June 19, 2013
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Pascal’s Wager
Pascal’s Wager can be summarized as the following:
“If you believe in God and turn out to be incorrect, you have lost nothing — but if you don’t believe in God and turn out to be incorrect, you will go to hell. Therefore it is foolish to be an atheist.”
Issues with Pascal’s Wager:
1) It doesn’t point to which god to believe in: YHWH, Ganesha, Odin, Loki, Cthulu, Satan, Flying Spaghetti Monster. There are many mutually exclusive religions out there. This leads to the “avoiding the wrong hell” dilemma. Even if we’re just counting the number of religions that exist or have existed in known history, we still have thousands of options. Assuming, of course, that somebody had it right. If we count all the unknown religions out there, there are literally infinite gods to follow.
2) There are religions (if we can call them that) which may make it very disadvantageous to believe in god. For example, if Buddhism is correct, we must enlighten ourselves to cease the cycle of reincarnations and reach nirvana. Part of enlightenment could very well be understanding that there are no deities. And I’m quite certain that tricking yourself into believing in one is on the wrong path to enlightenment.3) The statement “If you believe in God and turn out to be incorrect, you have lost nothing” isn’t true. What if you believe in the wrong god, and the real god punishes you for being a heathen? And what about the religions that substitute medicine with prayer? You have also wasted a good portion of your life attending religious rituals, praying, working to tithe your church, and annoying people who don’t want to hear the “good word” (and trust me, it is annoying).
4) The argument seems to suggest that the “two” possibilities are of equal likelihood. If the probability of god is much smaller, the argument becomes much less persuasive.
5) No atheist I know disbelieves by choice. It’s not like we know that there is a god, but choose to ignore the fact. Most atheists disbelieve simply because they know of no compelling evidence to suggest that any sort of god exists.6) If we are unsure as to what god exists, should we take the implied statement of “being an atheist is bad for your eternal soul if god exists” as a given truth? What weight does it carry over any similar assumption? Isn’t it just as likely that god will be angry with people who believe for personal gain? If god really is omniscient, then it’ll know who is believing on a wager. Assuming, of course, that god cares who believes at all.
7) This hypothetical God may require more than simple belief. Almost all Christians believe that the Christian God requires an element of trust and obedience from his followers. That destroys the assertion that if you believe but are wrong, you lose nothing.8) It amounts to a thinly-veiled threat. “Believe in my god or he’ll send you to hell!” (But remember, you’re only being threatened with hell because of all the love in this religion.)
9) The biggest flaw in Pascal’s Wager (to me) is that it does nothing whatsoever to show that god actually exists. The wager, at best, leads the atheist to say “I sincerely wish I believed in god on the off-chance that he exists and it will give me a cushier spot in the afterlife.” For most intellectually honest people, belief is based upon evidence and intuition, not cost-benefit analysis. For example, please try to convince yourself – sincerely convince yourself – that 2 + 2 = 7. Can you do it? Pascal’s Wager does not garner sincere belief, only the wish of belief.
“It’s basically Pascal’s Wager for the paranoid prankster.”
Comments (20)
I agree. Pascals Wager never made much sense as an evangelism tool.
Well written. It’s funny to imagine Ganesha floating on a cloud being as how he has an elephant body.
A correction about Buddhism. Buddhism does not address the issue of whether or not there is a deity.
@musterion99 - haha I always thought it was a weird way to evangalize too
BUT! given the time and culture in which Pascal was writing, it was much more valid thought process…they knew only of the Jews, the Christians and the Muslims in terms of religion, and prevailing French culture dismissed Judaism and Islam without thought (not saying that was right, just that it was the way it was) which led to either Christianity or disbelief. Pascal was a Jansenist though, so I’m not sure why he would even be making the argument as they believed in predestination (if I remember from waaaay back in my French classes) and he might have been trying to show the Jesuits why their idea of free will was idiotic as if their idea of free will was true, everyone would be saved because it was the “smarter choice” but clearly not all people were meaning that we had to believe that people were dumber than rocks or that predestination was at work…. (the Jansenists and Jesuits were always butting heads)
but again, this is a vague memory from 2nd year uni, so I could be completely wrong, in which case I apologize for wasting your time =S
@canadiansrock - Thanks for the info. I know if I was an atheist, PW would not convince me to believe in God.
We don’t have to guess, assume, or wager. God can be known.
The entire blog proves that there IS NO GOD. The existence of so many extremely different religions alone proves this. My people were the closest to being right, but thanks to the Romans, our religion was virtually wiped out overnight. Think Samhain.
Regarding the xkcd cartoon
If Calvinism is correct, then belief in God has no value. The question of heaven and hell are predetermined.
@TheSutraDude - I said part of enlightenment COULD be discovering there were no deities. I’m aware of Buddhism’s apparent ambivalence towards the existence of God (at least the Buddhism we get over here in America).
@canadiansrock - I’m not familiar with the history of Pascal’s Wager, so that was interesting. I was dealing, obviously, with modern day usage, which you of course picked up on. Always refreshing to learn something new in my comment section.
