Christianity is not an idea but is essentially a nonintellectual way of life as it is.
(4) Freedom: Given paradise, people preferred freedom. It's our freedom which makes us people as opposed to other natural processes. The existence of evil is the price paid for free choice. Human beings qua human beings could not choose only the good. (A crucial question Dostoevsky suggests is whether people actually seek freedom. Moreover, would God allow freedom of choice in the afterlife?)
(5) Future Harmony: Evil events will produce something better in the future for others (e.g., consider cases where there is a "necessary evil" or cases where the ends justify the means.) For example, my suffering today will produce a better world for my children and others in succeeding generations. The
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In sum, Pascal's Wager is not intended to be a philosophical proof; the Wager is just intended as a persuasive, pragmatic consideration directed to the agnostic.
d. What major objections can we construct to the Wager? Can the objections be countered?
i. Two main objections are often raised to Pascal's Wager.
(1) To believe in God simply for the payoff is the wrong motive for belief. Such self-seeking individuals would not properly serve the Deity.
(2) In order to be sure of a payoff, an individual would not know which God or gods to believe in to cover the conditions of the wager. Would the Wager also hold for Zeus, Odin,or Mithra? One would have to believe in all gods to be sure, but if there were only one God in fact, then this strategy would defeat itself. ii. Pascal could argue objection (1) isn't about subjective intentions; it's about objective probabilities. iii. Pascal could argue for objection (2) the different conceptions of different religions could refer to the same God.
e. What is the meaning of Pascal's sentence, "The heart has its reasons which reason does not know?"
i. Human beings live not by reason alone. Without heart, feeling, emotion, life would lose its
-logically, the belief in God is there because the Wager shows the outcomes of each possibility, and only one is good, which is believing in God and he does exist. If that were to come true, then you can gain everything, while believing and the existence being false, you don’t lose too much.
When I was at school in Vermont, one of my teachers explained to me Pascal's Wager. According to this teacher, the philosopher and mathematician Pascal had tried to establish the costs and benefits of believing in God. He saw it in this way: you can either believe in God or not. If you do believe in God, and there is in fact no God, then you will perhaps have spent some extra energy unnecessarily abstaining from certain pleasures and wasting your Sunday mornings in Church, but overall you did not give up too much. And, it could be argued, you may have actually treated your fellow men more kindly then you would have otherwise. If, however, there is a God, and you believed in him, then you get eternal salvation.
Furthermore, Dostoevsky makes a distinction between the suffering of adults, who are knowledgeable and understand the nature of the world, to the suffering of children, who have not yet learned the nature of the world and suffering. Dostoevsky is fundamentally asking, What incentive does an all-powerful
Pascal’s wager is the name given to an argument that was present by Blaise Pascal who was a French mathematician, physicist, and philosopher. Pascal had a strong belief for God’s existence. The argument hypothesizes and attempts to prove that there is more to be obtained from venturing on the existence of God rather than the rejection of the existence of God. Pascal’s wager states that man loses nothing in believing in God instead of reason through a game of chance. “You must either believe of not believe that God is – which will you do?” (Bailey, 99). Here, Pascal argues that reason and intellect cannot decide the question of whether God exists or not. Therefore, it makes logical sense to choose the option that would benefit us most even if it were considered to be right. Pascal states four options: one may live a religious and moral life and be rewarded by eternal happiness; one may live a pleasure – seeking life and be denied eternal happiness; one may live a holy live but there is actually no God or eternal life; and one may live a pleasure-seeking but it makes no difference because there is no God. The first of these options is the most important one because it represents the maximum gain and loss. If the turn out proves that there is no God, then the sheer risk of deciding against such a possibility warrants that we should take that option (99).
Blaise Pascal claims that having faith in God is an easy and obvious choice. Pascal claims that the reasoning to believe God is obvious, and claims that just because you can’t see something doesn’t mean it isn’t there. He relates this to the number infinity, and although you can’t comprehend it or see it, we know that it exists. “We know that there is an infinite, and are largely ignorant of its nature. As we know it to be false that numbers are finite, it is therefore true that there is an infinity in number. But we do not know what it is. It is false that it is even, it is false that it is odd; for the addition of a unit can make no change in its nature. Yet it is a number, and every number is odd or even (this is c...
Shirley Jackson wrote many books in her life, but she was well known by people for her story “The Lottery” (Hicks). “The Lottery” was published on June 28, 1948, in the New Yorker magazine (Schilb). The story sets in the morning of June 27th in a small town. The townspeople gather in the square to conduct their annual tradition, the Lottery. The winner of the lottery will stoned to death by the society. Although there is no main character in the story, the story develops within other important elements. There are some important elements of the story that develop the theme of the story: narrator and its point of view, symbolism, and main conflict. The story “The Lottery,” by Shirley Jackson, argues practicing a tradition without understanding the meaning of the practice is meaningless and dangerous.
