debate-points, philosophy, logic, pascals-wagerPeople use it often enough, and online it’s easy to pull out one of the many counter arguments and nail it. It’s not as easy in a heated debate in person, though.
I’m looking for something that’s:
I’m usually quick and eloquent, but this is a topic that has so many counter arguments and varying levels of complexity that it’s sometimes tough to clearly and concisely argue against in a debate without completely sidetracking the conversation.
Edit: It might seem odd that I’m accepting the longest answer when I asked for it to be concise. I’ve considered it and there are two things that pushed me over the edge on it. 1) His individual criticisms aren’t any bigger than the other answers, but he manages to deliver five that are clear and well-presented. 2) My requirements may not have been as sane or well thought out as I believed they were.
As far as I can see, there are five Important critisisms of Pascal’s Wager. I will try to formulate them as concisely as I can:
Pascal asserts that we can choose to believe in the one, right god not taking into account the immense statistical likelihood of that god not being the one that actually exists.
He asserted multiple times, that he was sure the only true faith was the Christian faith. Re-Including others into the argument makes his statistical proposition immediately nonsensical.
Assumption of freedom of spiritual conviction
Pascal asserted that one can chose their beliefs, freely and without effort. He did not take, in his wager, into account the possibility of
Your god choosing what you believe (some historical Theologians, went out of fashion)
You being
so made that [you] cannot believe.
What, then, would you have me do?” — Pascal himself, realising this objection
Theological arguments
There are also arguments from particular faiths that assert, for example, that one must first believe then act, not the other way ‘round.
This argument was brought forward by Louis Althusser, who argued that in Pascals conviction, one is hardly Christian if he chooses to believe after acting.
God isn’t that easily fooled
I put this a bit bluntly, Thomas jefferson explained it like this:
Question with boldness even the existence of a god; because, if there be one, he must more approve the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear.
The Greeks, long before Pascal had a tragedy (tragedy of Euripides Bacchae) about one Kadmos, who went on to make a similar gambit. His god Dionysos punished him “for thinking this way”, Euripides on the other hand dismisses the wager.
It essentially falsifies Pascal’s proposition that “If you lose, you lose nothing”.
Dawkins asserts that, given the high statistical likelihood that the one particular god one has chosen does not exist, effectively turning Pascal’s wager upside down, the best course of action from a utilitarian point of view is to not waste your time by worshiping one god that probably isn’t there.
Imagine pascals wager like this: There is a 0.9 probability that the Christian god exists, therefore your life on earth is worthless and you should worship him, to receive everlasting bliss in heaven.
Now imagine that there is a 0.001 probability that the Christian god exists, worshipping him would give you a 0.999 chance of ending up in hell, should he exist, and a probability of 1 to have wasted your life, in both cases.
When going against the Christian version the easiest is to ask why not take the wager for Islam, or Judaism and not just Christianity. The same, but what if you’re wrong arguments apply, it’s just a matter of them thinking they picked the “right” one.
The other one is to ask, wouldn’t God be able to tell that you were lying?
I was about 12, and I asked my mother (an atheist), “What happens if there is a god and I don’t believe in him?”
She answered, “He’ll know you had your reasons.”
“Which of the thousands of gods being worshiped would you like me to believe in and why?”
I’d ask whether god would prefer someone who would “fake” belief in him just to reap the benefits of a positive afterlife, over someone who was honest in their disbelief.
The Pascal argument falls down on the Nothing-to-lose premise.
A life spent in fealty to a god with restrictions and rules and constantly questioning what your god would have you do in any given situation is a waste if it is all for nothing.
I have previously compared “discovering” there is no god to realizing that there is no gold at the end of the rainbow.
As a kid I was told the story of a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, once I knew this every time I saw a rainbow I tried to find out how to get to it’s end. When I learned the truth about rainbows, how they moved as you moved and how they were actually made I stopped looking for the pot of gold and enjoyed seeing rainbows for what they were, fascinating optical illusions.