The wager was indeed nonsense. The triangle was pretty good, though.
In debunking pascal’s wager, I’m fairly certain that someone could think of an updated version that makes sense. I’m not sure that I could say with certainty that it would be in the best interest of an atheist to think of this first… but it would be an unfortunate blow to their cause for someone else to do so first.
@GodlessLiberal - Ah yes you did. One reason Buddhism doesn’t address the issue is the issue cannot be proven either way as can be seen in the debates today that have been going on since long before the time of Christ. To me personally the important issues that surface from these debates is how people are regarded and treated based on a belief system. I’m talking about issues of bigotry and racism, attempts to turn a democracy into a theocracy, attempts to debunk science and thwart the development of a society, the negative effects fear based solely on an institutionally accepted but assumed belief can have on the personal development of human beings, that large segments of society here and throughout the world can be oppressed by a manipulated and/or conjured up fear.
Yep, this “argument” is clearly weak, and flawed to its very core. So much so, it’s beyond laughable when you still hear believers throw it around in the 21st century.
http://in-reason-i-trust.xanga.com/771566503/ouch-you-got-me-your-argument-is-undefeatable/
*sigh* Hey, at least I had fun with the poor sap that had the dimwitted idea of using that with me.
What annoys me the most about Pascal’s Wager is that, like much of faith today, it completely ignores that we are all taking chances with our beliefs, even to the smallest notations of wisdom, scripture, God(s), what have you… And as you’ve pointed out, there are many to take into consideration.
A wager is no faith at all.
@GodlessLiberal - haha it’s good to know I put that university education to good use…
@musterion99 - nor I…in fact I might laugh at them and say THEY were dumber than rocks =P
@jmallory - EXACTLY! A truly all-knowing god will know if I’m faking. So yeah, he’s gonna call my bluff (literally).
i get what you’re saying. this is why i tend no to swing the way of any religion. but how should i confront them religious folks by telling them that THEIR religion is not all there is to it, and so they should not try to put their religion on-yo-face each time they find someone worthy to be converted? how could one convince them that the human race should just learn to get along instead of turning their back against those who choose to have a different believe? THIS is what i’d like to know.
Pascal’s Wager is stupid in a sense because it’s simply poor logic and fails to address the central issue of faith (i.e., the Christian God exists). However, it’s quite brilliant in a different sense. Namely, it marked the beginning (or at least the popular philosophical beginning) of hedging one’s bets when it came to Christian faith. Pascal and other Christians of his time began to realize that science was proving assertions within the Bible to be wrong beyond a reasonable doubt. Pascal’s Wager marked the long beginning of the end for Christian apologism because, at it’s heart, it’s the open admittance by Christians that they can’t even hope to prove (or argue compellingly) that the Christian god exists and/or behaves as specified in the Bible. Instead, Pascal’s Wager shifts attention away from the core issue of God’s existence as explained in the Bible and attempts to focus people’s attention on secondary issues that suppose the Christian God exists and behaves as described in the Bible (like fear of frying in hell). Of course, this is simply a nonsensical, backwards approach to the issue. If the Christian God doesn’t exist and/or doesn’t behave as claimed in the Bible, there’s really no reason to fear hell at all. Further, this type of apologism, as pointed out by others, removes faith from the equation. Faith, according to the Bible itself, is supposed to be the foundation of the Christian faith. Certainty (or at least the closest mankind can approach certainty) is the realm of science.
So, I applaud Pascal for being a central figure in the continuing evolution of Christianity from the “WE ARE CERTAIN OUR GOD EXISTS, THAT HE IS THE ONE TRUE GOD, AND THAT UNBELIEVERS GO TO HELL!” Christianity of the pre-17th century world to the “MY GOD MAY EXIST, BUT EVEN IF I AM WRONG, AT LEAST I AIN’T GOING TO HELL!” meek Christianity practiced by most modern Christians. I see this as progress because, if the historical trend continues, we are a few hundred years away from Christianity being discarded altogether with all the other antiquated religions that existed before it.
Edit: To flesh out why it’s bad (or lazy) logic, here’s one aspect of it I don’t like:
The thrust of the argument is that hell, as eternity in misery, is such a bad consequence that no rational person would choose to “bet” against [the Christian] God’s existence. However, this assumption completely ignores the issue of probability and evidence. Even if hell is a worse consequence than no afterlife at all (the atheist belief), a rational person would still choose NOT to believe in the Christian God if the probability of God/hell’s existence was significantly less than the probability of there being no God. This ruins the force of Pascal’s argument. Really, there’s 0 empirical, reliable evidence that God exists. So, really, it could be fairly argued that there’s a 0% chance of God’s existence or hell’s existence, based on the available evidence. In this light, any rational person would choose to live the fulfilling life they wanted rather than subjugating themselves to a false idol for non-existent rewards in the after life because the smart bet would be on the bet that’s almost 100% likely to be correct, not the bet that is almost 100% likely to be incorrect.