Pascal's Wager issues

[jaguar]

I sought this forum out because of a conversation with my brother. He didn't name it, but he identified himself with what is substantially Pascal's Wager. Until I talked to my brother, I was satisfied that its retort, the Atheist's Wager, adequately defended my non-theistic mindset.  However, I am confronted with my inadequacy in defending that mindset. If my brother wishes to live a live believing in an after-life and in neglecting the people and surroundings in this life, I do not see how he can lose under this wager. If his existence ends at his life, he will never know he is wrong.  He will be oblivious. If he is correct and if his existence continues and he is somehow rewarded for his belief, then, again, he wins. I am correct and both his and my life end at death, there will never be a time for me to say, "see, I told you."  Of course, there is no possibility of redemption, but there is also no risk to him.  He fades into oblivion.  Am I missing something?

[Hydra009]

If his existence ends at his life, he will never know he is wrong.  He will be oblivious. If he is correct and if his existence continues and he is somehow rewarded for his belief, then, again, he wins.

Permanent obliviousness.  Seems like a big downside to me.

I am correct and both his and my life end at death, there will never be a time for me to say, "see, I told you."  Of course, there is no possibility of redemption, but there is also no risk to him.  He fades into oblivion.  Am I missing something?

Possibly.  Try this argument on for size:

When defusing of a bomb, cut the red wire.  If it works, problem solved.  If it doesn't work, no one will be around to say, "see, I told you not to cut it".

[Krampus]

If my brother wishes to live a live believing in an after-life and in neglecting the people and surroundings in this life

If belief in the afterlife somehow leads to neglect of this world, something has gone wrong somewhere. This is certainly not the mindset of various liberation theologies nor feminist theologies nor lots of Church rulings and bits of advice about worldly affairs.

Now, it's true that looked at in isolation, afterlife belief appears to do that, but usually, one who believes in the afterlife would accept at least some principles of social ethics drawn from "revelations" urging them to care about this world and people.

, I do not see how he can lose under this wager. If his existence ends at his life, he will never know he is wrong.  He will be oblivious. If he is correct and if his existence continues and he is somehow rewarded for his belief, then, again, he wins. I am correct and both his and my life end at death, there will never be a time for me to say, "see, I told you."  Of course, there is no possibility of redemption, but there is also no risk to him.  He fades into oblivion.  Am I missing something?

If God follows the logic of Pascal's Wager he is incredibly petty, vicious and self-centered. How believe in such a mediocre being?

[Solitary]

Pascal's Wager has been shown to be a logical fallacy by logicians. Solitary

[stromboli]

http://www.update.uu.se/~fbendz/nogod/pascal.htm

The main problem with Pascal's wager is that it suffers from the fallacy of bifurcation. It only calculates with two options when there are, in fact, at least four alternatives: The christian God and afterlife, some other god and afterlife, atheism with afterlife, and atheism without afterlife. Therefore Pascal's wager is invalid as an argument.

Pascal's Wager is an either/or argument. In reality as noted above, it ignores any other possibility. You are choosing to bet the particular god you believe in is the right one, versus another god or no god at all. This is merely a lazy assumption that by not disbelieving you are avoiding damnation, but in fact that is essentially hypocritical, because you are merely choosing what you view as the lesser of evils, not in essence committing to a belief.

[Solitary]

If there is a God, He is infinitely incomprehensible, since, having, neither parts nor limits, He has no affinity to us. We are then incapable of knowing either what He is or if He is ... you must wager. It is not optional. Which will you choose then? Let us weigh the gain and the loss in wagering that God is. Let us estimate these two chances. If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager then without hesitation that he is.

Pascal's wager sounds deceptively simple. Many a religious person finds such a call attractive: one only needs to believe without considering the evidence and one would immediately be in a better position than that of the non-believer. After all, they say, if I believe and then it turns out to be true I get to enjoy heavenly bliss; but if my belief turns out to be false, and there is no God, then when I die, I lose nothing.

 An atheist, the religious person may continue, if he turns out to be wrong will suffer an eternity of torment. If the atheist turns out to be right then it is only equal to the believer's "worst case." Obviously then, the believer will say, you must wager on the side of belief.

But Pascal's argument is seriously flawed. The religious environment that Pascal lived in was simple. Belief and disbelief only boiled down to two choices: Roman Catholicism and atheism. With a finite choice, his argument would be sound. But on Pascal's own premise that God is infinitely incomprehensible, then in theory, there would be an infinite number of possible theologies about God, all of which are equally probable.

