Old 07-04-2006, 04:01 AM
  # 11 (permalink)  
historyteach
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Join Date: Oct 2003
Location: Rhode Island
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There's a bit of confusion.
Pascal's Wager is the following:
To Pascal, God was the Christian God of the Bible. The Bible provides information about the Christian God but not proof for God. Should you believe in this God? In his Wager, Pascal provides an analytical process for a person to evaluate his options in regard to belief in the Christian God. The person who has no more information than that which he finds in the Bible would find himself facing the following possibilities:

You may believe in God, and if God exists, you go to heaven: your gain is infinite.
You may believe in God, and if God doesn't exist, your loss is finite and therefore negligible.
You may not believe in God, and if God doesn't exist, your gain is finite and therefore negligible.
You may not believe in God, and if God exists, you will go to hell: your loss is infinite.

From these possibilities, and the principles of statistics, Pascal deduced that it would be better to believe in God unconditionally. It is an application of game theory to itemize options and payoffs and is valid within its assumptions. After starting with only that information found in the Bible, the person can then be given additional information to encompass all the knowledge that man has assessed and on re-evaluating his position, he will reach the same conclusion; it would be better to believe in the God of the Bible unconditionally.

The following table shows the values that Pascal assigned to each possible outcome:

God exists (G) God does not exist (~G)
Belief in God (B) +∞ (heaven) 0
Non-belief in God (~B) −∞ (hell) 0

Given the values that Pascal proposes, the option of believing in God (B) dominates the option of not believing in God (~B). In other words, the value gained by choosing B is always greater than or equal to that of choosing ~B.
The modalities of possible and necessity are a common arguement for the existence of G*D.

Note, Pascal's Wager is not an arguement for the existence of G*D at all. It's simply a mathamatical reasoning as to why we *should* believe in G*D, given the outcome.

Personally, I would challange the premise of the modality arguement too. If it is possible, that doesn't make it necessary.
I think they make this arguement for G*D only. And that would make sense, if you believed in G*D to begin with! LOL!

Correct me if I'm wrong, but, any logical arguement must be able to be used in other circumstances than just the one it's being used in. It must be able to be generalized, if I remember correctly.
Is that correct? If so, this arguement falls. This arguement would only work for G*D.

Shalom!
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