Instigator / Pro
0
1483
rating
1
debates
0.0%
won
Topic
#900

Revision to Pascel's Wager is JUST AS or MORE defensible than atheism

Status
Finished

The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.

Winner & statistics
Better arguments
0
9
Better sources
0
6
Better legibility
0
3
Better conduct
0
3

After 3 votes and with 21 points ahead, the winner is...

SkepticalOne
Parameters
Publication date
Last updated date
Type
Standard
Number of rounds
5
Time for argument
Three days
Max argument characters
30,000
Voting period
One week
Point system
Multiple criterions
Voting system
Open
Contender / Con
21
1551
rating
9
debates
66.67%
won
Description

Pascel's Wager goes something like this. If you believe in the Christian God, than you will be better off than if you don't believe. If you don't believe, and the Christian God does exist, then you will suffer an eternity in Hell. If you do believe, and the Christian God does NOT exist, then you will have lost nothing. But if you do believe, and the Christian God DOES exist, then you will reap eternal rewards and avoid eternal punishment.

My revision is as follows. Instead of believing in a theistic God (Christian God), you believe instead in whatever God exists. You say, whatever God exists is the God I have an allegiance with. Of course, making sure to convey this idea to this God through prayer or whatever method of communication you prefer. You no longer have the problem of only pretending to believe as whoever this God is will see your genuine want to believe and communicate with whatever God actually exists. Is it really so hard to believe that this wonderful and complex universe was brought forward by some creative force or being? It won't take long to convince yourself enough for this God to see your effort.

This also deals with the problem that there different types of Hell and you may go to a different Hell than the Christian Hell. This is because you are genuinely interested in communication with a God that ACTUALLY exists. You will be on the side of any God listening, because you are trying to communicate with whatever God hears you rather than a specific God. I think that this is actually a more defensible and safer position than atheism.

I realize that I am not very concise when putting forth this philosophy, but I hope it gets across. The first couple of arguments may just be clarifications. This is why i wanted there to be 5 arguments each.

Definitions:

Atheism: A lack of belief in a god or gods.

God: A literal being with maximal power (The all powerful position is unsupported) that interacts with the inhabitants of Earth and cares about what they do.

Other definitions or clarifications may need to be made during the beginning of the argument.

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@berrybloxinator

I must continue as though the debate is on until you forfeit or concede within the debate.

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@Wrick-It-Ralph

Ok. We'll see what happens.

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@berrybloxinator

I could be wrong about this, but I think you have to concede within the debate or the voters are not allowed to count it. So until you do that, your opponent is forced to act as if the debate is still on.

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@SkepticalOne

I don't know if you saw my conversation with Wrick-It-Ralph in the comments, but I will tell you what I told him.

Even though I am putting this idea forward, I am an atheist.

When I first thought of this revision to Pascel's Wager, it sounded reasonable. But I knew that I needed to put up to the scrutiny of others before I even considered adopting it. That is basically what I am doing on this website. I thought that I would attempt to defend this position. I figured that if others were unable to find flaws with it, then I would adopt the philosophy.

At the current point in our debate, it seems my objections are weak. What you are saying makes sense, and what Wrick-It-Ralph has said makes sense. The revision to Pascel's Wager has been completely undermined for me.

I thought that I should still continue with the debate to hone my argumentative skills, but it feels dishonest.

For these reasons I concede.

If you are currently working on a response to my last argument, I would be fine if you posted it as I'm sure I would find it interesting. It's your choice.

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@berrybloxinator

DART=Debate Art.

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@berrybloxinator

There's no forfeit button, if you feel dishonest arguing, then you can either mention in the debate that you're playing the devil's advocate or you can concede via text. I tend to concede if I change my mind mid debate. Although it's rare for me because I'm so stubborn.

I think the biggest critique of pascal's wager is given by Matt Dillahunty. He cuts right past the probability end of it and just points out that no God is going to let you in heaven simply because you pretend to believe for the sake of getting into heaven. Put simply, religion is an all or nothing thing. You have to believe it whole heartedly or not at all.

My science teacher presented pascal's wager to me in Junior high and I found it convincing until after I became an atheist. I think a lot of it comes down to one's state of mind.

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@Wrick-It-Ralph

Makes sense.

Let me explain a few things.

Even though I am putting this idea forward, I am an atheist.
When I first thought of this revision to Pascel's Wager, it sounded reasonable. But I knew that I needed to put up to the scrutiny of others before I even considered adopting it. That is basically what I am doing on this website. I thought that I would attempt to defend this position. I figured that if others were unable to find flaws with it, then I would adopt the philosophy.

At the current point in the actual debate, it seems my objections are weak. What my opponent is saying makes sense, and what you have said makes sense. The revision to Pascel's Wager has been completely undermined for me.

