Pascal's Wager

"Question with boldness even the existence of a god; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear."   -Thomas Jefferson

Pascal's Wager was one of the first arguments for faith I was ever presented with as a teenage Christian learning how to "share the Gospel," though I didn't know it by that name at the time. And at the time I thought it was the most persuasive argument ever. To sum it up simply, it makes the point that if the believers are right, then those that chose to believe will win everything, while the nonbelievers will lose everything. Whereas if they're wrong, the nonbelievers will win nothing, and the believers will lose nothing. Therefore, with nothing to lose and everything to gain by belief, one might as well hedge one's bets and choose to believe. For a more detailed explanation, see this page.

In retrospect, I can't help but feel foolish for having been so easily gulled into believing this was a legitimate grounds for faith. I know of at least three reasons why Pascal's Wager is very seriously flawed, and there could easily be others.

The first, and most obvious, is the simple fact that this logic can be applied to any religion, to any god. How can we choose which god to hedge our bets by believing in? Most religions are mutually exclusive, no matter how much some would like to claim that all gods are really the same. So we can't believe in all of them. If we choose any particular god, based on the sheer number that we have to choose from, odds are we'll be wrong. Which isn't such a big deal if we luck out and the "real" one we meet when we die is pretty laid back. But if he's the jealous type, we'd undoubtedly be better off just not believing in any of them.

That alone, I believe, is enough to prove this argument is completely useless in determining whether to believe. But there are others. The one that actually resonated the most strongly with me when I first read it was the fact that one can't truly choose to believe anything. In Dawkins' words, "I can decide to go to church and I can decide to recite the Nicene creed, and I can decide to swear on a stack of bibles that I believe every word inside them. But none of that can make me actually believe it if I don't. Pascal's Wager could only ever be an argument for feigning belief in God." In order to get to Heaven, one must supposedly truly believe.("That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved." Romans 10:9 emphasis mine) Clearly feigned belief will get you nowhere.

Lastly we have what some might consider the least convincing reason, but I think is a very valid allegation. The claim is made that we have nothing to lose by choosing to believe in a god, even if it turns out he doesn't exist. I am strongly disinclined to agree. We only have on life to live. How many hours of our lives are wasted in churches, praying, studying the Bible? How much money is spent on tithing alone, not to mention the cost of mission trips, bibles, bible study books, religious jewelry, and everything else a "good christian" should have? How many children (and adults) are traumatized by the thought of their loved ones spending an eternity in Hell, or paralyzed by guilt and fear that they themselves will go there? How many families are ripped apart by opposing religious views? "If we sacrifice this one life in doormat subservience to a nonexistent god, we have lost everything!" (David Mills)

So there you have it. What I once considered one of the most compelling possible reasons for belief I now contend is one of the worst. And yet believers continue to blithely assert that it's self-evidently true!