Comment by TimTheTinker
16 hours ago
> What if there's a god, but he punishes humans for believing he exists, just for fun? Where's your wager now?
That's the equivalent of Russell's teapot - an imagined, unfalsifiable proposition.
But Pascal's wager was anchored to specific attested propositions: specifically, the gospel of Jesus (repent of sin and call to him, he's paid for it and will save you from judgment and eternal separation from God if you do) rooted in the historical events of his verbal claim to be the son of God, followed by his death and resurrection, witnessed by many. You may agree or disagree, but what you are affirming or denying is at least concrete and specific.
> But Pascal's wager was anchored to specific attested propositions: specifically, the gospel of Jesus
Right, but that's the problem with it. It assumes that there are only two possibilities: no god, or the god of the New Testament.
Betting that Pascal's god exists isn't the safe choice that the wager makes it out to be, because it's equally possible that some other god exists (or just some other version of the Abrahamic god, say Allah or the pre-messiah god of Israel) and your faith in Jesus is just going to piss him off.
Believe in Jesus all you want, but Pascal's Wager is a pretty terrible reason to do so.
Edit to add: Your description is also not even the only possible New Testament god. Some (myself included) would argue that that particular image of god was painted more by Paul than by Jesus.
> It assumes that there are only two possibilities: no god, or the god of the New Testament.
I don't think so. It isn't concerned with giving any description or shape to the negative case, just an invitation to consider a particular positive case.
There are positive cases for other gospels and worldviews... there's nothing wrong with invitations to engage with one or another.
As science has shown, the truth is best discerned by considering each theory individually (and continually) against evidence. Not "dark matter sounds cool, I think that's true, not MOND" but rather considering each individually for internal consistency and against observation and predictiveness.
"It does not make any difference how beautiful your guess is, it does not make any difference how smart you are, who made the guess, or what his name is — if it disagrees with experiment, it is wrong." --Richard Feynman
Sure, you can consider the issue in isolation: If you accept the axiom that there is either no god or the Pauline Christian god, then Pascal's wager makes sense (assuming that that god doesn't care about sincerity, which is certainly not my reading of the gospels, but that's a different issue).
If you want to do a fun thought experiment, you might accept that axiom.
If you genuinely believe that an eternal future of unbearable torture hinges on your choice, you might want to cover your philosophical bases a bit more thoroughly.
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>just an invitation to consider a particular positive case.
The problem is you can't do this with made up bullshit because the creators of said bullshit can create any number of paradoxes to trap you.
Reality at least has to be self consistent.
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I'm not sure what you mean by "attested" there, it's doing a lot of work.
Certainly there are specific propositions that someone will or has attested to that a god exists that will punish you for believing in the Christian god.
Sure, if you insist there is more reason to suspect the existence of the Christian god than other gods, then your decision is already made for you; it was not my understanding that Pascal's wager was based on that assumption, but I guess it was implicitly, sure, while explicitly claiming to be based on a clean slate of assumptions. Which makes it even sillier.
Pascal's wager was not at all anchored to any specific attestations, you are taking his wager and reinterpreting it to give it some kind of legitimacy that it never originally held. The entire point of the wager was to justify belief in the absence of sufficient evidence, by appealing to the asymmetry between infinite reward and finite cost. If your now arguing that Christianity is more credible because of historical evidence, so be it and stick to it but you've abandoned Pascal's wager and moved on to an entirely different argument.
> by appealing to the asymmetry between infinite reward and finite cost
The supposed asymmetry only holds in a framework that assumes the Christian God as the only possibility. The point is that it's possible for there to be a god that isn't Yahweh, and that god might sentence you to eternal torment for believing in Yahweh, so in fact believing in Yahweh can result in infinite cost, destroying the value of the wager.
Not at all. The asymmetry holds whenever the other possibilities don't introduce an opposing infinite penalty for belief. There could be countless other gods who are indifferent to Christian belief, reward it, or impose only finite penalties, and the asymmetry would remain intact.
The hypothetical god who punishes believers of a Christian God is a legitimate objection to Pascal's wager, but it doesn't establish the original assertion I objected to. You're confusing demonstrating that the asymmetry isn't guaranteed with demonstrating that it requires Christianity to be the only possibility. Those are two entirely different claims.
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