Pascal's Wager

In Short

"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 have lost everything"


In More Detail

1. A Game is being played where heads or tails will turn up.
2. Heads=God is; Tails=God is not
3. According to reason, you can defend neither of the propositions.
4. You must wager. It is not optional.
5. Measure the Gain and the loss in wagering that God is.
   • If you win, you gain all
   • if you lose, you lose nothing.
6. Measure the Gain and the loss in wagering that God is not.
   • If you win, you gain nothing
   • if you lose, you lose all.
7. The wager has one sided rewards. Therefor it is wiser to wager that god is than to wager that god is not, regardless of probabilities.

Note: When I talk of gaining or losing "all" I mean the consequences of the wager, not literally everything.


Conclusion

So what do you think? Is this logically sound? Is this theologically sound? Any other thoughts you have? Please, discuss.

 

It makes sense.

I mean, I believe in God, so I would have lost nothing.

For the others who don't, not so much.

 

It's a sound theory, mostly.
It only deals in definitives however and doesn't include the idea that people can be indifferent in their ideals. I myself neither deny or accept God, sometimes I see things that make me believe in something higher than what we see now, whilst other times I see the world is just logical and precise with the way things go.
Giving me a choice of a possible 'reward' out of it doesn't make me feel any better about what I want to choose or the way other people will feel.

 

It makes sense and I believe in God regardless so i've got nothing to lose and everything to look forward to.

 

It's not a perfect theory, but a fairly good one. The obvious issue people would point out is the "if" part. Because if you are a very conservative religious person, you will have to follow guidelines throughout your life, in which you would actually give up things, so in the end, if there were no God, then you would've lost enjoying said restriction, be it sex, a certain type of meat etc.

I'm religious myself, but this is the argument against it, and it's a fairly good one. Though I have used this logic without knowing that this was actually named Pascal's Wager before, because I'd rather believe and "be on the safe side" than risk it. (Though this is not why I have my faith)

 

Well there is that. James 2:19 "You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder." However it doesn't effectively dismantle the argument. There are three options involved here. Atheistic-falling out of existence, Theistic Good-heaven, and Theistic Bad-hell. You simply need to adjust the line. True belief in god is faith with works. The passive road goes to the atheists.

This is my biggest problem with Pascal's Wager. It does not invoke belief. The common response is a "okay, I'll go along with it" which may grow into a proper faith, but there is no conviction for anything past the first step.

My counter argument would be that in the atheistic view you would not feel regret of finding out that your theist lifestyle was frivolous. The same con not be said of the atheist in the theist view point.

The logic predates Pascal, but Pascal gets credit for it. I'm pretty sure he was the first to publish it. Though I must say that his iteration is much harder to follow.

See what I mean?

 

Yes, but keep in mind that although you may have subjected yourself to unnecessary restrictions, those restrictions still give you better self control whether or not they were valid.

On the wager itself, I like it and am actually surprised that I haven't used it before. The only problem, as noted before, is the lack of consideration for people who refuse to believe or disbelieve in God. However, that is easily addressed by saying that they neither gain nor lose in both situations, much like how you can neither win nor lose when you don't bet money.

 

My friend and I talk about this wager all the time. He uses it to defend his faith. I don't like it. You're believing in God to reap the benefits? It just feels like the wrong reason to believe, imo.

 

This.

I used to think this way, that you have nothing to lose if you just believe. Some people just beleive because if they slightly beleive that there is a God, a Heaven, and a Hell, then they'll believe so they can avoid Hellfire. That's a completely selfish reason, and they'll probably not live their life the way God intended it. God sees the hearts of all men though, and know when one truely beleives in Him and when someone beleives to save their own hide. The ones who believe because they need a lifeline, there no better than the ones who don't beleive.

 

Could you elaborate more this neutral side? To my theological knowledge there is no way to kind-of go to heaven. I mean the theist aspect has two distinct sides that you can't fall between. And Atheists side says there is only one outcome regardless of how you live. So I'm not sure how agnosticism breaks the concept. The passive side goes to atheism as I said in my last post.

Matthew 6:19-21 "“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." Selfish as it may be I don't know any Christian who doesn't get motivation from the rewards of heaven. But the key is the viewpoint. It is about more than a supernatural retirement fund, it is your treasure. That is what I find wrong about Pascal's Wager, it lends itself to be a minimalistic Christian. Now in the right environment it can keep going, step by step, into a devoted Christian. But just as easily that tree could wither and die before it bears any fruits of the spirit.

 

It's simple. You can simply not care whether or not there is or isn't a God. If God exists, eh, alright. If not, who cares? The "going to Heaven" is not gambled on, and therefore depends on the choices the person makes in life. It's like the stock market. You can't gain money from the stock market if you don't invest, but you also never lose money no matter what happens. Additionally, if you work hard on your own and earn money without gambling on what company will do best at this time, you'll never have to worry about losing money on bad stocks.

On this being a selfish theory, it sort of is and sort of isn't. On one hand, you can say, "ONOEZ! If I don't believe in God I'll lose everything!" On the other hand, you can say, "Yeah, I believe in God, and maybe I'll be rewarded. But who cares? It's the right thing to believe, and the reward is just icing on the cake."

 

But the afterlife's existence (or lack there of) is impartial to you. The reason behind point 4, "You must wager. It is not optional," is because you must die. The only ways to not wager would be to not exist in the first place or immortality. Considering people that don't exist tend to have a hard time thinking about this that side doesn't really apply here. If you are immortal then hats off to you, you are above Pascal's Wager. As for me I have to face that when I die there either is a heaven and hell or there isn't.

