Pascal's Wager
 

Pascals Wager concludes that it is a safe bet to believe in God and heaven and hell and all the Biblical stuff. If all is false, if there is no God and no heaven and hell, then the believer is no worse off than the non-believer, according to Pascal. Both will be dead, and that will be that. However, if God does exist, then the believer has everything to gain, and the non-believer has everything to lose. The believer, according to this way of looking at things, really has nothing to lose and everything to gain, while the nonbeliever has nothing to gain and everything to lose.

Problems:

First, it is important to note that this is not an argument or proof for the existence of God. It makes no knowledge claim. It is purported to be a reason for believing. That is all.

Second, most religious people who believe in God authentically do not respect people who choose to believe because it is a safe bet. Its like marrying for money and not for love. Gamboling and betting is generally frowned upon by religious people, and believing just to insure ones reward of salvation is not an authentic reason for believing. It is phony.

Third, there are negative consequences to subjugating ones self to a supreme being which doesn't exist and positive things about living for ones self authentically, standing on ones own two feet. When it is factored in that living ones own life freely and participating in creating ones own nature is preferable to living as an object of someone else's design, it is no longer the case that the believer is better off, or no worse off, than the non-believer.

First-- Dude its just a fact of probability. Not an argument attempting to prove the existance of god.. ...So like.........no shit...

Second-- Yeah.. I've heard this argument before.. Guess its just one of those unanswerable questions.. Would god get mad if you only believed in him based on probability?

Third-- This all depends on your outlook on life itself.. Some would say that living as a product of the design of an ultimate omniscient being is actually far more preferable to living as some kind of aimless anomoly of existance.. What I dissagree with is worldly churches, I am happy that they spread word to the world's people of the concept of a 'god'. But when they start to soak their belief's in dogmatic traditions and rituals, create their own set of laws and regulations for being a part of their religion, I feel they begin to travel down the wrong path. But you have to realise, this is only human bullshit, one can choose to live under the believe that there is a god with an ultimate purpose for his designed species, and still not take part in any human church.

And if this is the case, then whats the difference anyway? Your still in a situation where pascals wager is ultimatly true.. Its only people who take that shit too far during life that would be losing out in the end should there be no god.


....Personally, I dont belong to any religious denomination, but I am a strong believer in god. I live my life by god and consider myself as a servant to him. This doesent mean I change the way I am, I'd still do the same shit I do now if this wasnt the case. Its just a different way of thinking.. And I find it seems to have a weird way of working in my favor at times..

Go figure.

Or maybe God would prefer the agnostic or the atheist because that person refused to be brainwashed by mainstream religion and only believe because of a rather silly concept of faith.

How do you live your life by god? You do the exact same things you would if you werent "living by god." Do you mean you just keep in the back of your mind: "yeah, god probably exists."?