Why do people still suggest pascals wager?

Question

why was it ever considered a good argument?

At BEST, it proves that its better to believe in god. but not a reason to believe.

you cant believe things just because you want to...or else i'd believe that i'm a millionaire.

the argument has so many other problems, but i see this as the most fundamental. i.e, the argument doesnt even argue anything.

Answer 1

Applied to horseracing, which is were you have posed this question...I guess all I can say is :-

There is no such thing as a certainty....the argument continues...

Answer 2

Well, I don't know if people still suggest it or not.  We still study it.  It's still an important historical conjecture.  They teach it in modern philosophy class.  I think the importance is to look at the reasoned argument.  We probably study it to see the logic more than anything else.

A lot of philosophy is trying to balance philosophy with god.  God and religion don't really mix with reasoned philosophy.  In philosophy you take a really logical approach and you go step by step.  In religion, you have God creating everything from nothing over the course of 7 days.  You see a lot of philosophers trying to save their faith... especially in the times where you'd be a heretic if you didn't believe in God.  Look at Descartes.  His whole Meditations is very step by step logical and well reasoned until he gets to the part about trying to bring God back into the picture... then he's just like "well, I exist and I have an idea of God, so he must exist too."  Not everything I have an idea about is something that exists.

Pascal's wager doesn't prove that God exists... it's just a logical argument for whether I should believe in God or not.  You can't just end there, though.  Actually believing is the next step.  The whole wager is basically about whether I should get up and waste my time at church every Sunday.  The wager concludes that it's better to waste that time than to find out later that you should have wasted it!

It's true that you miscategorized this question... but thanks for the fun little philosophy reminder... it's been like 5 years since I learned Pascal's wager!