Fun with "Pascal's Wager"

[EGarrett]

I used to be annoyed with Pascal's Wager, because like it or not, there appeared to be some kind of twisted logic to it that was difficult to challenge.

So, I just kept pondering it, and I'm glad to say I'm not annoyed by it any more. In fact, I like Pascal's Wager and I hope every Christian brings it up. I've had the following ideas about it and I'm curious what other people think of them.

1. If religious people subscribe to Pascal Wager, then shouldn't they be Mormons? Or whichever Christian sect it is that promises your own universe if you follow the rules? That's the most return on your bet. In fact, wouldn't it make you a slave to the scariest/coolest story you'd heard to that point?

2. Wouldn't it be FUN to have someone around who REALLY subscribed to Pascal's Wager? You call him up at two in the morning..."Jacob, bro, it's me again. I hate to break it to you, but God just called me again...and said he was gonna send you and everyone you care about to hell after you die if you don't get out of bed and get me some burgers."

He'd have to do it, wouldn't he? In fact, he'd have to do basically everything you said as long as you swear that God just promised to do something unspeakably awful (and untestable) if he didn't.

And if the person using Pascal's Wager as an argument DIDN'T do this, then he's not really subscribing to it. He's just using it after the fact to support a belief of his that isn't based on Pascal's Wager or any other logic. (surprise, surprise)

This makes sense to me. How about you?

 

[HeyLeroy]

Makes sense to me.

 

[c4ts]

Go for Elzoob. He covers all possible rewards, plus the ones that are contradictory and impossible. Wager now and get free gasoline for eternity.

 

[Johnny Pneumatic]

1. If religious people subscribe to Pascal Wager, then shouldn't they be Mormons? Or whichever Christian sect it is that promises your own universe if you follow the rules? That's the most return on your bet. In fact, wouldn't it make you a slave to the scariest/coolest story you'd heard to that point?

They could start their own religion, like L. Ron Hubbard, but actually believe their spew. Make it an easy religion, have sex at least once in your life and you get to become an omnipotent, immortal and all knowing God after you die.

 

[bruto]

Well, even if you decided to accept the wager and take up religion, I don't see how that obligates you to be so credulous as to beleive any yoyo who says god talked to him. You would, presumably, take up that religion as normal people do, relinquishing only a portion of your intelligence, not all of it.

It's hard, though, to address the basic flaw of the wager, which is that it assumes there's only one real religious choice. The fix was in for Pascal. In his world there was realy only one option: The Church.

In this age of diversity, it's more difficult. We can gamble on what we think is the most likely, or reasonable, religion, but for some of us that is like asking if we would prefer the taste of gasoline or horse urine.

My best bet would be first, to eliminate fringe religions, on the ground that even if I can't see the point, a religion widely held might have more of one, or at least it can claim to, and there might be safety in numbers - God might forgive us more for following the wrong bandwagon than for playing solo. Also, the less doctrine we have to make up, the less responsibility we have. We can pass the buck. So, we'll choose a big, popular religion with powerful, coercive leaders and lots of dogma to which we can surrender our own judgment. It's downhill from there. Look around and see which religion promises the most horrible damnation if you guess wrong. There's no point in taking the wager if you're going to decide to be a Unitarian, for example, because if they're right, you won't gain anything by joining them anyway.

Catholicism. In the bag.

 

[EGarrett]

They could start their own religion, like L. Ron Hubbard, but actually believe their spew. Make it an easy religion, have sex at least once in your life and you get to become an omnipotent, immortal and all knowing God after you die.

That's why I think the Wager breaks down. If these religious people really subscribe to it, they wouldn't be Christians, because people HAVE started these other, more "spiritually lucrative" religions like the Mormons and they haven't flocked there.

Well, even if you decided to accept the wager and take up religion, I don't see how that obligates you to be so credulous as to beleive any yoyo who says god talked to him.

But isn't that the core of the logic? Either this statement is true or isn't true. If I do what it says and it's true, then I benefit greatly. If it's false I lose nothing. Thus, I have more to gain by doing what it says.

Why is it applied exclusively to Christianity? I don't see any real reason to choose Christianity over another religion. If you cut it down to only Christanity, aren't you pre-supposing in your argument that Christianity somehow has some inherent value that makes it worthy of consideration over the others? Then you're moving into circular logic...

My best bet would be first, to eliminate fringe religions, on the ground that even if I can't see the point, a religion widely held might have more of one, or at least it can claim to, and there might be safety in numbers

As far as I know, Hinduism has a lot more followers than Christianity. And since it has it's own system of Gods, you'd have to pick one and reject the other...

God might forgive us more for following the wrong bandwagon than for playing solo.

