Rants: Pascal's Wager - STILL a rock solid argument for theism
It just occurred to me that not only is Pascal's
Wager a rock solid argument for theism being right, true and life being a quest
to find the true format of it, but UNLESS you posture as an AGNOSTIC, it remains
a rock solid argument for Christianity as well. I used to accept the atheist
argument that as an atheist, one couldn't choose 'a god' because of the fear of
getting the wrong one! Fair enough I thought, and went on to prove (IMHO) that
Pascal's Wager *still* proves theism the only thing worth believing in and that
the ultimate quest in life must therefore be, how can I know the real God of
theism?
However, I just realised that this claim of 'picking the wrong god' assumes a
lottery of gods. He speaks as though he were to randomly select one and that all
experiences with belief a, belief b and belief c would show no real difference
and that all 'faiths' would be indistinguishable from each other. This assumes
one thing - NOT really KNOWING God. He is comparing 'guess-a-god' to jars
of round sweets, where the product is samey, non-happening and fairly mundane.
Agnostics believe that one cannot know God. Most of them are not true agnostics
but rather drifting, uncertain people who aren't theists or atheists, and
haven't decided what they think. This is mostly the fault of teachers badly
using the term 'agnostic', often wrongly teaching students that an agnostic is
someone who isn't sure whether there is a God or not, and is between atheism and
theism. The real title for these people should be 'active/inactive seekers'.
They are NOT true agnostics.
Basically it occurred to me that if one met the real God, there would no longer
be any real 'maybe this faith will anger the real God so if I am wrong and this
isn't it, I'll be smitten worse than an atheist!' If you have God in your life,
you *know* He is real, that is unless you're living dead religion, traditional
church-ianity. I say this from knowing Him personally and having known a lot of
people who say the exact same thing.
Besides, if you did pick the wrong God (however daft this notion may seem),
surely atheists (who have declared He does not even exist!) would be treated the
same as any other 'pagan' believers worshipping another deity or false deity, or
devil? Therefore atheists cannot claim they are 'playing it safe' by not
picking.
No; they are limiting their odds of winning the god lottery to none whatsoever.
Plus, surely if they picked a God to follow, He would swiftly turn out to be
real or false, since God by His very definition is very, very large, powerful
and hard to miss. If He really got onto the inside of your life and spirit,
you'd know all about it.
Taste and see that The LORD is good, says Scripture. Don't think about it, the
mind is at war in many sense with the spirit, who seeks union with God Almighty.
If you've thought enough years of your life already, it's time to move onto the
logical next step - try it out. Put the shoe on and start walking in it. Don't
give it five seconds, try it properly. If it's real - you'll know. There's
little danger of you getting the wrong God, if you meet Him, I think you'll know
about it.
But you won't ever know by making up clever-sounding arguments that attempt to
justify not trying to look or try. if anything, Pascal's Wager proves that the
only true, worthy quest of life itself is to discover which form of theism *is*
true. Not to mope and give up, accepting atheism through fear of angering the
real God after all, which isn't real atheism anyway (since this would involve
seriously believing in the danger of upsetting the true God).