46. Ponder Pascal's wager
Beta Version from April 15, 2018
Copyright 2018 by Donald R. Tveter, don@dontveter.com

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First, read Marshall Brain's essay: Ponder Pascal's wager.

Pascal's wager never made any sense. Simply believing that God exists won't do you any good. Demons know that God exists but that won't do them any good. Life on Earth is your chance to try out selfishness to see if you like it. If you like it, you can keep it. If you don't like it, you can ask God to take it way and He will. You either like what the God of the Bible has to offer or you don't. Everyone who wants the God of the Bible will get him. Everyone who doesn't want Him won't get Him. Anyone who prefers Krishna, or Allah or any of those "thousands of other gods" won't get what the God of the Bible has to offer. God gives everyone what they WANT. A life with Him or a life without Him.

Christians develop a relationship with God. They get to know that He is "out there" looking after them. They get to sense His presence in their lives. They get to sense His love. And they love what He has done for them and what He will be doing for them in the future. And they thank Him for it. They actually WANT Him. They WANT Him - A LOT! If you don't have that relationship, you've got nothing so you don't qualify for eternal life. Pascal's wager is like coldly buying car insurance just in case you have an accident. It won't do.

Marshall, you have no business criticizing Pascal's wager. Pascal was smart but that does not mean he was right about this. It is cheating to bring his bad idea into the discussion. It isn't in the Bible. Stick to trying to criticize what is in the Bible.

Brain ends with this:
The fact that there are so many gods proves that all of these gods are imaginary. If there actually were an all-knowing, all-powerful, all-loving "god" in any form, he would be obvious to everyone and we would all align on him. His existence would be undeniable and impossible to hide.
I think His existence is undeniable and impossible to hide. Yet, for people who don't want anything to do with Him, God has provided presentism and evolution so they can mentally live in a world without Him. It's what they WANT. If wishes count as prayers, Marshall, then God has answered your prayers! Oh, and everyone will never align on God. Huge numbers of people simply want to have their own way. Even during the Millennium, the 1000 years of peace, with Christ reigning on Earth in a near paradise, we know that huge numbers of people still won't want anything to do with Him.