Pascal’s Wager Rebuttal is Inspiring
Pascal’s wager is a famous defence of theism. When I was about fourteen I thought it was a very profound theological statement, which I’ll paraphrase in the way I first heard it
If it’s true that God exists, then if you believe, once you’re dead you will end up in heaven and if you don’t believe then you will end up in hell. If on the other, God does not exist, it doesn’t matter whether you believe or not.
You’ve thus got nothing to lose and everything to gain by believing, therefore you should believe in God.
Now, there are one or two flaws in this argument. But my favourite rebuttal is that if God doesn’t exist and you only have one life, then you have lost everything if you waste it trying for life after death.
Actually, what I like is the point that you only have one life, and you shouldn’t waste it. Do what’s really important to you, fulfils you and makes you deeply happy. Dream as many dreams as there is time for, and live as many as you can.
One of my dreams is to travel to exotic countries. I have a really, really long list of all the places I want to go to. It starts with Outer Mongolia, and ends with Timbuktu, and almost every time I hear of a place, I want to go there.
Given that I’ve only got a five or six decades left in front of me, I should really get cracking on these travelling dreams. One of the places on my list is the Pyramids in Egypt. I’m saving up, and making plans to go this September.
How are you planning on making your dreams come true?
Image by jaqian
Popularity: 11% [?]
Comments
26 Responses to “Pascal’s Wager Rebuttal is Inspiring”
Got something to say?
Sorry, you’re rebuttal doesn’t sound very convincing to me. I mean, merely “wasting” sixty years or be tortured for eternity. I certainly would not take the chance of the latter just to miss the former.
You seem to think that if you’re a Christian, you have to somehow loose all your dreams. I certainly haven’t lost my dreams. God gave you dreams for a reason, and he can use them as a Christian. Hey, Christian missionaries travel to exotic places all the time.
And have a blast!
In my first draft of this, I pointed out the Christians (Hindus, Muslims, etc.) could - and should - live deeply fulfilling lives. If you find your faith both fulfilling and believable, then more power to you. The important thing is to live your dreams because you only get this one shot at it.
If torture is what I have to look forward to because I can’t make myself believe, then so be it. As another rebuttal points out, it’s not exactly under my control.
There are so more convincing rebuttels such as “which one” and of course the famous “how can you make yourself believe”.
What you believe is not under your control? That makes so sense at all. What are you talking about? Maybe its just I haven’t heard that particular argument.
You people are so silly.
Pascals wager was blown out of the water a long time ago.
And I can do it now by simply saying that if there is a god, why has he done nothing to be worthy of my worship?
I have a lot to lose, I have already lost alot because of the people who do believe in god.
I lost 3000 fellow american citizens when religious believers flew planes in to buildings on 911. We have lost the ability to travel safly to many parts of the planet because of belief in god.
I and others have lost years in research on the cures for many illnesses because of religious belief.
I and others have lost millions in tax dollars that could have been spent on schools and hospitals and clinics and infrstructure to build a better country for our children. But instead that money went to build churches and promote usless abstinence programs.
So don’t tell me I have nothing to lose by believing in bronze aged mythology.
I have lost a lot and will undoubtedly lose more until the insane belief that there is something else beyond reality is finally put to death.
Reason, logic and compassion are all we have.
We have lost
that craven coward(redundancy intentional) ebonmuse has just banned ANOTHER theist because that theist was kicking ebons ass, then ebon deleted the posts in which his ass was kicked! and threee for the hat trick! craven cowardice is really bad for the gene pool!
I think ebonmuse deleted him for bad grammer. It would also be nice if you state what the arguement was, but I have found theists have a genetic inability to do so.
Brian, thanks for the question. You can’t force your self to believe something that you don’t believe (sorry, tautology). It is like saying 2 plus 2 equals 5, when you are convinced the answer is 4. You can go through the motions and rituals, but Pascal’s wager isn’t an arguement to believe in god- it is an arguement to pretend to believe. Given that god can see your thoughts it is rather silly. Basically it is saying you should believe in god or else he will punish you.
The other problem is that a god that caparious could punish you more for choosing the wrong sect, believing in the wrong god or just for the heck of it.
Since I am an atheist I don’t have this problem. There could be a god that hates grammer for all we know. In fact there an infinite number of possible things gods may loves or hates and they are all equally unlikely.
