PHILOS 2 Lecture Notes - Lecture 15: Agnosticism, Omnipotence, Diminishing Returns
Document Summary
Lecture 15: pascal"s wager by prof. sven bernecker. If the argument goes through, we have established that a divine being may exist. It is a contradiction to suppose that we can imagine a being greater than the greatest possible being that can be imagined. French mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer, and christian philosopher. Was a child prodigy who was educated by his father, a tax collector in rouen. If you don"t already believe in god, then it is rational to acquire the belief since if god does exist, you can expect an infinity of heavenly joy, whereas atheists are punished in hell. Different in two respects from the ontological or cosmological argument of god: tries to establish a rationality in the belief of god rather than in his existence. In which case you are better off uses the self-interest of the believer as motivation for the belief in god.
