Faith based thinking” x .85
And if I don’t accept the most part of the religion but only the indivisual claim of hell, that to me seems as arbitrary a soul killing soda.
This is exactly my point against the argument. The argument uses “eternal suffering” as a reason to believe in hell—a reason which exploits our ability to experience pain, physical pain. Yet, it [the argument] purports to derive its force solely from non-empirical evidence, which I think is confused. Eternal suffering clearly implies “experience”, hence a posteriori (or empirical).
An analogy using the lottery, as I have objected before, is not sound because it is an empirical example—we get to see the result. Hell or eternal suffering can never be verified like a lottery.
And again, I ask you, how do we make an argument with no gaps in the middle? How do we make the jump from extremely low occurence—>if it is happens, then suffering is eternal. It is purely psychological if ever people buy into it. The argument mixes up psychological factor with logic.
Sorry for the misunderstanding Sâmkhya, it seems to have been more my fault than yours. Now, I understand your argument a little better, and shall attempt to respond to it.
Sâmkhya wrote:
First of all, I don’t see how your argument is really any different from Pascal’s wager (in my current understanding of it), all you seem to be doing is excluding the reward of Heaven from Pascal’s argument—maintaining that the small possibility of hell is reason enough to believe. Now, I have an argument against this line of reasoning, though, it is not one that would logically refute your argument; however, it is one which seems to me to be, a more preferable, and a more honest, position to take. The argument, however, is a little convoluted and I apologize in advance for making it such.
To reject the concept of god—which according to many religions, in so doing will damn one’s soul to hell—on grounds of improbability, and humanistic conceptions of ethics (which must entail a revolt against the teleological suspension of the ethical), will in my arrogant opinion (arrogant, for here, I think, the human is capable of challenging God), be justifiable, if the god which the human makes such an appeal to, is in coherence with a humane conception of justice—(here is where it is absolutely necessary that we reject the teleological suspension of the ethical, for we are assuming that God’s sense of justice is in conformity to that of human ideals – and, I think, we are justified in doing so, for such would be the only way to ever know if God were good or bad). Plato’s Euthyphro dialogue is here serving as the foundation for the argument.
To elaborate, I argue, that I cannot conceive of a just god, damning one to eternal Hell, because the subject rejected him on ethical and critical grounds. Now here one must ask a very serious question concerning God: if God were truly just, would he want humans to do right, because he so decreed, or because they felt an obligation to do the right?—whether or not he decreed it? The way we awnser this question will determine whether or not it is ethically justifiable for God to demand our belief in him. To explore the question I’ll demonstrate with an analogy of how we raise our children: would we want a child to do something because the child understands such is the right thing to do, or would we want him to do good not because it is right, but simply because we said so? I think, we would want the child to be compelled to do the good, because it is good, and not because we had so decreed; similarly, I think, a just and wise God, would want the same thing (here again I am aware of the presumption I am making, however, I reiterate, that the deity must be judged by our own ideals, or else one can never make a true distinction between a just and unjust deity).
Now, with this in mind, we ask: why would a just God damn one to eternal Hell, if the subject rejected him out of his compulsion for what he conceived of as just and good?
Furthermore, with such insufficient evidence with regard to the truth of God’s decrees, and all of the dissenting opinions about God’s laws among our contemporary religions, how is one ever to reconcile what is God’s word? Do we eat pork or don’t we? Do we have a Sabbath on Saturday, or Sunday?—Do we not have a Sabbath at all? With such ambiguity, are we not able to tell God, when he judges us, that we did not have sufficient evidence for his will? And would a just God hold us responsible and punish us, eternally mind you, for a secular ethics, in the face of all this religious ambiguity? I would maintain that if such a God did punish us, I would prefer to suffer eternally in hell than serve such an unjust deity. I would always choose truth, over suffering and pain. My argument is reminiscent of the line from Paradise Lost: “Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heavenâ€; but here, I am only saying it is better to be in Hell, if the God which we serve is an unjust deity—but, if the God is just, my argument is, that such a God cannot damn us to eternal Hell. In a sense, it is a Pascalian way out of the belief of God.
Your comments?
Of course, there is a part of experience (suffering), otherwise it would not make sense. However, it does not lie at the core of the argument.
By the way, I have heard of someone who did not feel any pain. His body was made this way. It was hypothetized that there was an overproduction of painkiller substances in his body. How do you want to explain hell to him?
If there were the first time lottery was organized, there would be all the same people to bet, even if there is no warranty to see the winner (and it must have happened).
I think I don’t understand you. There is a hypothetical proposition: IF some hell religion was right, then eternal sufferings), and there is a factual proposition, related to reality: the odds that some hell religion is true are very low.
I don’t see why there should be between them the link you are talking about. They are premises.
Following only one’s reason and avoiding blind faith are not worth eternal suffering. In other words, suffering forever is too high a price for being rational during a short life…
It is easy to make a statement like yours when you are sitting quietly in front of your computer, without experiencing any particular pain. But when you suffer horrific pain, think of it: being in such a state (or in a worse one) forever. So, I think you don’t fully realize the threat.
I have to acknowledge that I am not ready to subscribe to any hell religion. So, perhaps we don’t disagree.
Belief in hell is not reasonable, we agree, but what if God were not reasonable according to our standards?
