All humans bet their lives that either god exists or god does not exist. Given the possibility that God actually does exist, and assuming the infinite gain or infinite loss associated with belief in God or with unbelief in god, and the finite effort required to exercise a belief in god, a rational person should live as though god exists and seek to believe in god.
Problems with it:
- First, this wager is childish, superficial, and really just plain silly. This is not how religion and faith are supposed to work. It is so simple-minded, devious, and calculating that seriously contemplating its implementation is revolting. Anyone who would act based on this argument is either naive, not thinking clearly, or dishonest. It's probably more the case that people who accept this argument already are convinced on other grounds, and this just serves to bolster that belief.
- It assumes a 50/50 chance of god existing or not. There is no reason to believe this to be the probability distribution. It is entirely possible that the chance of god existing is infintesimally small, which would completely alter the wager. Or visa versa. Unless one first addresses the prior probability of either outcome, the wager is meaningless.
- The choice in the wager that "god exists" requires us to ask "which god?".
- If it is the god of another religion, but we choose to believe in a Christian god, we may be punished by that other god if he turns out to be the true god.
- If we choose the wrong god, the right god might punish us for choosing a competitor, but leave the person who disbelieves in all gods (or in no gods) alone. So, it might be safer to withhold belief.
- There have been thousands of gods that have been worshiped throughout history. There is no particular reason to think one of them is more likely than another. So, even if we grant that there is a 50/50 chance of existence/non-existence, it is really a 50% chance of non-existence, vs 1/1000 * 50% (or 0.05% chance) that your favorite god exists (if he is competing with 1000 other contenders). So it is not "god exist" vs "god does not exist", but in fact "god exists" vs "one or more of these thousands of gods, demons, spirits, or avatars exists". To even draw the line at 1000 is conservative. I could postulate an infinity of slightly different gods: god #1, god #2, ..., god #n. Is there a version of Pascal's wager for Zeus, Odin, or Ra?
- what if there is a god that is the true god that actually would punish us for believing in him? I know that it doesn't make sense, but remember, "god works in mysterious ways", and this would qualify as mysterious. If we grant that god is ultimately beyond comprehension, then an apologist could never successfully argue that god would not do that, because that would presume that he could understand god's intentions.
- Or there could be a god who is indifferent to our belief or unbelief. In that case, all the effort we put into believing would be completely wasted.
- No god worth worshipping would respect a belief based on a cold calculation of the probability of infinite gain/loss in the "truth table" that is ususally drawn up to explain the wager. For those who cannot believe, feigning belief to gain eternal reward is the epitome of insincerity. This would be dishonest and unethical. In addition, it is absurd to think that God, being just, wise, and omniscient, would not see through this deceptive strategy on the part of the "believer", thus nullifying the benefits of the wager.
- Just as there is an potential infinity of other gods who we would have to consider in this wager, there is also a near infinity of other things to worry about that might need to factor into the wager. Most of us are doing nothing to ward off vampires or werewolves. Maybe, just to be on the safe side, we should hang garlic from the rafters, keep a wooden stake nearby, a pistol loaded with silver bullets, and some holy water, as well. Or what about the meteor that might strike our house? The chances are very small of it occurring, but not zero. Would it be wisest to move out now and seek refuge in a bunker? One could add items to this list indefinitely, all items whose occurrence would signal disaster, even if they seem unlikely to occur. We can't reasonably react to all of them. Which should we pay attention to? We can't live our lives worrying about things that are almost certainly not going to occur. We have no way of knowing which of these unlikely scenarios to concern ourselves with, anyway.
- Of course it is "possible" that Pascal was right. We don't really know for sure that he was wrong, do we? Correct - anything is possible - Pascal's scenario is not logically impossible. Likewise, it is possible that the molecules in an apple could simultaneously decide to move straight up and cause a dropped apple to fall up rather than down. It is possible that a meteor could crash through the roof of my house in the next five seconds. Both events are highly unlikely though. Although possible, they are not probable. Pascal's wager deals in possibilities, not probabilities. There is no evidence to suggest that the "possibility" of the Christian version of salvation and heaven is any more likely than any other religious story. This is a key distinction which many Christians overlook. We would be wiser to focus on what is a probable outcome rather than on an infinity of unlikely possible outcomes.
- An irony of Pascal's Wager is that even if it was otherwise completely sound it would become a huge disincentive for convincing an unbiased party to worship the Christian god specifically. By definition, worshiping the Christian God requires you to NOT worship every other deity or potential deity (see the First Commandment). In the absence of evidence for a specific deity, the theist-to-be would be better off directing some worship to one or more proposed deities that do not require exclusive worship. This would increase the overall odds of benefiting by spreading the risk across several gods.
You either believe in god or do not believe it. No sincere person would alter their belief by coldly calculating the odds of certain outcomes. You cannot "will" yourself to believe something you don't. Leave it to a mathematician like Pascal to suggest that we do exactly that. This far-fetched scheme sounds more like a plan that Sheldon Cooper from The Big Bang Theory would come up with than a serious proposal by a respected philosopher and mathematician.
Pascal - an excellent mathematician, scientist, and philosopher - was in no position to evaluate the merits of Christianity relative to Islam, Hinduism, or any other religion. He had become a very accomplished Christian philosopher, and "reasoned" his way to the conclusion that of all the religions, Christianity was right and the others were wrong. In fact, the story is more prosaic. Like many people, he had been brought up a Christian, fell away from it for a while, and then came back to it later in life. As much as we can admire Pascal for his mathematical accomplishments, this in no way qualifies him to give us spiritual advice. We can't rely on his authority as a mathematician to translate to equal mastery in the realm of salvation.
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