Pascal's Wager

[Loon]

I'd like to get a clarification on Pascal's wager from the regulars in this part of the forum.

It is my understanding that Pascal's wager is:

A. If I believe in god and am right, I go to heaven and I win. If I am wrong, nothing happens.

B. If I don't believe in god and am right, nothing happens. If I am wrong, I go to hell and I lose.

C. Assuming my belief in god does not effect the chance of god exisiting, I am comparing a difference between yay! and nothing with the difference between nothing and oh crap!.

D. The average of yay! and nothing is much better than the average of nothing and oh, crap!

E. The half-yay! option is to believe in god, so believing in god is a good bet.


Is this a fair summary?



It is my understanding that the criticism of this idea is that you don't know which god to believe in or that it's a limited choice because it's a choice between god or no god, without asking which god.

Is this correct?

 

[scribble]

That's basically Pascal's Wager, in a nutshell.

And this may be contained within your criticism, but my personal beef with Pascal is that his Wager is a sucker's bet. It only works if there are zero mutually exclusive religions. Unfortunately, the actual number of mutually exclusive religions is much, much higher.

 

[Skeptical Greg]

' A ' Would seem to be a suckers bet. Why would you trust a God who created a place like hell in the first place? Especially if all he cared about was your affirmation of his existance in the absence of any clues.. And not caring if you were a particularly decent being or not..

 

[chulbert]

It is my understanding that the criticism of this idea is that you don't know which god to believe in or that it's a limited choice because it's a choice between god or no god, without asking which god.

The wager, by nature of its binary decisions, implies to most people equal probabilities when, in fact, that is not established. I put the probability God exists far closer to 0 than .5.

I also take issue with, "If I believe in God and I am wrong, nothing happens." What happens is that you squander and waste far too much of your precious life here on Earth in practice of your religion.

 

[pgwenthold]

Re: Re: Pascal's Wager

The wager, by nature of its binary decisions, implies to most people equal probabilities when, in fact, that is not established. I put the probability God exists far closer to 0 than .5.

I also take issue with, "If I believe in God and I am wrong, nothing happens." What happens is that you squander and waste far too much of your precious life here on Earth in practice of your religion.

It also assumes that God would prefer you to believe in the wrong god than no god at all. Like Homer Simpson said, "But Marge, what if we chose the wrong god? Then every week (when we go to church) the real god gets madder and madder!"

Perhaps God would prefer that you use the rational thinking ability that he gave you, the one that sees there is no reason to believe in god? Perhaps God really hates the concept of "faith" (or "blind faith" for those who make a distinction), and everyone who believes by faith will be punished? Heck, perhaps God really hates people who are insincere in their beliefs and only believe as a means of hedging their bets?

As far as we know, God will send everyone who uses Pascal Wager to hell. So, the question is, are they so sure that they have lost nothing by believing in some particular god by faith and using Pascal's Wager to try to convince others? There is no basiss for that claim.

 

[two718]

One problem to me is that the "nothing" outcome is not nothing to me. Forcing myself to worship something that I don't believe in my whole life is very much a negative.

 

[wjousts]

As I understood it part of the rational for the wager was that believing in god cost you very little but the payout is potentially huge whereas not believing costs nothing, but the payout is potentially an eternity of torment.
Of course the criticism to that argument is that believing costs a lot more than people realize.

 

[Checkmite]

Well, believing in God (and paying all the necessary tithes) wouldn't hold a candle to the "payment" of an eternity of torture...but the Wager is flawed before we even get to that point.

 

[Jaggy Bunnet]

But if you only "believe" because of your own interpretation of the probable utility of believing, then surely that is not true belief and therefore you aren't getting into heaven/valhalla/the pub that never closes anyway?

 

[Brian the Snail]

To me, Pascal's wager boils down to putting a finite stake on a bet with finite odds, in the hope of an infinite payout. Then, no matter how large the stake, or how small the odds, you'll always win. This, I think, is fine as far as it goes.

Where it breaks down is that it doesn't say where we should put our bet. Obviously, when used by Christians they have in mind that in order to "win" we should bet on Jesus Christ and the Christian God, but this is an additional assumption not contained in Pascal's wager. We could just as easily say that to win you should bet on Allah, or on the Hindu pantheon, or on that popular diety "don't care much, I'll just sit on my backside on a Sunday watching sports." Perhaps Heaven is full of couch potatoes, and hell is full of people who go to Church. Who knows?

So I guess if I was to play Pascal's wager, I would place a bet on exactly what I believe and do now. Why not? As far as anybody knows, it's as likely to win as anything else.

 

[Beleth]

But if you only "believe" because of your own interpretation of the probable utility of believing, then surely that is not true belief and therefore you aren't getting into heaven/valhalla/the pub that never closes anyway?

