WOTM: Pascal's Wager
Is Pascal's Wager a good bet?
I have been a schmuck. People have been asking me — for the last ten years — to make a video about Pascal's Wager. And I am just now getting around to it. If any of you have made that request, I'm sorry. But here's the good news... The video on Pascal's Wager is here! The video on Pascal's Wager is here!!!
I hope you like it. And I hope it will be a resource for you or someone you know. This is a really stupid idea. And I'm happy to have given it a good lashing.
Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you!!! I truly, deeply appreciate all the help I get from youz guyz. I literally couldn't make these without you. B
Comments (7)
Thank you. Just thank you.
If there were a God, what would she/he think of hypocracy?
The basic interrogation conveyed in this worn out "wager" is: "What if you're wrong?" Dawkins' answer to that question is masterful: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3vEmrZGFwE" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3vEmrZGFwE</a>
Pascal himself presented the wager (it appeared in a posthumous book) as a way to show that argument CANNOT be used to justify faith, that other issues must be used because a logical argument is not possible, it fails on several accounts.
Great video. Thanks, BKD. Also, you kind of forced me to google Pascal's first name. Bobby threw me off so much that I legitimately couldn't remember what it actually was. Keep up the great work. You're doing a lot of good as far as I'm concerned. My two cents - these are great, but Mr. Deity installments are still my favorites. - Foreman Dave
My apologies, this is going to be longish. My take is Pascal used the wrong values for his wager. 1. "Going to heaven is all good." I just don't see heaven as all good. First, I would have to hang with a god responsible for the world's evil. Second, I would have to hang with people like Jimmy Swaggart or Tammy Faye Bakker. Neither of those consequences are good, but rather big negatives. 2. "Going to hell is all bad." At least I would get to hang with Mahatmas Gandhi, Samuel Clemens, Richard Dawkins, Brian Dalton, and a number of other fine intellectuals. This is very far from all bad and is a big positive. So the actual numbers of Pascal's original wager are too simplistic for my tastes, and do not include a number of - to me at least - important considerations. The argument about different religions is also a good one and could be incorporated in the wager's parameters as well. Overall, I think "a pox on both their houses" is the best bet and I'll stick with atheism.
You would think that the math would be better on this. Pascal was more of a mathematician than a philosopher, was he not?