Pascal's Wager: A Philosophical Argument

1. Examine the strengths and weaknesses of the argument for the existence of God based on religious experience. (18) 2. ‘The argument merely indicates the probability of God and this is of little value to a religious believer.’ Discuss. (12)

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.

The short story, “The Lottery by Shirley Jackson”, shows how scapegoatism forms violence and cruelty behind the story's structural character Old Man Warner. Warners meaning towards the stoning was that one had to have a connection with fertility in order to have successful crop growth. Warners behavior towards the ritual tradition has changed many things from wooded chips to slips of paper to the black box symbolizing death, and continuing to use stones in their ritual.

In this essay I will discuss the ontological problem of the existence of God and discuss Pascal’s Wager and how it solves the issue. The problem with the proof of the existence of God is that it is not something we will know for sure until our dying day. We can speculate and bet on his existence and “feel” his presence but at this point it is just that, only a bet. This wager is famous for opening up minds to look at the problem in a bigger picture. The problem with the existence of God is not in the answer but instead in the question. Pascal is responsible for refocusing this discussion on God to the bigger problem of the existential context of human life. In a way this can all be broken down to very black and white terms “Either God is or he is not.” But upon looking further we realize that this is a much bigger issue with many grey areas than something as simple as ‘is or is not’.

Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), French mathematician, physicist, and philosopher, argued that to believe in God, or not to believe in God is a gamble on ones after-life. Pascal believed that we, as human beings on planet Earth are wagering our eternity, after we die, by what we believe during our current, existing life. Pascal implies there is a heaven and hell. He explains that if one believes in God and God exists they are granted eternity in heaven and much is gained. However, if God does not exist and one believes in God, nothing is lost. One would be sent to the same place whether they believed in a God, or not. Pascal explains that if one does not believe in God and God does exist that person is doomed for all of

The Lottery point of view is third person (objective). These means the narrator is not a character in the story. Is telling us the characters thoughts and feelings. Also, the narrator shows the process of how is getting perform the lottery.

He had claimed that if God was to be all good yet does not possess the power to vanquish evil then logically God can-not be all powerful, similarly if he is indeed all powerful and possess the ability to eliminate all evil then he indeed cannot be all good. Blackburn uses the analogy of a university to explain the claim of the implausibility of God in a more relatable sense. In the university, students live in poor conditions such as leaky roofs and food that is inedible. The university management sits behind a closed office door yet never emerges and as such it would not be logical to assume that the management knows, cares and can do anything about the issues affecting the students. In a logical sense one must come to the same conclusion about such a god – such a being simply can not exist. It would be ignorant to believe so. Blackburn also addresses the claim that God has a different sense of what is good and what is evil by claiming that if the suffering of many around the world for any purpose, such as to test his, hers or its followers then this god is not suitable for moral guidance. However it is important to note that Blackburn does not refute the idea of a god existing, and goes as far as stating that a god may exist but not in a traditional Judeo-Christian form of understanding.

I do believe that an unsetteling ritual like the one told in The Lottery could happen in America today. This story insinuated that the ritual was done for two possible reasons. The first reason being to lessen the crime rate in their village, "Bobby Martin had already stuffed his pockets full of stones, and the other boys soon followed his example....eventually made a great pile of stones in one corner of the square and guarded it against the raids of the other boys". The second reason being to lessen their population, " Chips of wood, Mr. Summers had argued. had been all very well when the village was tiny, but now that the population was more than three hundred and likely to keep on growing, it was necessary to use something that would fit more easily into he black box". Both of these experiences are problems America has been trying to fix as of recently.

Pascal doesn’t understand that the atheist or the believer would be persuaded by his argument. Instead, he handles the Wager to the curious and unconvinced. I have a choice to either believe in god exist or believe that doesn’t exists. First, if I believe in God, and God exist, then I will gain happiness; but if I don’t believe in God, and God doesn’t exist ill pay the consequence. Second, if I don’t believe in God exist and God does exist, then I will gain pain; but if I believe God doesn’t and God doesn’t exist ill pay the consequence. So, I have everything to earn, nothing to lose by believing in God, and I have everything to lose and nothing to earn by not believing in God. Pascal’s wager is at first intent for believing, but not a proof. Yet, the wager assumes many conditions for the wager to fit a rational theory.

