Pascal's Wager

[EnterTheBowser]

Pascal’s Wager runs as follows, where X and Y are some finite numbers:

_________________God exists____God does not exist
Believe in God_______infinite__________Y
Don’t believe in God__zero or -infinity____X

The table represents the possible rewards in four different situations.

Now, given that the proposition “God exists” has some non-zero probability, it follows that a rational person would believe in God, since that’s the best bet. (I’ve put in “negative infinity” for possibility of hell).

This argument is a bad argument for many, many reasons.

1- Wrong table?
Let me ask: how many possible Gods are there who mete out infinite reward for belief and infinite punishment for nonbelief? The answer: an infinite number. Given that, the table should look more like:

_____________Ted exists_Alice exists_Yahweh exists…
Believe in Ted__infinite-infinite-infite
Believe in Alice-infite__infinite__infinite
Believe in Yahweh
Believe in Quetzecoatl

(Where Ted, Alice, and Quetzecoatl are gods so named and who mete out infinite rewards for belief)

So which God do we believe in?

2- Infinity?
Simply put, can a human being really experience infinite pleasure or suffering? How would such a thing be possible? And if we don’t put infinity on the table, the argument stops working. Once infinity is out, we’d need to calculate the actual rewards and the actual chances for God existing - and that seems a little tricky.

3- Bad argument
And more importantly, is this really a valid form for an argument? Is it rational to base beliefs about the world based on what is in my self-interest? No, probably not. The world is the way it is regardless of whether or not I happen to like it. I might really really want to have an uncle who will leave me millions of dollars - but that doesn’t make belief in such an uncle rational.

4- Only Nontheists Go to Heaven
infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/heaven.html
I’ve always found this to be terribly amusing.

 

[Gilbert_Keith]

Do you always argue with a shotgun … hoping to hit a target somewhere?

Why not, as a curtesy to us all, give a fair statement of Pascal’s wager, or even allow him to speak for himself, before you dump on him?

And you will get much more participation in this thread if you calm down and let Pascal speak for himself.

 

[EnterTheBowser]

Gilbert Keith:

Do you always argue with a shotgun … hoping to hit a target somewhere?

Why not, as a curtesy to us all, give a fair statement of Pascal’s wager, or even allow him to speak for himself, before you dump on him?

And you will get much more participation in this thread if you calm down and let Pascal speak for himself.

plato.stanford.edu/entries/pascal-wager/

This is very thorough. Perhaps I should have omitted the “-infinity” but even if it is changed to some finite unpleasantness, my criticisms stand.

Incidentally, since I created this thread in response to your reference to Pascal’s Wager in another thread, perhaps you would like to present the argument?

 

[Gilbert_Keith]

… when theists and atheists debate the existence of God, too often they are talking past each other. The traditional proofs for the existence of God have no effect upon atheists because, as Kant pointed out long ago, the intellect will always find a way around such proofs. Likewise, the theist can always rebut the atheist merely by pointing out that he has no proof for the non-existence of God. So nothing ever gets settled.
It’s only when we talk about self-interest that both parties are really going to be tested. The theist here gets the clear advantage.

It is to our advantage to believe in God if we take that belief seriously. There is no long term advantage in denying God if God truly exists, and there is considerable risk if we do.

That in a nutshell is Pascal’s argument with the atheist.

What do we risk by believing in God and taking God seriously?

 

[Gilbert_Keith]

Philosopher Peter Kreeft offers this interesting analysis of Pascal’s Wager here.

peterkreeft.com/topics/pascals-wager.htm

 

[Agricola]

Dear EnterTheBrowser,

Here’s what, in my humble opinion, is what’s what in the matter.

EnterTheBowser:

Let me ask: how many possible Gods are there who mete out infinite reward for belief and infinite punishment for nonbelief? The answer: an infinite number.

The problem with this objection is that there can be only 1 infinite being. If there were more than one infinite being, they would either be the same being, or their infinite character would contradict each other’s and nullify both. Pascal’s wager is based on this and it is a grave misrepresentation of his argument to leave this point out. There are certain properties of God which are commonly accepted and which Pascal’s one God possesses. These are: omnipotence, omnipresence, omniscience, and omnibenevolence. These properties should be kept in mind when assessing Pascal’s wager, regardless of whether you are arguing for or against its validity.

