Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Atheist's Wager

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or on a Votes for Undeletion nomination). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the debate was Keep--Doc (?) 22:23, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Atheist's Wager

Article gives no description if this is even an accepted philosophy worthy of an article. No source mentioned. Antley 21:41, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

• Delete per nomination. Antley 21:41, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
• Redirect to Pascal's Wager, which this is based on. I can see somebody searching along these lines. — Lomn | Talk / RfC 21:50, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
• Keep A Google search seems to suggest it's used in a sufficiently wide scope. However with a cursory glance, I couldn't find the original source for it. The article needs vast improvement, but seems worthy of inclusion. KeithD (talk) 21:51, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
• Keep... if sources can be found. --Maru (talk) 21:58, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
• Weak keep or Redirect per Lomn above. Nae'blis 22:30, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
• Keep it needs cleanup, but is definitely encyclopedic. -Greg Asche (talk) 22:41, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
• Keep I don't see why this should be deleted. It is an entirely valid article. I also think that it should be kept as a seperate page from Pascel's Wager, as they are two different arguments.Schrodingers catsup
• Keep. I very distinctly remember covering this in professor Kenneth Rogerson's Philosophy of Religion class in 1995 or 1996 - I suspect it was in the text. I recall reading a rather extended version of this argument that suggests that, with all the religions in the world, it's impossible to know which one is right. You could work your whole life to be a good Episcopalian only to learn that God wanted you to be a Presbyterian (or a Catholic; or a Buddhist), therefore the wager is between devoting all your energy to a faith that has a one-in-as many faiths as there are chance of being true, or spending the time on yourself and hoping that if there is a God he's not picky. -- BD2412 ^talk 02:15, 28 September 2005 (UTC)
  • Addendum - I think this may be under the wrong name, or under a generic name. I googled for "response to Pascal's Wager" and found (among other things) this website which ascribes such an argument to Voltaire (should be easy to confirm), and this one, which ascribes it to a George H. Smith, and consequently calls it Smith's Wager. -- BD2412 ^talk 02:36, 28 September 2005 (UTC)
    • Vote changed to merge with Pascal's Wager - information is happiest when most fully in context, and responses to an argument are happiest when they are close to the argument to which they respond. Besides, there is already a healthy amount of information on criticism of Pascal's Wager in that article, including Voltaire's response mentioned above. Smith's should go there as well. -- BD2412 ^talk 02:58, 28 September 2005 (UTC)
• Merge with Pascal's Wager per BD2412, but add redirect per Lomn. Bikeable 15:07, 28 September 2005 (UTC)
  • A merge inherently includes a redirect (has to so that the authorship info in the original can be preserved). Cheers! -- BD2412 ^talk 15:11, 28 September 2005 (UTC)
• Merge with Pascal's Wager and find sources. Jules LT 18:05, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
• Keep It taught me a lot, short as it is. I came to the article from research on Pascal's wager, and in particular the moral and philosophical objections to it, and commentary upon it during the last 3 1/2 centuries. This article is clearly relevant. Furthermore, questions about Pascal's wager are clearly relevant today. For example, every time someone is faced with a chain letter, the basic underpinning seems to me to be a disguised or variant form of Pascal's wager. Atheist's wager is not often cross referenced on the web, and Wikepedia should retain it as a separate cross referenced heading. Sigoldberg1 October 2, 2005
• Keep I don't see the point of merging it with Pascal's wager.Amren ^(talk) 23:34, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in an undeletion request). No further edits should be made to this page.