Kinsa jud imo gituohan kung diin jud tah gikan, ang Bible or Science?

[hitch22]

Blaise Paschal, a french philosopher, has words of wisdom for all: believers and atheists. Paraphrasing his thought, it goes like this: "christians believe that their destiny is heaven. So, they live their lives the best they could, so they can be with their God after their death. Now, when they die and found out there is heaven, they enter into it. But if they die and find that there is no heaven, at least they have lived their lives the best they could; The atheists do not believe in heaven, and so live their lives as if there is no tomorrow, live and let live. But what if they die and find out there is heaven, where will they be?"

I did notice that you've brought up Pascal's wager a couple of times. As you know, Pascal wrote the famous Wager in his Pensées (or "thoughts"), which is his defense of the Christian religion. Let's take this on.

The actual words of wager starts like this (I'll just pick out the core of the argument):

There are two choices...

God is, or He is not. But to which side shall we incline? Reason can decide nothing here.

You must choose...

A game is being played at the extremity of this infinite distance where heads or tails will turn up. What will you wager? According to reason, you can do neither the one thing nor the other; according to reason, you can defend neither of the propositions...you must wager. It is not optional. You are embarked. Which will you choose then?

What are the wager and what are the consequences?

...two things to lose, the true and the good

...two things to stake, your reason and your will, your knowledge and your happiness

...two things to shun, error and misery.

And then Pascal goes on to say why you must believe...

Let us weigh the gain and the loss in wagering that God is. Let us estimate these two chances. If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation that He is.

And then he imagines a possible objection...

That is very fine. Yes, I must wager; but I may perhaps wager too much.

And then he replies it himself...

But there is here an infinity of an infinitely happy life to gain, a chance of gain against a finite number of chances of loss, and what you stake is finite.

Famous as Pascal's Wager is, you probably are aware as well that philosophers, professors, and scientists have raised various effective counter-arguments to refute the Wager.

First is the Argument from inconsistent revelations. Pascal assumed that only the Christian faith is to be considered. Diderot countered that "an Imam could reason the same way". And even within Christianity, the Roman Catholic Church cannot be the sole source of salvation. What about the Mormons, the Anabaptists, the Lutherans, the Anglicans...most of which, in the middle ages (and even down to today), have been engaged in religious wars or burning people at the stake for having a different interpretation of the Bible? If passion for belief is to be a basis, there have been hundreds of religions where people passionately died and killed for their God(s)...like Zeus, Odin, Wotan, Baal, Mithras, Dionysus, Osiris, or the Mezoamerican gods like Quetzalcoatl, Huitzilopochtli, etc. Which God? And How do we decide which religion is true (assuming that one of them is true)? The risk of believing the wrong God is not considered here.

The second argument is that the Wager assumes that God rewards belief. Richard Dawkins suggests that "God might reward honest attempted reasoning and punish blind or feigned faith." The American Historian Richard Carrier expands this argument as such:

Suppose there is a God who is watching us and choosing which souls of the deceased to bring to heaven, and this god really does want only the morally good to populate heaven. He will probably select from only those who made a significant and responsible effort to discover the truth. For all others are untrustworthy, being cognitively or morally inferior, or both. They will also be less likely ever to discover and commit to true beliefs about right and wrong. That is, if they have a significant and trustworthy concern for doing right and avoiding wrong, it follows necessarily that they must have a significant and trustworthy concern for knowing right and wrong. Since this knowledge requires knowledge about many fundamental facts of the universe (such as whether there is a god), it follows necessarily that such people must have a significant and trustworthy concern for always seeking out, testing, and confirming that their beliefs about such things are probably correct. Therefore, only such people can be sufficiently moral and trustworthy to deserve a place in heaven — unless god wishes to fill heaven with the morally lazy, irresponsible, or untrustworthy.

Further objection is on the scenario of believing in God and finding out that there's no God. It is incorrect to assume that you lose nothing. In this case, as Dawkins puts it, "if you bet on his existing and therefore squander your precious time on worshipping him, sacrificing to him, fighting and dying for him."

The third argument is that the Wager assumes that you can choose belief in the face of uncertainty (remember Pascal said at the beginning of the wager "Reason can decide nothing here"), which you can't. And therefore the Wager could only ask for a pretended belief. An all-knowing God would see through this. And Dawkins asks "Would you bet on God's valuing dishonestly faked belief (or even honest belief) over honest skepticism?" From here, we can also see another thing that's assumed by the Wager: it assumes what God prefers or wants.