EnterTheBowser:

Simply put, can a human being really experience infinite pleasure or suffering? How would such a thing be possible? And if we don’t put infinity on the table, the argument stops working. Once infinity is out, we’d need to calculate the actual rewards and the actual chances for God existing - and that seems a little tricky.

I don’t know what you are trying to get at with this objection. I’m going to use the term “happiness” to replace your “pleasure” as I tend to think of it as having a more complete meaning, which I believe to be demanded by the context. Happiness cannot be measured quantitatively (neither can pleasure, if you are particularly fond of that term). You can not go to a store and buy four “happinesses” (no matter how much you negotiate with the clerk). Happiness can be experienced infinitely because it is qualitative, not quantitative. A human being can experience infinite happiness even though the human is not an infinite being because happiness is experienced in degrees. An infinite amount of happiness is experienced as such, to the extent that the human in question is capable of experiencing it. In other words, in heaven one is as happy as one can be.

EnterTheBowser:

And more importantly, is this really a valid form for an argument? Is it rational to base beliefs about the world based on what is in my self-interest? No, probably not. The world is the way it is regardless of whether or not I happen to like it. I might really really want to have an uncle who will leave me millions of dollars - but that doesn’t make belief in such an uncle rational.

The form of Pascal’s wager is valid. Just look to your matrix for proof of this. Validity is not the question. The question you want to pose is whether it is sound.

What other rational basis besides self-interest is there to be had? Prooving whether God exists or not is not what the purpose of the wager. Whether we place a wager or not, God will or will not exist. Therefore, since one may neither be able to prove God’s existence or the opposite, the goal of the wager becomes the greatest possible utility oneself. Since Pascal’s wager involves infinite vs. finite happiness and finite vs. infinite punishment, the logical conclusion that one must make from his wager is that (regardless of whether God really does exist or not) it is more prudent for one to believe that God does exist.

Many people try to complicate Pascal’s wager in order to refute it, but it is what it is. Pascal’s God is the only God under consideration, and since that is the case, most of the objections on the website’s you’ve offered fall harmlessly short of their target.

God bless, Merry Christmas,

Agricola

 

[EnterTheBowser]

Kreeft does a fairly good job laying out the Wager. He does not defend it against the various objections I have raised; incidentally most of these are fairly common objections.

To go further with the “bad form of argument” objection, let’s consider the possibility that there are aliens watching you who will kill your entire family unless you believe that there’s a purple elephant on Ganymede. Now, certainly it is possible that these aliens exist - they’re not logically impossible. And certainly it can’t harm you to believe there’s a purple elephant on Ganymede. So of course it is reasonable to believe that this elephant exists, right? No. It’s a bad form of argument: like I said, the universe will remain pretty much the same regardless of how we feel about it. For example, if I actually hate my family instead of loving them, is it then reasonable to believe that there is no elephant on Ganymede? Does the truth vary with my personal desires? And can’t I construct an argument like this that would make it reasonable to believe in every proposition there ever was, and their negations? And doesn’t that show that there’s something seriously wrong here?

 

[EnterTheBowser]

Incidentally, it is interesting to note that the analogies which Kreeft starts his argument off with are all about action, not belief. That aside…

Agricola:

The problem with this objection is that there can be only 1 infinite being. If there were more than one infinite being, they would either be the same being, or their infinite character would contradict each other’s and nullify both. Pascal’s wager is based on this and it is a grave misrepresentation of his argument to leave this point out.

You’re probably right - if there’s an omnimax God, there’s one such God. I don’t intend to dispute that. But it does not address my objection. Sure, there might be one God, but is it the God named Bill? The one named Alice? The one named Quetzecoatl who demands cactus sacrifices (I’m not familiar with Aztec mythology and am just making the cactus thing up, by the way)? Certainly they all have some slight chance of existing.

An infinite amount of happiness is experienced as such, to the extent that the human in question is capable of experiencing it. In other words, in heaven one is as happy as one can be.

The problem is that once that slot in the decision matrix does not have infinite happiness in it, the argument stops working - because we need to go calculate the probability of God existing. Being as happy as one can be is not an infinite value.

 

[Agricola]

EnterTheBowser:

You’re probably right - if there’s an omnimax God, there’s one such God. I don’t intend to dispute that. But it does not address my objection. Sure, there might be one God, but is it the God named Bill? The one named Alice? The one named Quetzecoatl who demands cactus sacrifices (I’m not familiar with Aztec mythology and am just making the cactus thing up, by the way)? Certainly they all have some slight chance of existing.