But don't a lot of religions threaten you not to worship false idols? Seems like you'd have to pick one and take the risk...and there doesn't seem to be much reason to pick Christianity over Hinduism...

(btw, thanks for being willing to play Devil's Advocate for the time being.)

 

[bruto]

That's why I think the Wager breaks down. If these religious people really subscribe to it, they wouldn't be Christians, because people HAVE started these other, more "spiritually lucrative" religions like the Mormons and they haven't flocked there.


But isn't that the core of the logic? Either this statement is true or isn't true. If I do what it says and it's true, then I benefit greatly. If it's false I lose nothing. Thus, I have more to gain by doing what it says.

As far as the nighttime calls, I don't think that making the basic wager commits you to gambling on every instance. Even if you acknowledge that religious faith, especially one like Catholicism, involves an irrational leap, it does not mean you must suspend all judgment, or that you need to make the wager over again every time someone claims to be speaking for God. For one thing, that religion at least allows you to make the occasional mistake, sin, etc. without blowing the whole thing. At the local level, the odds are different and the penalty for a wrong bet much less.

Why is it applied exclusively to Christianity? I don't see any real reason to choose Christianity over another religion. If you cut it down to only Christanity, aren't you pre-supposing in your argument that Christianity somehow has some inherent value that makes it worthy of consideration over the others? Then you're moving into circular logic...

I agree

As far as I know, Hinduism has a lot more followers than Christianity. And since it has it's own system of Gods, you'd have to pick one and reject the other...


But don't a lot of religions threaten you not to worship false idols? Seems like you'd have to pick one and take the risk...and there doesn't seem to be much reason to pick Christianity over Hinduism...

(btw, thanks for being willing to play Devil's Advocate for the time being.)

I was being a little bit facetious in some of my comments before, but I actually do agree with you that the wager itself is untenable in good faith. Unless there is really only one religion known to you, then I don't think you can both make the wager honestly and make it worth pursuing. The odds aren't good enough if you have to choose between numerous religions on their claims or merits without some prior faith. Pascal predicated his wager on its being a no-lose proposition, and if it isn't it loses attractiveness. As I said, I think for Pascal the fix was in because he was already committed to Christianity (I presume Catholic as well) as the only worthy choice: his decision was based more on faith than he cared to admit.

 

[cajela]

Pascal's Wager convinced me, so I now worship the FSM. He touched my soul with His Noodly Appendage; I think the sauce was puttanesca. I eagerly await his dinner bell call to that heavenly beer volcano, and I've put in a request that my stripper from the factory be the Johnny Depp model. Cheese & sauce be with you all. Ramen.

 

[Odin]

Based on the wager you could believe in no Gods, so that you don't anger any by believing in one the real God hates, or all Gods so that you at least cover the real one.

Your best option might be to believe in God, but not actually specify any details of features of that God, so that when your called before Zeus or whoever, your technically believed in them.

(of course there is the problem of Gods that prefer honesty, and ones who do not like being believed in.)

 

[ReFLeX]

Lacsap's Wager:

If God is all-knowing and all-just, then he created me knowing exactly whether or not I would believe in him, and an all-just being wouldn't create someone knowing they were damned to eternal torment.

 

[c4ts]

Lacsap's Wager:

If God is all-knowing and all-just, then he created me knowing exactly whether or not I would believe in him, and an all-just being wouldn't create someone knowing they were damned to eternal torment.

Evidently this is not an all-powerful God as well, because an all-powerful God could restructure justice as he saw fit until it was just to create someone damned to eternal torment.

 

[Elind]

I used to be annoyed with Pascal's Wager, because like it or not, there appeared to be some kind of twisted logic to it that was difficult to challenge.

So, I just kept pondering it, and I'm glad to say I'm not annoyed by it any more. In fact, I like Pascal's Wager and I hope every Christian brings it up. I've had the following ideas about it and I'm curious what other people think of them.

1. If religious people subscribe to Pascal Wager, then shouldn't they be Mormons? Or whichever Christian sect it is that promises your own universe if you follow the rules? That's the most return on your bet. In fact, wouldn't it make you a slave to the scariest/coolest story you'd heard to that point?

2. Wouldn't it be FUN to have someone around who REALLY subscribed to Pascal's Wager? You call him up at two in the morning..."Jacob, bro, it's me again. I hate to break it to you, but God just called me again...and said he was gonna send you and everyone you care about to hell after you die if you don't get out of bed and get me some burgers."

He'd have to do it, wouldn't he? In fact, he'd have to do basically everything you said as long as you swear that God just promised to do something unspeakably awful (and untestable) if he didn't.

