Comment by Kenneth Montville D.D. on April 10, 2011 at 10:13am

I like that you brought Schopenhauer into it. That is an aspect of the argument that rarely gets as much attention. That said, I always like to include that the argument is a false dichotomy, one where the only choices are atheism and Christianity. But what about all the other gods who are mutually exclusive? Allah, Yahweh, Zeus, Baal, Marduk, Thor, Ahura Mazda, Horus, Brahman, etc? Even if Christianity is correct, what about the Christian sects which are mutually exclusive, Catholicism, Protestantism, Anglicanism, Eastern Orthodoxy? And the denominations within them, Latin Rites, Coptic Rights, Lutheranism, Baptists, Calvinism, Hyper-Calvinism? And what about all the notions of God that have yet to be imagined? The notion becomes a nearly infinite to one chance of being correct when simple odds are played out with all things being equal.

Comment by Morgan Matthew on April 10, 2011 at 10:21am

Featured!

Comment by Shanna on April 10, 2011 at 4:12pm

Simple and wonderful.

Comment by Tiago Martins on April 11, 2011 at 3:42am

Love it when people state this argument as if it was something revolutionary, which no one ever thought about or, therefore, tried to refute. Nice job, I always forget the reversal argument when dealing with this one.

Comment by Atheist Exile on April 11, 2011 at 8:21am

Hi Kenneth,

Your points are well taken.  I was aware that there were more arguments against Pascal's Wager.  I was tempted to use Hitchen's pat answer but thought it was overworked these last few years.  As for the false dichotomy, I alluded to it when I turned Pascal's Wager around ("Will you surrender your quest for truth and understanding to the authority of a single religion?  After all, there’s thousands of them.  NOW what kind of odds are we talking about, Shawn?")

As you point out, with so many notions of God and religion, God would have to shoehorn himself into one of those rigid ideologies . . . then we would still have to figure out which one he chose.  If God was made in man's image, then there's over 6 billion potential versions of him out there.

Comment by Atheist Exile on April 11, 2011 at 8:24am

Thanks Morgan, Shanna and Tiago. :-)

Comment by Atheist Exile on April 11, 2011 at 8:35am

By the way; here's Shawn's reply . . .

“The second to last paragraph… Good luck with that.  And this is my last post. May GOD have mercy when the time comes.”

Comment by scottjarvis123 on April 13, 2011 at 12:02am

What's revealed when a theist uses Pascal's Wager is that it is they who fear Hell and that they don't understand why atheists don't.

Comment by Atheist Exile on April 14, 2011 at 8:06am

@scottjarvis123,

 

Yes, I never looked at it that way but that's a completely valid assertion.  Billions of people: afraid of a mental construct that's not even theirs.  They had to accept it from somebody else.

Simply amazing.

Comment by Atheist Exile on April 22, 2011 at 10:49pm

Thanks, Lee,

I agree with you.  There must be SOME cognitive dissonance that believers are sublimating.  They can't compartmentalize 100%.  Doubt must always be nibbling at the edges of their faith.

I've never deconverted anybody before my very eyes but I have gotten them to admit that they believe for personal reasons . . . not logical ones.  That's a good start.

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