It does address your objection, because Pascal’s God is one that is infinite in all respects (if you’re thinking that this must include being infinitely evil, consider evil as the negation of good… then the world makes a whole lot more sense, and God doesn’t contradict himself). His attributes are set. If one of the gods you mention above is without some of the attributes that belong to Pascal’s one God, then that god is not God. To say it another way. Pascal’s God is the biggest, bestest, most completely GOD God he (or I) can imagine. His wager is whether or not God exists, not whether or not a god exists.

EnterTheBowser:

The problem is that once that slot in the decision matrix does not have infinite happiness in it, the argument stops working - because we need to go calculate the probability of God existing. Being as happy as one can be is not an infinite value.

If you state that “Being as happy as one can be is not an infinite value.”, then you must be assuming that there is a limit to how happy one can be. Remember what I said about happiness not being quantitative? How can we put a limit on the quality of something that is not material… something that is experienced?

God bless,

Agricola

 

[Gilbert_Keith]

BOWSER

It is to our advantage to believe in God if we take that belief seriously. There is no long term advantage in denying God if God truly exists, and there is considerable risk if we do.

That in a nutshell is Pascal’s argument with the atheist.

What do we risk by believing in God and taking God seriously?

---

Would you like to take a stab at answering this question?

Of until Monday. Merry Christmas all!

 

[ThisOne]

How does Pascal’s Wager stand up to the teaching in the Catechism that explicit profession of faith in Christ may not be necessary for salvation?

 

[BlindSheep]

I’m a Catholic, and I’ve never cared for Pascal’s wager. I think it is a bad argument, because it fails to take into account that, from an atheist’s perspective, one life is all he has. If one life is everything, than it has as much weight as eternity. Therefore, if by embracing Christianity he makes his one life unhappy (which is not necessarily a given, but for the sake of the argument…) and there is no God, he loses everything, just as if there were a God the atheist would lose everything by suffering for eternity in hell, and if atheism makes his one finite life happy (however unlikely) and there is no God, he gains everything there is to gain - one happy life.

 

[ThisOne]

ThisOne:

How does Pascal’s Wager stand up to the teaching in the Catechism that explicit profession of faith in Christ may not be necessary for salvation?

Specifically:

See usccb.org/catechism/text/pt1sect2chpt3art9p3.htm

(Excerpt of relevant text follows)
"Outside the Church there is no salvation"
**846 **
How are we to understand this affirmation, often repeated by the Church Fathers?335 Re-formulated positively, it means that all salvation comes from Christ the Head through the Church which is his Body:

Basing itself on Scripture and Tradition, the Council teaches that the Church, a pilgrim now on earth, is necessary for salvation: the one Christ is the mediator and the way of salvation; he is present to us in his body which is the Church. He himself explicitly asserted the necessity of faith and Baptism, and thereby affirmed at the same time the necessity of the Church which men enter through Baptism as through a door. Hence they could not be saved who, knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse either to enter it or to remain in it.336

**847 **
This affirmation is not aimed at those who, through no fault of their own, do not know Christ and his Church:

Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience—those too may achieve eternal salvation.337

*848 **
"Although in ways known to himself God can lead those who, through no fault of their own, are ignorant of the Gospel, to that faith without which it is impossible to please him, the Church still has the obligation and also the sacred right to evangelize all men."338

---

The Catholic Church basically believes that it is at the moment of death that a person can make his or her definitive decision for Christ and prays fervently that all may be saved.

 

[EnterTheBowser]

Agricola:

It does address your objection, because Pascal’s God is one that is infinite in all respects (if you’re thinking that this must include being infinitely evil, consider evil as the negation of good… then the world makes a whole lot more sense, and God doesn’t contradict himself). His attributes are set. If one of the gods you mention above is without some of the attributes that belong to Pascal’s one God, then that god is not God. To say it another way. Pascal’s God is the biggest, bestest, most completely GOD God he (or I) can imagine. His wager is whether or not God exists, not whether or not a god exists.

Are you willing to assert that the chances of any other God’s existence are zero? We can admit that if any one of these gods exist, none of the others exist. But this does not somehow mean that the probability accorded to all but one should be zero. Pascal might have only considered that one sort of God - but that is the problem. There are all sorts of Gods who can make people as happy as they can be.

