Pascals wager like doing the lottery?

[Paddy1989]

I’ve seen both arguments against pascals wager and for it and i’m still on the fence. I think it only becomes feasible once a person’s mind has the belief that the odds in God existence is a good percentage. Now when someone says about how silly pascals wager is and that it’s not just 50/50 as first we have to prove the Christian God has more merit than the rest so in fact the odds is actually much higher they make a good point and second the percentage of him existing is too low for them. Couldn’t we appeal to the atheist that doing the lottery if the odds are 1 in 100 million for example is silly aswell and that just as Atheists will go around preaching the silliness of believing in God shouldn’t they also just as zealously go around preaching the silliness of investing in the lottery as one investing themselves in such a thing is irrational to them isn’t it? I’d like your thoughts on this, point out any error i have made. Thanks.

I mean someone who believes in God and wins everlasting life will get infinitely more than someone who wins the lottery and gets a finite about of material wealth so the prize for believing and following God is worth much more of an investment wouldn’t you agree and the odds of actually winning is higher

 

[Paddy1989]

Yes but those same atheists who feel that doing the lottery is silly wouldn’t spend so much of their lives preaching against it yet they do so about God and it is pretty much the same thing, the difference with God however is the amount of investment but then the reward is infinitely higher. So essentially while yes it’s not exactly a 50/50 thing there are plenty of Good reasons for God’s existence such as the kalam cosmological argument that even if the atheist takes lightly surely it raises the odds? To where it’s MUCH higher than winning the lottery.

So to put it simply the Atheist only has to take the reasons for God’s existence lightly and the wager makes more sense than the lottery and the odds and reward is much higher

 

[neophyte]

The wisdom of making a wager is about the risk vs. the reward, not merely about the odds against winning.

If the odds against winning a wager are 10 to 1, and you can win $10 for a $1 bet, then the wager is fair. If you can win more than $10 for the $1 bet, it’s smart to take the bet, and if you can win $100 then you’d be stupid not to.

So since the odds against the existance of God are finite, and the payout for betting that God exists is infinitely higher than what it costs you in this life, then the smart thing to do is bet that he exists. It’s like betting $1 at 10 to 1, when the payout is all the money in the world.

 

[Paddy1989]

The wager can favor the Gods whom the reasons for God’s existence account for such as the cosmological argument. If other arguments account for other Gods exist then they should also be put forward. In order words atheists are not satisfied that these reasons that lead them to believe in God however i still feel many of them see some merit in the arguments that it makes an omnipotent omniscient omnipresent God more and therefore this brings the odds of a Christian God much higher. I suppose unless some mathematical calculation was done we couldn’t get the exact odds

 

[Paddy1989]

What i’m saying is reasons for the existence of a particular God need to be given, if the odds are then high enough for the atheist to accept then the wager holds more merit, the wager doesn’t need to be 50/50 in my opinion to make the investment worth the reward

 

[laylow]

The wager predisposes that belief is a prerequisite for being ‘saved’ which is quite an assumption. If that assumption is true, then presumably you would have to believe in the ‘correct’ god (interpretation of god) which probably has long odds, because it’s essentially unfathomable.