[MLUG - DISCUSSION] More on Pascal's wager [was: Famous atheist changes his mind]

[Stephen Montgomery-Smith <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

This mailing list seems to be suffering withdrawal symptoms from the 
lack of political/religious discussions, so let me feed our addicition 
once again ...


Stephen Montgomery-Smith wrote:
> Mike Miller wrote:
> 
>>
>> Pascal's wager has a big hole in it.  Maybe there is a God, and he 
>> just can't stand people who believe in him because they want a place 
>> in heaven, so he sends them all straight to hell.  Pascal only 
>> considered two possible realities, but there are many others.
>>
>> Mike
> 
> 

I want to add a couple more takes on Pascal's wager, one for it, and one 
against it:

People tend to be religious either because they follow the teachings of 
their parents or other significant influences, or because they have some 
personal powerful mystical experience - let me concentrate on the 
latter.  Pascal's wager could be interpreted thus - it is clear that we 
all understand next to nothing about how life and the universe works 
(see for example Robert McNamara in the movie "The Fog of War" to see 
how someone who has an incredibly brilliant mind can get it so totally 
wrong).  As such, none of us can rule out the possibility that there is 
some greater force than ourselves.  Thus we may as well perform the 
experiment where we humbly seek whether this greater power exists, 
perhaps by calling out within our heart hoping that this greater power 
is listening.  Clearly this is a personal experiment, whose results 
cannot be replicated in the "scientific" manner, nevertheless we see 
that enough other people claim to have been successful, that we may as 
well try it out.

Against Pascal's wager - in of itself it seems a very impersonal 
approach to a diety, if he exists.  Many people will claim that their 
experience of getting to know God is very much like a love affair, and 
that very powerful feelings are generated within oneself.  I should 
hasten to add that I am not talking about the sexual side of love, but 
those deeper feelings that one might have for a spouse that one has been 
with for many years, or that one might have for ones child or parent, or 
for a very dear friend that one has known for many years.  It is because 
of this very powerful sense of loving and being loved by God that many 
who believe are unable to deny their God, even when faced with the lack 
of scientific peer reviewed evidence for him.


> I see Pascal's wager differently.
> 
> If you see Christianity and atheism as just two theories out of many, 
> then it is as you say.
> 
> But if you have had some powerful and personal mystical experience, then 
> years later one is inclined to think that this experience was some kind 
> of psychological trick that your mind played with you, or perhaps some 
> result of evolution where people capable of deluding themselves into 
> believing in a God are more likely to survive.  Then one has two 
> possibilities - God is real or God is an illusion, and two possible 
> behaviors - believe in God or don't believe in God.  (Here "God" refers 
> to the God you met in your mystical experience.)
> 
> If God is real - it is definitely better to believe in him.
> 
> If God is not real - then it really doesn't matter whether you believe 
> him or not.  (In the short term it is still better to believe, because 
> at least you get comfort.)
> 

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