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Sunday, April 26, 2020

Another reason the Buddhist faith is far superior than the Christian faith and a rebuttal of Pascal's Wager

Pascal's Wager from Wikipedia:

"It posits that humans bet with their lives that God either exists or does not.

Pascal argues that a rational person should live as though God exists and seek to believe in God. If God does not actually exist, such a person will have only a finite loss (some pleasures, luxury, etc.), whereas if God does exist, he stands to receive infinite gains (as represented by eternity in Heaven) and avoid infinite losses (eternity in Hell).[2]"

Here is a complete rebuttal of Pascal's Wager by Frederick Bentz:


Point 5:

"An example of a widespread atheist view on life after death is the Buddist belief in reincarnation. Personally I would suggest that this is the bet that gets the most gain, since it lets you play again, and again, and again... for eternity.

Theists may say that the gain from heaven is greater than the gain from life on earth, so their faith is a better bet than belief in reincarnation. But they miss the point that living for eternity will give you infinite gain as long as the gain is positive, because infinity times any positive number is still infinity. Even infinity times infinity is still infinity, so the only possibility that would give theists better gain than Buddists is if the gain from life on earth is negative or exactly zero. Therefore you have to detest life and the world for the argument to be valid."

I might add, from the most enlightened perspective, this world is the Buddha's land: 

"The masses of beings see the kalpas * exhausted,
When they are burned by the great fires;
This land of mine is peaceful and secure;
Gods and humans ever fill it. Gardens
and forests and various halls and pavilions,
With various types of jewels adorned; On the
jewelled trees many flowers and fruit, Wherein
the masses of beings take their pleasure
and rejoice. The gods strike the celestial drums,
Ever making instrumental music.
Raining mandara flowers. Scattering them
Over the Buddha and the great assemblies.
Though My Pure Land is not destroyed,
Yet the masses see it burned up,
Worrisome fears and agonizing sufferings
And such things all filling it up. These
beings of various sins, Because of the causes
and conditions of their evil karma, Though
they pass through asemkheyas** of kalpas,
Do not hear the name of the Three Jewels***.
Those who have performed merit,
Who are gentle and pliant, simple and upright,
Then all see my body.
Staying here, preaching the Dharma.
Sometimes for these masses I preach the
Buddha's Life is immeasurable. To those who
see the Buddha only after a long time, I preach
for them the Buddha is difficult to encounter.
The power of My Wisdom is like this;
The illumination of the Light of My Wisdom is
immeasurable; My Lifespan is immeasurable
kalpas; It is what I obtained by performing the
karmas**** for a long time. You those who have
wisdom, Do not produce doubts about this. You
should cut them off and cause them to end forever:
The Buddha's Words are true and not empty." - Lotus Sutra Chapter 16

*Kalpas: ~ 15,000,000 years
**Asemkheyas: many quintillians
*** Three Jewels in Nichiren Lotus Sutra Buddhism: Law of Namu Myoho renge kyo; Shakyamuni Buddha of the Juryo Chapter; Enlightened priests or more generally, the followers of the Eternal Buddha
****Karmas: Buddhist practices to save the masses of being

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