Verified answer

Christians are handicapped.

I think that Pascal’s wager was more an argument for the believer then the nonbeliever. It breaks down to a simple mathematical concept, and this is why it is called a wager. 0/1=0 (not believing) and 1/0= infinity (believing in what is infinite). This concept of infinity is correlated to infinite reward vs infinite punishment for the believer. Although, mathematically "infinity" is merely an undefined quotient. The idea is "see, you are not losing anything by believing! The only ones who are guaranteed to lose are the atheists because they "wager" on zero; which they would get anyway if they wagered on infinity and were wrong! Stupid Atheists!!" The non believer remains unconvinced for the reasons outlined above by other wise commenter's, it is the believer who remains justified.

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THANK YOU! I've been getting this crap from both sides! Neither the Christians nor the atheists here have any comprehension that there are other religions in the world!

I often find myself answering atheist-geared challenges with "Well, you seem to assume that the only people who don't believe the Bible are atheists. I'm not an atheist, I'm one of those people that apparently doesn't exist: a non-Christian non-atheist. But even though I don't exist, I'll answer your question anyway."

I've actually had both atheists and Christians ask me "How can you call yourself religious if you don't believe the Bible?"

Stupid alert!

Hey Jane: " rose by any other name?" seriously? Have you ever even HEARD of more than three religions? There are 10,000 in the world and you so brazenly declare that all are carbon copies of Christianity!? That's just pathetic!

Angel: STUPIDITY LEAK: "but if anyone else is right then atheists are going to hell" Believe it or not, not all spiritual people are @ssholes who believe everyone else is going to hell (and drooling with glee over the thought of it.)

Good point. Atheists are only one type of person that refuses Christ, but there are others. The essence of his wager was that the Christian wins everything if he's right--eternal life in heaven; while, if he's wrong, and there is no eternal life, he's in the same boat as the unbeliever--that is, both are losers, no one wins. But if the Christian is right, the unbeliever looses everything, being damned to hell. Even if the odds were infinitesimally small of there being a hell, the wise man would do everything he could to avoid going there.

In defense of Pascal, who was a logical man, the wager is not strictly meant to be logical. It is meant to stress the infinite nature of the afterlife and the possibility of missing out on it. How can a man express these things adequately?

Yours in Christ, Nick

It's so easy to be saved, just believe in Jesus.

Pascal's Wager is designed and works only b/t atheists and whoever else. It's stupid to say you've trumped teh arguement because there are other religions. Any religion works against atheism if they promise an afterlife with the Wager. People just don't think of that I guess.

That's not Pascals wager as I would use it!

How I would use Pascals wager (and the most logical way, though there is none) is to say that if atheists are right then everyone just dies, it makes no difference what you believe, but if anyone else is right then atheists are going to hell, so why not just pick a religion, any religion, so that you give yourself at least some chance of heaven, so that in two scenarios you don't go to hell.

So the parties would be theists and atheists.

Pascal's wager is flawed anyway.

The assumption that it is 'Christian' nonsense or not, has nothing to back it up. What if it is some other form of nonsense that is the 'correct' method.

The wager is totally lacking for at least 2 reasons.

1) Limits the outcome without any logical reason to do so.

2) Assuming God is all knowing, wouldn't he know you're just hedging your bets?

Well, that is true, but atheists are a subset of non-Christians.

While I don't know many people who see the other "party" as being atheists, if someone does it's likely because they are a more recent enemy to the church. The belief has grown wildly in the past few decades as misinformation has spread. Subconciously they may acknowledge that other subsets are involved, but their larger concern is for this newer group.

I partly agree with you, but the "wager" only makes sense if you are hedging your bets against a negative outcome of picking the wrong one.

There are a number of religions where the outcome is not really all that bad, should you * not * choose it.

But, yes, you are correct. The decision is not just between atheism and Christianity. However, it is * not * between atheism and general theism.

Pascal never said anything about Christianity or atheism, his statement simply referred to God, it's the Christians who insist that he must have been talking about theirs because they assume there could be no other. Either way the argument is flawed because it assumes that the God in question either rewards hypocrisy or is too stupid to know the difference, which doesn't add up to much of a God.