Pascal's wager justifies terrorism?

[smurfitup]

If I was raised in an Islamic country and taught to believe that if a God exists, he is one who wants all non-believers murdered, based on Pascal's wager, it would be in my best interest to pursue this course. I find that scary...

[FortunaMaximus]

You'd have to ask a learned imam and pin him down on his true motivations. I would be shocked if he hadn't heard of this wager, and assumes a private moral standard based on a variation.

But, yeah, I'd imagine it'd be scary stuff. They do good indoctrination with their zealots, FWIW.

[chezlaw]

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If I was raised in an Islamic country and taught to believe that if a God exists, he is one who wants all non-believers murdered, based on Pascal's wager, it would be in my best interest to pursue this course. I find that scary...

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Pascal's wagee is false so it can be used to justify anything. You give a good example of why its false as its no less reasonable to believe that refusing to murder all non-believers improves your chances of going to heaven.

chez

[Mickey Brausch]

If I assure you that you gotta give me 10 bucks, otherwise terrible things will be inflicted on you by my voodoo spell, Pascal's Wager dictates that you give me the money, as long as the amount is of no great significance to you.

Spivvy.

[BluffTHIS!]

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If I was raised in an Islamic country and taught to believe that if a God exists, he is one who wants all non-believers murdered, based on Pascal's wager, it would be in my best interest to pursue this course. I find that scary...

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Pascal's wagee is false so it can be used to justify anything. You give a good example of why its false as its no less reasonable to believe that refusing to murder all non-believers improves your chances of going to heaven.

chez

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Pascal's Wager is not false and can't be deemed so just because it might not be valid in all far-fetched scenarios, or could be applied to more than one mono-theistic religion.

[chezlaw]

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If I was raised in an Islamic country and taught to believe that if a God exists, he is one who wants all non-believers murdered, based on Pascal's wager, it would be in my best interest to pursue this course. I find that scary...

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Pascal's wagee is false so it can be used to justify anything. You give a good example of why its false as its no less reasonable to believe that refusing to murder all non-believers improves your chances of going to heaven.

chez

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Pascal's Wager is not false and can't be deemed so just because it might not be valid in all far-fetched scenarios, or could be applied to more than one mono-theistic religion.

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It is false, we've been through it many times so check past threads or wiki. Logically its a crock.

chez

[evank15]

"The main problem with the Wager is that belief for the sake of personal gain is not true belief. In order to reap the infinite rewards, you must not believe solely for the sake of those rewards, but for the sake of believing itself. Believing for personal gain is morally reprehensible, un-Christian and is deserving of eternal damnation."

From http://ek15.blogspot.com/2006/10/vol...als-wager.html

[chezlaw]

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"The main problem with the Wager is that belief for the sake of personal gain is not true belief. In order to reap the infinite rewards, you must not believe solely for the sake of those rewards, but for the sake of believing itself. Believing for personal gain is morally reprehensible, un-Christian and is deserving of eternal damnation."

From http://ek15.blogspot.com/2006/10/vol...als-wager.html

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The true belief issue can normally be dealt with and is not the fundemental flaw. Pascal's wager boils down to the idea that a decision with a finite cost in this life could gain infinite reward in the next life and hence is a good bet. The flaw is that the decision being made in the hope of infinite reward in the next life could also result in the loss of infinite reward in the next life.

So whatever decision you make the downside is loss of infinite reward. For the reason you give its not only not a good bet but probably a bad bet.

chez

[FortunaMaximus]

But not for otherworldly actuaries.

Of course there's a fundamental flaw inherent in the Wager. The flaw simply does not detract enough people from acting otherwise.

[BluffTHIS!]

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"The main problem with the Wager is that belief for the sake of personal gain is not true belief. In order to reap the infinite rewards, you must not believe solely for the sake of those rewards, but for the sake of believing itself. Believing for personal gain is morally reprehensible, un-Christian and is deserving of eternal damnation."

From http://ek15.blogspot.com/2006/10/vol...als-wager.html

[/ QUOTE ]
The true belief issue can normally be dealt with and is not the fundemental flaw. Pascal's wager boils down to the idea that a decision with a finite cost in this life could gain infinite reward in the next life and hence is a good bet. The flaw is that the decision being made in the hope of infinite reward in the next life could also result in the loss of infinite reward in the next life.

So whatever decision you make the downside is loss of infinite reward. For the reason you give its not only not a good bet but probably a bad bet.

chez

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chez,

In keeping with my earlier post about assumptions, your positing that the Wager is illogical/invalid is based on the following assumptions, which Pascal didn't make:

1) There is a chance Christianity is false;

2) If # 1 is true then another religion that might be true will also infinitely punish a believer of another religion.


Islam meets both those criteria, but again they weren't stated or implied by Pascal. He in fact started with an implicit assumption that they weren't so. Even in the case where #2 is true but it isn't known which religion is the true one, then that only implies a risk in making a wager with the wrong religion, and the risk from making none at all still dooms one.