As others have said, Pascal's Wager is stupid. I prefer Marcus Aurelius' version:
"Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones."
When someone brings up Pascal's wager as a gotcha, they can't handle "which god?" as a response. They tend to stare blankly, with a hint of confusion because they find the question unanswerable. After all, there is only one god, that is their particular interpretation of what the Christian god is.
By Real Catholic you have to mean be in the church of Sspv-Cspv (society of Saint pius the fifth-confraternity society of Saint pius the 5)and follow all the rules, dogma, doctrine, culture from about 1950 before the V2 Satanists took over and not attend ANY OTHER UNAUTHORIZED, or PRE-APPROVED church(by them). So many rules.
Yes, the news accounts mentioned some recent examples, and many comments I've read elsewhere seem to assume he took a nasty turn with Trump's political ascendancy. But it must have been late 1990s or early 2000s when I came across some remarks about his extremist political views. I didn't want to believe it, so I tracked down the source material, probably his blog. What he said was even worse than the rumors suggested. Ugly rants, gross misogynistic insults, bullying harangues against anyone who disagreed with him. Repulsive, but also sad.
Scott Adams pretty clearly did NOT think things through with this supposed deathbed conversion. Whether he ever heard of Pascal's Wager or not, his indulgence in it tells me that, like too many other believers, believing JUST IN CASE was the hot setup. What he didn't mention was that what he was believing in has no substance, no demonstrable existence, and no means of verification.
In other words, he bought a pig in a poke. How stupid is that? [Answer: pretty stupid!]
My take on Pascal’s wager is the opposite. If the Christian god is all it’s cracked up to be, and I have lived a good life loving my fellow humans, then it will forgive my lack of worship and accept me into heaven anyway.
White Evangelicals don't want their enemies forgiven and all things reconciled. They want revenge on all of the people who criticized them and they want to watch them writhe in Hell begging for mercy while the white Evangelical smiles and says, "No."
Just saw a Forrest Valkai video where he tore Yahweh a new one for being a dick god. One comment on that video stated that the whole point of punishment is to correct bad behavior, yet with ETERNAL punishment, there is no chance of correction.
So eternal punishment is about nothing other than SADISM.
I think they bring up the wager because they're mad when you don't swallow their bullshit. It's one step short of a direct threat of hell, so by that point they only see punishing their "enemies" and not welcoming their fellow humans.
CS Lewis tended towards that. Read his Narnia book 'The Last Battle' in which a so-called heathen is accepted by Aslan because of his sincerity and good heart. Still a great shame that such a talented writer abandoned his youthful atheism.
His atheism was pretty thin. From what I can remember, his comments after his conversion simply perpetuated Christian stereotypes of atheism rather than any sense of a lived experience.
I’ll just leave this Jeff Tiedrich quote here: “live your life in such a way that when you die, your obituaries don’t open with how you were such a ginormous racist asshole that you fucked your own career straight into the shitter”
Wow, another deathbed conversion. There's nothing cynical or self-serving about that. And if christians out there think that's good enough, then that tells you all you need to know about their religion.
So, not only did Lil Blaise suckered Adams, he suckered the faithful.
Professional apologists rarely use Pascal, they know how flimsy it is. But the rank and file believers? They are so binary in their thinking that they see the wager as an all or nothing switch. When they bring it up, you just have to say "Which god?" to short circuit their brains.
I saw maybe a half-dozen of his comix. Back in the day, I would pack a Sunday Comix in with the regular(?) "gift."xmas gifts. A lot of time was spent reading the included "gift."
No one‘s conversion of Christianity or any other religion for that matter should be taken seriously.
Religion is a scam. They take your money and promise you things but everything they promise always happens after you’re dead so there’s no consequences for them. A pure scam.
“In the meantime, keep sharing the Good News with your unbelieving friends and family. Remember that God can use your interest in their salvation to help assure them of His love and interest in them.”
Ignore the thousands and thousands of failures, millions and millions of failures, billions of failures, this one halfhearted cynical success is proof of God.
