Pascal's wager

[Someone here]

Imagine an atheist comes across a priest who tells them they shouldn't be. The priest's argument is as follows: "If you are a believer in God, and God exists, you will go to heaven. If you do not believe, you risk the possibility going to hell".

 Your earthly life is rather short. At the most, you will live a century. However, the afterlife is long, an eternity in fact. Therefore, you might as well invest your short earthly life as a believer, because if there is no God, you don't lose much time, but if there is a God, you gain an eternity in Heaven." Is the priest's gamble worth it? Does it seem convincing to consider becoming a believer?

Now I know that most people here think that God is themselves. Not some old guy living up in the clouds . But have you actually awoken to the fact that you are God or are you just parroting ideology?  You must be honest with yourself. Don't fuck with existential truths .get serious. And seek clarity. 

Edited May 1, 2022 by Someone here

[Carl-Richard]

Pascal's wager is essentially about telling a non-believer to pretend that they believe in God; to lie, which is a sin  

[Someone here]

5 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

Pascal's wager is essentially about telling a non-believer to pretend that they believe in God; to lie, which is a sin  

Yeah I know .as if God will accept your faith if it comes from this sort of thinking. It's not a trustworthy God if he (it) works this way .

[lmfao]

@Someone here If we take on the surface level of becoming a member of some religion. Pascal's wager is dumb in that I myself could invent a religion which states that disbelief means you go to hell, and it's on an equal playing field as every other religion in this skewed probability analysis. You have multiple religions all saying that disbelief means hell, and you have many competing religions to pick from. Choose wrong and you go to hell.

There exist an infinite number of hypothetical religions, so it's stupid to do probability in this way. If we accept Pascal's wager as even being a correct framing, I could argue there's like only a 0.00000000...1%, dx%, chance that the religion you believe in will save you from hell. 

Look at it another way, Pascal's Wager might be something about trying to live your life as if there's an afterlife or a "future" beyond your current life. But that's not limited to Pascal's Wager at all.

(Also dude, how do you make so many good thought provoking threads one day, and then the next day post this shit which is like one step forward two steps back)


Though. I've kind of been framing life and existence as a gamble recently, just not in those terms. Life is a gamble in that it can turn out absolutely shit or turn out "good", animals in nature having a large number of offspring because they know a certain percentage will be doomed to fail. 

We "gamble" in life in deciding what's a worthwhile pursuit or what will give a worthwhile reward. Sometimes we invest in things with no knowledge anything will be yielded or come of it, which is why I think life is a shitty gamble.

"True gambling" is when you go all in with your being and soul on the line. Choosing to set yourself on fire, versus slowly decay. But I'm tired of this gambling shit now, you burn out from it. 

Edited May 1, 2022 by lmfao

[The0Self]

35 minutes ago, Someone here said:

as if God will accept your faith if it comes from this sort of thinking. It's not a trustworthy God if he (it) works this way .

It would still be an assumption that a particular finite God is trustworthy. But if we're talking about an infinite God then obviously we can't say anything about it because it's by definition all there is. The wager is just one of the ego's games. It totally glides over the exactly equally possible scenario of the opposite being true. But if the ego can believe it to feel more comfortable, it will do so.

[Arthogaan]

I hated the Pascal's Wager argument when I was an atheist in highschool haha - I always thought it is stupid, what if Greek Gods are true and then they would be mad at me that I believed in Christian God.

But I know actually appreciate it, after some God realizations.

Basically it could be said like something similiar to what Leo points out - like: you need to realize that maybe it is possible to become God-Realized - you don't know but you could live as it is possible and then you can realize Immortality and become God, and if you just assume it is impossible you loose all that Gold.

[Gesundheit2]

Actually, most if not all religious people accept this wager unconsciously. The funny thing is that holy books (at least Quran) state that most people are deluded and will go to hell. So there you go.

But there's wisdom to this wager, which is impermanence, which can decrease the suffering of half-ass believers.

[Kksd74628]

@Someone here

Whoever doesn't send me 20 euros will go to hell. Remember that it is only minimal amount of money not to get thrown in hell so you better ask how you can transfer the payment for unlimited access of heaven.

