Pascal’s Wager
Comment: – The argument presented in the following e-mails is called
Pascal’s Wager. When other arguments haven’t worked to convince a person
that a given religion is the TRUTH, most organized religionists use Pascal’s Wager:
R. writes:
>What it does is that you could go to Hell believing your philosophy when you
don’t have to. I know you probably won’t believe a word I have told you but think
about this, If what you believe is true about God of the Bible and everything is as
you say then when all is said and done you and I have lost nothing. BUT if things
are the way I see it and God is Real and the Bible is True, then you really do need to
get saved, when everything is said and done where will we be?
Are you a gambling man Hooge? I hope not.
G. writes:
>Later in his life he offered what is referred to as the Pascal challenge.
That is …if the Bible is not the way he believes it to be (innerant, heaven/hell)
then he has not lost anything, nor have you. However, if it is true in it’s entirety,
then he still has not lost anything, but you may have. Food for thought, next time.
To beginning
A reply:
This is called Pascal’s wager. Some thought about it:
Aside from the obvious fact that one cannot believe–sincerely believe–a thing just to be
on the safe side, the absurdity of this is seen in the utter impossibility of practicing it.
One should believe the Bible is True just in case it really is. Okay, what next?
After one wagers on the Bible’s Truth, what religion does he choose to practice his
faith in God? What brand of it does he select? If he becomes a Baptist, how does he
deal with the possibility that Catholicism may be the true religion? What about the
possibility that other religions represent the Truth? Does he become a Christian or
a Moslem? A Zoroastrian or a Hindu? To be on the safe side, one would have to
simultaneously become a believer in all religions in the world, and this would be
utterly impossible, since many religions forbid beliefs in others.
What does one lose if he accepts the Bible as Truth? You say, “You have not lost
anything”, but this is a questionable premise at best. What have we got to lose by
making the wager?
Intellectual integrity, self-esteem, and a passionate, rewarding life for starters. In short,
everything that makes life worth living. Far from being a safe bet, this wager requires the
wager of one’s life and happiness
Bibliolaters are apparently willing to risk their lives and happiness on the probability that
they have made all the correct choices. They think they have made the right decisions in
choosing the Bible as Truth, Christianity over all other religions, their particular brand of
Christianity over all the options available to them, and finally the correct variations in doctrines
that exist within the churches selected. But what are the odds that any given Christian has
made all the right decisions in his journey through the religious maze that led him to
where he is now? This is a question that deserves far more thought than most Christians
give it.
While considering this, they might also think about how the odds are stacked against the
Bible’s being what they believe it is. The doctrine of verbal inspiration logically requires
one to believe that every detail written in the Bible, whether historically, geographical,
scientific, or chronological, must be factually true. The existence of just one mistake of any
kind, no matter how trivial or insignificant, tears the foundation completely from under the
doctrine of verbal inspiration. This is a premise we don’t even need to defend, because
inerrancy believers agree that it is true.
To illustrate the absurdity of such thinking, let’s apply it to a child who believes in the tooth fairy.
If upon hearing from an older sibling that there is no tooth fairy, what would the child prove
by saying, “But if there is no tooth fairy, then when I lose my teeth after I am grown,
I’ll have to suffer for nothing”? The child’s wish for the tooth fairy to be real would in no way
make the tooth fairy real. The same is true of the Santa-Claus myth. A child hearing for
the first time that there is no Santa Claus could not change reality by saying,
“But if there is no Santa Claus, then I won’t get any presents when I’m big.”
Mormons want the Book of Mormon to be a modern-day revelation from God, but
outside of the Mormon Church there are few who believe that it really is. In fact,
Christian writers have published tons of literature designed to prove that the Book of
Mormon couldn’t possibly be a divine revelation. (Incidentally, they use arguments that,
if applied to the Bible, will prove that the Bible can’t possibly be a divine revelation, either.)
Moslems want the Koran to be God’s word, but not many Christians would agree that it is,
no matter how many wishing and hoping Moslems want it to be. All religious adherents
want their particular holy books to be God’s word, but most Christians have enough
common sense to realize that more than wanting is necessary to make them God’s word.
Chris Stuhr’s comments:
1. Having studied and taught philosophy for years, Pascal’s wager is quite familiar to me.
2. I can imagine the existence of a powerful entity (Pascal’s God) who will visit dire
punishment upon less powerful entities who fail to acknowledge that entity’s existence.
I have no reason to think that such an entity exists, but I do not find the concept logically
impossible.
3. I can also see for myself that some people find in these imaginings sufficient reason
praise, worship or otherwise propitiate such a God.
4. I am not one of them. Worse — I think that some of these people suffer from a
defective sense of morality. Like so many of my countrymen in the period 1933-45,
they are only too happy to raise their arms in obedient praise, shout “Hail!”, and do
as they are told by the Great One’s acolytes.
It is not that I fail to recognize the coercive power of superior force. I do, and I feel
truly sad when I see it inflicted on innocent people. Those who knuckle under are not
necessarily evil, and we all have our breaking point. But in my experience, those who
call upon Pascal’s Wager are not anywhere near being broken themselves. Quite the
opposite; they use this argument in a not-so-subtle attempt to intimidate others.
And that is what I find truly despicable.
End of sermon.
Michael Middleton Comments:
I wanted to thank you for your excellent page on Humanism. I also wanted to add my little 2 cents worth on Pascal’s Wager.
First, there is some evidence that even Pascal didn’t mean for this philosophical trifle to be taken seriously. Although he was indeed trying to promote faith, he knew the weaknesses of his own rationally-based argument. In the end, he accepted that there was little Reason could do to prove God, so he instead came up with a semi-serious “wager” designed to convince his gambling buddies. He knew that better minds would see right through it and he would have been uncomfortable with it being used as a “proof”.
Second, you have rightly detected that a major flaw in the Wager is the premise that one who wagers wrongly on the Bible being correct has lost nothing. As you and many others have pointed out, such a wagerer has lost a lifetime of enlightenment and freedom from irrational abstinence (of all varieties).
An argument I have heard used less frequently to refute the Wager stems from another of its false premises. In the wager there are only two possibilities: 1) there is no God, or 2) there is a God who is substantially as described in the Bible. In such a system, it could in fact be true that the possibility of infinite reward under possibility 2, even if that possibility is minutely small, by simple math provides better value than betting on possibility 1, (infinity times any positive number is equal to infinity — if one believes the actual likelihood of item 2 is zero, of course, then such a wager has zero value.) However, what if one starts with the equally valid premise that there are infinite possibilities beyond the Bible-God/no God options? For example, imagine that the real God is nothing like the biblical one and takes terrible revenge on anyone who has faith in the biblical fictions. Or imagine the actual God provides infinite rewards only to those who value rationality and skepticism. So, in a wagering system that included such other possibilities, in infinite number, the mathematical advantage of selection 2 is eliminated, since selection 1 could just as easily provide infinite reward while selection 2 provided infinite suffering. In such a system, one is brought full circle to the simple rationality of picking what is the more likely premise and acting accordingly. Thus, it is better to believe in no God, absent any convincing evidence to the contrary.
As an atheist, such an argument is a little metaphysical for me, but it does point out just how riddled with nonsense even the most “air-tight” pro-faith arguments are.
You can’t lose if you do not have a belief in an external God. You can be free to be honest in your view of the world and be your human ethical self without guilt, fear, or externally imposed religious burdens to lessen your happiness.
AND: if there is an external God and this God is fair, then being true to yourself and honest with the evidence of your conclusions, there is nothing to fear or be guilty of.
Naturalism and Religious Experience 