A Logical Person Would Believe In God

I will now attack my opponent's claims. Opponent: "Pro offers Pascal's Wager as a logical base for the belief in God. However, Pro ignores many logical conclusions standing in opposition of the existence of God, such as the problem of evil, among others. " My opponent is basically saying that the of evidence for a God is so weak that that the actual probability of a God's existence is extremely low, meaning that it would be foolish to bet on God simply because we don't know he exists. However, this contains one major flaw. No matter how "unlikely" a God's existence may be there is still a possibility that one does exist. This doesn't alter the Wager at all. Unless we can unconditionally prove without a doubt that there is no God (which will never happen), it is possible a God exists. Therefore, it still makes sense to bet for God. The consequences and rewards of what you bet on does not change with the probability of how likely a God is. If the chance of a God is 99.9% the reward is still everlasting life. If the chance of a God is 0.000001% the reward is everlasting life. So, why not bet? Don't you want everlasting life. My Opponent: "The Wager assumes either: (A) A jealous and benevolent diety exists, or (B) No deities exist. " This debate is not about the Problem of Evil, this debate is about Pascal's Wager. If you wish to debate the problem of evil feel free to send me a challenge. However, for the sake and sanity of this debate, let's not bring it up. My Opponent: "One may be willing to bet one's eternal fate on the existence of God, but would the same person wager that such a god would believe a dishonest belief over honest skepticism? " Ahhh, my opponent's first good point. What opponent is saying is that: Any God who would reward a crass, self-seeking, aggrandizement strategy like the recommended by Pascal is an immoral being. Any universe in which sincere atheism and insincere religious activity is engaged in only for the sake of some payoff is rewarded, is an immoral universe. Pascal wants his argument, in principle, to appeal to as many people as possible. So the argument connects up with the one thing that everyone is guaranteed to have in common with everyone else: Self-interest. And self-interest is in no way an immoral or unworthy attitude. It is only the exaltation of self-interest over every sort of interest that is morally repugnant. In addition, Pascal can argue that his wager is the one appeal to self-interest that will get people moving in a direction where such interest will come to play its proper subordinate role in their lives. , as they submit themselves to the possibility of something greater than themselves. Was Pascal supposing that God will reward a charade of self-interested posing as piety? Not at all. Pascal was a shrewd psychologist. He understood human behavior. He wanted to construct an argument that would lead people to change their lives, in the knowledge that concrete actions often lead to real attitudes in human life, and that an actual search, however launched, would position people better to see the realities that were objectively there to be seen. Pascal didn't think of wagering as a leap into the dark. He believed that a greater openness in thought and an effort at prayer would issue a change in perception and, ultimately, a change of heart. It is not necessary to view the payoff of the wager as a literally external reward that will almost contractually be given to the person who places the right bet. What can envision the payoff as the ultimate culmination of a proper self-development, an intrinsic reward of a life suitably well formed in the right direction. A wagering person, Pascal thought, is eventually much more likely to become a person of real faith, and it is this sort of person who properly and naturally enters into the everlasting communion with God that is promised to all who embrace it. This is the payoff. My Opponent: " Furthermore, the Wager does not designate a specific deity to believe in. If I believe in Zeus and, after I die, the true god is revealed to be the God of the Abrahamic religions, I am still going to hell. However, if I believe in the Christian God and Odin is revealed to be the true god after death, my afterlife won't be too pleasant either. Because Pascal's Wager fails to provide a means of designating a set of religious beliefs, it is insufficient to determine which god should be believed in. " However, betting on a God still has higher payoff than not. No matter what God you bet on, you chance of receiving everlasting life is still higher than betting on Atheism. If your not right, and you bet on atheism you are 100% to receive eternity in hell. However, if you bet on a God, any God, there is still a chance of everlasting life guarenteed. My opponent's final claim is that religion is responsible for so much ill in this world, its consequences are not worth the belief. First of all, most religious people do not fly airplanes into buildings, this is simply a example of extremism. Extremism can be found anywhere: even atheism. Think about it, Hitler's holocaust of "undesirables" to create a master race can be seen as a extreme version of natural selection, a component of evolution, evolution being a largely atheistic belief. So, atheism wouldn't result in a better society, it might even result in a worse society. In a 100% atheist society, life would have no value, our value has humans would be based upon how much we could contribute to mankind. If we are born with down syndrome or are paralyzed, how can we possibly benefit society? In a 100% atheist society, we might as well be executed. I look forward to rebuttals.