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What do you make of it? Quote:
The philosophy uses the following logic (excerpts from Pensées, part III, §233):1. “God is, or He is not”
2. A Game is being played… where heads or tails will turn up.
3. According to reason, you can defend neither of the propositions.
4. You must wager. (It’s not optional.)
5. Let us weigh the gain and the loss in wagering that God is. Let us estimate these two chances. If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing.
6. Wager, then, without hesitation that He is. (…) There is here an infinity of an infinitely happy life to gain, a chance of gain against a finite number of chances of loss, and what you stake is finite. And so our proposition is of infinite force, when there is the finite to stake in a game where there are equal risks of gain and of loss, and the infinite to gain.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_wager Is that one of the things that keeps us in Mormonism? The ‘just in case?’
mackay11 wrote:What do you make of it?
Quote:
The philosophy uses the following logic (excerpts from Pensées, part III, §233):1. “God is, or He is not”
2. A Game is being played… where heads or tails will turn up.
3. According to reason, you can defend neither of the propositions.
4. You must wager. (It’s not optional.)
5. Let us weigh the gain and the loss in wagering that God is. Let us estimate these two chances. If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing.
6. Wager, then, without hesitation that He is. (…) There is here an infinity of an infinitely happy life to gain, a chance of gain against a finite number of chances of loss, and what you stake is finite. And so our proposition is of infinite force, when there is the finite to stake in a game where there are equal risks of gain and of loss, and the infinite to gain.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_wager Is that one of the things that keeps us in Mormonism? The ‘just in case?’
I guess you’d need to define “in Mormonism”. “In” as in temple recommend holding, tithe paying, FHE doing, TBM being or “in” as in trying to find something to hang onto since it’s my heritage and a significant part of who and what I am. For me I was never in so that I could become a god, create worlds, or be exalted and I’ve not left for fear of missing out on all of it and going to Hell which is yet to be defined. It seems to me the wager that Pascal is asking one to make is to believe which is considerably harder that putting chips in a pot.
I really like that idea of weighing the two sides. I think it is sometimes the reason I do certain things in the church, like wear garments. I thought of it as a superstition though, but this description sounds better. It reminds me of a discussion I read in a magazine between a priest and an atheist. The priest’s final point was something like, “If I am right, you have lost everything; if you are right, I have lost nothing.” I understand the logic, but I don’t like it – more because of the way it is extrapolated than for any issue with it at the most fundamental level. It’s when it is used to encourage obedience to a particular view of God that I don’t like it the most. I also have no problem with people who reject it due to a strong conviction that it’s a flawed foundation – out of a belief that there is no God. With that foundation, the answer is a rejection of God – and I respect that.
When the possibility of God existing is used as a bludgeon, I don’t like it – and that is how this often is used.
I don’t know. Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 2
I see “God is, or He is not” as a very different wager from “Joseph Smith is a prophet bearing truthful testimony, or he is not.” I’m fine with going all in on the first. The second…..? Ann wrote:I see “God is, or He is not” as a very different wager from “Joseph Smith is a prophet bearing truthful testimony, or he is not.” I’m fine with going all in on the first. The second…..?
Good point.
Ann wrote:I see “God is, or He is not” as a very different wager from “Joseph Smith is a prophet bearing truthful testimony, or he is not.” I’m fine with going all in on the first. The second…..?
That is the same point i would make. It is one thing to wager on god and a whole other thing to wager on the church. By wagering on the church it is like the lottery. Your chances of winning are nil. Beyond the church which god do you wager on? Muslims wager on Allah. Christians on Jesus. Plus you can wager on every other deity that has been in the minds of men through the ages. So even if you want to wager on God it is a crap shoot if you pick the right one.
Personally I think the best you can do is wager that there is a god and just do your best to be a good person. Leave the specifics of different religions out of the equation.
Cadence wrote:Ann wrote:I see “God is, or He is not” as a very different wager from “Joseph Smith is a prophet bearing truthful testimony, or he is not.” I’m fine with going all in on the first. The second…..?
That is the same point i would make. It is one thing to wager on god and a whole other thing to wager on the church. By wagering on the church it is like the lottery. Your chances of winning are nil. Beyond the church which god do you wager on? Muslims wager on Allah. Christians on Jesus. Plus you can wager on every other deity that has been in the minds of men through the ages. So even if you want to wager on God it is a crap shoot if you pick the right one.
Personally I think the best you can do is wager that there is a god and just do your best to be a good person. Leave the specifics of different religions out of the equation.
That is a great response.
Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 2
I wager that God exists. I have no good reason not to, and plenty of beautiful experiences that incline me towards Him. I’ve had one or two searing moments that convince me of the Atonement. But I’ve had to separate the question of the existence of God and my need for a savior from the truthfulness of the Church. My relationship to the church has become more a sincere, ongoing experiment. It may not take me all the way “back” to the things the church teaches about Joseph Smith.
What I can’t stomach right now is being told, in essence often times at church, chastised in a way, that my thoughts about JS are “wrong,” dangerous, blasphemous.