Many here that are more versed in Christian and Jewish mythology will tell you that the idea of Hell as a place of eternal torment doesn’t have a biblical basis. It’s Christian propaganda, much as Dante’s Inferno was, designed to terrorize the masses into accepting the authority of the RCC. I believe (again, though I’m no expert) than a more thorough reading of the J/C Bible paints Hell as separation from God, not endless agony.
Perhaps Bob, or Uccisore could chime in with some details.
Edited for piss poor grammar. 
Sâmkhya wrote:
I’m really not here to disagree with you. What I want, is to explore, if the remote possibility of Hell is a justifiable idea to a) believe in god, or religion, b) how good is the argument for such a notion; should one even entertain the idea, and c) are there more favorable positions we can take.
Sâmkhya wrote:
Then, in accord with our standards it would be absurd to worship and serve such a deity. Any deity which cannot conform to the highest conception of justice, that a human being can conceive of, is not worthy of being called “the highest good” and “benevolent.” So, in essence, if God turns out to be Zeus; make me Sisyphus!
Now, you say that I do not fully realize the threat, while I maintain that I would choose Hell in order to keep with my ideals and principles. Let’s examine this threat for a moment. Am I threatened with eternal physical pain?—surly that is quite an absurd and childish paradigm of Hell; laughable even, to conceive that such is the “real” reality of eternal damnation (please note: this is not directed at you, but the idea itself). If one thinks about it, such eternal pain would very quickly defeat its purpose; consider the human Yogis who can overcome what seems to be incredible pain, by the way of the mind; furthermore, after a while, one can even get used to the pain—I say this without jest. Ah, but spiritual pain is quite another story, right!? Yet, can an unjust God send an individual into a spiritual Hell? The answer, I think, is that even God, cannot accomplish this feat, with the condition of him being unjust, for, what would be spiritual Hell anyway?—It is to be at odds with oneself. And to stand up for reason (the ancient conception of reason meaning: mind and heart) will not put one at odds with oneself, it will only put one at odds with God, and if such be the case, tis too bad for the both.
Sâmkhya wrote:
To give up our ideals durring the only life which we are certain of living, is too high a price to pay for a possiblitiy, which reason dictates can never occur. With the argument I have given, I believe, I have left no room for a just deity to condemn an ethical being to Hell. And faced with the possiblity of eternal damnation from an unjust deity, my principles guide me to take the easier road, the road that shall give me an easy conscience, the road to Hell. If such is the choice, then sitting comfortable infront of my computer, right here and right now, as God as my witness and this post as the evidence, this is the choice that I make.
Phaedrus wrote:
That by the way my man, is right on the money. As far as Judaic Orthodox interpetations go, it is precicly what you stated: a seperation from god. And in my mind, we are in Hell right now.
Sâmkhya,
No. It’s me who doesn’t get how the argument can be convincing, nor sound. Let’s do analytics: You say “there is a factual proposition”. When we say factual, it means it is verifiable via the state of affairs, or how the world is. So, show me where Hell is. Facts must have reference in the space-time world—meaning at what point in time, at what space in the actual world.
So, let’s go ahead and say “there really is hell but the chance of it happening is extremely low”. Then, your next proposition is "Because suffering is eternal if it happens, then we must believe in it (even though it is extremely low). How did we arrive to a decision that we must be required to believe in hell–from a factual claim, to an if-then scenario?
Yes it does. This is the only thing that the argument has—its appeal to our sense of pain and suffering. That is the second statement you mentioned. It has a lot to do with us imagining this pain and suffering and what’s it like in hell. Like I said, it is a psychological argument, nothing else. The argument induces fear so we agree to it.
Ok, let us try to explain why there is a factual claim.
It rests upon the impossibility of disproving the possibility of hell as something real, because:
- It is not self-contradictory
- The founders of hell religions are gone away, so that we cannot test them.
- Every idea has an unconscious origin. It just pops up into our minds, and all the cousciousness is to witness the appearance of ideas. Therefore, one can never say for sure where an idea is from, since it is not from consciousness. Is it from the brain (presumably) or from God, the devil or some powerful spirit? Thus with the idea of hell, appeared in the mind of prophets.
In other words, no fact can rule out the possibility of hell, and it is all that matters in the reasoning.
It is as if I alleged that there were another universe next to ours, one which cannot be observed, neither directly nor indirectly. You could not bring any evidence that my statement is false.
To sum up, Pascal’s wager requires only that hell be a possibility, and it is, for no fact can rule it out.
Reason tells us it is possible, but at this point, Pascal asks us to believe in it, to avoid unpleasant consequences of skepticism.
Besides, to say that if hell is real, eternal sufferings are real, is an analytic statement, because eternal sufferings are what I (and Pascal) mean by hell.
Therefore, the factual claim above rests upon the impossibility of dismissing by facts the threat of eternal sufferings IF one does not act and think what hell religions order us.
Is there anyone else who thinks like Arendt? I did not expect this kind of objection.
Hmm, if hell = eternall suffering than Buddhism is a hell religion. (Because liveing is suffering, and those who do not acheive enlightenment live forever.) Certian sects of Buddhism say that everything is illusion. Any God is part of everything, therefore under certian sects God is an illusion, and therefor atheism is true. Furthure, this is a truth that must be reached to get enlightenment. So, it’s possible that all theist go to hell (live forever).
Oooh, I think I stayed within your own framwork and got cha. Do I get a cigar??? 
I have read that Muhammad said that Christians and Jews who hear Muhammad’s message and don’t believe in him will go to hell after death. 