And if the person using Pascal's Wager as an argument DIDN'T do this, then he's not really subscribing to it. He's just using it after the fact to support a belief of his that isn't based on Pascal's Wager or any other logic. (surprise, surprise)

This makes sense to me. How about you?

I don't know about burgers, but Pascal's wager pisses me off for two reasons. The first is that it has been pointed out to me here that Pascal was probably sincere when he posed it, and I imagine that he had a brilliant mind, yet comes up with this trivia. Perhaps he was an idiot savant?

The second reason it pisses me off is that in order to take it seriously you have to already be in the mindset that you believe (or suspect) that your god is a vindictive SOB. Some people, who believe in god, would never think so badly of him, and therefore would quite legitimately never fall for such BS as Pascal proposed, even while following the rule anyway.

Needless to say the same applies to serious atheists (not agnostics).

 

[ReFLeX]

Evidently this is not an all-powerful God as well, because an all-powerful God could restructure justice as he saw fit until it was just to create someone damned to eternal torment.

...just like an all-powerful God can change the laws of logic so that an unliftable rock becomes a logical possibility?!

You're saying that God's laws would be arbitrary; that if God says so, then it is ok to mutilate babies. And then goodness, or justice, no longer have any meaning.

 

[EGarrett]

I don't know about burgers, but Pascal's wager pisses me off for two reasons. The first is that it has been pointed out to me here that Pascal was probably sincere when he posed it, and I imagine that he had a brilliant mind, yet comes up with this trivia. Perhaps he was an idiot savant?

The second reason it pisses me off is that in order to take it seriously you have to already be in the mindset that you believe (or suspect) that your god is a vindictive SOB. Some people, who believe in god, would never think so badly of him, and therefore would quite legitimately never fall for such BS as Pascal proposed, even while following the rule anyway.

Needless to say the same applies to serious atheists (not agnostics).

Brilliant doesn't mean infallible. Neither does genius. Bobby Fischer (the Chess player) has one of the most brilliant minds on earth, and he's spent most of his recent years preaching hate speech over Phillipine radio (you should visit his website). Military geniuses like Napoleon invariably become cocky and blundered into places like Waterloo...

In fact...the more time you devote to being exceptional in a particular field, the more ignorant and maladjusted you tend to become in others. Fischer is easily a prime example. So I can see how Pascal could have been misguided about religion...but yet somehow still found a very intelligent way to justify his thinking...

 

[Ossai]

Ok, this is from the Darwin Awards forum (before they got a new board) so the link may not work. Truth Or Heresy

It was posted by EvilDave – he was active on both boards.

And here is an exert from the post by Evildave.
----------------------------------
It's all according to how you partition the numbers, really.

Given the breakdown of the odds, from the agnostic POV ("I dunno", or "things proposed so far about deities are probably wrong"), you're covering a value so nearly 100% that it may as well be 100%, because the one "true" answer and description of a deity (or deities, or lack of deity) and its (or their, or nobody's) real wishes (if it/they even know them themself/(themselves), and exist as a real entity to have them) represents one infinitely small possibility we have no way of verifying.

The thing is, that god is not more provable or real than Invisible Pink Unicorns (IPUs), Purple Dinosaurs (PDs), AquaMan (AM), Little Green Men (LGM), Miscellaneous Faerie Tale Creatures (MFTCs), Demons Pushing Electrons (DPE), or Elementary Evil Particles (EEPs). If you break down the odds the "fair" way, there is so little chance that anything said or believed about any deity is wrong that you may as well believe the Tooth Fairy (TF) had an affair with Santa Claus (SC), and an invisible pixy (IP) was the result.

There is no data to support any of these statement, and there is no data to support that there is an uber-being who made everything (and an uber-uber-being who made it, and an uber-uber-uber-being that made the one who made it, recursing into absurdity as you must when offering a "must have been created, couldn't have just happened" argument).

My favorite way to break it down is:

"Truth Or Heresy"

Start with two pieces of paper.

Leave one blank. It's "Nothing".

Write "God" on the other.

No god: 50%

God: 50%

In the absence of all information (and we have no information), then it's a 50/50 chance you're right when you ask the question this way.

Once you agree that there's a 50/50 chance to begin with, this is your "Core Assumption", so now just keep partitioning the remaining halves of "God" by adding True/False (t/f) conditions to the Core Assumption. More than one god? t/f Wants something from people? t/f Gives a **** about people? t/f Has a gift for people? t/f, etc. Every decision subdivides another assumption by half.

It's not fair, but who really wants fair? Certainly not the religious who see everything as good OR evil, black OR white, "my religion" OR "heresy". With this sort of logical model, subdividing true OR false is absolutely correct. Subdividing in any other way is "moral relativism".