If you state that “Being as happy as one can be is not an infinite value.”, then you must be assuming that there is a limit to how happy one can be. Remember what I said about happiness not being quantitative? How can we put a limit on the quality of something that is not material… something that is experienced?

OK, so happiness and related states are qualitative, not quantitative. We can’t assign absolute (cardinal) values to them. But we certainly have to be able to say that some are more desirable than others, or else the Wager is definitely SOL. So they do get ordinal ranks. And instead of infinity, we get 1st. After that it gets hard to put in other values, but this is not so important.

Imagine: a dark stranger accosts you one night and produces two boxes. She says: in one box, there is a one in a trillion trillion chance of there being the thing you desire most. In the other there is a 90% chance of their being something that you really like - perhaps it’s a billion dollars or something like that. Assuming the person is honest and capable of delivering, which box do you take?

 

[EnterTheBowser]

Gilbert Keith:

…

What do we risk by believing in God and taking God seriously?

…

Living a life according to false principles; failing to do things and doing others for bad reasons; wasting time that you can never get back; all that jazz?

 

[MrWhy]

AN ATHEIST’S VIEW OF PASCAL’S WAGER

The wager has a distinct unethical feel to it. To feign belief or to play a religious role without believing is deceitful. Some would call it lying or even immoral.

Anyone who suggests that an atheist attend church, pray, and try to believe in order to finally convert and capitalize on the wager does not understand the atheist’s level of skepticism.

There is no evidence of anything after death. No one has ever returned to talk about it. There has never been any communication between the living and the dead. There’s no way to detect some existence after death. There’s no manifestation of a soul that continues in some form after death. To an atheist, this is complete fantasy. Never mind with stories of miracles involving the dead. These are way short on corroboration, so atheist doesn’t believe them. The idea of life after death is so fantastic there is no chance something will be missed.

The promise of eternal blissful life after death is similar to the following offer: Someone says you will receive a large sum of money later on, if in the meantime, you give them a little money each week, follow a list of rules, do some work to sustain them, and recruit others to do the same. If the money is in escrow, and a there’s written legal contract, it’s a legitimate offer. If the money is just a promise, and there’s no legally binding contract it will probably cost you more than you will ever receive.

What do we have to lose by not taking the wager? A satisfying feeling that we have a more accurate view of reality than most people on earth. There’s comfort in understanding the state of our species, and knowing that you have a more accurate definition of the problem. Without an accurate definition of a problem (general life management in this case), you are more likely to choose the wrong solutions. What else to lose? The freedom to consider ideas and options unconstrained by religious doctrine. The satisfaction that we can determine morality with reasoning. Knowing that our reasoned morality if often superior to religious morals that we see in history, and in current affairs. The summation of this issue: Nothing is certain, and there are an infinite number of things that cannot be disproved. However the idea of eternal life is so unreasonable, the odds so small, that we are not willing to give up anything to cover such a tiny possibility.

There is the problem of which god to worship or which form of worship a specific god requires. It would be a little more convincing if the leaders of all the major religions and versions of major religions got together and decided which one is the true doctrine. The impossibility of this happening is a clue to many answers.

It’s difficult for an atheists to think a god would be so egotistical to demand worship, and so malevolent to punish his very creations that didn’t, or couldn’t because they were born in the wrong country. We would expect any entity capable of creating the universe to be above human characteristics that are contemptible and primitive. The fact that gods are given such common human attributes is a clue to the source of the god concept.

The idea that a god could be beyond ego and malevolence brings up two possibilities that Pascal left out. 1. Atheism with afterlife, and 2. Atheism without afterlife. Maybe Pascal’s brilliance was constrained by his religious belief.

 

[BlindSheep]

MrWhy:

What do we have to lose by not taking the wager? A satisfying feeling that we have a more accurate view of reality than most people on earth.

Your honesty is refreshing. So you admit you basically get a smug sense of superiority out of atheism, and this is why you believe in it. Of course, this makes you no different from the worst type of religious person, who uses religion as an excuse to look down on others.

There’s comfort in understanding the state of our species, and knowing that you have a more accurate definition of the problem. Without an accurate definition of a problem (general life management in this case), you are more likely to choose the wrong solutions.

I suppose this would explain why atheists are more likely to be depressed, become addicted to drugs, and commit suicide. Atheists are not known for their superior coping skills.

