Pascal’s Wager
A Gamble for All Eternity…

Introduction

I have been an atheist for just about as long as I was a Christian, and over those more than twenty years I have heard many, many people try to convince me that God is real and that Christianity is right; so many that I think that I’ve heard every possible argument by now. One of the ones that I get thrown at me most often is called Pascal’s Wager. It’s so simple that many different people have reinvented it without ever having heard of Blaise Pascal.

I realize that Blaise Pascal was a genius, and I don’t think that he even considered this to be a serious argument; however, so many Christians think it is an unassailable position that I consider it my duty to refute it.

The Wager in Detail

For anyone unfamiliar with Pascal’s Wager, it may sound like some kind of Las Vegas gambling strategy; but it is more like the religious equivalent of a an insurance policy for those in doubt.

Let us suppose that you have belief in God when there actually is none, and then you die. If there is no god, you may have been wrong; but since there being no god also means there is no eternal judgment, or a heaven or hell, or afterlife of any kind; then no loss, no foul. You just slip off into nothingness never knowing you were wrong all along. However, if you find out that you were correct in your belief, then you will spend eternity in heavenly bliss.

Now suppose instead that you are an atheist all your days. Once the time comes that you lay on your death-bed, if you are correct then you pass on to nonexistence never knowing that you were correct. But, if you are wrong then you face an eternity of suffering and damnation to pay for your terrible miscalculation.

The only choice that makes sense in his mental experiment is to be believer in God because you risk next-to-nothing, while being an atheist is playing with eternal fire so-to-speak. So as Pascal saw it, belief in god is the ultimate win/win scenario.

Sounds very convincing doesn’t it? How could I possibly argue with such logic?

My Answer

This is one of those philosophical arguments that sounds very reasonable at first. However, as you step back and look at the details in this doctrine you start to see problems, it contains several issues. All logical errors contained in Pascal’s Wager are same errors that Christians most often make when they try to debate rationally; namely that they make way too many assumptions.

• Assumption 1 - Belief can be changed based on desire

  First of all, Pascal’s Wager appears to be making the assumption that belief can be turned on and off like a light switch. That is not how belief works; you cannot transition from non-belief to belief as a calculated strategy. Belief can be changed with convincing argument, sufficient evidence, or through logical proof, but it cannot be changed simply because you calculate that it would be profitable to do so.

  Down at the depths of my core I just do not think God is real and all the wishing in the world could not make it so. (Believe me I tried!) No matter how much I am convinced that a particular belief sounds like a good bet, I still cannot cause myself to cross from non-belief into belief by calculating the odds.

  NOTE: It may sound to theists like I made a statement of atheistic faith here, but I did not. Belief and faith are not the same thing. I do not believe in a God because I have examined the evidence and feel it is unreasonable to presume one is there. I do not pretend to “know” the unknowable; I only state that I think belief in a God is unjustified. Just like I think that the Theory of Evolution is correct because the evidence for it out-weighs any against it.
  
  Faith in atheism would involve stating that there was no God without examining the evidence. Likewise, faith in Evolution would be believing that it is valid when I know evidence to the contrary exists. I know of no such evidence, but I would accept it if it existed. If you accept the Biblical definition, faith can only exist where there is no evidence.
  (See Hebrews 11:1-2)

  Some people might hear Pascal’s Wager and decide that a good strategy might be to act like a believer when in fact they are not. It is as though they think they can bluff their way into paradise, but the Christian Bible assures us that the all-knowing Jehovah can see into the heart; so if the Christian God is real then all the pretending would do no good anyway. Since it cannot create new belief where none previously existed, the wager does the genuine non-believer no good whatsoever.

  In all honesty, I feel the vast majority of the bodies occupying church pews every Sunday are people stuck in this state. They don’t actually believe, but hope they can somehow fool their supposed God into thinking they really did. I think this because of the way I see them live. Their actions (and their lifestyle) deny all their proclamations of belief.

• Assumption 2 - Faith is all that is necessary for eternal bliss

  Even if it were possible to turn on and off belief as the wager assumes, the argument also misleads the listener by stating that all this god requires of the gambler is belief. For every biblical verse (such as John 3:16) that implies that belief is all that is required, there are several that say works are even more important. I recommend any believer who disagrees to read the book of James before they respond. Take for example all the Christians in the world that live monastic lives of self-sacrifice. If belief were all that the Christian God required; why would they bother?

  So in many Christian’s view, I may take up the Pascal’s gamble and believe with all my might, and yet still wind up in hell because I misunderstood the scriptures and was supposed to put effort into works instead of faith only.

  The path to Biblical righteousness (and salvation) is a murky twisting highway where even the most devout may be unknowingly deceived into error. Thus the wager never becomes a sure thing, making the entire argument absurd.

• Assumption 3 - There are only two choices

  The next big logical error of assumption is in thinking that there are only two possible alternatives in this gamble. In other words, Pascal’s Wager might make a little sense if there were only two possible routes one can take. Christians often view the world as consisting of only types of people, saved, and unsaved. The fact is that we have an enormous number of possibilities as to which belief we can choose. Here is what I mean…

  Suppose that our Christian participant in our little experiment lived his life as a devout believer in Jesus only to discover after death that in fact Mohammed was right and Allah was God. Thus the Christian still runs the risk of burning in hell forever for not believing in the prophet of Allah… or Buddha, or Vishnu or one of a dozen other gods or goddesses. Their odds just sank in a big way, now they are no longer in a win/win situation.

  And it gets even worse… Suppose that our Christian was of the Catholic variety, but after death they discover that the Christian Fundamentalist was correct and then they will burn in hell as an idolater. Or inversely, our imaginary believer dies a Fundamentalist only to find that by rejecting Catholicism they have turned from the true church and now lost forever. With each of these sects claiming that only they have the correct variation of belief; how could our believer friend ever know they were in the right camp? The supposed “safe odds” of the bet just went right out the window.

  So the atheist has more or less the same level of safety in his betting than the Christian, they both have about an equal chance of getting the particular deity and religion wrong, so the wager settles nothing.

• Assumption 4 - It costs the believer nothing to be a Christian

  For Pascal’s Wager to be correct, we have to assume that the believer loses nothing if they live the life of a Christian and are wrong. We also find that this assumption is not true either. Living the life of a Christian may be an easy fit for some individuals, but the vast majority of us have a very hard time living by the rules and rituals of Christianity.

  Most Christians reaction to that statement is something like this: “Aha! He rejects God because he is a terrible sinner who is commiting massive crimes against humanity!” They assume that to consider any rule of Christianity as silly or repulsive, then I must be having sex with sheep or something!

  In fact the Bible is full of silly nonsensical rules that are at best pointless, and sometimes outright harmful.

  I myself have a very hard time with a doctrine that requires me to live wallowing in guilt and remorse for mistakes I made up to this moment. Sure, I’ll agree that some offenses taught in the Bible make sense and demand punishment (such as murder and theft.) But I will not emotionally flog myself for every little mistake I made throughout my entire life; and I definitely do not in any way deserve eternal punishment for the life I have lived so far.

  I am basically a good person and feel that I am alright, I don’t need saving from anything. So to suck it up and pretend like I am an awful person, in fact deserving to die, for supposed offences against an imaginary being is a very big price to pay for a gamble that I don’t believe in. Give me a break!

Conclusion

Although many Christians think Pascal’s Wager is a sound logical argument in favor of their faith; in truth, it is utter nonsense based on a flimsy set of false assumptions. It will not under any circumstances convince an unbeliever and you are wasting your breath to quote it to an atheist, so do yourself a favor and spend your time trying to create a more convincing argument.