Pascal's wager perhaps used to pack some punch when the Pensées first circulated. Nowadays, some Pascalians acknowledge that the Wager might be unsound for today’s multi-culturally sophisticated society. If you've seen a lot of the high-level debates between the religious and the secularists, you'll see that nobody brings up Pascal's wager as an argument in favor of belief in God anymore. You'll only hear about the Wager from an audience (who's probably not up-to-speed on how that argument have been played out) during the Q&A.

[Peenut]

Let us have the courage to accept that the difference between a prophet and a madman is not what they say but whether the crowd accepts the story and tells their children to believe it.

Let us take responsibility for our own actions, inactions, strengths and frailties and not project them onto ghosts, spirits, stars, portents, and Gods unseen.

[masterjanuarius]

I did notice that you've brought up Pascal's wager a couple of times. As you know, Pascal wrote the famous Wager in his Pensées (or "thoughts"), which is his defense of the Christian religion. Let's take this on.

The actual words of wager starts like this (I'll just pick out the core of the argument):

There are two choices...


You must choose...


What are the wager and what are the consequences?


And then Pascal goes on to say why you must believe...


And then he imagines a possible objection...


And then he replies it himself...


Famous as Pascal's Wager is, you probably are aware as well that philosophers, professors, and scientists have raised various effective counter-arguments to refute the Wager.

First is the Argument from inconsistent revelations. Pascal assumed that only the Christian faith is to be considered. Diderot countered that "an Imam could reason the same way". And even within Christianity, the Roman Catholic Church cannot be the sole source of salvation. What about the Mormons, the Anabaptists, the Lutherans, the Anglicans...most of which, in the middle ages (and even down to today), have been engaged in religious wars or burning people at the stake for having a different interpretation of the Bible? If passion for belief is to be a basis, there have been hundreds of religions where people passionately died and killed for their God(s)...like Zeus, Odin, Wotan, Baal, Mithras, Dionysus, Osiris, or the Mezoamerican gods like Quetzalcoatl, Huitzilopochtli, etc. Which God? And How do we decide which religion is true (assuming that one of them is true)? The risk of believing the wrong God is not considered here.

The second argument is that the Wager assumes that God rewards belief. Richard Dawkins suggests that "God might reward honest attempted reasoning and punish blind or feigned faith." The American Historian Richard Carrier expands this argument as such:



Further objection is on the scenario of believing in God and finding out that there's no God. It is incorrect to assume that you lose nothing. In this case, as Dawkins puts it, "if you bet on his existing and therefore squander your precious time on worshipping him, sacrificing to him, fighting and dying for him."

The third argument is that the Wager assumes that you can choose belief in the face of uncertainty (remember Pascal said at the beginning of the wager "Reason can decide nothing here"), which you can't. And therefore the Wager could only ask for a pretended belief. An all-knowing God would see through this. And Dawkins asks "Would you bet on God's valuing dishonestly faked belief (or even honest belief) over honest skepticism?" From here, we can also see another thing that's assumed by the Wager: it assumes what God prefers or wants.

Pascal's wager perhaps used to pack some punch when the Pensées first circulated. Nowadays, some Pascalians acknowledge that the Wager might be unsound for today’s multi-culturally sophisticated society. If you've seen a lot of the high-level debates between the religious and the secularists, you'll see that nobody brings up Pascal's wager as an argument in favor of belief in God anymore. You'll only hear about the Wager from an audience (who's probably not up-to-speed on how that argument have been played out) during the Q&A.

It is good that you brought out the Pensees of Pascal. They may sound out moded in our post modern times, but his thought can well be taken as good guide for a believer, trying to weigh his faith and his reason ... Thanks for that quotation, many among us here may not even know such.

[hitch22]

I'm pleased you've taken the time to read the post, januarius. I do hope you went beyond just the quotes from the Pensées. There's a big chunk from that post that presented the counter-arguments. If I may say so myself, I thought those famous counter-arguments puts Pascal's Wager out of its misery and exposed it as blatant hucksterism. As one famous polemicist remarked about Pascal's wager:

"Religious hucksterism of the cheapest, vulgarest, nastiest kind it's possible to imagine. He (Pascal) says, 'What have you got to lose? I've got a good offer for you. Come into my used car lot. Come on baby...just lie a little, and you never know!' No, don't talk to me like that, and don't call it piety when you do, or be prepared to have piety despised."