In this paper I will contrast the ways that Blaise Pascal and Saint Anselm of Canterbury attempted to convince people to believe in God. Before getting into the two arguments I should first clarify a few key terms. Firstly, the difference between ordinary and religious beliefs. An ordinary belief is exactly what it sounds like, it’s a typical belief based on adequate evidence. An example would be “I believe the sky is blue because I’ve observed it as blue countless times”. Religious beliefs on the other hand, are not based on reasoning, but instead “Sola Fide”, or faith alone suffices, meaning that these beliefs are based only on trust that the proposition is true. A basic example of a religious belief would be “God exists” despite a lack of evidence for the claim. The major conflict between the two different types of beliefs is that in ordinary belief its considered shame worthy to belief something without have reasons to support it while belief without evidence is the core of religious belief. Another key term that must be understood to understand the arguments is “faith seeking understanding”. This idea was championed by Anselm and is crucial to understanding his argument. In short, he means that if someone begins with just faith in God then through that God will help them attain understanding.

A common argument used to disprove the existence of God is Pascal’s Wager. This argument states that it is more rational to believe in God as you will be rewarded. If God existed, and the person believed in God, he would be rewarded. If the person did not believe, he would be punished .If God did not exist it would make no difference. For this reason it would be more rational to believe in God rather than to not. Pascals Wager was defined by seventeenth century Philosopher Blaise Pascal. The argument can be standardised as follows:

A weakness in Pascals argument for the existence of God, believes that God is sufficient for salvation. As seen in premise three of the argument “If one does not believe in the Christian God then if he exists then one receives an infinitely great punishment and if he does not exist then one gains little or nothing.” Pascal makes the assumption that those who believe in God will be rewarded with heaven as opposed to those who don’t believe in God will be punished with Hell. In Pascals wager, Blaise Pascal was arguing from ignorance. He is arguing the claim that God is sufficient to salvation; this claim cannot be justified. Pascals wager may not be refuted to some as the claim may be justified as there has been nothing proven in the opposition

Epistemologists do not completely disregard the fact of having supportive evidence when making conclusions but argue that lack of sufficient evidence should not hinder setting of belief. In Pascal’s wager, he bases his argument on the belief of the existence of God (Schlesinger, 557). The wager gives a choice of whether God exists, or does not. In the acceptance of Pascal’s wager, one acknowledges that God exists though there is no physical evidence. If one denies the wager he denies the existence of God. Pascal goes ahead to explain that if one accepts the wager, and turns out to be true that God does exist then the individual will have gained an eternal life whereas for the individual who did not believe would have lost. If it turns out that God does not really exist, the individual does lose only the pleasures of the earth which are considered to be immoral by the believers. Pascal made it compulsory for one to make a choice since in the end, one has to die. Pascal’s argument was to change the people’s way of thinking, and that belief did not have to be only based on evidence. As compared to the evidentialism theory the non-evidentialism theory does not allow pursuit of evidence to support a belief. The theory is content with making a conclusion without enough evidence whereas in the case of evidentialism conclusions cannot be drawn unless further research has been done, and the conclusion can be proven by evidence that is availed

The argument of whether God exists or not is an argument that has been tried and argued since the start of time, with no real advancement. But when I look at the argument I agree with the wager that Pascal proposes. “Every player takes a certain and finite risk for an uncertain gain; but it is no sin against reason for him to take a certain and finite risk for an uncertain infinite gain.” (pascal-61)

The Gambler's fallacy, also known as the Monte Carlo fallacy (because its most famous example happened in a Monte Carlo Casino in 1913)[1] . Also referred to as the fallacy of the maturity of chances, which is the belief that if deviations from expected behaviour are observed in repeated independent trials of some random process, future deviations in the opposite direction are then more likely. For example, if a fair coin is tossed repeatedly and tails comes up a larger number of times than is expected, a gambler may incorrectly believe that this means that heads is more likely in future tosses.[2] . Such an expectation could be mistakenly referred to as being due, and it probably arises from