Often times in literature, we are presented with quintessential characters that are all placed into the conventional categories of either good or bad. In these pieces, we are usually able to differentiate the characters and discover their true intentions from reading only a few chapters. However, in some remarkable pieces of work, authors create characters that are so realistic and so complex that we are unable to distinguish them as purely good or evil. In the novel Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoevsky develops the morally ambiguous characters of Raskolnikov and Svidrigailov to provide us with an interesting read and to give us a chance to evaluate each character.
As we delve deeper into the Philosophical understanding of William Clifford and Blaise Pascal we gain a new understanding of evidentialism and non-evidentialism. Having studied both Pascal and Clifford I lean more with Pascal and his thoughts and teachings that you do not need to have evidence to believe in a higher power. This paper will continue to give more examples of Pascals teachings of non-evidentialism and why I agree with them.
...hrough certainty. Personally I would have to agree with Pascal. There is simply a huge fault in the logic of Descart. His logic jumps to God exists without actually proving it. To say that we cannot conceive God without existence, and so we cannot exist without God is lacking any real logical basis. This leads to the Cartesian Tragedy and this destroys all further credibility to all further assumptions contained in his logical process. Pascal I can agree with a little more. He is straightforward in saying that we just have to follow our heart. He shows how proving through reason whether God exists would be difficult one way or another, which it
Through suffering and guilt comes a personal need to redeem one's self and once again achieve an inner peace of mind. This process of redemption is not easy, but is worth the prize of being reborn into a new being. When one fully commits him or her self to being saved, there is no stopping that final result. In Crime and Punishment, Dostoyevsky draws from personal experience to create a story based off of suffering, which ultimately exemplifies a message of redemption and rebirth through said suffering.
Within the tortured mind of a young Russian university student, an epic battle rages between two opposite ideologies - the conservative Christianity characteristic of the time, and a new modernist humanism gaining prevalence in academia. Fyodor Dostoevsky in the novel Crime and Punishment uses this conflict to illustrate why the coldly rational thought that is the ideal of humanism represses our essential emotions and robs us of all that is human. He uses the changes in Raskolnikov's mental state to provide a human example of modernism's effect on man, placing emphasis upon the student's quest for forgiveness and the effect of repressed emotion. The moral side of Raskolnikov's mind requires absolution in a Christian manner. This need obliviates his claim to be a Nietzschean superman, and illustrates that all humans have a desire for morality.
It is apparent that the love between Sonia and Raskolnikov plays a crucial role in Crime and Punishment, pushing Raskolnikov in a direction he otherwise would not have gone. Dostoevsky uses their relationship as a tool to develop the philosophical themes in the novel and prompt profound changes in Raskolnikov’s character. Through their love, Dostoevsky demonstrates the importance of human relationships in finding and maintaining happiness. He also seeks to condemn nihilism and disprove the idea that one cannot make one’s own meaning in life by having Raskolnikov adopt Christian existentialism and find his purpose through Sonia.
This man is the absolute opposite of everything society holds to be acceptable. Here is a man, with intelligent insight, lucid perception, who is self-admitted to being sick, depraved, and hateful. A man who at every turn is determined to thwart every chance fate offers him to be happy and content. A man who actively seeks to punish and humiliate himself. Dostoyevsky is showing the reader that man is not governed by values which society holds to be all important.
When looking at Pascal’s arguments that emerge in Pensees; the history, ideas, and people that influenced Pascal must be examined. Many of Pascal’s arguments involve the unity of both religion and science. This can be very controversial at a time where an absolute monarch challenges and tries to destroy other faith practices. Along with introducing scientific ideas others may misinterpret as trying to disprove God’s existence. Pascal was heavily influenced by the Christian church and was a firm believer in God. In fact, Pascal’s discoveries and experiments only solidify his faith even more. Pensees is Pascal’s thoughts on God and some other subjects that tie philosophy and the nature of man.
The human being is seen as 2 dimensional which includes the body and soul. The soul consists of 3 parts: it is alive, reason/intellect, and lastly the decision maker also known as the will. In order to make a will a good will, we must function with reason but reason can become corrupted. Its job is to gather the information, connect the dots, and present the evidence to the will. Reason is only a helper in determining if a will is good. Qualities of the mind can be extremely harmful if the will is not good. To make it good, we must act from a sense of duty, which causes our actions to be good.