How else would you apply Pascal’s wager?
Where has history shown this?
I was pointing out that Pascals wager, it seems to me, cannot be logically applied to just one religious belief structure - for example, christianity. The reasoning previously posted indicated it could.
Historically, the collapse of the Roman Empire left christianity to take advantage of its already developed power base, thanks to Constantine's selection of it as the empires sole religion, as a political and social means of unification and control.
Christianity cemented its power base by forcing people to turn away from anything that contradicted the strict beliefs it insisted on, and actively sought to destroy and ususrp other competing religions/beliefs.
As the Dark Ages ensued, and on through Medieval times, freethought and open minded inquiry was stringently suppressed by christianity.
We lost over a thousand years before this domination and stern restriction of the western worlds cultures slowly, step by step, was pushed aside in order to allow the development of knowledge, understanding, learning, free study, to continue in a manner similar to what was started by Greco-Roman civilization.
As the first millenium CE progressed, the Arab world became a repository of knowledge, the place where scholars and freethinkers went to study and learn, unhindered by christianity's denouncement of such. That lasted until the Islamic religions gained sufficient power to force their beliefs onto their societies.
Richard, I would have liked to put more time into those comments however I'm about to head off for another 12 hour night shift and could only post of the top of my head.
I welcome any further comments or questions.
