Pascal's Wager
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, 01-21-2007 at 04:06 PM (6286 Views)
Blaise Pascal was a brilliant French mathematician who gave us countless advances in probability calculation, as well as the grade ten mathematical crutch known as Pascal’s triangle. He also formulated Pascal’s Wager, a theorem which argues that logic demands belief in God, as one has nothing to lose in the afterlife if He does not exist.
Pascal’s Wager has been criticized from all sides. Among the frequently raised objections are that God would see through the Wager and send you to hell anyway, that there is no particular reason to believe in Pascal’s God particularly and that the statement that one has nothing to lose by taking up theistic belief is false. The biggest problem – and one somehow frequently overlooked – is that if one believes in God, one cannot get into Atheist Heaven.
Atheist Heaven is way better than Christian Heaven. Among the advantages are:
- The denizens are not required to praise anybody is they don’t feel like it.
- Sinning is allowed.
- Every other wednesday is Nude Wednesday.
- Special guest appearances by the cool gods from other religions, including Thor, Aphrodite, Buddha, Ganesha and Jesus.
- No Catholic Saints around to describe in great detail how they were tortured to death.
- Tickets still available for Björk’s first post-life tour.
- Well-stocked library, including Douglas Adams’ now complete Salmon of Doubt.
- Yes! We Have Thomas Jefferson!
- More booze than every other heaven combined, Including Valhalla!
- St. Thomas’ every popular “I Never Really Bought the Whole Resurrection Thing” lecture.
- Coming soon: stand-up comedy by George Carlin and Woody Allen.
- And much more!
Despite then name, Atheist Heaven is open to all sorts of irreligious persons, including, but not limited to, doctrine agnostics, freethinkers, ignostics, deists, anti-theists, Spinozans, nihilists, non-theists and secular humanists. Non-doctrine agnostics (sometimes referred to as ‘weak’ or ‘soft’ agnostics) are exempt, but the moral among them will be given a guided tour of all the heavens. After ten minutes in each one, everybody turns to them simultaneously and shouts “Just kidding! It isn’t this one either!”.
The only requirements for entrance into Atheist Heaven are that one lead a moral life without the expectation of reward in the afterlife. The irreligious who fail to meet this requirement will be sent to Atheist Hell, with all the overly dogmatic and immoral theists (such as Fred Phelps at Pat Robertson), where they will systematically drive one another bonkers.
In conclusion and in summary, the theistic are welcome to their beliefs, but should be aware that the prizes offered by Pascal’s Roulette Wheel are not so great as the benefits of refusing to play.