asaris

Regarding the original post:

It's been proven pretty conclusively that those three are not, in fact, contradictory. Philosophers these days trying to make the case against Christianity with evil argue that evil constitutes good evidence against Christianity, not that it contradicts Christianity. As was, I believe, posted earlier, just because God is good and omnipotent, doesn't mean he might not allow some evil for the sake of some greater good.

Regarding Pascal:

Well, the reason you should hedge your bets is a simple matter of the stakes. If you're wrong, you would only gain a finite amount of pain by believing, but you would gain an infinite amount of pain by not-believing. If you're right, you would only gain a finite amount of good by not-believing, but an infinite amoung of good by believing. So, as long as the existence of God is merely possible, it's worth it to believe.

Why Christianity above other religions? Well, if Christianity is right, and you believe in another religion, you're pretty bad off. But for any other religion, if you're a Christian, you're all right. (Not sure what Judaism teaches, but Islam teaches that Christian go to heaven, but a lesser level of heaven. The reincarnationistic relgions all teach that Christianity isn't terribly bad on your karma, and so on.)

The point that Pascal was trying to make, and that I would want to make, is that you're right, it's worthless to pretend you believe. So you have to make yourself believe. But you can't just tell yourself "Okay, I'm going to believe this now" and magically start believing. You have to act in the way that you would act if you believed, not in the sense of pretending to believe, but of training yourself to believe.

I've never been and probably never will be sure how I really feel about Pascal's Wager in the end. It's a nifty piece of argumentation, but does it really work to convert people? I have my doubts...

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"Die Deutschen meinen, daß die Kraft sich in Härte und Grausamkeit offenbaren müsse, sie unterwerfen sich dann gerne und mit Bewunderung:[...]. Daß es Kraft giebt in der Milde und Stille, das glauben sie nicht leicht."

"The Germans believe that power must reveal itself in hardness and cruelty and then submit themselves gladly and with admiration[...]. They do not believe readily that there is power in meekness and calm."

-- Friedrich Nietzsche