I don’t know what else to do. They
aremy thoughts. My hope is that I will stop taking apart the contraption formerly called my testimony. Stop trying to reverse-engineer it back to a certainty about founding stories and people – and just move forward.
Ann wrote:I wager that God exists. I have no good reason not to, and plenty of beautiful experiences that incline me towards Him. I’ve had one or two searing moments that convince me of the Atonement.
But I’ve had to separate the question of the existence of God and my need for a savior from the truthfulness of the Church. My relationship to the church has become more a sincere, ongoing experiment. It may not take me all the way “back” to the things the church teaches about Joseph Smith.
What I can’t stomach right now is being told, in essence often times at church, chastised in a way, that my thoughts about JS are “wrong,” dangerous, blasphemous.
I don’t know what else to do. They
aremy thoughts. My hope is that I will stop taking apart the contraption formerly called my testimony. Stop trying to reverse-engineer it back to a certainty about founding stories and people – and just move forward.
I read this today, thought you might like it:
Quote:
“[W]hile all members should respect, support, and heed the teachings of the authorities of the church, no one should accept a statement and base his or her testimony upon it, no matter who makes it, until he or she has, under mature examination, found it to be true and worthwhile; then one’s logical deductions may be confirmed by the spirit of revelation to his or her spirit, because real conversion must come from within.”
–President Hugh B. Brown, An Abundant Life:
The Memoirs of Hugh B. Brown
mackay11 wrote:What do you make of it?…Is that one of the things that keeps us in Mormonism? The ‘just in case?’
I think Pascal had the right idea other than greatly oversimplifying things into only two basic dichotomies when there are definitely other possibilities that are also worthy of consideration. So Pascal basically saw equally compelling reasons to argue both for and against the idea of God but to him the tie-breaker was that the traditional Christian notion of an eternal reward in the afterlife greatly outweighed what little he felt he had to lose if it turned out that the atheist world-view was correct. Of course even if we assume that God exists that doesn’t mean that we know for sure what exactly he expects out of us (if anything). Maybe God had something else in mind than what we typically offer as a sign of devotion or maybe God doesn’t really care what people believe nearly as much as they do.
In any case, I like the way Pascal evaluated what he saw as the most likely alternatives and I think it certainly makes sense to settle on beliefs we can live with based on what we see as the most likely outcomes in each case. I think this also shows one way the Church has gone wrong by not seriously considering the alternatives to many of the traditional LDS doctrines. The result is that the Church has come to depend heavily on many very specific claims that don’t withstand some of the strongest counter arguments and evidence to the contrary very well and on top of this the Church has raised the costs of believing to the point that it’s not very easy to shrug off as something you can still feel good about either way (whether it came from God or man). So I think this approach will typically not work out in the Church’s favor the more attention members pay to alternative possibilities but there are also other factors that tend to keep members in the Church such as family/social ties to it and/or because it’s what they are already used to.
mackay11 wrote:Quote:
“[W]hile all members should respect, support, and heed the teachings of the authorities of the church, no one should accept a statement and base his or her testimony upon it, no matter who makes it, until he or she has, under mature examination, found it to be true and worthwhile; then one’s logical deductions may be confirmed by the spirit of revelation to his or her spirit, because real conversion must come from within.”
–President Hugh B. Brown, An Abundant Life:
The Memoirs of Hugh B. Brown
I wish I had had the backbone to only ever testify after going through the process HBB describes. Ultimately I can only blame myself for pretending to faith I didn’t actually have on several specific points of doctrine. On the other hand, I think the church has done a great deal to impede “mature examination.”
I find pascal’s wager to be completely flawed. “If you win you gain all.” It’s a false choice. I would like to think of god as an enlightened being. If I had a son who was a fawning sycophant, believing without hesitation exactly what he thinks I said 3000 years ago to a people who made crap up, I would be very concerned about his ability to discern truth.
If I had a son or daughter who ascribed to me genocide, and then justified it through faithful apologetics, I would be deeply concerned as to his or her moral compass.
If, on the other hand, I had a child who took full responsibility for his or her actions, did her level best to make the best out of the world s/he lived in, and cared for neighbor, what would I care what s/he thought of me? Expecially if every description of me is robed in abstraction so vague I cannot be recognized?
I would hope an enlightened god would countenance critical thinking. I think
Mr Deity’s interaction with Michael ShermerCadence wrote:
Personally I think the best you can do is wager that there is a god and just do your best to be a good person. Leave the specifics of different religions out of the equation.Yes. This. I couldn’t say it any better.
Ann….exactly….to all.
wayfarer wrote:
If, on the other hand, I had a child who took full responsibility for his or her actions, did her level best to make the best out of the world s/he lived in, and cared for neighbor, what would I care what s/he thought of me? Expecially if every description of me is robed in abstraction so vague I cannot be recognized?When my son left the church, I got many statements of sorrow from fellow members. Some were sincere, and some were offensive. Wayfarer’s thought above was pretty much my response to the critics. I continue to advise my son to be a good person, and care for others.
I am so glad I read this thread today.
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