What have you got to lose, indeed? Seriously, I don't see anyone at the high levels of intellectual discourse using Pascal's Wager as an argument these days. It's unfortunate that this Wager is still being peddled among the credulous. But if it convinces you, fine. You're free to believe that.

[masterjanuarius]

I'm pleased you've taken the time to read the post, januarius. I do hope you went beyond just the quotes from the Pensées. There's a big chunk from that post that presented the counter-arguments. If I may say so myself, I thought those famous counter-arguments puts Pascal's Wager out of its misery and exposed it as blatant hucksterism. As one famous polemicist remarked about Pascal's wager:



What have you got to lose, indeed? Seriously, I don't see anyone at the high levels of intellectual discourse using Pascal's Wager as an argument these days. It's unfortunate that this Wager is still being peddled among the credulous. But if it convinces you, fine. You're free to believe that.

We have all the freedom to dismiss old thoughts ( and old treaties ..) as not viable for our present realities and thoughts. But still, there is wisdom in there that we can't just dismissed. Personally, I appreciate books and treaties according to their worth .. and would not just dismiss them as irrelevant or passe'. May it be Pascal's or Descartes or Aristotle or any other ancient books .. there is always a jewel in them that we can't just ignore. Am impressed you respected my opinion.

[hitch22]

We have all the freedom to dismiss old thoughts ( and old treaties ..) as not viable for our present realities and thoughts. But still, there is wisdom in there that we can't just dismissed. Personally, I appreciate books and treaties according to their worth .. and would not just dismiss them as irrelevant or passe'. May it be Pascal's or Descartes or Aristotle or any other ancient books .. there is always a jewel in them that we can't just ignore. Am impressed you respected my opinion.

Dyed-in-the-wool, I see. But I'm just curious. What did you think about Richard Carrier's rebuttal:

Suppose there is a God who is watching us and choosing which souls of the deceased to bring to heaven, and this god really does want only the morally good to populate heaven. He will probably select from only those who made a significant and responsible effort to discover the truth. For all others are untrustworthy, being cognitively or morally inferior, or both. They will also be less likely ever to discover and commit to true beliefs about right and wrong. That is, if they have a significant and trustworthy concern for doing right and avoiding wrong, it follows necessarily that they must have a significant and trustworthy concern for knowing right and wrong. Since this knowledge requires knowledge about many fundamental facts of the universe (such as whether there is a god), it follows necessarily that such people must have a significant and trustworthy concern for always seeking out, testing, and confirming that their beliefs about such things are probably correct. Therefore, only such people can be sufficiently moral and trustworthy to deserve a place in heaven — unless god wishes to fill heaven with the morally lazy, irresponsible, or untrustworthy.

The above point perhaps expounded on Thomas Jefferson's famous quote:

Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear.

Jefferson is also famous for drafting and enacting America's Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom...having learned well from Europe's bloody experience with theocracy. Ever wondered why that was necessary at all? Did you know what happened during the Inquisition and the Crusades? Did you know that, in Nov. 2000, the Vatican canonized Thomas More as patron saint of politicians? Get this: Thomas More had people burned at the stake for translating the Bible in English! Even just to say this, I can't even wrap my mind around it...why?

I know you're steadfast in your faith and I respect that. But I would want you to think and reflect on your religion's history as well. I hope you don't mind when I say these things.

Did you know that Christian England used to engage in massive slave trade because they saw no prohibition against it in the Bible but instead regulations?

Reverend Alexander Campbell:

There is not one verse in the Bible inhibiting slavery, but many regulating it. It is not then, we conclude, immoral.

...and the Reverend was right. Indeed one can find such verses in the Bible:

Exodus 21:1-4

If thou buy an Hebrew servant, six years he shall serve: and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing. If he came in by himself, he shall go out by himself: if he were married, then his wife shall go out with him. If his master have given him a wife, and she have born him sons or daughters; the wife and her children shall be her master's, and he shall go out by himself.

