On Mon, Dec 02, 2002 at 08:01:43PM -0500, Rick Castello <rick at 404.978.org> wrote: > I am, myself, an agnostic, but I've always found Paschal's Wager, > the pragmatic argument (using decision theory) for belief in God, > amusing. As others pointed out, it's Pascal. Same as the computer language. (Same guy, in fact). > Basically, his argument boils down to this: > You can hold one of two positions, either you believe in God, > or you do not (he doesn't allow for agnosticism here). He counts agnosticism as "not believing in god", actually. It's an inherently Christian-biased proposition: either you believe in *the Christian God* or you don't. > In reality, one of the following is true: either God exists, > or God does not exist. > If you believe that God does not exist, and God *does not exist*, > then you gain nothing beyond the knowledge that you are correct. > (No net gain/loss. (Yes, you could be smug in correctness.)) > If you believe that God does not exist, and God *does* exist, > then you will go to Hell. (A very bad thing.) > If you believe that God exists, and you are correct, > then you will go to Heaven. (A very good thing.) > If you believe that God exists, and you are incorrect, > then you will lose nothing. (No net gain/loss.) > Clearly, the wise bettor chooses to believe in God. This falls apart on three points: 1) What if belief in God on the basis of a rational cost-benefit analysis of this type is considered cheating? It's certainly not a true-faith type belief. In that case you gain nothing. 2) If you choose to believe in God, *which god*? There are hundreds of Christian sects alone to choose from. More importantly, what if you pick the wrong one? A good, honest atheist may have more weight with God than a pagan heretic. 3) What is the cost of believing in God in this world? In order to really make a pragmatic argument, you have to assess the chance that God exists and the monetary value of heaven versus the cost in this world of being a believer (10% tithe, etc). > There are a number of arguments to be made against or at least > ABOUT Paschal's Wager, but nonetheless it's an interesting > argument, and aside from the Watchmaker/Intelligent Design > argument, one of the more intellectually compelling arguments > *for* theism, in my opinion. I don't think so; it's an inherently biased cop-out for various reasons. It sounds good, but doesn't hold up. -- Matthew Hunter (matthew at infodancer.org) Public Key: http://matthew.infodancer.org/public_key.txt Homepage: http://matthew.infodancer.org/index.jsp Politics: http://www.triggerfinger.org/index.jsp