I thought that I should still continue with the debate to hone my argumentative skills, but it feels dishonest.

Funny enough, this is my first argument on this website and have no idea how to forfeit.

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@berrybloxinator

In fact. At my level of play, there is no strategy that my opponent could ever adopt that I haven't seen before. I have spent years studying different openings and studying how to judge an opening that I've never seen before using the tactical fundamentals of a game. The most they could do is deviate from a line that I already know. (I know all of the starting lines) at which point, I only have to calculate the deviation. Now if my opponent was magnus Carlson. Then this deviation might destroy me from lack of knowledge. But a gambler doing it with no knowledge of chess fundamentals is just going to be entering into a sideline that is weak and I would crush it with ease.

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@Alec

Excuse me for being out of the loop but what is DART?

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@berrybloxinator

Even if the gambler did luck out and pick a good philosophy. (I'm granting a lot of allowances by saying this because, as an experienced chess player myself, I know for a fact that no person can win against a competitive chess player simply by adopting one idea. this is a fact.) The thing you don't understand is that the experienced chess player would see the strategy after the first game and figure out how to beat it with ease. so the gambler would only win maybe 1 game off of this at the most. But like I said. I'm making a lot of allowances for this because chess in not a game that you can win simply by adopting a random philosophy. It requires knowing dozens of fundamentals and memorizing strings of moves. There's no shortcuts.

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@berrybloxinator

Your example is unrealistic. There is no way to gamble in chess. It's a perfect information game. If the gambler does win. It's not because he gambled, it's because he had a better chess strategy.

If we're assuming that the gambler doesn't have as much chess knowledge as the chess player, then the chess player would win most, if not all of the games.

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@Wrick-It-Ralph

Ok. So let's say that two people are playing a chess game. One of them is a gambler and makes his chess moves based on one philosophy and no others. The other is an experienced chess player. If they both play 500 games and the gambler wins the majority, would it not be reasonable to say you should emulate the gambler rather than the experienced chess player?

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@berrybloxinator

When taken to it's logical conclusion, pascal's wager suggest that atheism is the best bet. Also, it's a category error to compare a gamble to a logical proposition. It's like comparing the world's best Yahtzee player to the world's best chess player. you can't say one is better than the other unless they're playing in the same category.

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@Barney

Thanks! Let's see if I can keep it up...

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@SkepticalOne

Very nice debate structure!

This is the 900th debate on DART.

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@Tiwaz

I have not read the Pensées. I only knew about Pascel's Wager from what I have read and seen online. In fact I didn't know the Pensées even existed.

It's a shame people isolate Pascal's Wager and all but ignore the entire rest of the Pensées.

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@Dustandashes

It makes sense that some faith systems require more than simple belief for salvation. It also makes sense that if you aren't sincere to a specific faith system then you aren't sincere to any of them. It would be hard to please a God when you have no sense of what he/she/it wants you to do. Since you don't know what he/she/it wants you to do, I guess the hope is that a genuine seeking for the truth will be enough to avoid the punishment of Hell. Problem with this is that maybe the God would rather you be an atheist before you can come to a solid conclusion rather using this revision.

Another issue with all this is that doing things like upholding the five pillars of faith is unequivocally tied to the concept of Hell. I don't know of any faith system that lets you avoid Hell just by hoping to communicate with whatever God exists.

Even with these issues my original thesis still stands. Atheism seems to have the same problems as this revision. So it stands to reason that they are equally defensible positions.

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@berrybloxinator

I would say that there are faith systems where a simple faith in the deity won't yeild a salvation from that faith systems hell. Take Islam for example. It wouldn't be enough to simply believe in Allah. You'd have to acknowledge Muhammad as his prophet and then uphold the five pillars of faith. Even then your salvation is not a guarantee.

Christianity would have a similar issue, sure one could believe in God, but you would have to go a step further and have faith in the death, burial and resurrection of Christ. In which case you are now a Christian, not just a seeker.

The problem becomes more exacerbated when you aren't trying to communicate with any particular God, just a vague creator, because now what you're saying is yeah all that stuff might be false. There might not even be a Jesus or a Muhammed. Or a Bahuallah or a Krishna

So in other words, I do believe the honest seeker is a good attempt, and a good model of sincerity, the problem is that you can only be sincere to one faith systems at a time. If not, then you're not sincere to any of them.

Am I making sense?

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@Dustandashes

The philosophy still takes care of Hell. If you believe in whatever God exists, then you will automatically avoid whatever Hell exists. Does this make sense or have I misunderstood?

I would say it's more rational than atheism, but the revision you propose kind of negates the idea of hell to begin with. Was that your intention?