 

You're forgetting that simply not caring about either side is an option. We all die, but we don't all care what happens. It's very easy to say, "If there's an afterlife, okay fine. If not, whatever. I'll find out when I die, so what's the point in believing one over the other?" If you don't make a guess to bet on, it is impossible to wager. Either way, just because you're going to die doesn't mean you're going to speculate about what happens or whether anything happens at all after you die. No speculation, no wager. Besides, isn't it better to worry about how you act up until the moment of your death rather than what happens after you die?

 

You need to continue the situation of that state of thought through death to see if it changes Pascal's Wager. Now, if there is no afterlife then what you believe when you die hold no value, you cease to exist 100% of the time. If there is a god and you were impartial to his existence then you would not have been following him, if you die without having followed god to recieve salvation then you go to hell. This situation of no way to gain and possible loss of everything belongs to the non believer. There is no disruption to Pascal's Wager at all.

 

What's wrong with saying, "As long as I'm a good person it doesn't matter if there is a God, so I may as well not worry about the issue?" There's also the entirely theoretical situation where a person has been brought up with no introduction to the idea of God and therefore has nothing to believe or disbelieve. Following is not the issue, belief is. This theoretical person may very well follow God while never having even heard of God. Come to think of it, this could be a very interesting social experiment. Raising a group of children in an environment where the idea of God is never introduced. There would theoretically be nothing to believe or disbelieve, right?

 

I realize this is a dead thread, but I I'd like to put in my one and a half cents.

First off, the Wager presents a false dichotomy. It only provides two options, in the form of a coin toss (heads being "God is," tails being "God is not"), when in fact, there are many possibilities, not just with the different religions, but within Christianity itself. Many Christian sects reject the idea of "if you're a good person, but don't believe in God, you're going to Hell." Some reject the concept of Hell outright. Their interpretations may be correct. In fact, the true nature of God (if he exists) could have been lost in translation and twisting of religion so much that our oldest manuscripts of the Bible, Torah, Quran don't even have the truth.

So, it's not a coin toss, but a roll of the die. And you can't even know how many sides it has.

Also, let's say that the "believe in God AND do good deeds, or you'll burn" interpretation is true. There's going to be some overcrowding in Hell, in that case.

Call me petty, but I wouldn't think of worshiping a being that destroys its creations for merely questioning its existence, especially when it does not make its existence readily known. Even when I was a Christian (I'm agnostic now), this idea of God left me depressed and angry. If you can prove to me that, not only does God exist, but this interpretation of Him is true, I would choose not to worship Him. If he wanted us to like that, he wouldn't put that at south on our (or at least MY) moral compasses.

Don't get me wrong. Jesus was on to something with all the love and peace stuff. I just don't think he was a God (or not a vengeful one).

 

This bothers me a lot when people talk about this but believing in a God doesn't give you instant access to "heaven" if it was that simple religion would be pointless. Faith is not something you can debate because the point of faith is to believe when everyone says not to or when the numbers don't add up.

 

I minorly regret posting this. The way many people consider heaven and hell are very different than biblical perspectives. I often hear people talking as if Heaven isn't anything special but more a way to avoid Hell. From what I recall in my Bible readings there is almost nothing said about what exists in Hell, but the separation from Heaven is what is to be feared. But how the conversation has been going I don't sound any better than a generic soap box preacher.

I think I see what you're getting at. Let me offer a counter analogy. Rather than a single large roll there it a series of "wagers" to consider. The wager of God's existance would then be at the top since if you choose not to believe in god you would not consider the others. For example, I don't believe in faeries so I don't care what the most magical hair color for them is. If they do exist then there would be an answer (it doesn't matter being one them), but I would not look at that.

The wagers are about human perception and what the safer path to take is. If definite proof can be supplied then that makes it easy to decide the wager. But Pascal's Wager does not say what is true, only what it is safer to assume is true. Similar to Occam's Razor.

I don't know of a Christian ever who did not doubt. In Mathew 14:31 Jesus says to Peter "You of little faith. Why do you doubt?" This means that Peter himself doubted. And this is will into Jesus's ministry when Peter had seen first hand the miracles Jesus performed. In fact this was the morning after 5000 people were fed with five loaves of bread and three fish, and while Jesus was standing on water. If Peter doubted at that point, then if doubt was enough to keep you out of Heaven then I can confidently say that no human would make it.

That aside there is the question as to why allow Hell to exist at all. Well it's because sin cannot exist in the kingdom of heaven in the same way that you can't expect ice to exist on the face of the sun. In Exodus 33 God showed a physical existence of himself to Moses but forebode Moses from seeing his face claiming that none could see his face and live. So rather then allow those who hold their sin to be brought into his presence (where it is unclear what exactly would happen, but it would not be good to say the least) he created a place where your soul could go separately from the Kingdom of Heaven.

I'm not really sure what you are getting at. If belief a factor (regardless of the presence of more) then religion would be vital as to give something to believe in. Faith is significantly harder, but belief is a major factor because you will not have faith in that which you do not believe.

 

Yes I understand that but simply believing isn't enough.

 

This is very similar to the suggestion put forward by the Quirmian philosopher Ventre, who said, "Possibly the gods exist, and possibly they do not. So why not believe in them in any case? If its all true you'll go to a lovely place when you die, and if it isnt then you've lost nothing right?" When he died he woke up in a circle of gods holding nasty-looking sticks and one of them said, "We're going to show you what we think of Mr Clever Dick in these parts...".
Terry Pratchett