Pascal-2

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JDHURF said:

I’m not sure where you got that William James quote but I would insist on a the source. For my quote of William James is thus: “Surely Pascal's own personal belief in masses and holy water had far other springs; and this celebrated page of his is but an argument for others, a last desperate snatch at a weapon against the hardness of the unbelieving heart. We feel that a faith in masses and holy water adopted willfully after such a mechanical calculation would lack the inner soul of faith's reality; and if we were ourselves in the place of the Deity, we should probably take particular pleasure in cutting off believers of this pattern from their infinite reward.” This quote is from William James’ “The Will to believe.” Essentially he is saying that the wager is fraudulent and that to “believe” for such reasons as the wager would have is also fraudulent.

“The wager may also be criticized for requiring one to choose one's beliefs. Advocates of Calvinism would claim that beliefs are not something that we can choose. A person who accepted the tenets of the wager might act in a pious and believing way throughout their life; however, they do not have the option to choose to believe in God, as Calvinism believes that God alone makes the choice to accept some and reject others, regardless of what the person does.” – wikipedia.org

“The decision-theoretic approach to Pascal's Wager appears explicitly in the 6th Century BCE Buddhist Kalama Sutta, in which the Buddha argues that regardless of whether the difficult concepts of rebirth and kamma are valid, acting as if they are brings tangible rewards here and now.” – wikipedia.org

“The wager assumes that God is possible, and hence there is a non-zero probability of him existing. But this does not work all the time. For instance, in a measure theory conception of probability, one can have infinitely (uncountably) many possibilities, all of which have probability zero. (E.g., choosing a random real number between 0 and 1, all numbers cannot have positive probability or the probabilities sum to more than 1.)It is not clear what is meant when "probability" or "chance" is said in the context of something possibly existing, but probability cannot be used as defined in mathematics to justify the wager as is, since God being possible does not mean that God's existence has positive probability.” – wikipedia.org
“The wager fails to mention any costs relating to belief. It is argued that there may be both direct costs (time, health, wealth) and opportunity costs. Most modern religions require their followers to spend time attending religious services at temples and to donate money to these temples when possible so that they can be maintained. As a result, if a person believes in a God that does not exist, then that person has lost time and money that could have been used for some other purpose. There may be opportunity costs for those who choose to believe: for example, scientific theories such as evolution that appear to some to contradict scripture could theoretically enable a non-believer to discover things and accomplish things the creationist could not. It is also argued that belief incurs a cost by not allowing the believing person to participate in and enjoy actions forbidden by dogma. Many devout people make more noticeable sacrifices for their religious beliefs. For example, Jehovah's Witnesses do not accept blood transfusions. If a Jehovah's Witness' death could have been prevented by a blood transfusion, and there is no God, then the Jehovah's Witness has lost his or her life needlessly.
The wager assumes a non-zero chance that God exists. This makes it ineffective on strong atheism which assigns the chance that God exists to zero, making choosing to believe or not believe provide an equal reward (0). Others have argued that the utility of salvation cannot be infinite, either via strict finitists or belief that an infinite utility could only be finitely enjoyed by finite humans.” – wikipedia.org

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/heaven.html

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i) I gave the source of the quote. Try reading more carefully the next time.

ii) Both you and I are quoting James selectively. I quote what I think is relevant, you quote what you think is relevant. I included something you left out while you included something I left out.

As long as the gist of the original Jamesian summary is preserved, it doesn’t affect the analysis.

iii) You continue to miss the original point. The Wager is not a reason to believe in God. The Wager is about belief-conducive behavior. It gives a reason to behave in a certain way, not to believe in a certain way. And as a consequence of behaving in a certain way, belief will follow.

It’s a two-step argument. The first step is a cost/benefit analysis of the respective alternatives.

The second step is to chart a rational course of behavior based on least risky and most potentially beneficial alternative.

One could subdivide the second-step into two stages:

a) The behavior, and:

b) The result of the behavior.

Because, for Pascal, the sacraments are a means of grace, the first phase will result in faith.

At least, it carries that potential effect. So you still have everything to gain and nothing to lose.

iii) This is not about choosing to believe in God. Rather, it’s about choosing a belief-inducing lifestyle.

As a Jansenist, Pascal was not a libertarian. But that’s irrelevant to the Wager.

Once again, this line of objection confuses the motivational stage (part 1) of the Wager with the doxastic stage (part 2).

iv) As far as non-zero positive probabilities are concerned, even if this were a valid objection, it could be applied with equal force to the alternative proposition (atheism). Does atheism have a non-zero positive probability? So both sides would then have an additional burden of proof to discharge. Hence, this refinement is a wash.

v) As to the cost in this life if the believer is mistaken, the Wager can accommodate that objection since the cost is trivial compared to the relative overall cost/benefit ratio of the respective positions.

vi) Even if this is not a question of literal (Cantorian) infinity, that’s irrelevant to the comparative cost/benefit ratio. Heaven is still better than hell, and heaven is still better than oblivion.