Tuesday, February 01, 2005

Judaism: Vegas Style

"Ahh...but can't we hedge our bets? Even if we doubt that God exists and he wants us to follow Jewish ritual, might it still not make sense to follow it partially, hoping for some "credit" if it turns out we were wrong all along??"

Pascal's wager is bankrupt. You assume that God, if he exists, cares more for obedience than honest individual thought and expression. And if he does care about obedience more than thought, you think he'll be fooled and not see through your selfish reasonings?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

You are correct in your question, but that's because the *original* question is faulty.

A person, in following Jewish ritual, would most likely be doing so for a small to large variety of reasons, including not only the selfish ones, but the altruistic ones.