A critique of Pascal's Wager
I think that even though this is an argument which has been quite obviously demolished many times, it still is quite necessary to include a critique of it, simply because so many people still adhere to this failed argument.
Here we go.
Pascal's Wager basically operates along this line of logic:
- If you believe in God, and he exists, you gain an infinite amount of benefit.
- If you believe in God and he doesn't exist, you lose nothing.
- If you don't believe in God, and he doesn't exist, you lose nothing.
- If you dno't believe in God, and he does exist, you suffer infinitely.
Clearly, most theists would focus on the first and last line as the crux of the argument. They would argue that since believing in God can only result no loss, only infinite benefit, why would you not believe? Especially since by not believing in God, the best outcome one can hope for is to lose nothing, with the worst outcome being eternal suffering. On the surface, it might seem to be a fairly decent argument. However, closer examination would reveal that there is in fact plenty wrong with this argument.
Abrahamic religion - Centric
Quite clearly, from the very ideas of eternal heaven and eternal hell present in the argument, one can clearly see that the argument carries with it the assumption that Christianity (or if one wants to be generous, Abrahamic religions) are the only possible correct ones. After all, if the behaviour of God were any different than the one laid out in the original argument, the whole Wager would fall apart. The power of the wager lies in the concept of eternal punishment and eternal bliss. Take those out of the equation, and you'd find that the argument suddenly sounds especially poor. This is exactly what would happen if we were to remove the Abrahamic religions, and replace the central idea of God in the Wager with the idea of God from another religion. If we were to, for example, assume the Shinto faith of the Japanese people to be true, then this is what the Wager would end up as:
- If you believe in God, and he exists, you gain nothing.
- If you don't believe in God, and he exists, you lose nothing.
Hardly an argument anymore, because whether you believe in God is entirely irrelevant to your eventual benefit. Thus, we find that the Wager makes the assumption that only the Abrahamic religions can be true, an assumption for which there is basically no justification, and which can be attributed to the time and period during which Blaise Pascal proposed his Wager.
False assumption that there is no loss
I quote the second line of the argument: ' If you believe in God and he doesn't exist, you lose nothing.' This, of course, is false. Belief in God tends to require you to place all kinds of limitations on your life. Just take for instance the rules you are expected to adhere to by being a theist. Even the most moderate theist would have some limitations placed on his life by religion. Muslims cannot marry a non-Muslim without suffering from their family's scorn and derision, unless the other partner converts to Islam. And this is not even counting the fact that if God doesn't exist, huge sums of money have been lost in paying tribute to something which does not exist. Can you imagine how much the good the money (which could easily amount to the billions) could have done if it had been put to use elsewhere?
The statement that there is no loss even if God does not exist is blatantly false, because it only assumes no loss after death. It fails to take into account the potentially huge loss that occurs/occurred in each person's life as a result of a misplaced, unnecessary belief.
Idolatry!
One key ingredient missing from the Wager which theists love to put forward so much is related to the matter of idolatry. Somehow, they also seem to forget that even if I were to accept the initial premises of the Wager, I'm faced with an even bigger problem (and risk) than when I started.
Which god do I pick now? There are so many potential gods out there, so how on earth am I supposed to tell which one is the right one? Given that I find the evidence for the existence for each of them lacking, there is really not much reason for me to pick one over the other. Thing is though, since I started off with the presumption that I agreed with the Wager, I have to make a decision. And this is where the problem lies. If I make a wrong decision, I'm quite obviously screwed. Because I'm committing idolatry by worshipping a false God. If a God in fact exists, and I didn't pick him, and he happens to be the vindictive sort (kind of like the one found in the Bible and Qu'ran), then picking the wrong God is probably even worse than simply not believing in any God. Because unlike atheism where you simply do not believe, idolatry is a constant insult to the one true God (assuming he exists). It can be expressed as such: Atheism is neutral in the sense that it doesn't choose between Gods, and doesn't single out and hate other Gods, but choosing the wrong religion more or less means that you believe all other Gods are necessarily false. You've thrown your hat into the ring, so to speak, and chosen sides. In that sense, choosing a religion is already taking up arms against all the other religions out there in terms of believing what is right and true.
And as I've explained, this could quite easily be construed as being worse than mere disbelief.
Belief is no longer real
This is probably the simplest rebuttal one can use against the Wager, because it is so at odds with the fundamental belief that lies behind the Wager. For purposes of simplicity, let's assume that the God at the centre of the Wager (as Pascal intended) is an omnimax one. Do theists actually think that he will not be able to see through the facade of believing just to be safe? I find this extremely contradictory, because the entire premise of the Wager lies on God being omnimax, yet the advertising which theists promote to atheists often takes the form of 'it's better to be safe than sorry', which basically assumes that one can outsmart God. I would think that anyone who uses this line doesn't believe that God is omniscient, which basically means that the Wager more or less crumbles.
It must be noted, however, that to discuss the Wager requires that the existence of God be a question that is up for debate. If one were to assume that the existence of God is a given, than the Wager would be in fact airtight. If God were known to exist, then there would be no need for a wager at all. Of course, in an argument, if someone were to actually assume from the outset that God exists, then the entire wager commits the fallacy of begging the question, and there would be no point debating whatsoever.
