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Statistically Speaking:
What if you could bet your life on something? What would it take to make you wager? What would be a great enough gain to make you take the bet? If you're smart you don't gamble, but you especially don't gamble when it comes down to your life. So let's look at the compliment of that. Let's say that there is only one way to preserve your life, and that is to take the wager. Would you be more apt to bet if that was the circumstance?
The imperfect one likes to consider himself a critical thinker, but he also enjoys simplifying. So in simple, but critical thinking, here's my conclusion on believing in something greater than myself.
If the imperfect Christian doesn't believe in God, and there wasn't a God then he's ok.
If the imperfect Christian doesn't believe in God, and there is a God, then he's not ok.
If the imperfect Christian believes in God, and there was no God, he's still ok. (Even lived a good life helping others).
If the imperfect Christian believes in God, and GOD is, then he's more than ok!
Therefore, 3 outta 4, or 75% (that's really 100%), are odds that the imperfect Christian will put his money/life on. The imperfect Christian is not the greatest statistician in the land, but he is smart enough to take the better odds, and 75-100% out class 25-0% any day.
Peace, Blessings, and Joy... that real PB&J.
There have been others who've said similar things. It's usually referred to as Pascal's Wager after Blaise Pascal the French philosopher and scientist of the 17th Century. Check it out.
ReplyDeleteThank you, sir. I am researching now to see what the opposed view says. Wiki is not the most reliable or valid information source, but some interesting things concerning the flip side of what Pascal wrote.
Delete"The Wager assumes that God will be impressed by, and happily reward, people who worship JUST to avoid Hell.
An all-powerful (or very powerful) being would gain little from the mental allegiance of human beings. In the same way, a human persuading all the inhabitants of an anthill to worship you would be pretty pointless. The constant harangues and demands for worship by the Abrahamic God as stated in the Old Testament suggest that it might just be an ego thing.
If, as Pascal's Wager must assume, God is willing to punish good people simply for a lack of belief, this would preclude God being "good" by any sense that we understand the concept of "good" - and "good" is a necessary property of God. As it can be demonstrated on Earth that no single specific religion has a monopoly on good and moral people, a God that causes Pascal's Wager to be valid cannot be focused on spreading good around the world. Various responses to Pascal's Wager involve pointing out that to be at the constant beck-and-call of such a clearly evil being would be less preferable to hell, and so it is favourable to disbelieve.
As an extension to the above, the Wager also assumes that a believer will only care about maximizing their own gains."
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_wager
Gives me more to study for, pray about, and be thankful for.
Thank you, again, it is always a blessing to hear from you.
Those comments look like they came from Richard Dawkins. Read Pascal himself. The wager is found in his PENSEES along with a lot of other good stuff.
ReplyDeleteI remember doing research for cults in school. I'll look up Mr. Dawnkins, and Blaise Pascal as well. I am also open to any other suggestions that you may educate me with. Thanks for being here.
DeleteI wasn't recommending Dawkins. He's an outspoken Atheist. I wrote 8 blog posts interacting with his book "The God Delusion" from 2/16/09 to 3/26/09. You can find them on my blog.
ReplyDeleteThanks, I'll check it out.
ReplyDelete