Pascal's Wager
Pascal's Wager was developed from Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), a physicist, philosopher and mathematician. He was also a deeply religious man, follower of the Jansenist movement and a French Christian sect, which emphasized personal holiness and especially predestination. Pascal put up a philosophical defense of faith as a fundamental mean of understanding the universe. (Massimo) He was interested in the question of whether it could be rational to believe in God, even if you think it is enormously improbable that God exists. In this paper I will explain Pascal's wager as a unique blend of theism and the probability theory. Pascal argues that believing that God exists is a sensible wager, even if there is no evidence that God exists. The wager consists of the following simple argument. We don't know if god exists. Therefore, we are faced with an optional choice of believing in him or not. If we do not believe, we can live whatever life we please on Earth, but we are faced with potential eternal damnation afterwards. If we believe, we may forgo some earthly pleasures on the short run, but we may gain an everlasting reward after we die. Pascal's conclusion, based on his probability theory, is that we should obviously go
But to show you that this leads you there, it is this which will lessen the passions, which are your stumbling-blocks. (Stanford) for the latter choice. The potential reward is infinite, while the sure loss is meager. (Massimo) The structure of the problem is the process of deciding which action to perform. The possible outcomes are given by the possible pairings of the available actions with the different ways the world might be. With each possible outcome you associate a utility (a payoff), which represents how good or bad the outcome is for you. Do not believe ETERNAL We're ok, and we've had some Alan Hajek. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. The Metaphysics Research Lab Center for the Study of Language and Information, Ventura Hall, Stanford University. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pascal-wager/ Eternal bliss and eternal damnation is what everything boils down to. The outcome of believing is high than the expected outcome of not believing. There is a huge benefit if you are a theist and God exists, but only a small cost if you are a theist and there is no God. "It makes sense to bet on the existence of God, even if the existence of God is very improbable." (Sober)
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Approximate Word count = 1656
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)
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