Pascal's wager justifies terrorism?

[FortunaMaximus]

[ QUOTE ]
I don't understand what you're saying? Free will doesn't require freedom from your own mind. As it relates to Pascal's wager the idea is that god, if he exists, will be judging you by direct reference to your beliefs - it's not a tribunal.

[/ QUOTE ]

If one can say that he believes and carries himself so, but truly does not believe in his existence as the entity he is purported to be. Do any of the valuations of the wager change? For the merits of the invidiual would seem to be in how he carries himself, and not his expression of his beliefs.

Irrelevant line of inquiry, perhaps.

[guesswest]

In the case of the Christian god, I don't think it would, because scripture tells us he's a hearts and minds kind of guy.

It possibly could as applied to some other imagined god or supernatural entity with different criteria, but it'd still fall down on the two-sides of infinity criticism chez mentioned.

Btw, I'm shocked to realise I'd never actually read Pascal's wager before this thread. I just assumed I knew it from seeing it referenced so many times in philosophical literature and figuring out its content from context (slightly incorrectly, it turns out).

[David Sklansky]

"I agree that this fallacy shows up as applied to a Christian god. But I disagree that this is a more significant problem than the issue of true belief - that's the dealbreaker with Pascal's wager because it applies in all possible worlds."

Just in time to fend off a resurging Lestat (and a chezlaw who has just recently broken into the top ten)

[FortunaMaximus]

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In the case of the Christian god, I don't think it would, because scripture tells us he's a hearts and minds kind of guy.

[/ QUOTE ]

Makes sense. A shame most Christians aren't as yielding on this point. I'm not sure a differing set of criteria matters more in the general gist of the wager as is either. Just wondered about some of the subtler distinctions of conscious belief and conscious character values.

[BluffTHIS!]

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If you announce that you believe in god because believing in god would be a +EV proposition - it just doesn't make it so, you don't actually 'believe' in any sense of the word. It's no different from announcing that you're a missionary when you're in fact a crack dealer.

[/ QUOTE ]


You aren't announcing that you believe when you accept the wager. You are announcing that you for a time are acting "as if" you did believe, and will practice and study religion so as to lead to belief. This is what the "assuming" part of David's OP and of Pascal's Wager itself really means.

[Mickey Brausch]

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You aren't announcing that you believe when you accept [Pascal's] wager. You are announcing that you for a time are acting "as if" you did believe, and will practice and study religion so as to lead to belief. This is what the "assuming" part of David's OP and of Pascal's Wager itself really means.

[/ QUOTE ]I'm not assuming to understand what David has in mind but I can tell you right now that it's a contradiction in terms when one is trying to "fool" the Christian God, in His omniscience and omnipotence. Acting as if you are pious and humble and a believer, and in the meantime, having murder in your heart doesn't cut it with the Lord. Saying a thousand Hail Mary's is hypocritical, if you don't believe in what you're doing. Christian faith is not Pilates.

Studying in order to learn and, possibly, turn around & believe is another matter. I agree that Pascal's Wager, in that respect, is valid. (It's like realizing that a casino game has possibly a potential for profit and merits further study.) But where the Wager falls flat is in its inevitable application to everything -- from the Christian God to aluminium siding. It's the ultimate risk-averse policy.

Mickey Brausch

[chezlaw]

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Studying in order to learn and, possibly, turn around & believe is another matter. I agree that Pascal's Wager, in that respect, is valid. (It's like realizing that a casino game has possibly a potential for profit and merits further study.) But where the Wager falls flat is in its inevitable application to everything -- from the Christian God to aluminium siding. It's the ultimate risk-averse policy.

[/ QUOTE ]
Its not risk averse at all. Pascal's wager means becoming a practising christian and that is a high risk proposition for an athiest if god exists. (if god doesn't exist then its low risk bet either way).

Its only apparantly risk averse to people who haven't understood it. A bit like taking an insurance policy that cannot be claimed on isn't being risk averse.

chez

[Mickey Brausch]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Pascal's Wager, in that respect, is valid. It's the ultimate risk-averse policy.

[/ QUOTE ]
It's not risk averse at all. Pascal's wager means becoming a practising christian and that is a high risk proposition for an athiest if god exists. (if god doesn't exist then its low risk bet either way).

[/ QUOTE ]I think you're doing this kinda thing on purpose. Some sort of British humor which goes completely over my head.

Mickey Brausch

[chezlaw]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Pascal's Wager, in that respect, is valid. It's the ultimate risk-averse policy.

[/ QUOTE ]
It's not risk averse at all. Pascal's wager means becoming a practising christian and that is a high risk proposition for an athiest if god exists. (if god doesn't exist then its low risk bet either way).

[/ QUOTE ]I think you're doing this kinda thing on purpose. Some sort of British humor which goes completely over my head.

Mickey Brausch

[/ QUOTE ]
Not humour this time. Its not risk-averse because if god exists and is the sort that rewards some with infinite gain and others with damnation then his at least as likely to reward the atheists for not spurning rationality to take a bad bet.

chez

[madnak]

There's no such thing as a free lunch.

Pascal's reasoning is wrong, plain and simple. If you make the effort to remove your normative interpretations (and all normative statements from the argument itself), this will become clear. And that fallacy of the argument runs rather deep. But the most apparent problem is that while Pascal is framing the argument from a normatively neutral position, the argument itself depends on his normative assumptions. Pascal is assuming that if God exists, certain courses of action are more likely to please him than other courses of action. Not only is that a normative assumption, it also casts God into a specific form and makes direct claims about his nature.

Which, given the fact the argument is aimed at atheists, is inexcusable. Pascal is trying to tug at the wisps of normative morality that exist in the atheists, and hoodwink them into seeking belief. And while, contrary to David's assumptions, many great mathematicians have had absolutely idiotic beliefs, I don't think this is a genuine error on Pascal's part. It's consistent with what we know of Pascal's personality that he might deliberately frame an argument deceptively, if he believed that would bring some people around to Christianity.

And it has, so from that standpoint the argument is a big success.