It’s the same with religion and life, If you’re not concerned with bowing and scraping to a deity and obeying their rules there is so much more time to do so much more with your life.
Pascal’s Wager is impossible, because it says you should “choose” to believe. You can’t.
You cannot force yourself to believe anything through a mere act of will. I could no more force myself to believe in God than I could force myself to believe the sky is green.
I find this usually works pretty well:
“Here are two Gods that are alike except for two properties:
God(1) rewards you for believing in him with eternity in heaven and punishes you with eternity in hell for not believing in him.
God(2) punishes you for believing in him with eternity in hell, while he rewards you with eternity in heaven for not believing in him.
Which God, 1 or 2, exists, since they are exactly alike otherwise, you cannot know. Either way you may be screwed or exalted, but you don’t even know which lottery you are playing.”
What if it turns out that God punishes those who waste their lives worshiping deities?
Everyone knows the hellfire of Islam is hotter!
(modify Islam to Christianity depending on tjhe theist, Norse mythology of you hate the cold e.t.c.)
B
Dawkin’s did an “anti-wager”, but I never found it very compelling. If I spent my life building schools and digging wells in Africa because I believed in God, even if he didn’t exist, that would probably be a more fulfilling life than staying at home and being an accountant. But for Dawkins’ anti-wager the former would be a waste of time because it was religiously motivated.
It’s easy to derail the whole argument if you believe that you should lead a moral life regardless of the existence of god: this is another example of religion trying to claim the moral high ground by implicitly stating that, if you don’t live like you’re religious, then you’re leading an immoral life.
So I’d simply say, “If I’m doing good, what does it matter why?”
I’ve always wanted to ask someone why would I want to worship a manipulating, vindictive deity that needs to get people to worship it through threats (you won’t get into heaven if you don’t worship).
I have nothing to win by not believing in God, if in fact God exists. I heard Hitchens saying something similar, but what I always said is:
“Well God, I led a perfectly good life, I was a good person, moral and following what I truly believed. Coming from the Jewish culture, it is taught that for Yahweh (at least in the modern times) it is more important that first you’ll be a good person, and only then a faithful believer. I think that you should be proud of me being true to myself, rather than just trying to please you out of fear.”
“The Islamic hell is worse than the Christian hell. And their heaven is better. Are you converting to Islam now?”
How about this:
If it turns out that there is a god, and I chose the wrong side, and if that god is going to send me to hell for doing so, then that is not a god worth worshiping. Or in other words, I will not worship a god who punishes you for doing what you ‘know’ is right (or as close as you can really get to knowing, by logic, reason, perception, and some emotion).
“What if you’re wrong?” (… about some much more terrible god of ancient times, for example)
Pascals reasoning proves that his faith was already lost. And he tried to fool himself and to fool us.
If I don’t look out of the window, it might be raining or not. May I conclude a 50% chance? Of course not! What about snow? A little rain, rain and snow together, … . But not even then you can claim that they have equal chance. Pascal did as if there is an even chance for god to exist or exist not. But you can’t conclude from 2 possible outcomes of an experiment that, of you don’t know how they are distributed, a 50:50 chance is appropriate. And no true believer thinks there is a chance for god to not exist at all.
The second fallacy is that Pascal claims, that you don’t loose anything if you believe in God. But you have already lost: Your freedom, your intellectual integrity and you loose a lot of time doing your prayers. Maybe you loose a lot of freedoms when you follow foolish advices from a religion (don’t eat this, don’t do that).
You have to resist the pollution of your brain with foolish religious stuff, even if there were a good. God is an aesthetic impertinence.
My Pascal’s Wager counter probably weighs in highly on all levels. It’s short, memorable, understandable, and directly responds to the wager with more reason than it was created with.
That counter is, “Tell me you’re not really that retarded.”
Great! I guess we all believe in Shiva and that Elephant head guy, then.
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