"Who knows? Maybe just believing in God causes God to exist."

Bear_Nemo offered the possibility you weren’t Christian. It doesn’t matter - there are lots of possible gods, and why is it a given that believing in the God of the Zeus variety is going to get you any brownie points with a god of the Allah variety? A god so generic as not to care probably won’t punish disbelief either.

How about one who gets ten God bucks for every certified believer? :smiley:

The Wager still doesn’t work just because you say the god doesn’t have to be Christian. It still artificially imposes a false dichotemy; believe in God/don’t believe in God. There are an infinite number of hypothetical gods, or multiplicities of gods one could believe in. There are also possibilities such as animism, pantheism, ancestor worship or tree worship to throw into the mix as well as completely non-theistic paradigms like Taosim, Jainism or Vedantic Hinduism. Choosing to believe in any one theistic concept could get you in hot water if you choose wrong.

The Wager also makes an unfounded assumption that any of these entities (or non-entities) necessarily reward belief or punish unbelief. What if there’s a God who likes atheists better? You can’t know for sure that there isn’t.

In addition to the above problems, there is the added factor that belief is a non-volitional condition. Belief is an involuntary response to information, it’s not an act of will. You can’t just make yourself believe in God any more than you can make yourself believe in Klingons. You are either persuaded or you are not.

Pascal’s Wager is a virtual catalogue of logical fallacies. I’m sure I didn’t hit on all of them.

Or a God who doesn’t like people who suck up to him for a reward, which is exactly what the Wager is all about.

Wanting to believe in god is not believing in god. Covering up with mathematical probabilities is also not belief. God ,all knowing, would put your ass in a special place in hell. Forgive ,sure, eterenity in a fire bath is more likely.Can’t fool the big guy.(who by the way does not exist ,so do not worry about it)

Very good advice that you should have heeded before you posted.

Do not call other posters stupid, even if they call your ideas stupid.
If you need to respond in that manner, take it to the Pit.

[ /Moderating ]