First, let us look at the more obvious possibilities we know of today - possibilities that were either unknown to, or ignored by, Pascal. In the Calvinistic theological doctrine of predestination, it makes no difference what one chooses to believe since, in the final analysis, who actually gets rewarded is an arbitrary choice of God. Furthermore we know of many more gods of many different religions, all of which have different schemes of rewards and punishments.

 Given that there are more than 2,500 gods known to man, and given Pascal's own assumptions that one cannot comprehend God (or gods), then it follows that, even the best case scenario (i.e. that God exists and that one of the known Gods and theologies happen to be the correct one) the chances of making a successful choice is less than one in 2,500.

Second, Pascal's negative theology does not exclude the possibility that the true God and true theology is not one that is currently known to the world. For instance it is possible to think of a God who rewards, say, only those who purposely step on sidewalk cracks. This sounds absurd, but given the premise that we cannot understand God, this possible theology cannot be dismissed. In such a case, the choice of what God to believe would be irrelevant as one would be rewarded on a premise totally distinct from what one actually believes.

Furthermore as many atheist philosophers have pointed out, it is also possible to conceive of a deity who rewards intellectual honesty, a God who rewards atheists with eternal bliss simply because they dared to follow where the evidence leads - that given the available evidence, no God exists! Finally we should also note that given Pascal's premise, it is possible to conceive of a God who is evil and who punishes the good and rewards the evil.

Thus Pascal's call for us not to consider the evidence but to simply believe on prudential grounds fails. As the atheist philosopher, J.L. Mackie wrote:

 "Once the full range of such possibilities is taken into account, Pascal's argument from comparative expectations falls to the ground. The cultivation of non-rational belief is not even practically reasonable."  

 The Christian claim of a special status of the Bible is untenable. We have also seen that many important details about Jesus' life given in the gospels are either false or historically suspect. And  Christian Theology as it is and show that it is a confused irrational system. The balance of evidence, far from being inconclusive, shows that the major teachings and claims of Christianity are false. These parts show that one of the main assumptions of Pascal's wager, that we cannot know the truth or falsity or religious claims and are thus forced to make a wager, is false.

As  mentioned above, there is a moral dimension to Pascal's wager.  Christianity, in all its forms - Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodox, Protestantism and the Fringe Churches - has inflicted tremendous harm on civilization. When one makes a wager to believe, then one becomes morally responsible for the propagation of suffering that Christianity have been bringing and will continue to bring upon the world.

The Roman Catholic Church continues its horrible track record of bringing misery to its followers and to non-Catholics. It's illogical stance on contraception leads to millions of unwanted pregnancies and, indirectly, to many thousands maternal and infant deaths. It also means that poor third world countries with Catholic majorities, such as the Philippines and Brazil, continue to be burdened by overpopulation, poverty, hunger and disease.

It is widely recognized that the opposition of the Catholic Church to the use of condoms in the fight against HIV/AIDS is at least partially responsible for the high rate of new infections in Africa and elsewhere. Its irrational position on this has led to the pronouncement that if a husband infected with HIV/AIDS wants a normal conjugal relationship with his wife, he should do so without a condom. Life takes a back seat to theological nonsense. The moribund structure of the Church also allows for the horrendously high number of sex abuse committed by its clergy on innocent young Catholics. The recently departed pope, John Paul II bears a huge responsibility for this continuing infliction of suffering on humankind.

The Fundamentalist Protestant churches inflict their own brand of horror on the world. With scientific creationism and intelligent design creationism, they are trying to bring science, and the world, back into the dark ages where faith and ignorance reign supreme. The fundamental irrationalism of this branch of Christianity has meant that many of the flock have been fleeced by TV evangelists, some of whose have sexual escapades comparable to the infamous Pope Alexander VI. This irrationalism breeds belief in the efficacy of faith healing to the detriment, and death, of many. Needless to say, fundamentalism breeds intolerance.

The fundamentalists have joined forces with the Catholic Church in their absolutist opposition to abortion, leading the current fundamentalist leaning U.S. government to withhold funds from organizations that aid poor women in third world countries. It has been estimated that almost 5,000 women needlessly die each year due to this misnamed "culture of life" policy.

This moral responsibility for all these also partially falls on the so-called liberal Christians. While this group of Christians may do little harm directly, they provide the raw material (in "lukewarm" believers who are already positively disposed towards Christianity) from which fundamentalism builds itself. Furthermore by putting a "respectable" veneer on religious discourse, they prevent a much needed and long overdue logical, philosophical and scientific demolition of religious claims - since to even attempt to question religion per se is considered politically incorrect. As Sam Harris rightly noted in his book The End of Faith:


 
'Religious moderates are, in a large part, responsible for the religious conflict in our world, because their beliefs provide the context in which scriptural literalism and religious violence can never be adequately opposed."  


