Philosophy

6.3-FaithandReason.rtf

Pascal’s Wager

Pascal, a French mathematician reasoned that there is no rational proof for God’s existence. Nevertheless, Pascal argued, it is pragmatically justifiable to believe in God. The idea is that if there is a God, and you believed, then you get eternal rewards. If there is a God and you did not believe, you get eternal punishment. If there is no God, then either way you have nothing to lose (since there is no afterlife). So, the rational thing to do, is to choose to believe in God.

However, Pascal assumed there was a 50-50 chance that God exists. But there is not. First, we must decide which God exists, if one does. Since there are at least 1000 different Gods people believe in (and many more that people do not believe in), the odds that any one exists is, at best, 1-in-a-1000. Then, even if you decide this, you must determine what God wants of you. For most religions it is not enough to believe God exists, you must pray and conduct particular rituals.

Consider this. What if God gave us the ability to reason in order that we would see there is no rational proof for God’s existence. And only those people who recognize this and, using their God given reason, decide to NOT believe in God get into heaven? (remember the parable about the ten talents, Matthew 25)

Kierkegaard

Leap of Faith

Many Christian doctrines are contradictory:

1. God is immortal and God is mortal (Jesus).

2. God is merciful and God is just.

3. God knows everything and we have free-will.

4. God is omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent and evil exists.

According to Soren Kierkegaard, the essence of Christian doctrine is faith......belief in the absurd. One must recognize the absurdity of the belief, and believe not only in spite of the absurdity, but actually because of it. Notice, this is not “blind faith” where one believes without investigation. You must see the absurdity, then take a “leap.”

James

William James has a different story. For James, an option may have three qualities. It may be live or dead, momentous or trivial, and forced or unforced.

• An hypothesis is a proposition presented for belief. And an option is when you have two or more hypothesis to choose from.

• A live hypothesis is one which holds some meaning to you personally. It is “live” in your mind. Otherwise, the hypothesis is dead. If you have two live hypotheses to choose from, you have a “live option.”

• A momentous hypothesis is one which has significant consequences. Otherwise, it is trivial. Thus, an option is momentous if the consequences of your choice of hypothesis are significant.

• A forced option is one where you cannot get away with “not choosing.” you must make a choice.

James claimed that when you have a “genuine” option, one which is live, momentous and forced and reason cannot determine which hypothesis to choose, it is reasonable to simply make a choice (go with your gut).

Clifford

Clifford and Blanshard believe that we have a moral obligation to only believe things that have sufficient evidence supporting them. Our actions and our emotions are the direct result of our beliefs and values. Because our actions and emotions affect ourselves and others around us, we have an obligation to ourselves and others to be selective in our beliefs. We should carefully screen our beliefs, letting only those with good evidence in, and rejection others.

Nozick and Existentialism

One of the big questions throughout this assignment is: Must there be a “god” to give our lives meaning? Many belief so…..if there is no god, why are we here? (I hear this all the time) (consider Nozick’s example)

But notice that this question seems to assume we are like slaves…..waiting to be given a purpose. Unless someone else tells us our purpose, we have none! Existentialism (among other claims) claims that we create our own purpose.

According to Sartre, the only way to live an authentic life is determine for yourself what you are and who you will be. To live by doing what others expect of you, or what you think some unseen being expects of you, is not to live an authentic human life. We create our own meaning for our own lives……unfortunately, most people choose to not think and just live by doing what others tell them they should do.