Aug 13, 2005

Pascal bets the farm

Just doing some random thinking, and remembered Pascal's wager, an argument given by some in favor of believing in gawd and all that:
If gawd exists and I believe, I get eternal salvation.
If gawd exists and I do not believe, I get eternal damnation.
If gawd does not exist and I believe, I lose nothing (except maybe some earthly pleasures).
If gawd does not exist and I do not believe, I lose nothing.
Therefore it is only rational to believe in gawd out of the pure consequence of probability, since you only lose eternally if you do not believe.
Seems simple enough. But there are plenty of problems here.

1. Which gawd do I believe in? In order to maximize my probability of eternal jackpot, wouldn't I have to believe in the gawd of Abraham, as well as in Allah, Vishnu, Buddha, Zoroaster, Odin, Maynard, and any number of earth spirits?
2. Most protestant Christian denominations do not accept simple belief as one's ticket to Heaven. They require various forms of devotion, sacraments, works, and acceptance of Jesus' divinity as personal savyourah (best said with a Texas accent).
3. Gambling is against the dogma of most religions. Having gambling necessary for believe in gawd would probably not be an acceptable exception.

Any others?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

praise Maynard.

Matthew DesOrmeaux said...

I understand that in the general view, the dieties worshiped by Christians, Jews, and Muslims is the same entity. What I was differentiating is the requirements for eternal salvation, which are completely different among those and all other religions. So in terms of salvation dogma, they are separate dieties. Try telling an Islamofascist that he worships the same god as President Bush; just make sure he doesn't have a long rusty knife handy.
And you can use your talking point epithets if you like, but since they don't apply, I won't even bother responding to them.