Response to Pascall's Wager

pyrokidd
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Response to Pascall's Wager

I'm sure anyone reading this is already familiar with this infamous bit of "logic", but just for a summary:

If athiests are right, then nothing happens, if not, we burn forever. so accept god, because who wants to risk it?

Setting aside the many things wrong with the preceding statement, including it's threatening nature, what about this.

Speaking from a perspective of realitivity, you life IS eternity if athiests are right. Yes, life goes on for others, but from your own perspective, the world has ceased to exist and remains so for eternity. So, if you're lucky' you have maybe 100 years, and thats a liberal estimate, to live. Not long for eternity.

That makes every second of your life something incredibly precious(which means I probably shouldn't be spending the time posting this, but it's for educational puposes, and what the hell, life aint perfect) and beleiving in any grander spirit that takes away that time, now THAT is sin.

So here's my wager:
If athists are wrong, we're all screwed. Most of your life is lost to god or you suffer forever. If we're right you have one chance to do it right. You need to live every second like it means something or your life is unfufilled, and remember, god wants a LOT of your time. And when you die, that's it, no re-dos, not even a gag reel. Only a short time to be as happy as possible.

Wanna risk it?


Digital_Babu
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Well the whole wager is

Well the whole wager is obsolete for having indefinite possilities, there is no risk in just mere logical possibility. I mean by not farting after I finish this comment I risk a boeing 747 to crash on my house is logically possible, and just to be sure I will fart after finishing this comment.

 

But that would be just for my own entertainment and perversity.

 

So your redefinition of the wager is of the same token as the original one, that is being obsolete and uninformative. Besides it is not given fact or reasonable to assume that if atheism is correct (which I assume) that we can infer beyond doubt that this is a one time ride which I should enjoy as much as possible.

 

Why should my life as an atheist be unfulfilled if I don't live it the way you describe? If you really belief that, you would imply that there is some universal criterium upon which an individual life can be valued, a thought that reeks of religious tendencies. 


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Pyrokidd, Pascal's Wager is

:: thought pyrokidd was arguing for god somehow ::

:: isn't allowed to post till he rests ::

~Voiderest

The logic works the same none the less it isn't going to be valid, however you could use it to show how pascal's wager isn't valued to a theist who is having trouble understanding you.


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If you read his post

If you read his post carefully he doesn't agree with Pascal's Wager - in fact he came up with a similar "wager" for atheism.

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Digital_Babu
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I do recognize that he

I do recognize that he proposes an atheist wager, but the wager is essentialy defect since it relies on an indefinite amount of possibilities unknown to man. So this defect will still be there with an atheist version.

 

It's like trying to redescribe the classical theist arguments in atheistic terms. While the difference between a theist and atheist is that the latters relies on rationality which those types of arguments are lacking.


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The way I see it he was

The way I see it he was showing how irrational it was - the same argument can be used to prove opposites.

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pyrokidd
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just to clear things up: I

just to clear things up:

I don't know if there was some confusion, but the arguement was stationed from an athiests view. Basically I'm sick of the whole "what if you're wrong" attack from religeons, so I proposed an alternative to show that logic has no solid value, and goes both ways.

And I don't have the right to set any standard for what constitutes a "fufilled" life, and don't care to. If you feel your life has been fufilled, then it has been. Instead of saying making every second count, I should have said making every decision count toward your happiness is important. If this life really is all we have, I think that at least is a standard that should probably be set in everyone's life. And if you find happiness in making others happy, so much the better.

"We are the star things harvesting the star energy"
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If you're sick of the "what

If you're sick of the "what if you're wrong" question, just apply this wonderful answer from Dawkins "What is YOU're wrong about the Juju at the bottom of the sea?"

For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof,
then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.


pyrokidd
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although it's fun.....in my

although it's fun.....in my experience using some kind of metaphor to sound ridiculous for the purpose of showing how ridiculous their idea is usually makes a dull whistle as it flies right over their head.(And that damn Juju scares the crap outta me)

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pyrokidd wrote: although

pyrokidd wrote:
although it's fun.....in my experience using some kind of metaphor to sound ridiculous for the purpose of showing how ridiculous their idea is usually makes a dull whistle as it flies right over their head.(And that damn Juju scares the crap outta me)

No matter. You could still use the accepted gods. Try Allah or Buddha for a change.

PS: Juju doesn't scare me. I'm more scared about the Loch Ness Monster. (end joke)

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deludedgod
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We dont need a

We dont need a counter-wager to prove that pascals wager was shit.

First of all, this argument merely leads one to feign belief in God. Even if one reasons that it is a better gamble, one cannot necessarily convince onself that God actually exists based on this wager. If God was indeed the violent, murderous, physcopath as described by the Holy Books, he would see through this feign and cast the gambling theist into hell.

Second of all, there are so many ridiculous human deities to choose from. Any of them can be slotted in place of God. Yahweh, Allah, Vishnu, etc. And he/she/it/they probably wont be too happy for people to wager the existence of another God. Check out the recent thread I started called A Question for theists.

Third of all, you can't make up a concept through armchair raciocintation (which is basically how we created him) and then insist that people wager he exist because then you make up another story that this deity you just created is vengeful and will send you to hell. 

 

 

"Physical reality” isn’t some arbitrary demarcation. It is defined in terms of what we can systematically investigate, directly or not, by means of our senses. It is preposterous to assert that the process of systematic scientific reasoning arbitrarily excludes “non-physical explanations” because the very notion of “non-physical explanation” is contradictory.

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riverrun
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God's wager: What if

God's wager: What if Pascal's wrong? I'm fucked.

Tongue out