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Philosophize This!

Episode #031 ... Pascal's Wager

Philosophize This!

Stephen West

Philosophy, Society & Culture, Education

4.817.1K Ratings

🗓️ 12 August 2014

⏱️ 29 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

On this episode of the podcast, we begin our discussion of Blaise Pascal by examining Pascal's Wager. We begin by hearkening back to last week's episode and imagine Pascal as Descartes' wingman in a door-to-door campaign to convince us to believe in God. Whereas Descartes tries to prove that God exists, Pascal simply argues that believing in God is the most logical choice (assuming you want to avoid eternal damnation). We then examine various arguments for and against Pascal's wager, including some submitted by our Twitter followers. All this and more on the latest episode of Philosophize This! Thank you so much for listening! Could never do this without your help.  Website: https://www.philosophizethis.org/ Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/philosophizethis  Social: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/philosophizethispodcast X: https://twitter.com/iamstephenwest Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/philosophizethisshow Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

For more information about this or any episode of the podcast, check out the website at

0:04.8

VelocifizeThis.org.

0:06.4

We have additional content, further reading, transcripts of every show, all three, of course.

0:12.2

But if you value the shows and educational resource and you want to help keep it going,

0:15.8

you can find out more about how to do that at patreon.com slash Velocifize This or alternatively,

0:21.1

if you're buying something from Amazon this week anyway, consider clicking through

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our banner.

0:25.4

It's at the bottom center of the landing page of VelocifizeThis.org.

0:29.6

1% of the show goes back to the show.

0:31.3

It may just be a click for you, but every little bit adds up.

0:34.3

Thank you for wanting to know more today than you did yesterday.

0:37.2

And I hope you love the show.

0:40.2

So last week, we visualized what it would be like if Renee Descartes came to your door,

0:46.0

kind of like he was a Jehovah's Witness, and he tried to talk you into believing the

0:50.1

way he does when it comes to the nature of existence.

0:54.2

We talked about these types of conversations in general where these people come to your

0:58.2

door and they try to convert you and these conversations typically go down to paths.

1:03.5

They either try to prove the legitimacy of their ethical doctrine or they try to make

1:08.3

you believe in God based on where you are before the conversation starts.

1:12.5

Now we visualized Descartes sitting on your couch, drinking your lemonade, and trying

1:18.1

to prove to you that God exists.

1:21.5

Now if you thought this visual was ridiculous at the time, that's because it was.

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