In an ongoing discussion between a Christian and myself, he brought up the subject of Pascals Wager, stating that it's a good reason to believe in God. I want to add another rebuttal to the already extensive list and hope that theists will stop using this silly argument once and for all.
Here's an English and a French (original) version Pascal's "Pensées". All quotes are from the English version, pages 47 and 48.
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. This being so, who will dare to undertake the decision of the question? Not we, who have no affinity to Him.
This quoted part is an essential part of the wager and not often quoted. It tells us in advance that there was no evidence to either side that Pascal knew of, so this is a mere philosophical argument. It is a thought experiment, devoid of any evidence.
Let us then examine this point, and say, "God is, or He is not." But to which side shall we incline? Reason can decide nothing here. There is an infinite chaos which separated us. A game is being played at the extremity of this infinite distance where heads or tails will turn up. What will you wager? According to reason, you can do neither the one thing nor the other; according to reason, you can defend neither of the propositions.
This is the premise for Pascal's argument and already it fails. According to Pascal, there is no evidence and therefore we must take a wager. I disagree. If there is no evidence, I do not believe it, period. Let us just for a moment reflect on this by using a different example:
Faeries are, or they are not. There is no evidence either way. Which side do we fall on? Let's wager, flip a coin!
No, of course not. If we wish to pursue the topic courageously, we must accept that belief without any evidence is "blind faith" and as such it should have no bearing on the topic. In other words the wager should be discarded simply due to its faulty premise. And yet, it gets worse.
Yes; but you must wager. It is not optional. You are embarked. Which will you choose then? Let us see. Since you must choose, let us see which interests you least. You have two things to lose, the true and the good; and two things to stake, your reason and your will, your knowledge and your happiness; and your nature has two things to shun, error and misery. Your reason is no more shocked in choosing one rather than the other, since you must of necessity choose.
This too is false. My reason would be shocked to the point of instant death by stupid if were to believe in things without reason. That's exactly why so many atheists say that religious belief is opposed to reason. As I have explained above, I try not to accept anything unless I have plenty of evidence to support it.
But your happiness? 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. "That is very fine. Yes, I must wager; but I may perhaps wager too much." Let us see. Since there is an equal risk of gain and of loss, if you had only to gain two lives, instead of one, you might still wager. But if there were three lives to gain, you would have to play (since you are under the necessity of playing), and you would be imprudent, when you are forced to play, not to chance your life to gain three at a game where there is an equal risk of loss and gain. But there is an eternity of life and happiness. And this being so, if there were an infinity of chances, of which one only would be for you, you would still be right in wagering one to
win two, and you would act stupidly, being obliged to play, by refusing to stake one life against three at a game in which out of an infinity of chances there is one for you, if there were an infinity of an infinitely happy life to gain. But there is here an infinity of an infinitely happy life to gain, a chance of gain against a finite number of chances of loss, and what you stake is finite. It is all divided; where-ever the infinite is and there is not an infinity of chances of loss against that of gain, there is no time to hesitate, you must give all. And thus, when one is forced to play, he must renounce reason to preserve his life, rather than risk it for infinite gain, as likely to happen as the loss of nothingness.
A lot of things are wrong here.
For one, why are there only two choices? Either we believe in God and win all or lose nothing by believing, or we don't believe and either lose everything or gain nothing by not believing. What about the third choice, that God only lets atheists into heaven? Or the fourth choice, that only Muslims get into heaven. Or the fifth, that only homosexuals get into heaven. Or the sixth, that everybody, no matter of what religion, ethnicity, sexual preference, gender, political conviction, ability to sing or perform, choice of food or video games, gets into heaven.
You see, this is the most fundamental problem with this wager: In the first quote from Pascal, he accepts that he can't know how God is and yet in this quote above he makes a 180° turn and says that there are things that we CAN know. (Namely that only people who believe in God get into heaven, that it has to be the Christian God, that heaven is real, that this heaven is a place of happiness and that there are only two choices you can possibly make.)
A further problem here is that we should believe it, whether our belief is sincere or not, simply because we can gain from it. Would God, being just and omniscient, not see through our ploy? This is captured in a brilliant quote:
Richard Carrier, The End of Pascal's Wager: Only Nontheists Go to Heaven: Suppose there is a god who is watching us and choosing which souls of the deceased to bring to heaven, and this god really does want only the morally good to populate heaven. He will probably select from only those who made a significant and responsible effort to discover the truth. . .Therefore, only such people can be sufficiently moral and trustworthy to deserve a place in heaven — unless God wishes to fill heaven with the morally lazy, irresponsible, or untrustworthy.
In other words, accepting the wager simply because you fear the consequences might get you in hell instead of heaven because you're being dishonest.
Pascal considered the above problem and basically said that you'd have to be irrational if you accept the wager's validity yet don't believe. Again, I disagree, if solely because there is still no evidence. It's also problematic because even if you've got a lot of evidence to support a notion, you might accept it but not believe it. The wager is incorrect though, so no need to fuss about this point.
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