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Confirmed User
Join Date: May 2001
Location: Portland, OR, USA
Posts: 5,279
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Quote:
Originally posted by Danny_C
Oh, I got a company mixed up with a person, I think. I said Pascall... that's suppposed to be Pacal (in case anybody wants to do some research), as in Pascal's Wager.
I did a little research for you, and found a good reading on Pascal here. http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/p/pasc-wag.htm If you've ever used the "better safe than sorry" argument, read this to learn where your line of reasoning originated.
A little history first: philosophers had been debating since Socrates whether or not there was a God. Theists (starting with Plato himself) tried their hardest to come up with proof that a God exists (including some of the one's I mentioned, like the design argument). All of these efforts failed, and theists finally were forced to resign to the fact that if there is a God, his existence just can't be proven. So then theist philosophers tried a new strategy: basically, they said, "We can't prove he exists, but belief vs. disbelief is still a decision every person needs to make, so we're going to prove that the best option of the two is belief." That's where Pascal comes in. It was a great try, but just like the "evidence" that God exists, it's too simplistic, and is full of holes.
If you guys don't know much about the history of religion, you should really do some research. It's pretty interesting how mundane and political it all really is. It's fun to trace back the progression, and to see how current religions evolved into what they are today. Christianity, for all its denouncement of paganism, is largely inspired by paganism. For instance, there was a pagan holiday on December 25, and on that day they would hold a ritual in which they would decorate a tree, etc. When Christianity came along, they didn't want to give up that ritual (it was too much fun, I guess), and Christmas was born. You know December 25th isn't really Jesus's birthday, right?
Another interesting thing I've learned: the soul doesn't come from the bible. It comes from Plato (as a depiction of Socrates awaiting execution), and was based on simple reasoning (though flawed reasoning). It would take forever to explain his theory, but the idea of the soul was basically borne out of Plato's fear of losing all the knowledge he had attained during his life. So he put together some logical evidence that he thought proved that the body was finite, but that the reasoning (the mind, the soul) was infinite, and could never decay. He was the first person to ever suggest that the body and the mind (soul) were seperate. He believed that, during life, a philosopher's goal was to prepare for death by acquiring knowledge during life. That knowledge then became immortal, as a part of the soul, even after the body had long since decayed. The idea of the soul stuck, and we've believed in it ever since... even though his reasoning has been torn to pieces by philosophers over the years.
I'm pointing these things out because I think people tend to take them for granted. But when you learn where many of the concepts we've always assumed God told his disciples actually originated, it puts them in a different light. They were just philosophical debates in the beginning - no more, no less. Then somebody came along and decided to use them to advance his political agenda, and the masses, promised an eternal afterlife (along with the prospect of hell if they didn't obey) flocked the churches in droves. Religion has been our burden ever since. Think about it.
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The trouble with Pascal's Wager is that Pascal was more a genius as mathematics than psychology. Looking at belief formation, while someone might acknowledge that he SHOULD believe in God, a belief in God is highly unlikely to result from that acknowledgement, that is simply not how beliefs come about.
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