Adams’ announcement read so sarcastic and cynical, I can’t believe folks believe it, though I didn’t listen to him say it on the podcast, his tone of voice might have come off as sincere so I may be wrong. But even if sincerely spoken, the words he used are so trite and selfish and insincere. “I win”. What is that supposed to mean? What do you win? Who did you beat? What does it matter if you win when you are dead, you’re still dead. And the Christian newspapers actually thinking that Pascal’s Wager is something to be proud of taking. Sure, where’s the risk to Adams? He wasn’t a believer his whole life, so he didn’t waste his life on the belief part, meaning he had no skin in the game by the time he placed his bet. He knew he was dying and he put his chips on the table, like waiting for the roulette ball to stop bouncing before putting it all on red. Oooh, so risky. The whole idea of Pascal’s Wager is not convincing to any thinking person. Let me trick this omniscient, omnipotent entity into letting me into the club without actually doing what he wants me to do. Puh-leeeeeze.
"The basic idea is that if you believe in the Christian God and it turns out atheists are right, oh well, no big deal. You wasted time praying but it’s not the end of the world."
His final act was a scam. No surprise there.
Yeah, I suspect much of what he did later in life was simply done to get reactions from people.
As others have said, Pascal's Wager is stupid. I prefer Marcus Aurelius' version:
"Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones."
- Marcus Aurelius (121-180)
Ooh, I love this!
I know it's now far too late for Adams to hear this, but...
Did you convert to Catholicism at the last second, Scotty? Pascal was talking about the Catholic god and no other. Oops!
When someone brings up Pascal's wager as a gotcha, they can't handle "which god?" as a response. They tend to stare blankly, with a hint of confusion because they find the question unanswerable. After all, there is only one god, that is their particular interpretation of what the Christian god is.
There's also that unfortunate matter of: "Do you really think my pretending to believe is going to fool an omniscient god?"
They don't much like that, either!
By Real Catholic you have to mean be in the church of Sspv-Cspv (society of Saint pius the fifth-confraternity society of Saint pius the 5)and follow all the rules, dogma, doctrine, culture from about 1950 before the V2 Satanists took over and not attend ANY OTHER UNAUTHORIZED, or PRE-APPROVED church(by them). So many rules.
Would this be the same Pascal who famously said (and I quote):
"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction."
(from his collection of thoughts/sayings "Pensees" published in 1670, 8 years after his death. It was banned by the Catholic Church)
I was a big Dilbert fan, until I read some of Adams’s writing, In a personal level he held some pretty loathsome views.
Yeah, the more you read, the worse it gets.
His early strips were funny.
Somewhere along the way whether he was always carrying meanness inside and it slipped out or he changed with a degree of success, he became mean.
Like with Michael Jackson before the kiddie stuff.
Kevin Spacey, Bill Cosby, Jimmy Savile.....
Yes, the news accounts mentioned some recent examples, and many comments I've read elsewhere seem to assume he took a nasty turn with Trump's political ascendancy. But it must have been late 1990s or early 2000s when I came across some remarks about his extremist political views. I didn't want to believe it, so I tracked down the source material, probably his blog. What he said was even worse than the rumors suggested. Ugly rants, gross misogynistic insults, bullying harangues against anyone who disagreed with him. Repulsive, but also sad.
He was pretty pro-MAGA.
Until it became inconvenient to his continued survival.
Scott Adams pretty clearly did NOT think things through with this supposed deathbed conversion. Whether he ever heard of Pascal's Wager or not, his indulgence in it tells me that, like too many other believers, believing JUST IN CASE was the hot setup. What he didn't mention was that what he was believing in has no substance, no demonstrable existence, and no means of verification.
In other words, he bought a pig in a poke. How stupid is that? [Answer: pretty stupid!]
My take on Pascal’s wager is the opposite. If the Christian god is all it’s cracked up to be, and I have lived a good life loving my fellow humans, then it will forgive my lack of worship and accept me into heaven anyway.
Interesting take, and rather amazing that believers don't lean on the forgiveness side of the ledger, rather than the judgment side.
White Evangelicals don't want their enemies forgiven and all things reconciled. They want revenge on all of the people who criticized them and they want to watch them writhe in Hell begging for mercy while the white Evangelical smiles and says, "No."
Just saw a Forrest Valkai video where he tore Yahweh a new one for being a dick god. One comment on that video stated that the whole point of punishment is to correct bad behavior, yet with ETERNAL punishment, there is no chance of correction.
So eternal punishment is about nothing other than SADISM.
So loving.
I think they bring up the wager because they're mad when you don't swallow their bullshit. It's one step short of a direct threat of hell, so by that point they only see punishing their "enemies" and not welcoming their fellow humans.
I've said it before and will say it again: they want me to swallow whole something I don't believe and they can't prove. Sorry-not-sorry, no sale.