It is time for liberal Christians to think through their belief system, whether applying words which lose all sense of their normal meaning just to keep some semblance of the religious life, is really worth the harm they indirectly help inflict on the world.

Furthermore amidst all this proven negative effects of Christianity, it is hard to see if there is much good that comes out of it. Some believers have tried to argue that Christians lead healthier lives than non-Christians, but the studies cited have been shown to be seriously flawed. Furthermore it is debatable whether Christianity actually makes a person moral. History seems to tell us otherwise.

Many of the popes throughout history had been morally deficient human beings; so too were many of the church fathers, Protestant reformers and some modern evangelical preachers. For they preached intolerance and hate and sometimes actively encouraged the torture and murders of innocent people. Indeed recent sociological studies have shown that there is a negative correlation between religiosity and morality.

The world today, perhaps more than ever, is in need of our undivided, moral and rational, attention. The problems of the world, both natural and man-made are many: famine, floods, the greenhouse effect, the ozone hole and the irreversible extinction of countless species of plants and animals. The only chance the world has is for humankind to understand that this world is all we have, there is no other, no afterlife. Only we can solve the world's problems. The solutions for the problems of the world and for life in general are not to be found in Christianity. Christianity, in fact, is part of the problem.

On both intellectual and moral grounds the only course for a person to take is the rejection of Pascal's wager.

May the Force be with you!  :shock:  :roll:  Solitary

[Plu]

What Stromboli said. Pascal's wager assumes that there are only two options: that the bible is entirely true, or that there is no god. It misses a whole bunch of other options, like the muslim god being the real one, the jewish god being the real one, some of the ancient nordic, egyptian, roman, greek, etc... or maybe even a god we haven't discovered yet. Hell, maybe the Flying Spaghetti Monster is the real one.

It's basically just a False Dilemma.

Let him take a look at this image. His odds for believing in the christian god aren't that much better than yours. And it's still leaving out thousands of smaller belief systems, most of which wouldn't give him a heaven either.

[jaguar]

My brother's post-life belief isn't one of the Christian god.  It's a melange of his own making, combining New Age mysticism, UFO cultism, and super powers that would make a Mormon blush.  I realize that there are all sorts of problems with the spiritual edifice he built, things that he has not and will not think about because he is putting his trust that everything, all the shortcomings of this life, will work out magically in the next.  He is not a philosopher and he is not putting his beliefs to a test until the next life.  The problem is that I don't see how he loses if he never knows he loses.  If his hopes and dreams turn out to be fantasy, he will never know it.  If they turn out to true, well, his wager paid off handsomely.  One person did mention the multitude of deities and belief system.  I guess that would be the only problem I see, if he bet on the wrong horse. The real, true winning horse might be an unforgiving one and might punish my brother.  Or the real, true winning horse (which my brother probably would endorse, if forced to) forgives and loves all, and would right the universe not only for my brother, but for every person who ever existed.

UGH.

[Plu]

If your brother is completely delusional, he has nothing left to lose. He already lost his mind, which is everything you have.

Also, you must wonder whether or not it's important to know that he lost. What is important is whether or not you enjoyed yourself. Being competetive about everything is a waste of your time, really. Just make sure you enjoy what you do and let him go about his own stuff.

Compare what you get out of life + what you get out of the afterlife x the chance of that happening. You can easily come up with a bad afterlife for each good afterlife, and the chances of them happening are all slim to none. The one that all the evidence seems to point to is that there isn't one, which is a flat 0 as well. Pretty much, the total estimated value of your afterlife is about 0. Put your points in enjoying this life. If you enjoy believing in weird stuff and not accomplishing anything worthwhile; go for it. If you like to work to make something valuable happen and consider spending time thinking about this stuff useless; go do that.

If his afterlife pays off it's valuable. But the odds of it happening are extremely slim. It's kinda like paying the lottery. Sure, there's a very small chance you'll get rich, but that doesn't change in any way that most likely you're just wasting every last dollar you're putting in lottery tickets. And that if you stop hoping for a lucky break without having to work for it and put in the effort, you'll probably be able to produce something far more worthwhile, even if you don't get as rich.

But this really sounds like a problem of statistics, so I'm trying to solve it with a bit of math. And the math doesn't seem to be in your brother's favor.

[aitm]

Sometimes, when people lose their mind like that, it's best to leave it where they left it.

[the_antithesis]

The concept of the after-life is stupid. It's the belief that you'll live forever after you die.