Thanks for reading.
Here we go.
Pascal's Wager basically operates along this line of logic:
- If you believe in God, and he exists, you gain an infinite amount of benefit.
- If you believe in God and he doesn't exist, you lose nothing.
- If you don't believe in God, and he doesn't exist, you lose nothing.
- If you dno't believe in God, and he does exist, you suffer infinitely.
Clearly, most theists would focus on the first and last line as the crux of the argument. They would argue that since believing in God can only result no loss, only infinite benefit, why would you not believe? Especially since by not believing in God, the best outcome one can hope for is to lose nothing, with the worst outcome being eternal suffering. On the surface, it might seem to be a fairly decent argument. However, closer examination would reveal that there is in fact plenty wrong with this argument.
Abrahamic religion - Centric
Quite clearly, from the very ideas of eternal heaven and eternal hell present in the argument, one can clearly see that the argument carries with it the assumption that Christianity (or if one wants to be generous, Abrahamic religions) are the only possible correct ones. After all, if the behaviour of God were any different than the one laid out in the original argument, the whole Wager would fall apart. The power of the wager lies in the concept of eternal punishment and eternal bliss. Take those out of the equation, and you'd find that the argument suddenly sounds especially poor. This is exactly what would happen if we were to remove the Abrahamic religions, and replace the central idea of God in the Wager with the idea of God from another religion. If we were to, for example, assume the Shinto faith of the Japanese people to be true, then this is what the Wager would end up as:
- If you believe in God, and he exists, you gain nothing.
- If you don't believe in God, and he exists, you lose nothing.
Hardly an argument anymore, because whether you believe in God is entirely irrelevant to your eventual benefit. Thus, we find that the Wager makes the assumption that only the Abrahamic religions can be true, an assumption for which there is basically no justification, and which can be attributed to the time and period during which Blaise Pascal proposed his Wager.
False assumption that there is no loss
I quote the second line of the argument: ' If you believe in God and he doesn't exist, you lose nothing.' This, of course, is false. Belief in God tends to require you to place all kinds of limitations on your life. Just take for instance the rules you are expected to adhere to by being a theist. Even the most moderate theist would have some limitations placed on his life by religion. Muslims cannot marry a non-Muslim without suffering from their family's scorn and derision, unless the other partner converts to Islam. And this is not even counting the fact that if God doesn't exist, huge sums of money have been lost in paying tribute to something which does not exist. Can you imagine how much the good the money (which could easily amount to the billions) could have done if it had been put to use elsewhere?
The statement that there is no loss even if God does not exist is blatantly false, because it only assumes no loss after death. It fails to take into account the potentially huge loss that occurs/occurred in each person's life as a result of a misplaced, unnecessary belief.
Idolatry!
One key ingredient missing from the Wager which theists love to put forward so much is related to the matter of idolatry. Somehow, they also seem to forget that even if I were to accept the initial premises of the Wager, I'm faced with an even bigger problem (and risk) than when I started.
Which god do I pick now? There are so many potential gods out there, so how on earth am I supposed to tell which one is the right one? Given that I find the evidence for the existence for each of them lacking, there is really not much reason for me to pick one over the other. Thing is though, since I started off with the presumption that I agreed with the Wager, I have to make a decision. And this is where the problem lies. If I make a wrong decision, I'm quite obviously screwed. Because I'm committing idolatry by worshipping a false God. If a God in fact exists, and I didn't pick him, and he happens to be the vindictive sort (kind of like the one found in the Bible and Qu'ran), then picking the wrong God is probably even worse than simply not believing in any God. Because unlike atheism where you simply do not believe, idolatry is a constant insult to the one true God (assuming he exists). It can be expressed as such: Atheism is neutral in the sense that it doesn't choose between Gods, and doesn't single out and hate other Gods, but choosing the wrong religion more or less means that you believe all other Gods are necessarily false. You've thrown your hat into the ring, so to speak, and chosen sides. In that sense, choosing a religion is already taking up arms against all the other religions out there in terms of believing what is right and true.
And as I've explained, this could quite easily be construed as being worse than mere disbelief.
Belief is no longer real
This is probably the simplest rebuttal one can use against the Wager, because it is so at odds with the fundamental belief that lies behind the Wager. For purposes of simplicity, let's assume that the God at the centre of the Wager (as Pascal intended) is an omnimax one. Do theists actually think that he will not be able to see through the facade of believing just to be safe? I find this extremely contradictory, because the entire premise of the Wager lies on God being omnimax, yet the advertising which theists promote to atheists often takes the form of 'it's better to be safe than sorry', which basically assumes that one can outsmart God. I would think that anyone who uses this line doesn't believe that God is omniscient, which basically means that the Wager more or less crumbles.
It must be noted, however, that to discuss the Wager requires that the existence of God be a question that is up for debate. If one were to assume that the existence of God is a given, than the Wager would be in fact airtight. If God were known to exist, then there would be no need for a wager at all. Of course, in an argument, if someone were to actually assume from the outset that God exists, then the entire wager commits the fallacy of begging the question, and there would be no point debating whatsoever.
Thanks for reading.
posted by benisonp at 3:00 AM
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