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You do not have permission to view the full content of this post. Log in or register now. was a French mathematician, physicist, inventor, philosopher, and Catholic writer.
He was a You do not have permission to view the full content of this post. Log in or register now. who was educated by his father, a tax collector in You do not have permission to view the full content of this post. Log in or register now.. Pascal's earliest mathematical work was on You do not have permission to view the full content of this post. Log in or register now.; he wrote a significant treatise on the subject of You do not have permission to view the full content of this post. Log in or register now. at the age of 16. He later corresponded with You do not have permission to view the full content of this post. Log in or register now. on You do not have permission to view the full content of this post. Log in or register now., strongly influencing the development of modern economics and You do not have permission to view the full content of this post. Log in or register now.. In 1642, while still a teenager, he started some pioneering work on calculating machines (called You do not have permission to view the full content of this post. Log in or register now. and later Pascalines), establishing him as one of the first two inventors of the You do not have permission to view the full content of this post. Log in or register now..
However.. we are not here for the maths and sciences. What we will be talking about is the Pascal's Wager.
PASCAL'S WAGER
If God does not exist, such a person will have only a finite loss (some pleasures, luxury, etc.), whereas if God does exist, they stand to receive infinite gains (as represented by eternity in You do not have permission to view the full content of this post. Log in or register now.) and avoid infinite losses (an eternity in You do not have permission to view the full content of this post. Log in or register now.).The wager stems from Pascal's deep seated devotion to God and to Christianity. Pascal's motives come from wanting to convert others to Christianity through logic and reason.
This is equivalent to the Filipino version:
"Mas maganda na maniwala sa Diyos. Kasi kung hindi man siya totoo, walang mawawala. At kung totoo siya, sa langit ka mapupunta. Kung hindi ka kasi maniniwala, tumataya ka sa kung saan maaring mapunta ka sa impyerno."
God Exists | God does not Exist | |
Believe | Heaven (Infinite Gain) | No Loss |
Don't Believe | Hell (Infinite Loss) | No Gain |
Therefore, it is the most rational decision to bet on God's existence, and believe in it.
SCRUTINY
Now, being a practicioner of Catholicism, and an Atheist my self.. I have a few qualm's about this argument. Let us list the problems of this argument.- It does not prove God's existence. It is said in an agnostic language, where God existence cannot be proven. And, it turns belief into a bet, which is indecent, and is only concerned about the consequences of it.
- It is mistaken on the fact that "there is nothing to lose." If you were to adopt the belief, and turned out that God does not exist, you will probabaly have lived a life avoiding things you could have done. We only have one life (At least on the Christian perspective) and you could haved missed out on a lot of experiences.
- It relies on the ungrounded belief that God will reward a person just for the act of believing in His existence, as if believing merits any reward.
- It does not take into account the existence of other religions. They can be Muslims, polytheists, or pagans. And in fact, any other religion can use the same argument against a Christians, because they think that the Christian God is fake, weak or evil anyway.
- It fails to consider the belief of Gnostic religion, which believes that the Old Testament God (Demiurge) was an evil God. So the wager makes you bet on the wrong God. So the stakes are between greater evil for believer and lesser evil for non-believer.
- It produces a fake belief in God. Besides of not being in the faith because of the teaching, but only because of the percieved consequence - one can simply claim:
"Maniniwala nalang ako, wala naman mawawala,"
- it is shallow, at best, or deceptive at worst.
Thank you for reading
What do you think?
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