Note that the first two problems with Pascal’s wager were pointed out in his life time. The simplist atheist rebutal is “Then are wager is god would value honesty over brown nosing” or “you give up alot for no reason whatsoever” (aka Evoulvie).
This is so true, and of course the greatest of these three is compassion
Actually overall, a response would be a better word to use than a rebuttal. But it’s still a nice response.
A god that hates grammar would certainly be interesting - even though my grammar isn’t brilliant, I suspect that it’s actually necessary for a good conversation.
Actually, Pascals Wager is, by far, one of the worst arguments for belief in a deity. Religion isn’t a lotto.
The fact that the argument is popular is just, well, disconcerting.
I agree Shaun. I’ve no idea why it’s popular, but I do find some of the atheist responses/rebuttals illuminating. And it uses the cutting edge mathematics of it’s day and it’s one of the earliest applications of the then un-invented field of game theory. So it’s not all bad.
True. Given its time, it wasn’t too bad at all. But Christians need to dump it now.
I’ve never figured out how this wager works. If you don’t believe, you don’t believe. You could pretend to believe, but, presumably, God would know you’re just pretending. So how do you believe if you don’t believe? It seems like this wager only works if you’re borderline.
Having read a theology book recently (will look up which one, later), I can honestly say that nearly all the arguments are justifications assuming that you already believe, and Pascal’s wager is a good example of that. On the other hand, working out the flaws in arguments helps show you what you need to demonstrate.
I wonder whether theists have the same opinions of atheist arguments - that they are merely justifications and work only on non-believers.
The main flaw in Pascal’s wager is that it does not help us choose which god to believe in. There are a variety of religions, sects, etc. which all claim to be the One True Way and offer similar bargains. However, we should not be too quick to judge Pascal by his wager. It was published posthumously and Pascal never finished his argument which he thought would demonstrate the truth of Christianity.
I must say Shaun’s criticism doesn’t make any sense to me. If we were faced with a binary choice between belief in Christianity and no belief at all, Pascal’s Wager would be an absolutely compelling argument. However, I do risk management for a living so I’m inclined to such arguments.
As for arguments that belief is not a matter of choice, Pascal answered this:
“Endeavour then to convince yourself, not by increase of proofs of God, but by the abatement of your passions. You would like to attain faith, and do not know the way; you would like to cure yourself of unbelief, and ask the remedy for it. Learn of those who have been bound like you, and who now stake all their possessions. These are people who know the way which you would follow, and who are cured of an ill of which you would be cured. Follow the way by which they began; by acting as if they believed, bless yourself with holy water, have Masses said, and so on; by a simple and natural process this will make you believe, and will dull you—will quiet your proudly critical intellect…
“Now, what harm will befall you in taking this side? You will be faithful, honest, humble, grateful, generous, a sincere friend, truthful. Certainly you will not have those poisonous pleasures, glory and luxury; but will you not have others? I will tell you that you will thereby gain in this life, and that, at each step you take on this road, you will see so great certainty of gain, so much nothingness in what you risk, that you will at last recognize that you have wagered for something certain and infinite, for which you have given nothing.”
I believe Pascal is largely correct here. It is quite possible to mold one’s own psychology. I’ve seen this done in religion and many other things. If you’re a jerk, you should pretend that you’re a nice person and act as if you were. One day, you’ll wake up and find that you’re a genuinely nice person after all. We eventually become our habits. I have no sympathy with arguments like “that’s just the way I am.” You are, in a great many respects, precisely what you make of yourself.
By the by, plonkee, I’ve searched your site and I’ve found some references to your ethical philosophy, but nothing justifying it. I mention this because I thought it would be interesting to see a post on the one thing atheists should be talking most about - not whether a god or gods exist, but the foundations of an atheist moral and ethical philosophy.
@Andrew Stevens
I’m not sure the foundations of atheist moral and ethical philosophy have any reason to be here. As we are quite certain that morals and ethics do not come from any higher power and can easily demonstrate that it is completely unnecessary to have religious beliefs to be moral and ethical, why discuss where they come from?
Obviously all come about because they work better for individuals and society. Once you realize that, anything else is just examples and more of interest to socialologists than atheists.
@Anthony Lawrence
Because this is the single most important issue to atheists. I understand why the religious do not concern themselves with moral philosophy; they believe it is a solved problem. Open the Book and see what it says and then act accordingly. It is much more difficult for atheists and moral philosophy must be, for them, job one. (The first thing you ought to do is figure out what you ought to do.)
