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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I have thought and thought about this. How can anyone believe religion is real? To me it is all superstition. I can understand why some people need it— it gives them community, structure, for some, morals and for others excuses to commit atrocities.  But really, what separates idol worship from Jesus worship or monotheism? In my mind it is all a bunch of made up nonsense that is not grounded in reality. It’s crazy to think that highly intelligent people believe all this. [/quote]

Pascal’s wager. If you don’t believe, your kinda an idiot - even to those of us who are scientists with PhDs and study the universe with numbers.[/quote]

NP. Pascal’s wager isn’t exactly an expression of faith. It’s a cost benefit analysis. Pure game theory.

The wager is that you can’t actually know if God exists, so you might as well hedge the bet that brings the greater upside. Inherent in this is the “not knowing.” Isn’t that agnosticism at its core? [/quote]

Why would you believe in a thing you don't know if it exists?  Especially a thing in a state where conditions are exactly the same if it does not exist as if it does?

That makes zero sense.  And people don't take that approach with ANY other belief except for god.  Which is what makes it 100% a rationalization designed to simply enable the belief.

That's all Pascal's wager actually is - a rationalization for a presupposed belief. [/quote]

It’s not rationalization for an existing belief. It’s an argument that one is better off living *as if they believed* based on a calculation of upsides vs downsides that lie along different paths.

It’s a cold calculus, that’s all.

FWIW, Pascal actually did believe. But his wager is game theory. [/quote]

You’ve convinced me to live as if I believe in Santa. There is only upside! 
[/quote]

Not trying to convince you of anything.

But you’re not far off from what the argument is. The difference is that you’ll probably get presents whether it not you believe in Santa. [/quote]

Pascal’s wager. If you don’t believe in Santa, your (sic) kinda an idiot - even to those of us who are “scientists” with “PhDs” and study the universe with “numbers”.
[/quote]

I’m the PP you’re responding to, but I’m not the one who wrote the post you quoted. I responded to the above poster because I believe they either misunderstood or misrepresented what Pascal’s wager actually was, since they were using it as an answer to the question why people believe.

My point was that rational people can make rational arguments about why it is safer to believe than not (only one path might offer infinite upside), but that’s a fundamentally different thing than having real faith.

I think some people in this thread are so in fight-mode that they didn't understand I wasn’t making myself making the argument that Pascal’s wager makes, I was simply correcting the record on what the wager actually is, and noting that it’s different from real faith and belief. [/quote]

Will add that I’m quite interested in people who have real faith — not the kind where someone is hedging bets, but rather where they have deep, faith that comes from that small, still voice. But maybe this forum is so filled with people who want to fight that it’s not really a place where someone would be eager to share something that personal. [/quote]

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