What are your thoughts on Pascal's Wager?
by 
Inspector Javert
ANSWERS: 5
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im just here to renew your question,...but also...is this the thing about Athiesm and not?
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I like it. A mathmatical formula that weighs the odds of there being a God or not, and the benefits and deficits of believing in Him or not. He seems to find in favor of believing, although any one is quite free to choose otherwise. I remembering it working quite nicely for me when I was standing in that cold void of deciding whether or not to believe on pure logic because life had pushed me to the point of numbness out of pure survival. But I would think aethiests would appreciate it too, just on general principal of having something else logical to argue about. (Yes, I'm generalizing, so if you don't, try not to get too upset, okay?)
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On a flippant level it's this: believe in God to win the bet. To which I'd say: surely that's not the point of being religious.
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I think it's a bit ridiculous. To assume that one can somehow "decide" to believe in God because it's safer seems like a misinterpretation of the word "believe" to me. You either believe something or you don't. I could go to church, I could pray, I could tell you I believe in God - but if ultimately in my heart of hearts I don't, then surely an omniscient God would see through it all - and it would be a complete waste of time. It also presents the problem of which particular God to believe in - imagine going through your life a comitted Christian only to discover at the crucial moment that the Muslims, the Hindus or the Ancient Egyptians were right all along. It's not even a two-way bet. I'm sure there are many reasons why someone might believe in God, but I can't see how this could be one of them.
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It is silly. You cannot choose to believe in god any more than can choose to believe that pigs can fly. You can choose to go to church, to pray, to perform rituals and to make sacrifices, but you cannot choose to believe.
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