I often respond with “You need better threats.”
As Arte Johnson would say, "That's a real goodie!" 👍
Pretty sure I stole that from someone on FA.
It surprises me how much it riles up the thumpers. They are shocked that “you’re going to hell” is seen as a threat.
"Heaven for the climate. Hell for the company." Mark Twain
CS Lewis tended towards that. Read his Narnia book 'The Last Battle' in which a so-called heathen is accepted by Aslan because of his sincerity and good heart. Still a great shame that such a talented writer abandoned his youthful atheism.
I remember that ... a Calormen soldier, wasn't it? Read the Chronicles years ago, and in fact, I wrote a novella take-off on them.
His atheism was pretty thin. From what I can remember, his comments after his conversion simply perpetuated Christian stereotypes of atheism rather than any sense of a lived experience.
Exactly
I’ll just leave this Jeff Tiedrich quote here: “live your life in such a way that when you die, your obituaries don’t open with how you were such a ginormous racist asshole that you fucked your own career straight into the shitter”
Wow, another deathbed conversion. There's nothing cynical or self-serving about that. And if christians out there think that's good enough, then that tells you all you need to know about their religion.
𝐴𝑓𝑡𝑒𝑟 𝐴𝑑𝑎𝑚𝑠 𝑎𝑛𝑛𝑜𝑢𝑛𝑐𝑒𝑑 ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑝𝑙𝑎𝑛 𝑡𝑜 𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑡 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑛 𝑎𝑓𝑡𝑒𝑟 ℎ𝑒 𝑑𝑖𝑒𝑑, 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑤𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑝𝑙𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑦 𝑜𝑓 𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑠 𝑤ℎ𝑜 𝑠𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑜𝑢𝑠𝑙𝑦 𝑏𝑒𝑙𝑖𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑑 ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑙𝑎𝑠𝑡-𝑑𝑖𝑡𝑐ℎ 𝑎𝑡𝑡𝑒𝑚𝑝𝑡 𝑡𝑜 𝑔𝑒𝑡 𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑜 𝐻𝑒𝑎𝑣𝑒𝑛 𝑤𝑜𝑢𝑙𝑑 𝑤𝑜𝑟𝑘.
So, not only did Lil Blaise suckered Adams, he suckered the faithful.
Professional apologists rarely use Pascal, they know how flimsy it is. But the rank and file believers? They are so binary in their thinking that they see the wager as an all or nothing switch. When they bring it up, you just have to say "Which god?" to short circuit their brains.
Why would I care about the opinion of someone who just died, when I didn't care about their opinion when they were alive?
I saw maybe a half-dozen of his comix. Back in the day, I would pack a Sunday Comix in with the regular(?) "gift."xmas gifts. A lot of time was spent reading the included "gift."
No one‘s conversion of Christianity or any other religion for that matter should be taken seriously.
Religion is a scam. They take your money and promise you things but everything they promise always happens after you’re dead so there’s no consequences for them. A pure scam.
“In the meantime, keep sharing the Good News with your unbelieving friends and family. Remember that God can use your interest in their salvation to help assure them of His love and interest in them.”
Ignore the thousands and thousands of failures, millions and millions of failures, billions of failures, this one halfhearted cynical success is proof of God.
Adams’ announcement read so sarcastic and cynical, I can’t believe folks believe it, though I didn’t listen to him say it on the podcast, his tone of voice might have come off as sincere so I may be wrong. But even if sincerely spoken, the words he used are so trite and selfish and insincere. “I win”. What is that supposed to mean? What do you win? Who did you beat? What does it matter if you win when you are dead, you’re still dead. And the Christian newspapers actually thinking that Pascal’s Wager is something to be proud of taking. Sure, where’s the risk to Adams? He wasn’t a believer his whole life, so he didn’t waste his life on the belief part, meaning he had no skin in the game by the time he placed his bet. He knew he was dying and he put his chips on the table, like waiting for the roulette ball to stop bouncing before putting it all on red. Oooh, so risky. The whole idea of Pascal’s Wager is not convincing to any thinking person. Let me trick this omniscient, omnipotent entity into letting me into the club without actually doing what he wants me to do. Puh-leeeeeze.
Scott Adams was a MAGA moron (I know, redundant), now he's a dead MAGA moron. Anyway...
"The basic idea is that if you believe in the Christian God and it turns out atheists are right, oh well, no big deal. You wasted time praying but it’s not the end of the world."
For you it is. 🙂