What is Pascal's Wager?

Question

What is Pascal's Wager?

Answer 1

Basically the thought that if you believe in God you lose nothing even if He is not real but if you don't you can lose everything or face eternal punishment.  The problem is that there are thousands of gods that could be just as real as God, so in order to make this wager pay off, you would need to believe in all of them.

Answer 2

Pascal's Wager (or Pascal's Gambit) is a suggestion posed by the French philosopher Blaise Pascal that even though the existence of God cannot be determined through reason, a person should "wager" as though God exists, because so living has potentially everything to gain, and certainly nothing to lose.

However, it's a very stupid and overused "answer" to questions.

Answer 3

A stupid argument to try and make atheists convert.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_...

Answer 4

That to bet against the god and bible makes no sense. If you say there is no god and you're wrong you lose salvation. But if you bet on god and you're wrong you've lost nothing.

But this is a narrowminded view of the world. What if you bet on god but it's the wrong one. Their are so many religions what makes christianity the right one and the other ones wrong. Does that mean 4 billion people are condemned just because their parents brainwashed them with the wrong religion?

Answer 5

Pascal started out giving a simple situation.  But the people who quote the simple version or a variation of it do not realize that Pascal went on to a more complicated analysis that disproves the original assumptions.

Answer 6

2.5 billion dollars

Answer 7

The idea that atheists should convert "just in case" your religion is right, and that if it IS right, then good, and if it isnt, then no harm done.

Its the most idiotic argument ever.

Answer 8

Basically, it says that an atheist has a lot to lose and nothing to gain by not believing in god.  And a Christian has nothing to lose and everything to gain by believing in god.

It's a poor attempt at converting nonbelievers that people post here quite often.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal's_Wa...

Answer 9

I THINK!...

It's kind of a statistical reason to believe in God.

Pretty much there are 4 scenarios.

You believe in god and he exists

You believe in god and he doesn't exist

You don't believe in god and he doesn't exist

You don't believe in God and he does exist.

The best thing that can happen is if you believe and he does exist... cause you go to heaven...

If you believe in god and he doesn't exist... nothing happens... you die.

If you don't believe and he doesn't exist... nothing still happens. And you still just die.

But if you don't... and he does exist... your going to the worst case scenario... h**l.

So according to Pascal's Wager - Believe in God because either it's better for you in the long run... or you die like normal

Answer 10

What stupid people use to convert atheists.