The proof for the existence of God is an issue that may never be resolved. It has caused division among families and friends, nations and society. The answer to the question “does God exist?” is almost an impossible one to give with certainty seeing that there is a variety of people, ideas, cultures and beliefs. So how does one know if one’s actions here on earth could have eternal consequences? What is, if any, a “safe bet” to make? Blaise Pascal was a 15th century philosopher and a mathematician who proposed the idea that although one cannot know for certain that God exists, one can make a “safe bet” that it is far better to believe in God than not to believe in God. This is not a proof for the existence of God but rather an idea that suggest that if there is a God, it is in the person’s benefit to believe rather to disbelieve because the odds are in favor of the believer. This gambler-like idea is better known as “Pascal’s Wager” or “The Gambler’s Argument.” Nevertheless, this sort of play-the-ponies idea is not quite precise. Although Pascal’s Wager serves as a stepping-stone for non-believers, it is a rather vague, faithless and inaccurate argument.
Pascal’s wager takes the position of a gambler. It says that it is far more logical to believe in God because the odds are in one’s favor. Pascal lays it down on a diagram like so: if one believes in God and lives a good, moral, and Christian life and in the end finds that God exists, that person has hit the jack-pot, if I may, gaining eternal life in the presence of God. At the same time, if the aforementioned person comes to the end of life and finds out that God does not exist, then that person really did not loose all that much. Sure probably missed a few parties, didn’t dr...
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...ople to come back to Church and to believe in God but not out of self-interest. In order for the argument to accomplish this it must first be rewritten. It needs to define its terms (i.e. the use of the word God), it should not be based on chance or self-interest but rather to make known to the person that it is quite possible that God exists, and finally, it should include a fifth outcome where a person believes in God out of self-interest and is eternally damned anyway for lack of faith, love and for selfishness. Pascal’s Wager calls to mind a famous quote by Albert Camus: “I would rather live my life as if there is a God and die to find out there isn't, than live my life as if there isn't and die to find out there is.” Until Pascal’s argument is solid and fully developed, one should not adopt the argument as a mean for conversion, evangelization or lifestyle.
In conclusion I am left pretty much in the same place as I have started. It is impossible to prove or disprove the existence of God philosophically. For every philosopher who publishes his or her opinions on the subject, three more are there to tear it down. In the end I think it is best that man does not figure out the answer to this lifelong question. Some things are better left unanswered.
-Pascal’s wager was meant to show that while not believing in God will only have loss of some things, believing in God will allow you to gain everything.
“Why We Keep Playing the Lottery”, by freelance journalist Adam Piore takes a very in depth look as to what drives millions of Americans to continually play the lottery when their chances of winning are virtually non-existent. He believes that because the odds of winning the lottery are so small that Americans lose the ability to conceptualize how unlikely it is that they are going to win, and therefore the risk of playing has less to do with the outcome, and more to do with hope that they are feeling when they decide to play. It 's essentially, "a game where reason and logic are rendered obsolete, and hope and dreams are on sale." (Piore 700) He also states that many Americans would rather play the lottery thinking ,"boy, I could win $100 million" (705) as opposed to thinking about all of the money they could lose over time.
“Does belief in God influence decisions?” This question and many others are asked by countless readers after experiencing what is Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. This thrilling post-apocalyptic novel follows the journey of a nameless father and son traveling down a long road after what can only be described as the end of the world as we know it. It centers around their fight for survival and their quest to find somewhere in this new world that’s safe. In the background of the gritty feature is the constant thought of God and his influence on moral decisions. McCarthy illustrates through the choices made by the characters how belief in God or lack thereof molds someone’s personal decisions and maybe even slants their moral compass in different directions.
Several authors that we have studied have argued for and against the concept of believing in a higher power. It is a debate that has been argued over since the days of Plato and Aristotle, and it continues to be written about today. People have their own views on what happens after life and if it is or is not defined by a god, and these views essentially are the dogmas that define different religions. Blaise Pascal had his own opinion on whether a reasonable person should believe in God. Essentially, Pascal believed that there is no justifiable reason not to believe in God. Despite the counterarguments by several scholars against Pascal’s proposition, his proof still stands as a justification for a reasonable person to believe.
Pascal’s Wager is an argument that tries to convince non-theists why they should believe in the existence of the Christian god. Pascal thinks non-theists should believe in God’s existence because if a non-theist is wrong about the existence of God they have much more to lose than if a theist is wrong about the existence of God.
In his journal, Pensees, Pascal argues that religion is necessary for human existence because it influences human’s natural behaviors and motivations. He articulates that without Jesus, we would never really know ourselves (Pascal 7). He writes that “…man without God is totally ignorant and inevitably wretched” (22). In other words, we would never know what is good and evil without having God, because without God, we are unaware and ultimately evil. Pascal writes that we can only learn from God; therefore, we can never truly understand who we are unless we believe in God. Because Pascal says that man is wretched without God, he argues that, “Man’s greatness lies in knowing himself to be wretched” (32). In knowing we are born with both original sin and free will from God, we understand that we make mistakes and that we are not perfect, which shows that humans inevitably are great. Pascal writes for people to have faith and to “recognize that there is an infinity of things beyond” (55). There are so many things out there for us as humans and we need to realize that the world God created has so much to offer us, so we need faith to help us understand this. Ultimately, Pascal says, “the past and the present are our means…hope to live…we are always planning to be ...
