A Paraphrase of Pascal's Wager
To paraphrase Pascal’s Wager, If you believe in God and you turn out to be incorrect, you have lost nothing -- but, if you don’t believe in God and you turn out to be incorrect, you will go to hell. Therefore it is foolish to be an atheist. Pascal’s argument consists of four statements: 1) One does not know whether or not God exists. 2) Not believing in God is bad for ones eternal soul if God does exist 3) Believing in God is of no consequence if God does not exist. 4) It is in one’s best interest to believe in God. Pascal had three arguments for his wager. The first argument is from super dominance, as philosophers call it. The implication from this argument is that: 1) The possibility that god exists is greater than zero. 2) If you assume the God exists, and he does, you have gained everythi
The second argument, is the argument from expectation. In this argument he seems to be stating that the chance that God exists and the chance that God does not exist are one in two (0.5). But the rest of this argument is not based on this assumption. He implies that 1) One must decide whether God exist. 2)For what is at stake, however good it may be, two or three lifetimes or an eternity, it would still be wise to believe and hope that if he did exist, to be rewarded and not punished. Another weakness to his argument is the question of which God to believe in. There are many different religions and Pascal doesn’t speak of any of them. For all we know, we could be believing in the wrong God and could end up being punished. The third argument is the argument is the argument from generalized
Some topics in this essay:
Heaven Hell,
Heaven God,
Pascal’s Wager,
God Pascal,
Believing God,
god exists,
believe god,
god exist,
believing god,
chance god,
argument argument,
,
believe god incorrect,
exist 4,
implies 1,
god incorrect,
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Approximate Word count = 550
Approximate Pages = 2 (250 words per page double spaced)
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