1 Peter 2:18

Slaves, submit yourselves to your masters with all respect, not only to the good and gentle but also to the cruel.

Mark Twain gave an excellent account of the Christian slave trade in England:

Christian England supported slavery and encouraged it for two hundred and fifty years, and her church’s consecrated ministers looked on, sometimes taking an active hand, the rest of the time indifferent. England’s interest in the business may be called a Christian interest, a Christian industry. She had her full share in its revival after a long period of inactivity, and his revival was a Christian monopoly; that is to say, it was in the hands of Christian countries exclusively.

English parliaments aided the slave traffic and protected it; two English kings held stock in slave-catching companies. The first regular English slave hunter - John Hawkins, of still revered memory - made such successful havoc, on his second voyage, in the matter of surprising and burning villages, and maiming, slaughtering, capturing, and selling their unoffending inhabitants, that his delighted queen conferred the chivalric honor of knighthood on him - a rank which had acquired its chief esteem and distinction in other and earlier fields of Christian effort.

The new knight, with characteristic English frankness and brusque simplicity, chose as his device the figure of a negro slave, kneeling and in chains. Sir John’s work was the invention of Christians, was to remain a bloody and awful monopoly in the hands of Christians for a quarter of a millennium, was to destroy homes, separate families, enslave friendless men and women, and break a myriad of human hearts, to the end that Christian nations might be prosperous and comfortable, Christian churches be built, and the gospel of the meek and merciful Redeemer be spread abroad in the earth; and so in the name of his ship, unsuspected but eloquent and clear, lay hidden prophecy. She was called The Jesus.

Did you know that thousands of women were burnt at the stake for the mistaken belief that they were witches? People used this verse from the Bible as justification:

Exodus 22:18

Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.

Once again, Mark Twain used his pen to bear witness to the atrocities:

The Bible commanded that witches should not be allowed to live. Therefore the Church, after doing its duty in but a lazy and indolent way for eight hundred years, gathered up its halters, thumbscrews, and firebrands, and set about its holy work in earnest. She worked hard at it night and day during nine centuries and imprisoned, tortured, hanged, and burned whole hordes and armies of witches, and washed the Christian world clean with their foul blood.

Then it was discovered that there was no such thing as witches, and never had been. One does not know whether to laugh or to cry. Who discovered that there was no such thing as a witch - the priest, the parson? No, these never discover anything. At Salem, the parson clung pathetically to his witch text after the laity had abandoned it in remorse and tears for the crimes and cruelties it has persuaded them to do. The parson wanted more blood, more shame, more brutalities; it was the unconsecrated laity that stayed his hand.

Whenever I look back at religious idiocies and atrocities throughout history, I share the same sentiment as Mark Twain: I DON'T KNOW WHETHER TO LAUGH OR TO CRY.

* If you want me to lay down more such examples from history, I just might have to open up a new thread for this. Please let me know...coz I know there are some people here who might just oblige as well.

[demonicact]

ako sa science ko!

tuo ko sa "Evolution of Man"

[kenites]

@hitch22--- tnx for the post bro, very informative

naka hinumdum ko sa book ni Carl Sagan nga Demon Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark...grabeh ang Inquisition sa una, manglimbawt ako balahibo ...They even burned the baby of the accused witch..tsk!tsk!

Mao bitaw naa ko post before asking sa mga Bible believers if they really know about the book. No offense ha pero para sa ako it is full of inconsistency and ridiculous passage/teaching..

Ang burden of proof wala man sa science side..
ang burden of proof lies on the religious side..

[orcgod]

@hitch22--- tnx for the post bro, very informative

naka hinumdum ko sa book ni Carl Sagan nga Demon Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark...grabeh ang Inquisition sa una, manglimbawt ako balahibo ...They even burned the baby of the accused witch..tsk!tsk!

Mao bitaw naa ko post before asking sa mga Bible believers if they really know about the book. No offense ha pero para sa ako it is full of inconsistency and ridiculous passage/teaching..

Ang burden of proof wala man sa science side..
ang burden of proof lies on the religious side..

true that!

thats why creationists always complain why we always ask for Proofs / Evidence.

[dr.lata]

hala kamo ra jud nagkasabot...d nalang ko apil oi....kuyawan man ta 2nd coming naman inyo topic.live to the most nalang ko oi.