Pascal's Wager

Rebuttal: most of the arguments here have already been addressed. C1: Pascal's Wager does not give evidence for God's existence Already addressed. see "Common misunderstandings of Pascal's wager:" #1. in R1. C2: Pascal's Wager (PW) does not tell you which God to worship. Already addressed see "Common misunderstandings of Pascal's wager:" #3 in R1. C3: The Atheist's Wager I'm not clear what my opponents logic in this contention is. So I ask him to clarify in the next round. I will explain to the extent that I understood: This contention, seems to agree with the part of Pascal's wager which says you have nothing to gain by not believing in god but takes issue with the fact that you may stand to lose by not believing in god. This wager seems to make a very simple mistake in assuming that even if there is a god, there is no punishment for not acknowledging him. It seems the Prof for this is that if god did put people in hell, for not believing that would contradict free will. Almost all religions maintain that those who do not knowledge god go to hell. My opponent says this contradicts free will, he does not explain why they contradict, so I will have to wait till next round after he hopefully explains himself. Until then this contention seems to be baseless, and contradictory with most believers understanding of god. "REBUTTAL TO PRO" Seeing that my opponent only takes issue with this point, and not the rest. I do not find it necessary to respond. I will not bother responding, as it will make the debate unnecessary confusing and unfocused. "REASONS WHY I AM AN ATHEIST" To simplify, my opponents arguments are the argument of evil and the argument of non belief. The standard way of dealing with these problems is by getting into a philosophical debate about evil,morals, free will, ect. I prefer to first try a different approach. A simpler, and in my opinion much better approach. It will sound like it does not respond to the matter, but if you bear with me with an open mind, you'll see it does. My approach to these arguments is to address them without even attempting to ans. them. This approach can be broken into 2 parts. Philosophically speaking they are really one. a) critique of questioning. b) critique of drawing conclusions without adequate information. To get a feeling for the concept I will repeat some of the ways I have presented it in forums on this website. (They seem to have been effective there, so hopefully it will be effective here.) "What makes you think you can understand god his and ways? All the brilliant genius scientists cant understand so much of what goes on in this physical world, what makes you think we would understand a god and the world of metaphysics? Consider the following: a simple person from hundreds of years ago comes across an advanced piece of modern technology. would it be wise to experiment with it and make any conclusions about it based on "the best of his knowledge"? I hope the ans. is obviously, No. The correct approach is not always to "judge by the best of our knowledge". some times the best approach is one of caution and uncertainty. To quote the psychology book, "cultures of healing", "the distance between what we know and what there is to know is much greater than we would like to admit." and there for we make things up and assume to bridge the gap. when it comes to god we don't know enough to draw conclusions, he is metaphysical, and there is a whole metaphysical world that we know next to nothing about. The proper approach is one of apprehension, caution, ignorance, uncertainty, curiosity, and open mindedness. Not to draw rash conclusions based on something we know next to nothing about and can hardly relate to. We are missing to much information to make a rational conclusion. You cannot draw conclusions based on something you know next to nothing about. God as well as many other religious things are not physical. How can you draw conclusions about a being based on your knowledge of him, when you don't have the knowledge necessary to do so? It's like a 3rd grader reading Einstein's theory coming up with a seeming contradiction. and concluding Einstein was wrong. The appropriate approach for the mature 3rd grader would be, to conclude, that "I don't know much about the world of physics and I therefore cannot draw conclusions before I know more about physics". We are largely in the dark about what is really going on in this world. It is the equivalent of a 3rd grader "disproving" Einstein's theory of relativity. He does not know enough about physics. We do not know enough about god and the metaphysical world (or the physical world for that matter). l. There is a whole metaphysical world behind our world which we know very little about. We will not come to the truth until we are willing to acknowledge how little we really now, it is only from there that we can begin to expand our knowledge." Do you realize that almost every scientific theory has questions on it? Do scientists just throw away the theory bec. of a question? The ans. is, No. They work on it and keep it until they find a better one. Thousands of years ago Zeno developed 3 paradoxes "proving" that there is no movement. This question stood for thousands of years. did anyone conclude for a moment that there really is no movement?" No. bec. a question does not necessarily disprove. Lastly, there are questions regarding the existence of a godless world. For example, the problem of first cause. The intricacy and complexity of the world. The large gaps in the fossil record. ect. So if questions is a reasons are automatic reasons to reject there is trouble both ways. Which leads us right back to Pascal's wager: " Even if the existence of God could not be determined through reason, a rational person should wager as though God exists, because living life accordingly has everything to gain, and nothing to lose." This is the jest of my first approach, on a very basic level, I would like my opponent to critique it, and I will embellish in further rounds. If necessary I will resort to the standard methods of dealing with these problems.