It Wouldn't Take Much

[chezlaw]

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Pascal proposed a dodgy looking wager devoid of considered thought. I'm not sure how you could spin any interpretation of that into something that makes him look good.


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pascal was a far-sighted genius, he foresaw religon condemning gambling as inherently evil and cut them off at the pass.

chez

[Lestat]

<font color="blue">Technical intelligence in math or the hard sciences is no protection against being an idiot when it comes to other topics. </font>

Uh, I've been reading Sklansky's posts in this forum for over a year now. I believe this is EXACTLY what he's saying!

[NotReady]

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I'm just saying that something like the big bang is so far away from being explained that you cannot argue that it is must have an explanation sans designer just because everything else (except for the moment, human consciousness) does.


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I keep saying it isn't a problem of the intellect. Everyone who posts here is smart enough to see how obviously logical a Paley type argument is. So why do they reject it out of hand and stupidly declare it's illogical?

[Phil153]

Because it is illogical. You're confusing logic with appeal to credulity, which is all Paley's watchmaker analogy is.

[Lestat]

But NR, with all due respect...

It is the epitome of arrogance to disallow any chance that you might be wrong and to further assume your beliefs are the only true beliefs. To think that you (or your religion), knows the mind of God and know what pleases and displeases Him. And if you are wrong... If you are wrong, then you should expect to see eternal damnation well before any atheist. Because if God turns out to be not your God, or if your particular brand of religion is foul, or if you are wrong about ANY of this... Then it will be I who prays for you in the end.

[Subfallen]

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Therefore it is to be expected that Pascal would have seen the problems with his wager and thus almost certainly didn't formulate it the way people thought.

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Technical intelligence in math or the hard sciences is no protection against being an idiot when it comes to other topics.

Pascal proposed a dodgy looking wager devoid of considered thought. I'm not sure how you could spin any interpretation of that into something that makes him look good.

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Devoid of considered thought? Seriously? Or perhaps, just perhaps, Pascal faced existential anguish like few other people in history, and the Pensees was a profound struggle to overcome it?

I mean, not all intellectual productions are intended to be taken as a series of logical movements starting from experientially trivial premises! If you actually READ the Pensees, it is blindingly obvious that Pascal was not trying to write a rational treatise. After all, rational treatises don't usually end in paradox after paradox...

[Subfallen]

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Everyone who posts here is smart enough to see how obviously logical a Paley type argument is. So why do they reject it out of hand and stupidly declare it's illogical?

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This is pretty much putting you at the level of 9/11 conspiracy theorist. You really believe that the Watchmaker Argument is anything more than begging the question? I mean, really?

Also, do you have Peter666 on ignore or something? Because he completely covered the religious side of this discussion in one paragraph:
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God already gave you the supernatural virtue of Faith in your Baptism, which was sufficient enough to believe in Him. The fact that you lost it and are now trying to conform God to your standards of belief is your problem and not God's. And even if God smote Richard Dawkins, parted the Pacific Ocean, and did the Chicken Dance in front of you, you would still not necessarily receive the supernatural virtue of Faith.

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[Wubbie075]

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<font color="blue"> I agree with your post Lestat, although I don't like the internet example. </font>

Just curious what you don't like about it. If an all-knowing God really did speak to people 2000 years ago, why couldn't there have been some mention of the internet, or a world with heavier-than-air vehicles flying in the skies, or even 9/11? Why is it unreasonable to expect even one such prediction or warning from an all-knowing god? There doesn't seem to be any shortage of "attempted" vauge and unproven predictions in the bible.

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Or how about even a simple mention of other parts of the world that couldn't be reached by foot in one's lifetime? It's always bugged me that the bible was supposedly written for everyone in the world, and yet only describes this very small region... did god not know about china, or the americas, and the people who lived there? Why was the middle east the <u>ONLY</u> place on earth where his prophets would appear?