For example, let us take your claim: “Obviously all come about because they work better for individuals and society. Once you realize that, anything else is just examples and more of interest to socialologists than atheists.” Better? What does that mean? What should we be striving for? Why should we be striving for it? The religious have answers to these questions. I’m not sure that many atheists do. If there are some people (and there are) who advocate social Darwinism and believe it is obviously for the best to let the disabled and “unfit” die out, how do we argue against (or for) this? If others believe that we should engage in social cooperation instead and uplift the poor and oppressed, how do we argue against (or for) this? The two have diametrically opposed ideas of what it is we should be striving for and therefore very different views of what “works better.” I could go on.
I believe that the majority of atheists, despite their vaunted concern for logic and reason, have no rational reason for their morality. It’s based purely on emotional considerations, what “feels” right to them. Pragmatism (what works better) might be able to solve the problem of how we should attain a goal, but it’s no help at all in determining the goal.
Perhaps this state of affairs is correct. (I disagree since I believe it runs afoul of the naturalistic fallacy, but we’ll leave that aside.) Perhaps there are no standards of morality and the only way we have to resolve moral disputes is to yell at each other (and eventually start killing each other) and that trying to reason with people on moral issues is a complete waste of time. But if so, then we should at least be willing to say so forthrightly and honestly. The current atheist polemicists (Dawkins, Hitchens, et al.) do appear to believe this, but refuse to come right out and say so. What is quite clearly a mistake is to think that if we converted everyone to atheism, all our moral disagreements would disappear.
I also believe that ignorance of moral philosophy seriously handicaps atheists in debates against the religious. Just once I’d like to hear a Dawkins or a Hitchens argue that the Euthyphro dilemma demonstrates that either objective moral values can exist without God or God’s laws are wholly arbitrary so the theist is no better off than the atheist, morally speaking. I’d also like to hear them at least concede that an atheist moral realism is possible (c.f. G.E. Moore’s Principia Ethica among many others). Moreover, the modern argument seems to be to make a moral case against religion. But this is crucially undermined by the lack of any coherent moral philosophy which would justify that moral case. I guess I’m just tired of watching atheists getting their butts kicked on the issue every time they debate it.
I’m sure you are correct that most atheists “no rational reason for their morality”.
Morality is a probably both product of society and genetics. I lean more toward societal influence, but the specific whys and wherefores aren’t of great concern or interest to me. As I and other atheists obviously have morals, the impulses that molded them are obviously present without religion. While it may be somewhat interesting from a societal point of view to examine why this custom arose here and why the opposite happened there, I don’t see it as having anything to do with atheism per se.
You believe that “ignorance of moral philosophy seriously handicaps atheists in debates against the religious”. As is the case with much that theists think is critical, I can’t agree: it’s unimportant in the context of any “debate”.
Of course I take the position that there is nothing to debate. If you are a tgeist, you are obviously incapable of rational thought in at least that area. There’s nothing to discuss or debate: theistic beliefs are ridiculous nonsense and no more worthy of debate than the existence of invisible pink unicorns.
Let a man stand in front of me and say “I have an elephant in my hand”.
He’s a fool, or insane, or playing some trick or joke.
He then asserts that my failure to smash open his head because I do not see this elephant comes about because of this same invisible elephant.
And you want me to debate that?
Yeah.. no thanks.
I don’t know whether my prior posts have made it clear or not, but I am of course an atheist.
Moral philosophy is, as I remarked, even more critical to the atheist than to the theist. The atheist has no ready-made guide to morality available to him; he has to figure it out for himself.
In debates, it comes up when the Euthyphro dilemma and the naturalistic fallacy are used against an atheist, and 90% of the time, he has no response. Your position appears to be that morality is entirely man-made. This is a perfectly good answer, of course, so long as we’re prepared to accept the consequences. I.e. that no moral philosophy, no matter how repugnant, is actually worse than any other.
Of course, it also means that there is no compelling reason to accept atheism. The idea that “we ought to believe in atheism because it is true” is a moral proposition. If we reject the view that any moral statements are true, then why shouldn’t the theist continue to believe in God? Why should we disbelieve in something because it’s false?
