Monday, July 24, 2023

Pascal's Wager

Pascal's wager is neither a logical proof nor a probabilistic evidence.  Acknowledging (in its less irrational forms) that atheism entails nihilism and that theism at least offers the potential for a pleasant afterlife, it is really about emotionally persuading people that the ramifications of a certain idea are more appealing than the ramifications of an alternative idea, with no inherent concentration on logical truth, possibility, or proof.  As such, Pascal's wager is not an argument, as some people call it, for God's existence.  No, it is an argument for belief in or commitment to (the two are not the same!) a major philosophical stance regardless of its truth or verifiability, rooted not in the necessary truths of reason and in absolute epistemological certainty, but in the subjective appeal of a given outcome as opposed to another.

Even aside from the fact that someone genuinely believing Pascal's wager has assumed to know God's character, that he is benevolent or that he has created an afterlife for humans who submit to him, this entire stance is not about truth and knowledge at all!  It reflects one of two broad categories of errors non-rationalists make regarding theism.  That an uncaused cause exists by logical necessity (in that something with causal abilities has always existed, not in that the uncaused cause could not cease to exist as is true of the laws of logic) is something that non-theists are too stupid to realize or accept, and that God cannot be known to exist by humans through anything except recognition of the logical necessity of an uncaused cause is a delusion of most theists across history.

For the former, unfamiliarity or discomfort with rationalistic metaphysics and epistemology keeps them enslaved to personal assumptions or to cultural trends, which at times include a bias against supernaturalism in general and theism in particular.  For the latter, an emotionalistic dependence on faith, tradition, so-called authority figures (there could be no ultimate authorities besides logic, God, and morality) keeps them shackled to idiocy like fitheism or other theological assumptions and errors.  Neither atheists nor fitheists are rational people, and their positions--that an uncaused cause does not exist and that God can be known/should be believed to exist on epistemological faith--are false by necessity.  It is not even the case that they could have been true.

Again, Pascal's wager is not even an argument in the sense some of its imbecilic proponents think.  It is highly irrationalistic.  Because of this, it is often embraced only out of a desperate emotionalism, which is in turn rooted in the desire of someone too philosophically incompetent to align with reason to convince themselves that a subjectively appealing concept is true--or at least a valid belief with or without rationalistic proof.  God's existence is a very philosophically vital thing one way or another, and the facts that an uncaused cause does exist and that it can be known to exist are trivialized or ignored by those who think Pascal's wager is rational.  No rational person wagers with belief.  There can be probabilistic evidence for or against logically possible things even when the logical proof cannot be accessed by beings with human limitations, yes, though rational people can fully distinguish between evidence and proof (which is logical necessity that can be known) and only believe in what is verifiable, which is the same as whatever is true by logical necessity.  Pascal's wager does not even appeal to any actual mere evidence for God's existence, much less the specific deity of Christianity it is often cited in defense of.

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