Joshua 260 said:
"As I explained, one needs to take the wager within the context of Pascal's other arguments addressed within the Pensees. I don't think even Pascal would concur with his wager if presented as uninformed atheists usually do."
So, let's present it as Pascal did.
The Wager uses the following logic (excerpts from
Pensées, part III, §233):
- God is, or God is not. Reason cannot decide between the two alternatives.
- A Game is being played... where heads or tails will turn up.
- You must wager (it is not optional).
- Let us weigh the gain and the loss in wagering that God is. Let us estimate these two chances. If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing.
- Wager, then, without hesitation that He is. (...) There is here an infinity of an infinitely happy life to gain, a chance of gain against a finite number of chances of loss, and what you stake is finite. And so our proposition is of infinite force, when there is the finite to stake in a game where there are equal risks of gain and of loss, and the infinite to gain.
- But some cannot believe. They should then 'at least learn your inability to believe...' and 'Endeavour then to convince' themselves.
- Number one is false. Reason can and does decide between the two alternatives.
- Number four is false. If you wager that god is, and the reality is that god is not, then you have wasted your life believing an omni all goddidit and never have the opportunity to truly appreciate the beauty of nature.
- Number six confirms that number one is false. What, beside reason, would make someone not believe?
Number 1 above is true. Pascal is saying that reason cannot prove that God exists beyond all doubt. Most Christians claim to prove God beyond reasonable doubt.
Number 4 is true. A good case could be made showing how Christianity has brought more good into this world than Atheism.
Number six is advocating trust. Let's look at the section in the Pensees addressing that:
"But at least learn your inability to believe, since reason brings you to this, and yet you cannot believe. Endeavour then to convince yourself, not by increase of proofs of God, but by the abatement of your passions. You would like to attain faith, and do not know the way; you would like to cure yourself of unbelief, and ask the remedy for it. Learn of those who have been bound like you, and who now stake all their possessions. These are people who know the way which you would follow, and who are cured of an ill of which you would be cured. Follow the way by which they began; by acting as if they believed, taking the holy water, having masses said, etc. Even this will naturally make you believe, and deaden your acuteness."
Do you see the phrase "not by increase of proofs of God, but by the abatement of your passions."? He is saying here that God cannot be proven beyond all doubt, so you must decide to *trust* that God exists. The rest of this section expands on that idea.
But the wager assumes that the christian god is the only god. There is a greater probability that, if there is a god, it is not the christian god. In which case the other god may well look at a devout christian less favorably than he would an atheist.
Lol! When I said that the wager must be taken within the context of the Pensees, I did not mean that you should look only in the Pensees where the wager resides, but rather that you should consider the *rest of Pascal's arguments* within the Pensees. If you read it, you will find that Pascal addresses the possibility of other Gods and rules them out as reasonable options.