That's been my objection lately too.

Belief due to Pascal's Wager is the flimsiest of beliefs. It's a belief based on a bet and self-interest, not a belief based on faith and truth. If you are going to believe in God, believe in God because you are convinced that He exists, not because it's better for you if you do.

 

[Silicon]

As a man who knows the upside of a crap table, I like the depiction of Pascal's Wager as a sucker bet.



But yes, it does assume two mutually exclusive places to put your chips, when in fact, the possibilites other than those two are infinite.

 

[evildave]

To elaborate on 'infinite', it could be any of the relatively few religions still in active practice, any of the dead religions that are no longer practiced at all, or any of the religions that have never even occurred to anyone.

Then you have to look at what a "religion" is. You have to seek to appease that god, or follow that god's policies in some way to get into your 'heaven' (assuming there is one) and avoid your eternal torture (assuming there is one).

As far as anyone can tell, probably everone ceases to exist, or possibly everyone reincarnates, or possibly everyone goes to heaven, or possibly everyone goes to hell, or everyone "goes" somewhere different, or .... lots of possibilities here. More possibilities than you could ever dream of after eating too much spicy food. That's before we even add the variable of 'judgement of a deity' or 'karma' or whatever.

But back on track with what you're supposed to do with your belief in the "right" deity, making the enormous assumption that there is some reward versus penalty attached....

What the heck are the policies and requirements of this "right deity"? Even assuming the Christians have the "right deity", no two of them seem to ever agree on what it is you're supposed to do in order to qualify for their eternal vacation prize. Not on the big points, not on the small points, heck they don't even agree which points are the big ones and small ones.

Is church attendance the most important thing?

Is tithing the most important thing?

Does simple 'belief' override all else, including murder, torture, etc.?

Is confession the most important thing?

Is getting your head wet the most important thing?

Is knocking on people's doors or cornering them in public places the most important thing?

Is kneeling and making hand gestures the most important thing?

Is wearing a trinket the most important thing?

Is 'getting rid of' unbelievers (conversion, displacing, segregating, killing, whatever) the most important thing?

Is praying/begging at the deity not to burn forever the right thing?

Is 'being good' the right thing, and how is 'being good' defined?

Is base, crawling fealty to what people say god says the right thing?

Is the "right thing" something that people even do, or have ever done?

Is acting outraged when people discuss elements of their faith in a dispassionate way the right thing?

 

[Kopji]

Reason acts slowly, and with so many views, so on many principles, which must always be present, that it constantly grows weary, or wanders, for lack of bringing to bear all its principles. Feeling does not act thus. It acts instantaneously, and is ready to act. We must then see that our faith becomes a matter of feeling; otherwise it will always be vacillating.
- Blaise Pascal 'The Thoughts - The Wager'

 

[Tricky]

Reason acts slowly, and with so many views, so on many principles, which must always be present, that it constantly grows weary, or wanders, for lack of bringing to bear all its principles. Feeling does not act thus. It acts instantaneously, and is ready to act. We must then see that our faith becomes a matter of feeling; otherwise it will always be vacillating.
- Blaise Pascal 'The Thoughts - The Wager'

That makes it pretty clear. Faith and reason cannot coexist. Well, I don't mind a little vacillation and examination of many views, so I'll pick reason, thank you.

 

[evildave]

Even worse: "Trust your feelings" to make decisions for you.

Hence, ignore the instruments. If you "feel" you should go down in an airplane full of passengers, but the instruments tell you to pull up, act on your "feelings".

 

[Yahweh]

Pascal's Wager is essentially a very cheap way of "rationalizing" your beliefs.

My problems with it:

1. The wager is too ambigious (this has been mentioned many many times).

2. How exactly are you supposed to "just believe"? Beliefs are not something which can be toggled on and off like a switch, there are some people who may just be completely incapable of self-initiating that faith the size of a mustardseed.


You never know, maybe god(s) really does love atheists...

 

[SFB]

...

It only works if there are zero mutually exclusive religions .....

In a nutshell, Yay. This alone lends the argument very little credence, not to mention others' criticisms.

 

[varwoche]

It is my understanding that the criticism of this idea is that you don't know which god to believe in or that it's a limited choice because it's a choice between god or no god, without asking which god.

Ah, but what if "god" gets pissed off at non sincere converts?

 

[evildave]

The Christian god seems to value insincerity above all else.

After all, I have the Christians who would use Pascal's Wager as an argument.

Christians who would claim that morality is impossible without their religion.

Christians who call for 'universal brotherhood', except for....

Christians who tell me that more religion in government would be a "good thing", and was what the framers of the constitution "really" wanted.