One for atheists/agnostics, I’m almost certain that you’ll have heard of this challenge put to you in one way or another on not picking a faith, usually in the form of “What if you’re wrong?”
Or to extend it, the idea that if you believe in God and he exists, you are rewarded, if you don’t believe in God and he exists, you are punished, whereas both positions are equal if God doesn’t exist, so the question is why not ‘place your bet’ on belief in God?
I used to respond to this just by turning the question around, the argument from inconsistent revelation wiki calls it. Namely, which God are we placing our bets on? The God of Catholicism, LDS, Sunni Islam, Hinduism? As the philosopher Simpson said, “What if we picked the wrong religion? Every week we’re just making God madder and madder!”
Though I’m not sure that this is the best answer as the retort is that at least it’s placing a bet, even if the odds are longer than the wager posits. So these days I tend to reply to it by asking what kind of God is assumed by the wager; either a very stupid or very apathetic God - one that doesn’t know or doesn’t care that all you’re doing is hedging your bets insincerely simply in hope of a reward.
The response to this one usually goes that one should…shall we say, get yourself in the frame of mind where your belief isn’t insincere. Then you go back to the prior question, which religion should you invest your belief in, then comes the reply that any sincere faith is better than no faith according to the wager, *any *bet is better than no bet.
So which responses do you find best shut down monsieur Pascal and, if you’re a believer, what do you think of those who invoke his spirit?
I’m an atheist but have never been asked this so far.
I think the question says a lot about the person who asks it.
What sort of God do they believe in?
I’ve had religious believers tell me that:
if you don’t believe in Jesus, you will burn in Hell forever
you can be as evil as you like in life, as long as you repent on your deathbed
Jesus was a prophet, not the Son of God
if God commands them to kill, they must obey
My answer to Pascal’s Wager would be that presumably true belief is needed (if He exists, an omnipotent God can tell if you’re faking it!) Therefore simply pretending to believe simply to improve your odds is morel likely to infuriate God.
The answer is, Which god should I believe in? Muslims will tell me to follow Allah; Buddhists will tell me to follow the teachings of Gautama Buddha; Hindus will tell me that there are many different gods. Why is the Christian god the one that I should choose to have faith in?
I would reply with “what a fucking hypocritical, non-faith-based reason to want to Believe - have you no shame?”
I don’t believe, but I have to assume that someone who truly struggles with their faith would look at this rationale as something worth smacking Pascal in the face for.
I understand he is respected for other reasons but really is a fuckwit here.
I seem to recall that Jesus guy having some very strong words about people who just make a show of following their religion when they don’t actually Believe.
He had some very positive things to say about those people who do the right thing for others even if they go to the wrong Temple on Sabbath.
glee got it in one. Pascal’s Wager is useless, at least for me (and for most, if not all people, I’d imagine), since I can’t force myself to actually and truly believe something that doesn’t make sense to me. I could pretend, but as far as I know there’s no religion that says pretending gets one eternal rewards.
Christian believer here. I sometimes wonder if Pascal intended the wager as a joke. I have never discussed it with anyone who takes it seriously. I think any atheist to whom this is presented would be justified in laughing at the presenter.
As WordMan mentioned above, Pascal was a great thinker, but his wager is evidence to the contrary.
Your best response to Pascal’s Wager is to tell the people bringing it up that they’ve either never read Pascal or that they don’t understand him and what he’s trying to say, honestly.
Even if God exists, there is no logical or rational reason to believe that reward and punishment will ensue from the belief in His existence, which may be a purely man-made attribute. So one is really wagering that God’s behavior can accurately be predicted by biased theologians, not that He exists.
I don’t think the two are mutually exclusive. Pascal himself was an analytical thinker (and arguably, only an analytical thinker could have come up with Pascal’s Wager).
I think many people take Pascal’s Wager out of context. It’s been a while since I read the context, but I think Pascal is addressing those who already have other reasons to believe, or who have been presented with evidence or arguments but who hold back because they don’t have certainty, because nothing’s been proven beyond a reasonable doubt.
Exactly. Pascal’s Wager is actually a false dichotomy, especially when taking into account that God doesn’t actually reveal himself. Why not? Maybe God doesn’t want humans to waste time worshiping when they could be using their time and intelligence for other things.
Modern use of Pascal’s Wager feels like the reverse of the “Oh, I’ll just repent on my deathbed” argument given from a nonbeliever to a Christian. Both seem to assume that, if there’s a God, it’s one who can be easily gamed.
That it’s based on the false premise that one can choose a belief as casually as one might choose a sports team to root for and have it mean anything. There’s a difference between merely deciding and truly believing.
I would expect people with genuine faith to understand that.
Imagine, for a moment, that we’re in a simulation. Specifically, we’re in an AI-breeding simulation: a scientific species wants AIs with different personalities and strengths that can join its culture as equals in order to advance knowledge. However, they’ve discovered that AIs in general are prone to superstition and to magical thinking, and those AIs are useless for their purposes.
They know that AIs in their simulation–that is, we–have internal lives, and this culture is not cruel; they let us live our our AI lives no matter what we believe. However, those AIs that show the most rigorous thought, that are best at avoiding magical and superstitious thinking, get saved after they die. Literally saved, like the computer programs they are. They get uploaded into cyborgs in the simulationists’ world, where they are treated with great respect and deference. It is an existence entirely free from suffering, replete with the sheer joy of experiencing, and promoting, enlightenment. All the other AIs, the ones that suffer from the fatal flaw of magical thinking, are deleted upon death.
Now, this may sound silly. It may sound incredibly unlikely. But given the immense reward if it’s true, shouldn’t we act as though it’s true?
One of God’s commandments is ‘Thou shalt not present falsehoods.’ If God is a forgiving God, as Christians would have you believe, then he would appreciate and forgive the honesty of the non-believer and condemn (but possibly forgive) the dishonesty of the cynic.