The "right" answer is still only shaving into the 50% possibility of "is a god", and not touching the 50% possibility that there is not, because "false" was a "Core Rejection", and was not subdivided because there was nothing about a negative assertion to subdivide. Unless you enjoy "Strange Loops".

When you can't subdivide "truths" any further, get a very sharp knife and cut out that last tiny bit.

The last speck of paper dust you couldn't write in is for the dogmatic believer.

The partitioned and subdivided page with a hole in it (or the pile of torn pieces if you subdivided by tearing in halves) is for the deist or non-dogmatic believer, who believes there is a god but won't pin it down or subdivide from a given possibility.

The blank "nothing" page is for the atheist.

The agnostic couldn't make up his mind, so he just doesn't get any.

Just point at the other potential microscopically small boxes that "might" be right (subdividing it as necessary), if any of the fickle little questions was answered wrong along the way, and point out you're damned if you're even a little off, by definition, so we're probably all damned, or at least that people are more probably wasting their sundays doing "The Wrong Things".

The whole thing about Pascal’s Wager is it’s a false dichotomy.

Ossai

 

[c4ts]

Pascal was great when it came to discovering hydraulics. Can't say the same for his religious theories. What a shame that God is not a fluid.

 

[Iacchus]

2. Wouldn't it be FUN to have someone around who REALLY subscribed to Pascal's Wager? You call him up at two in the morning..."Jacob, bro, it's me again. I hate to break it to you, but God just called me again...and said he was gonna send you and everyone you care about to hell after you die if you don't get out of bed and get me some burgers."

He'd have to do it, wouldn't he? In fact, he'd have to do basically everything you said as long as you swear that God just promised to do something unspeakably awful (and untestable) if he didn't.

That would be in violation of the third commandment, however ... "taking the Lord's name in vain." And you should seriously consider whether you wish to breech one of God's commandments yourself. And so brings up the ninth commandment, "Don't promote falsity," which you would seriously be in danger of breeching as well. Not to mention that if you did this in order to take something from somebody that didn't belong to you, you would be in danger of breeching the eighth commandment, "Thou shalt not steal."

 

[EGarrett]

That would be in violation of the third commandment, however ... "taking the Lord's name in vain." And you should seriously consider whether you wish to breech one of God's commandments yourself. And so brings up the ninth commandment, "Don't promote falsity," which you would seriously be in danger of breeching as well. Not to mention that if you did this in order to take something from somebody that didn't belong to you, you would be in danger of breeching the eighth commandment, "Thou shalt not steal."

There are a lot of smart-assed replies I could make to this, but I'll just remind you that you're speaking to an atheist here, Ike.

What are your thoughts on Pascal's Wager? Do you subscribe to it? How do you think it holds up to some of the questions here?

I don't see how a true Wagerer could dodge his duty to get me burgers whenever I say so. After all, I'm simply swearing up and down that God spoke to me and said he had to do this. When you follow the laws of Christianity, you're simply following the word of another person from a long time ago who swore up and down that God spoke to him and said he had to do that...

 

[bruto]

There are a lot of smart-assed replies I could make to this, but I'll just remind you that you're speaking to an atheist here, Ike.

What are your thoughts on Pascal's Wager? Do you subscribe to it? How do you think it holds up to some of the questions here?

I don't see how a true Wagerer could dodge his duty to get me burgers whenever I say so. After all, I'm simply swearing up and down that God spoke to me and said he had to do this. When you follow the laws of Christianity, you're simply following the word of another person from a long time ago who swore up and down that God spoke to him and said he had to do that...

I have to disagree, as I stated before. The original wager was on the basic question of the existence of God. Owing to his own background, and the time he lived in, that translated into accepting the Roman Catholic faith, but that's not officially the content of the wager. It's theist versus atheist. Even if you dispute, as most of us do, either the odds or the validity of the wager, it's a far different proposition from the idea that you must then accept every crackpot notion that comes down the pike. Even the strictest Christian faith allows you some slack, and some room for personal judgment. Even for a down-the-line, dogmatic Catholic, your proposition is a bad bet, both as to the likelihood of its being true, and the likelihood of eternal damnation if I guess wrong. You make the same mistake Iamme and others seem to be making when they argue against skepticism, that once you've accepted any belief at all, you are living in some kind of blind faith about everything. Not all Christians are zombies.

 

[Iacchus]

I don't see how a true Wagerer could dodge his duty to get me burgers whenever I say so. After all, I'm simply swearing up and down that God spoke to me and said he had to do this. When you follow the laws of Christianity, you're simply following the word of another person from a long time ago who swore up and down that God spoke to him and said he had to do that...

If it was simply a matter of taking another person's word for it, I would say that it is a complete and utter joke ... and, that in effect there is no God.