I’ve been seeing a lot of references to Pascal’s Wager lately. I don’t know if a bunch of theists just discovered it for a the first time… Or it showed up in the mass media somewhere… Or maybe folks just decided to start talking about it…
But it seems like every other atheist site I look at has a discussion going that eventually boils down to Pascal’s Wager.
For those who don’t know what Pascal’s Wager is, I’ll quote Wikipedia:
Pascal’s Wager (or Pascal’s Gambit) is a suggestion posed by the French philosopher Blaise Pascal that even though the existence of God cannot be determined through reason, a person should wager as though God exists, because so living has everything to gain, and nothing to lose. It was set out in note 233 of his Pensées, a posthumously published collection of notes made by Pascal in his last years as he worked on a treatise on Christian apologetics.
Now, I’m going to ignore all the controversy that surrounds the wager itself… The logic that goes into it… The underlying assumptions… I’m just going to take it as it is being presented in these discussions on atheist blogs:
Even if there’s no evidence to support God’s existence, it’s better to act like God exists because if you get it wrong you’re going to Hell.
I am unswayed.
The first, and probably biggest, problem that I have with this argument is which God?
There’s no evidence for a Christian God… So should I be a Christian and go to church just in case?
But there’s also no evidence for a Hindu God… So should I make a pilgrimage to Prayaga just in case?
There’s even less evidence for Norse Gods… So should I sacrifice someone to Odin just in case?
The problem is that many religions are mutually exclusive. Many of them claim that they’re the one true religion and that if you don’t do it their way, you’re going to suffer for eternity. But they can’t all be the one true religion. And you can’t actually adhere to all of them at once. So you’re pretty much guaranteed to wind up suffering for all eternity anyway – even if you do decide to behave as if one of the religions is true.
Of course a devout believer will be happy to tell you which religion is correct – it’s the one that they chose. And they’ll back it up with all kinds of evidence and scripture and whatnot… But pretty much every religion has equally compelling evidence and scripture when you get right down to it.
The next problem I have with the wager is that it assumes there’s no drawback to behaving as if there is a god.
They suggest that living as if there is a god doesn’t affect you in any way… You just go through your life like you normally would… And at the end, if you picked the right religion, you get rewarded. If you picked the wrong religion, you’re no worse-off than if you hadn’t picked any religion.
But this isn’t true.
They’re suggesting that you should live your life as if a god existed. This suggests that you should be doing something differently than what you’re doing now.
For the Christians – this means that you should be going to church, tithing, condemning abortion, ignoring the evidence of your own senses, witnessing to others, and treating sex as something to be ashamed of – just to name a few.
So I’d have to waste a couple hours, every week, in church. Sitting there, listening to some priest drone on and on about how great God is and how lucky we are to be saved.
And I couldn’t enjoy looking at pornography or reading erotica or fooling around with my wife.
And I couldn’t afford some unfortunate woman the safety and dignity of respecting her decision to have an abortion.
…those are some pretty big life changes, and they’re just the tip of the iceberg.
The fact of the matter is that living my life as if there’s a god would have a huge impact on my life… And regardless of which god I pick, I’m still pretty much guaranteed to get it wrong… So I’ll probably wind up suffering for all eternity anyway…
So, why should I behave as if there’s a god up there?
Wouldn’t it make more sense to act as if this life is all I’ve got? No promise of heaven, no risk of hell – just one life. One chance to make the best of my time here on Earth.