/lit/ - Literature

>>13665013
They can't. They just cope with it.

Grandstand about God being mean and so therefore not worthy of them

>>13665013
I have a bridge to sell you

>>13665013
same way they did the last 50000 times you created this stupid fucking thread

>>13665086
This.

>>13665013
Why? What does he say?

>>13665086
>>13665207
So... they couldn't?

>>13665213
read the Pensées and find out

>>13665213
Pascal's wager is an argument in philosophy presented by the seventeenth-century French philosopher, mathematician and physicist, Blaise Pascal (1623–1662).[1] It posits that humans bet with their lives that God either exists or does not.

Pascal argues that a rational person should live as though God exists and seek to believe in God. If God does not actually exist, such a person will have only a finite loss (some pleasures, luxury, etc.), whereas he stands to receive infinite gains (as represented by eternity in Heaven) and avoid infinite losses (eternity in Hell).[2]

Pascal's Wager was based on the idea of the Christian God, though similar arguments have occurred in other religious traditions. The original wager was set out in section 233 of Pascal's posthumously published Pensées ("Thoughts"). These previously unpublished notes were assembled to form an incomplete treatise on Christian apologetics.

Historically, Pascal's wager was groundbreaking because it charted new territory in probability theory,[3] marked the first formal use of decision theory, and anticipated future philosophies such as existentialism, pragmatism and voluntarism.[4]

>>13665013
If one can't claim to know God then one can't assign probabilities to rewards or punishments to beliefs or disbelief of any god or belief.

Further still if one does not believe in God then pretending to believe in God will only satisfy a small subset of all currently worshipped gods and incur the wrath of another subset, thus creating a dilemma.

>>13665013
By laughing our asses off, as would any sentient religious person faced with that idiocy of someone with such tunnel vision that they can posit a binary system without any evidence and try to render a ludicrously complicated hypothetical into an either/or choice.

If you want salvation, simply because you're scared of damnation, then isnt that sinful? you are supposed to want god in your life, end of story, not because you're scared of hell.

>>13665013
https://discord.gg/P4ENU37

>>13665400
>>13665318
>t. hasn't read the Pensees

It only holds weight if you believe there's a serious chance of the Christian god existing in the first place. If you fall for this line of reasoning and generalized it your life would fall into absurdity. You'd be the sucker who complied with every chain email that told you to send it to 10 of your friends to get a kiss from your crush and to avoid your mom dying.

>>13665254
But..... how am I certain it's the Christian god?

>>13665013
>>13665019
>>13665240
>>13665248
>>13665254
>>13665882
The whole argument crumbles in face of one simple question:
Which God?

How do we know what God wants? Maybe he hates attention, like if fire ants worshipped you with their jaws, so anyone that worships him goes to hell. There is an infinity of possibilities, how would you choose?
I tell you one thing though, the atheist church doesn't have a 10% tithe.

>>13665940
>t. hasn't read the Pensees

>>13665013
>>13665938
>>13665940

>>13665974
>How do we know what God wants?
Jesus

More like
Hear me out
Pascals

NIGGER

>>13665940
Cumbrain

>>13665940
Go watch rick and morton

>>13665013
>you get into heaven just by believing
How do christians reconcile pascals wager

>>13666540
No one believes that; it's a strawman of the Reformed view. Faith alone is the instrument by which we are saved, but faith *necessarily* bears fruit in the form of good works and an increasing holiness (sanctification). We are not judged worthy of salvation by these works, as human works cannot merit salvation, but they are *necessarily* produces by the indwelling of the holy spirit. A person who says they have faith but has no works is not saved, their faith is "dead" or nonexistent, a delusion.

>>13665013
how do pascal's wagerists reconcile with natalism?

>>13665940
That question is shallow. When someone chooses their religion they aren't selecting what god to worship, but rather what representation of god to worship. No religion depicts God with absolute perfection, hence why religion is always evolving. If you can't subscribe to a religion out of a refusal to limit yourself to a dogma, then fine, but deciding that no god exists merely because the freedom to choose different religions makes the entire thing seem arbitrary only revelas your superficial understanding of the whole matter.

>>13665013
Easily. The wager is only effective in a civilization where there's only one religion, which clearly isn't the case. Hypothetically, the pagan gods of the old times could be the true faith, and they're still terribly upset at Christians for slaughtering their followers. It almost seems safer not to pick a side.

>>13667339
This and even if Christianity can be proven as more valid than the other religious traditions, then how do we know WHICH Christianity to follow?

>>13665940
Read Guenon

>>13665013
If God is real and I say I believe in him, he'll know I'm only pretending so I can avoid Hell. He'd cast me out of Heaven either way so it's really not a choice at all.

If he exists, God doesn't strike me as the type to tolerate lip service.

