h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Pascal's wager can be boiled down to the simple proposition that "since any hell is worse than any heaven, if there is life after death it is better to be selected for heaven than for hell".

For the sake of argument, let's discount cyclic reincarnation and nirvana, and stick with the terms that Pascal seems to have been working with.

There have been times when "nonbelief" has indicated that a person's death would take them straight to hell. That's not the way I was brought up (in Catholic family and schools) and not the way most of the Christians I know would operate. Most would recognise the concept of a good nonbeliever, whose only offence against morals was not to believe or to believe something else, to have another god.

Across history, people have modified this kind of belief. Has god changed? Those who think god is a human construct would judge that question to be unnecessary. Those who consider that humans are the creation of an omnipotent god might say we're getting closer to understanding. Those who think there's a lot of evil in the world might worry that we are being led away from the true, absolutist path.

The ultimate weakness in Pascal's wager is that it turns on pragmatism - the deathbed conversion "just in case", the lifetime conversion "on the balance of probabilities". Both of these seem to me to be somewhere between self-seeking and evil.

The Christian message is surely salvation through belief (the medieval, absolutist position) and/or salvation through goodness (you may have been an active atheist but never harmed a fly or coveted the smallest of your neighbour's goods). I was always taught that you could repent on your deathbed or even at the gates of heaven when Peter went through your tally and faced you with the odd murder you had neglected to have forgiven (self-seeking pragmatism again, perhaps...).

Through much of history (and this is not restricted to the christian areas of the world), the position for many people has been salvation through membership. You can get your son into the service of the king by going to church. You can avoid persecution by mouthing the officially sanctioned platitudes, even if you have illegal icons behind the cupboard in your house. But what implication does this behaviour have for salvation?

If there is a good, reasonably potent god, or indeed a whole family of them, perhaps mirroring or even engendering the variety of humankind, you might hope that he/she/it would place a low value on membership and a higher value on behaviour, with belief somewhere in between perhaps. But that assumes that god is a liberal.

Pascal's wager was posited at a particular time in history, and perhaps it was useful then. If it promoted the study of probability, more power to its elbow, though it would hardly have the same power today.

* The believer might place the probability of god's existence at 100% or doubt the possibility that the question might have a meaningful answer. The atheist might agree on the latter or go for 0%.

* Any arguments about the relative goodness and badness of heavens and hells are constructs of particular peoples in particular times.

* It is all posited on the possibility of salvation by membership rather than belief or behaviour.

There is therefore no benefit in considering the wager with reference to your own life.

Hmm.

You have had your own experiences with christianity, but I have met a number of Christians who have, very apologetically, told me that salvation by works is a chimera: if you have heard the 'word of God', and rejected it, then you will go to hell. According to them, the only exception is those in remote parts who have not heard of christianity, and they are the only ones who will benefit from God's mercy.

Others have said that salvation by works is technically possible, but only the very holy will ever achieve it: Buddha is typically mentioned, and perhaps other holy men of other religions, and that's your lot. For the rest of us mere mortals, they say, salvation through belief is the only option. As do you imply, when you talk of "an active atheist but never harmed a fly or coveted the smallest of your neighbour's goods".

So yes, Pascal's Wager does not apply to those variants of christianity which do not recognise the concept of salvation through belief. These are few and far between, though - your own Catholic upbringing taught you that a repetant murderer can enter heaven. In practice, anybody who is absolutely certain that they will get into heaven on the basis of their works alone is almost certainly guilty of the sin of pride to an extent which many would expect to exclude them instantly. Hence, the wager still has power.

And the wager *is* posited on membership by belief, not membership. Pascal himself raised the point that merely going to church and mouthing the appropriate words does not make you a believer in God, and does not gaurantee anything in the Christian church.

A couple more things, Pascal's arguments did not "promote the study of probability" - it created the study of probability. Yes, if Pascal hadn't have done so then perhaps someone else would have at a later date, but who knows how long that might have taken.

The other is your comment that pragmatism is evil... the obvious response is that if pragmatism leads a person to believe in {insert your religion here} then how can it be anything but good? Do you not want people to believe such things?

I recall a story connected with the Holy Grail or the Knights Templars where a knight is presented with the opportunity to sleep with the lady of a castle. If he refused, said lady would have a number of innocent virgins thrown off a high tower. The knight refused, and, this having been a demonic test of the knight's faith, the castle and it's occupants disappeared, with the knight going on to discover the Grail or some other Holy Relic. The point of the story being, that one should not commit mortal sin even to save another's life. (This doesnt seem to have stopped anyone from butchering infidels and heretics, tho').

Yeah, I remember that Grail story. That was the one with the spankings, followed by the oral sex, right?

Yeah, that's the one... in Monty Python . The one I was thinking of is in "The Once and Future King", so it might not be medieval after all. Sorry 'bout that.

There are impossible situations. Sophie's choice?

I live in a country called Boombandia. The official religion is Boomban, but I'm not happy with the policy that children are taken from their parents at the age of two months and reared in religious groupings. I could resist this practice, and my children would not starve, but because they have no religious affiliation they would not be able to earn a good living.