[Osaid]

This is exactly what I argued to myself before discovering spirituality lol. I was scared of God, to a certain degree, and thought why not believe in it if there is some chance of heaven. It came from a place of fear, I think.

[Yarco]

If God is really all-loving then he'll overlook all the degenerate shit I've done and let me in regardless.

If heaven is an infinity of mandatory worship, I think I'll enjoy a free life and take hell instead.

I like the atheist Matt Dillahunty's take on this -- God is the equivalent of an abusive parent who threatens to lock you in the basement and torture you if you don't behave or tell them you love them. That makes God immoral, and I'm not going to negotiate with a terrorist just to avoid eternal suffering, so fuck God.

Generally though I think that the closer you get to death, the more pascal's wager seems appealing. If you live to 80 then you can start to sincerely repent and you don't have much to lose. You got to live your life how you wanted and then you can just take it all back at the last moment. Only problem is if you die suddenly in a car accident or something before you reach that point.

[Reciprocality]

The amount of validity you have to project onto you fantasies to give Pascal's Wager any meaning is beyond the scale.

 

Edited May 2, 2022 by Reciprocality

[Someone here]

On 01/05/2022 at 9:23 PM, lmfao said:

Also dude, how do you make so many good thought provoking threads one day, and then the next day post this shit which is like one step forward two steps back)

No worries. I get confused sometimes and I'm able to switch and jump between different paradigms .

From now on ..All my posts will be high quality ? 

[Someone here]

19 hours ago, Yarco said:

Generally though I think that the closer you get to death, the more pascal's wager seems appealing. If you live to 80 then you can start to sincerely repent and you don't have much to lose. You got to live your life how you wanted and then you can just take it all back at the last moment. Only problem is if you die suddenly in a car accident or something before you reach that point.

I like the way you've put it here .very straightforward without fooling around. 

I found this diagram online while researching this topic:

 

[Someone here]

23 hours ago, Osaid said:

This is exactly what I argued to myself before discovering spirituality lol. I was scared of God, to a certain degree, and thought why not believe in it if there is some chance of heaven. It came from a place of fear, I think.

Fear of eternal punishment was and will always be a huge aspect of religions.  Since we are not merely rational creatures. We are highly emotional as well .and religions use our emotions to make us follow them rather than providing pure rational evidence for the existence of God.  

What's interesting about pascal's wager though, is that it's both rational and emotional. 

 

[Someone here]

On 01/05/2022 at 10:13 PM, Kksd74628 said:

@Someone here

Whoever doesn't send me 20 euros will go to hell. Remember that it is only minimal amount of money not to get thrown in hell so you better ask how you can transfer the payment for unlimited access of heaven.

You got it. 

 

[Someone here]

On 01/05/2022 at 9:26 PM, The0Self said:

But if we're talking about an infinite God then obviously we can't say anything about it because it's by definition all there is.

Not necessarily.

We can still know that it's love, goodness ,all powerful, intelligent..and other such facets without affecting its unlimitedness.

[Someone here]

On 01/05/2022 at 10:02 PM, Gesundheit2 said:

The funny thing is that holy books (at least Quran) state that most people are deluded and will go to hell. So there you go.

Which is why I find it difficult to accept any of these mainstream religions .because a loving God can't judge his own creation and throws it into Hell. It's as if he will throw himself into hell.

[Someone here]

17 hours ago, Reciprocality said:

The amount of validity you have to project onto you fantasies to give Pascal's Wager any meaning is beyond the scale.

 

And finally I can actually understand a post from you 

[The0Self]

6 minutes ago, Someone here said:

Not necessarily.

We can still know that it's love, goodness ,all powerful, intelligent..and other such facets without affecting its unlimitedness.

If it's finite then it is by definition subsumed by the infinite.

[Someone here]

7 minutes ago, The0Self said:

If it's finite then it is by definition subsumed by the infinite.

I see .

But do you agree that infinity itself is just one facet of reality/god/consciousness or it includes all other facets if there are any ?

So we can't just say it's infinite. It's infinite in what ?

In goodness, in presence, in power,in intelligence etc....