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the value of Pascal's Wager

It's value lies  -- not in showing that it is prudent to believe in God -- but that a prudent person must take the question of God's existence seriously.
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Tim D said…
Interesting. My problem with Pascal's wager is the part - if God isn't real, then you still wouldn't lose anything by pursuing Him.
10:26 PM
Leo White said…
Uh, maybe. But I think even mentioning "if God isn't real" is to open the door to the suspicion that one is more interesting in generating one's own belief in God than in whether God exists.

Maybe an alternative version of what you propose would be to say that before one considers whether God exists, one must recognize that the very act of seeking to know the answer is an act that is demanded by the very structure of human desire, and especially by that form of desire called wonder.

Instead of saying "even if God doesn't exists" it says "before we attempt to answer the question of whether..."
5:46 PM
Tim D said…
Interesting. But doesn't Pascal go down the "If God isn't real..." road? Isn't that part of the argument?
12:36 PM
Leo White said…
I think that's Dostoyevsky you're thinking of if you mean the quote, "If there is no God then everything is permitted"
11:31 AM
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Hi Tim, I am posting my reply here, because the great blogmeister won't let me put it all in a comment. Me thinks I get your point: is it that we can name and chimps can't, so therefore we are of greater value than chimps? Naming is something above and beyond what a chimp can do, right? In other words, you are illustrating the point I am making (if I catch your drift). My argument is only a sketch, but I think adding the ability to name names, as it were, is still not enough to make the argument seem cogent. For one can still ask why we prefer being able to name over other skills had by animals but not by humans. The objector would demand a more convincing reason. The answer I have in mind is, to put it briefly, that there is something infinite about human beings in comparison with the subhuman. That "something" has to do with our ability to think of the meaning of the cosmos. Whereas one might say"He's got the whole world in His han...
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