The pragmatic answer would be to play along with the system. Does that make it right? Does that make it good? Is it good simply to follow a religion, whatever it says?

The simple, ethical answer would be that you should not be forced to participate in any sort of belief system you do not share. However, ethics do not often provide the basics for life, so sometimes we have to compromise our ethics. I would say that whatever your conscience can allow there is the preferable choice. After all, both options suck... do you deny your children an opportunity, or do you participate in a morally abhorrent practice?

We can argue about what should happen on earth. Pascal was gambling on an afterlife. And he was hoping that he knew what criteria would be used by the supreme being or its minions in selecting suitable candidates for everlasting bliss.

The spirit of Stodie the cat was here... maybe...

Since the only "way" is through Jesus, You have to take the correct way. He waits in his love for you, but You must go to him. He in His compasion can tell which of us would have done so if they could have had contact with his Word.

Can I just say how wonderful it is that someone has finally recognised my deityhood, and capitalised the word 'You'?

A tramp, newly arrived in town, was being introduced to the faces around the fire.

"This is Ted," one of them said. "He's God."

"What do you mean?" asked the newcomer.

"Ah, well, last week he was praying, and he realised he was talking to himself."

(adapted slightly from "Edna tha inebriate woman", BBC drama, decades ago)

You know how stupid the average person is?

Well, statisticians have shown that half of them are even dumber than that!

{heard in "Discworld Noir", author unknown}

And yes, I have been looking for an opportunity to drop that into a conversation for some time...

There are, of course, people who believe that the only "way" is through Allah, or other deities, prophets or paths. An absolute belief in such a "way" denies the possible value of any other decision.

An acquaintance who was close to an absolutist Christian position, but luckily too lazy to go the whole way, described it as the life-saver's situation. If you believe that somebody is going to drown (=be damned) if they continue to struggle (=resist the Christian message), you are justified in knocking them out (=whatever you like) in order to save them (=save them).

in my opinion pascal's wager is a prepostorous statement! in the first entry of this forum it was stated that belief in god due to this wager may be self-serving and evil.

i say not "maybe," but "most definitely!", and i also feel that this type of "believing" would be self-serving (maybe not necessarily evil) in any context of an historical timeline. it was just as bad to believe in it then as it is to believe in it now.

stating "I believe in God...just in case" to me is not belief at all just fear. would someone think your friendship was real if they found out you were friends with them ONLY because you heard they buy all their friends a new car?

i would hope that a God (being all-knowing and all) would be able to spot "false-belief" like one could spot "false-friendship."

i truly feel that an "all knowing" God would reward an atheist who was truly a "good" person in life, as opposed to a "good" person who's good deeds in life were based on fear of punishment.

do you guys/gals agree?

I've always liked Pascal's Wager even though I don't think it really "proves" the case for believing in a God.

It does seem increasingly anachoristic given the move away from the Old Testament version of God ( with damnation for unbelievers) to the more user friendly New Testament version we see nowadays. I think thats it's real limitation, christianity has changed around it.

I guess it all hinges on whether you really do believe in something beyond the world you can feel or see. Making that step is something I don't think you can argue yourself into that no matter how hard you try, it's a process that goes beyond logic. Still Pascal brought some elegant clarity to an age old issue, not a bad thing.

researcher 228143

thanks for the thoughts.

good point about taking the comment in context of the old testament. (never really thought about that before.) and i also agree that you can't argue/debate yourself into believing something, that "belief is what you believe."

but if you don't mind,(i'm not trying to challenge what you said or anything like that by the way) i'm just curious as to how you feel that the wager has brought clarity to the subject? (i just love to see another person's rationale for things thats all)

jibbly
ps-i do believe in god myself

I think the clarity it bring is this:

Religions frequently are propositions P of the form "Belief in P brings an infinite reward and X"

If we consider an alternative statement Q "Belief in Q brings a large reward and X" (the same X)

We can then apply Pascal's argument to statements P and Q. It seems advantageous to believe in an infinite reward over a large reward, irrespective of truth. This could explain the evolution of the infinite reward in religion, even when the biblical (for example) basis for it is sketchy at best.

Another consequence applies to the amount of information in X. The more there is in X, the more similar statements are contradicted. (Strictly speaking an infinite number of similar statements are contradicted.) So if we are trying to assign probabilities to these statements (which is also conceptually problematic), it would seem that the less information there is in X, the more likely it is to be true. [Eg. Prob("There is a God") >= Prob("There is a God called Jehova") >= Prob("The whole bible is true") >=0 ] In other words, religions making exclusivity claims are less likely to be true.

Of course a statement X might be true without it being necessary to believe it, so Prob(P)<= Prob(X) for any P.

The most likely X would be "There is or isn't a God" which has probablility 1. And the corresponding P would suggest that we all go to heaven, should such a place exist. Which is nice.

That's what I was after all those months ago. Let me just think for a moment or three...