Modern debates over religion, more specifically God, focus primarily on whether or not sufficient evidence exists to either prove or disprove the existence of a God. Disbelievers such as biologist Richard Hawkins tend to point to the indisputable facts of evolution and the abundance of scientific evidence which seem to contradict many aspects of religion. Conversely, believers such as Dr. A. E. Wilder-Smith describe the controversial aspects of science, and how the only possible solution to everything is a supreme being. However, mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal refused to make either type of argument; he believed that it was impossible to determine God’s existence for certainty through reason. Instead, he suggested that rational individuals should wager as though God does indeed exist, because doing so offers these individuals everything to gain, and nothing to lose. Unfortunately, Pascal’s Wager contains numerous fallacies, and in-depth analysis of each one of his arguments proves that Pascal’s Wager is incorrect.
Dr. William Lane Craig supports the idea of existence of God. He gives six major arguments, in order to defend his position. The first argument is quite fare, Craig says that God is the best reason of existence of everything. He gives the idea, that the debates between all the people, cannot reach the compromise, because the best explanation of the reasons of existence of everything is God, and nothing can be explained without taking Him into consideration. The second argument of Craig is from a cosmological point of view: he says that the existence of the universe is the best proof of the existence of God. Because, the process of the creation of the universe is so ideally harmonious, that it seems impossible to appear accidentally. The third argument is about the fine tuning of the universe. The universe is designed in such a way that people always have aim of life, and the life of people and the nature are interconnected. The fourth argument of Dr. Craig is about the morality: God is the best explanation of the existence of the morality and moral values in people’s lives. The...
Then he goes on to conclude by saying that, “The lessons learned from observing people and their beliefs support the position that I have defended: rational people may rationally believe in God without evidence or argument” (Feinberg 142). In schools today, students grow up listening to lectures that are subjective and then later are tested on what the teacher thinks and believes. Whether or not the taught perspective is factual or not, it teaches students from a young age to just take what the teachers, adults, and any authority says as truth, as a way to respecting authority. In the same way that it is reasonable to believe respectable authority, it is rational to have belief in God without specific evidence because we are created with the inclination that a higher being exists and God has shown Himself to be true to every generation. Furthermore, God has placed in every human the inkling to believe what is right or wrong, so when it comes to deciding whether to act a certain way, we can rely on our gut feeling if it is a good action or not. It is a very common and suggested thing to trust one's gut feeling when making a decision, even though it does not require any evidence to see if it is actually the right decision to
This tribe would have zero contact with the outside world and lack any knowledge of the Christian God. It would be impossible for these people to take part in Pascals Wager because they would have no knowledge of it. These people would be unable to choose disbelief or belief. It’s not possible to categorize these people as non-believers because non-belief necessitates knowledge of an option. Further assume that this culture has the same moral beliefs as Christians but came to follow these morals by way of their own rule and not divine intervention. These people according to Pascal would be doomed to an infinite hell as
The first objection is the entrance criteria for heaven. It says that by disbelieving in the Christian God that one receives an everlasting reward. If any of those distributive schemes were the true scheme, then the third premise of Pascal’s Wager would be false as there would be no way to prove it true. The second objection is the existence of God is unlikely. It says that for God to exist the probability of either receiving an eternal reward in heaven or of receiving an eternal punishment in Hell is so small that these possible outcomes of belief or disbelief can be disregarded The Wager sounds atheistic rather than theistic. The third objection is we cannot choose our own beliefs. It says that our beliefs are founded on truth rather than an act of will. Yet, Pascal’s Wager tells to us beliefs in God without evidence to prove such a belief true so it would be irrational to believe without reason. A weakness of Pascal’s wager is that God is never proved to actually exist throughout this whole argument, but instead we are supposed to assume that He is because it is easier to believe He does exist. Another weakness presented in Pascal’s Wager is the fact that the argument presents presents the wager as trying as trying to force yourself to believe something you might think is false. The argument puts a limitation on faith. Instead of believing in God because one genuinely believes in God and his plan, people will only believe in God in order to avoid Hell, which taints faith and its
Proving the existence of God is a worthwhile task. If someone did come up with a complete, foolproof argument for the existence of God, the people of the world would have no choice but to believe in His existence. However, even though St. Thomas Aquinas makes a worthy effort, I believe that such a task is not possible through logic and reasoning alone. There is an element of faith that must be present for people to believe, and if that element is not there, no matter how foolproof an argument seems to be, there will always be those who do not believe. In his fifth argument, St. Thomas Aquinas makes as close to foolproof argument that I believe anyone could make, and, for me, it does prove God's existence. However, if that element of faith is not there, I do not think you can completely prove God's existence to everyone.
...ren Kierkegaard talks about how to do it. He differentiates between subjective truth and objective truth and explains which one is better for faith. Faith and objective truth don’t coincide, so you must choose one or the other. Blaise Pascal talks about the possible benefits and consequences of taking the “leap of faith” and the possible benefits and consequences of not taking it. And Descartes helps to reinforce the faith of believers by providing a subjective argument that God does exist. In the end, the “leap of faith” is a risk worth taking.
There are benefits and disadvantages of believing in the Catholic faith. A benefit of believing in the Catholic faith is that God will forgive you for your sins as long as you repent and are truly sorry for acts that you have committed. Catholics believe in a heaven and hell, which is an advantage and a disadvantage. As an advantage when a person dies, according to the Catholic religion, they will go to heaven as long as they followed a good Christian life.