What else to lose? The freedom to consider ideas and options unconstrained by religious doctrine.

Your freedom to consider ideas is constrained by your atheism, though.

The satisfaction that we can determine morality with reasoning. Knowing that our reasoned morality if often superior to religious morals that we see in history, and in current affairs.

Oh, yes - atheist governments and societies are well known for their superior ethics. Humans are violent, and atheists are no exception.
http://smilies.athlonminator.de/zspezial/Sarge/Guillotine_anim.gif

(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)

It’s difficult for an atheists to think a god would be so egotistical to demand worship, and so malevolent to punish his very creations that didn’t, or couldn’t because they were born in the wrong country. We would expect any entity capable of creating the universe to be above human characteristics that are contemptible and primitive. The fact that gods are given such common human attributes is a clue to the source of the god concept.

These attributes of God (unjust, melevolent etc.) may apply to some religious traditions, but they are not part of Catholic doctrine, for the same reasons you reject them. This “God” you are denouncing is a strawman. Look into Catholic doctrine, you may find it is more reasonable than you imagine.

 

[BlindSheep]

MrWhy:

What do we have to lose by not taking the wager? A satisfying feeling that we have a more accurate view of reality than most people on earth.

Your honesty is refreshing. So you admit you basically get a smug sense of superiority out of atheism, and this is why you believe in it. Of course, this makes you no different from the worst type of religious person, who uses religion as an excuse to look down on others.

There’s comfort in understanding the state of our species, and knowing that you have a more accurate definition of the problem. Without an accurate definition of a problem (general life management in this case), you are more likely to choose the wrong solutions.

I suppose this would explain why atheists are more likely to be depressed, become addicted to drugs, and commit suicide. Atheists are not known for their superior coping skills.

What else to lose? The freedom to consider ideas and options unconstrained by religious doctrine.

Your freedom to consider ideas is constrained by your atheism, though.

The satisfaction that we can determine morality with reasoning. Knowing that our reasoned morality if often superior to religious morals that we see in history, and in current affairs.

Oh, yes - atheist governments and societies are well known for their superior ethics. Humans are violent, and atheists are no exception.
http://smilies.athlonminator.de/zspezial/Sarge/Guillotine_anim.gif

(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)

It’s difficult for an atheists to think a god would be so egotistical to demand worship, and so malevolent to punish his very creations that didn’t, or couldn’t because they were born in the wrong country. We would expect any entity capable of creating the universe to be above human characteristics that are contemptible and primitive. The fact that gods are given such common human attributes is a clue to the source of the god concept.

These attributes of God (unjust, malevolent etc.) may apply to some religious traditions, but they are not part of Catholic doctrine, for the same reasons you reject them. This “God” you are denouncing is a strawman. Look into Catholic doctrine, you may find it is more reasonable than you imagine.

 

[Gilbert_Keith]

BIND SHEEP

*I’m a Catholic, and I’ve never cared for Pascal’s wager. I think it is a bad argument, because it fails to take into account that, from an atheist’s perspective, one life is all he has. *
I’m a Catholic and I have always liked Pascal’s argument because it is the only one that can ever get through to an atheist … at least on his deathbed. After all, what has he got to lose? Suddenloy all the phoney intellectual objections he has put together fall away and his self interest at last begins to kick in.

That’s what God cares about … what we care about … that we make it to the other side in good shape.

 

[Gilbert_Keith]

MrWhy

*What do we have to lose by not taking the wager? A satisfying feeling that we have a more accurate view of reality than most people on earth. *

Why is the atheist’s view more accurate? Just because he says it is? Accurate would imply the ability to confirm that something is more accurate rather than less accurate. Who can confirm "more accurate’? Other atheists? Circular argument.

The bottom line is that there is no way for the atheist to prove that God does not exist. How can he therefore be “more accurate”?

His disbelief is itself a matter of belief. He has faith in a meaningless universe that leads us all down the road to eternal nothingness. What comfort is there in that? It is a nihilistic philosophy that leads nowhere more directly than to the pursuit of brutal power over others in the false belief that such power gives our lives meaning … and in the case of megalomaniacs … grandeur … you know … Hitlers, Maos, Stalins … all those atheist human titans who demand the walls and buildings be covered with gigantic pictures of themselves rather than Jesus Christ.