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"Sirius" <Sirius@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:pan.2006.12.31.07.37.12.603704@xxxxxxxxxxxx
> On Thu, 14 Dec 2006 22:19:35 +0000, T Wake said :
>
>>
>> "Kent Paul Dolan" <xanthian@xxxxxxxx> wrote in message
>> news:1166134405.204687.225690@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>> Dante Alighieri wrote:
>>>
>>>> Pascal's wager:
>>>
>>>> Blaise Pascal said, "It is prudent to believe in God's existence,
>>>> since little can be lost if there is no God, and eternal happiness can
>>>> be gained if there is one."
>>>
>>> That proposition sounds so seductive, yet like all shell games, it is a
>>> bad wager.
>>>
>>> For, as it is the case that God does not exist, then believing in God
>>> has all of these negative effects:
>>>
>> <snip for brevity>
>>
>> Not to mention this pre-supposes the existence of the Christian God and
>> no
>> other - especially no other "jealous" deity who would condemn the non
>> believer to an eternity of punishment. To really be a sound "wager" you
>> would have to consider the existence of all the other possible deities,
>> which kind of changes the odds.
>
> Pascal, in 1654, was living in a world were not being a roman catholic
> could have very serious consequences. What was a good option 350
> ago in Europe is no longer an obvious choice in the world we know now.
Which is why the wager may have held credibility in the seventeenth century,
but bringing it out today is somewhat comical.
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