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Pascal's Wager
by Steve McRoberts |
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Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), the French Catholic philosopher and mathematician, is famous for his "wager". He likened belief in God to a wager in which, though the odds of winning were small, one had nothing to lose by betting, and everything to lose by not betting. One could either bet that God existed, and join the Church, or bet that God did not exist, and live one's life apart from the Church. The outcome of the bet would either be a win or a loss. In other words, God either existed or he didn't. If he existed, and one had bet that he existed, then one would be rewarded with an eternity of bliss in heaven. If God didn't exist, and one had wagered that he did exist, then one would simply be in unconscious death for eternity. On the other hand, if God existed and one had bet that he didn't exist, then one would be tormented forever in the fires of hell. If God didn't exist, and one had wagered that he didn't exist, then one would simply be in unconscious death for eternity. So, whether or not God existed, the smart money would be on his existence; you'd be risking nothing, and just possibly gaining everything I have two problems with such reasoning: First of all, it really just encourages one to timidly adopt whatever "belief" threatens the most. For instance: both the Catholic Church and the Jehovah's Witnesses claim to be the one true religion, and anyone outside of their religion will suffer the consequences. The Witnesses say that if you don't join their organization you will be dead forever. The Catholics say that if you're not a Catholic you will be tormented forever in the fires of hell. Using Pascal's logic, you should immediately convert to Catholicism, because if they're right you'll escape an eternity of torture, and if they're wrong (and the Witnesses, for example, are right) then you'll simply be in unconscious death. So, the Catholics win you over just because they threatened the most. Is that reasonable? What if someone started a religion and claimed that if you didn't join, not only would you be tormented eternally, but your family would also be tormented in front of your eyes forever? Following Pascal's logic, you would have to join his religion since it threatened even more than the Catholic Church! Of course you wouldn't join his religion just on the basis of his threats. You would use your brain to see if what his religion taught made any sense and sounded like the truth. The very fact of the threats, I would hope, would raise serious doubts in your mind! It's the same for me and Christianity. I am not going to cowardly submit to the absurd just because of its promises of reward or threats of punishment. The deciding factor must be whether or not it is reasonable. Secondly, Pascal's argument assumes that one can choose to believe. I don't know about you, but my brain doesn't work that way. Let's say that you decided that this founder of a new religion was insane enough to be dangerous. You decide that you'd better join his religion just out of safety in the here and now (just as it was physically dangerous not to be a Catholic in the Middle Ages when they had secular power.) The question is: could you really believe in whatever mad nonsense he cooked up and called his religion? I don't think so. You could claim to believe, but you'd just be paying lip-service. You'd really be a hypocrite (claiming to believe something that you didn't). Of course, under the circumstances, no one would blame you for your hypocrisy. People tell me that they "choose to believe" this or that. But I don't buy it. I don't think you can choose to believe something unless you think that something is true. If you claim to believe something which you feel is false, then you are a hypocrite. If you feel the truth is important, then promises of rewards or threats of punishment should not influence you; truth should reign supreme. Any belief system which must stoop so low as to threaten disbelievers in order to win converts should be highly suspect; it is likely that such threats are needed to bolster their seriously flawed logic. |
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