It is, of course, possible to construct a moral realist position (which is my own view) without positing the existence of a god or gods. However, I find that the majority of atheists appear to have a moral philosophy which consists of Divine Command Theory (morality consists of what God commands) coupled with the belief that there is no God. These two together obviously lead to an error theory of morality (since there is no God to give commands, ergo no morality). Error theory could be right, though the argument for it is appallingly weak. It is not even clear that it has any negative consequences. (After all, while there’s no good reason to behave morally, there’s also no good reason to behave immorally - in fact, there’s no good reason to do or not do anything at all.) However, it is impossible to take the prescriptive claims of error theorists (e.g. “religion is bad”) at all seriously, since they have to admit they have no actual reasons for their beliefs.
I believe the first part of Pascal’s wager is false. It is my opinion that any God that would be worth believing in, would not base his/her judgment on whether you believed in him. That God would recognize the contributions you gave to your fellow man and say, “You need not have believed in me, for I have been watching and I believe in you!”
@Lazy Man:
I completely agree with you. The idea that a really benevolent being only likes us if we believe in them - despite not providing us with sufficient evidence - always seems a bit needy and desparate to me.
This is just wishful thinking though, isn’t it? A God “worth believing in” is any God who exists, not one whose opinions you happen to approve of. For all I know, the actual God that exists is one who really hates people and enjoys watching them suffer and created them expressly for that purpose. If you demonstrated to me the existence of this God conclusively, I’d certainly believe in him, regardless of whether I approved of him. It doesn’t matter whether he’s “worth believing in.” I don’t disbelieve in natural selection simply because it’s brutal and unjust. It’s a fact, regardless of whether I approve of it or not.
However, I do agree that Pascal’s Wager seems to violate a fairly important moral intuition and this calls into question Pascal’s God’s omnibenevolence.
Good point Andrew. I would be curious to find a religion whose God “hates people and enjoys watching them suffer and created them expressly for that purpose.”
It would seem that if this “evil” God really is the real God then we all doomed to suffer for eternity anyway - any time spent praying or acknowledging that God would be wasted.
I think that it’s maybe not so much a god worth believing in, as a god worth worshipping. Which is kind of fair enough.
That is better, Plonkee. Of course, I’m not sure that there is any possible god worth worshipping. My critique of Divine Command Theory leads me to the conclusion that, even if a god exists, morality must exist independently of him. I.e., if God came down from Heaven and commanded me to strap a bomb onto my chest and walk into a crowded mall and blow myself (and many others) up, assuring me that this was a good act and that I would be rewarded in Heaven for performing it and doomed to suffer in Hell for all eternity if I didn’t, I would be forced to refuse and go to Hell instead.
Even if we assume that there is a god who does, in fact, always do the right thing, this would seem wholly admirable to me, but I’m entirely unclear on why I should worship him or, indeed, what purpose that would serve. To be fair to theists (Christians at least), it is my sense that they regard worship as a form of love and gratitude, and not necessarily tied up with all the bowing and scraping and genuflecting that the word “worship” usually conjures up. I.e. I gather they think of worship similarly to how a child loves his parents.
I can’t actually come up with a religion with a god which hates people and wants them to suffer unless you count the dualist religions like Zoroastrianism or Manichaeism. I can come up with a religion in which we are all doomed, that being Norse mythology. Indeed, if I had to choose a religion to follow, it would be the Norse. The whole Norse ethos was that the gods will be destroyed by the giants in Ragnarok eventually (an inescapable prophecy). Odin will be swallowed by the Fenris wolf, Frey will be slain by Surtur, Heimdall will be killed by Loki, Thor will be killed by the Midgard Serpent, Tyr will be killed by Garm, and Surtur will set fire to the entire universe, destroying all life and all of the worlds. The whole religion and all the people who practiced it were doomed to destruction. The best a person could hope for was to die a heroic death, go to Valhalla, and eventually be destroyed in fighting the giants. Nevertheless, the Norse follower said, I am on the side of the gods.
you are missing the main values of each option:
If there is a go and you don’t believe, then you go to hell(which is as said to be the worst thing ever) so you could either live a life (which is risky and mostly psychological) and be confident that there is no god (which in my oppinion is impposible for everyone just has ideas, and assumptions about afterlife) or have a stressful life that god might exist(in which everyone would think, in my oppinion)
so even if only 1% that hell might exist wouldn’t even make me think twice about living life, but doesn’t take away all my ideas.
and one more thing, i don’t agree with you when you state that you have only five or six decades in front of you, for this only gives you stress, in my oppinion, and thus would create hell in itself, like how can you sleep at night with this ideology? no living thing has a limit in life, we are not computers, that’s just narrow-minded materialist ideas