>>13667394
Actually God told me he is sending you to hell for being a retarded frogposter; not any other reason.

>>13667394
Come home, anon.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_universalism

>>13667294
That's cute and all, but literally every religion also believes that what you're saying is wrong.

>>13665940
There is only one God in the Bible, heathen.

>>13665013
Again; easily.

>>13665019
The wager itself is one massive cope.

>>13667294
>>13667441
This is why I understood Pascal's Wager to imply some underlying form of Perennialism, but maybe I'm wrong?

>>13667447
There are two. As your church fathers insisted on tacking on an older religion

>>13667294
>all of these completely incompatible religions are just imperfect representations of MY GOD who is totally real
Christcucks are something else

>>13667450
You're reading too far into it.
Pascal's Wager hasn't been taken seriously in philosophy for hundreds of years, it's just a classic teaching tool to demonstrate logic.
Philosophy profs would get a laugh out of someone trying to earnestly apply it.

We can't, hence why I now worship Zeus. It just makes sense, after all.

>>13665013
don't be a coward

>>13667480
Run across a road without looking both ways, don't be a coward

>>13667484
>he can't judge traffic with his peripheral vision

NGMI

>>13665013
The wager is not even the most interesting thing in the pensées, even Pascal had his doubt about it, stop shilling it. Discuss his theory of imagination or his Bible hermeneutics instead.

>>13667441
Okay and literally every religion was written before the emergence of post-enlightenment rationalistic thinking. To speak about religion as a whole from a modern critical perspective is to use a completely different language than that which is being used in the scripture. Obviously the religions themselves declare that they represent flawless truth, that's the point.

>Why is psychology the youngest of the empirical sciences? Why have we not long since discovered the unconscious and raised up its treasure-house of eternal images? Simply because we had a religious formula for everything psychic—and one that is far more beautiful and comprehensive than immediate experience. -Carl Jung

me love fortnite oh yeah yeah I love to floss on them heaters

>>13667522
Based.
Every religion is just a manifestation of the one true religion and none are better than the others (except for all of them being above atheism).
Worshipping Fortnite is just as acceptable as worshipping Jesus or Buddha.

I poo my pants

>>13665013
>how do atheists reconcile with Pascal's wager
The wager the other way?

>>13665254
>>13665905
>>13665938
>>13665940
You know, as a formerly fervent Catholic, (still am but not as zealous) this is the biggest dilemma for me. I find the cosmological arguments for the necessity of a God compelling enough, and can even justify the problem of evil in my head. The thing that keeps me up at night though is how do I know that I'm worshipping the right one? For the record, I don't think the pagan gods are at all possible, and I'm willing to argue that. So I feel that the choices come down to the Christian God or some necessary, omnipotent being. Thus, I believe the key to the puzzle is historiographical and not philosophical. That is, the confirmation of the divinity of Jesus through his miracles attested to in the New Testament.

>>13665013
You cannot force belief.

>>13667343
The Catholic Church, ya dummy!
Where do you think those other Christianities came from?

>>13665013
atheists don't have to even engage christians whatsoever, much less argue with them. i'm not an atheist either

>>13667591
Read Hume, he counters the cosmological argument and most others fairly well

>>13665013
Belief isn't a choice.

>>13665013
pascal's wager is insincere af man.

Easy; I don't believe in god, and I'm not going to pretend that I do. Get it?

>>13665013
By rejecting the absurdity of the concept of an infinite all powerful being entertaining bets about its existence from tiny meatbag specks.

>this fucking thread

>>13665013

>believing in jesus because you want to save yourself and not because you sincerely love jesus

blaise pascal is probably in hell for this

believing in jesus because you want to go to heaven is kind of selfish and a wrong reason to believe in jesus

>>13668151
>>13668169
t. misdirecting atheists

>>13668169
Pascal deals with this question. Read his book.

>>13668180

i don't think god is gonna allow such people into heaven who worship him for selfish reasons and not because they sincerely love jesus

>>13668151
>>13668169
>dude you need to have a crush on Jesus or it doesnt count
Literally all you need to do is "believe", unless you got a verse that suggests otherwise

>>13668198


so god is gonna allow me into heaven even though i only worship for for entry into heaven? god is not gonna find that insulting?

>>13668217

i only believe and worship him for entry into heaven*

>>13668217
Nah bro

Who says God would have to reward people for believing in him?
It's just as likely that there's a god who rewards people for NOT believing him.
A hypothetical god is completely unknown, to assume that a real god would be the Abrahamic one is a massive assumption.

>>13665400
what are "American folk religions"? money worshipping? Celebrities?

>>13668252

Satan rewards his followers in hell for not believing in god

you get 72 asian virgins. in heaven you only get 27 ugly african virgins

>>13668264
I assumed snake handlers and such, but I like your ideas.