Pascal's Wager
From Smiting Shepherds
Pascal’s Wager uses game theory to demonstrate that people should believe in God, because it offers the best cost-to-benefit ratio. The argument is summarized in the table below:
God Exists | God Doesn’t Exist | |
---|---|---|
You Believe | Eternal heavenly bliss. | You wasted all the time you spent worshiping. |
You Disbelieve | Eternal damnation. | You saved all the time you would have spent worshiping. |
However, there are three crippling problems with this argument:
- Pascal’s Wager was never intended to prove God’s existence; it is just an argument for going to church. Even then, it never actually solves or answers anything -- it just changes the question from “why?” to “why not?”
- Admittedly, this is a problem with the use of this argument, and not the argument itself. However, this is a frequent problem.
- Argument from Inconsistent Revelations. Pascal’s Wager is only valid under the a priori assumption that you’ve selected the correct god. If the Old Testament prophets really screwed up, and it turns out that Ba’al is the Lord, then even the saints are damned. Many of the world’s religions independently developed their own equally-valid versions of Pascal’s Wager, which replaces the word “God” with “Ra,” “Odin,” or “Zeus”.
- Argument from Inauthentic Belief. If you only believe because of Pascal’s Wager, then your religious devotion is just a fire insurance payment. An all-knowing God would realize that you’re only paying him lip service to win a big payout later. Pascal’s Wager is insufficient to “save” anyone, because it requires you to live a lie, and in turn, lie to God himself.