Pascal's Wager

As it pops up again and again, this requires continual treatment.

Pascal's Wager, in some form or another, is frequently used to support belief in a god and adherence to a particular religious morality. Generally, Pascal's Wager goes something like this:

If we wager for God (believe in and dedicate our lives to), then we can have an afterlife of eternal bliss. If God does not exist, then there is no consequence for the afterlife. However, If we wager against God, and he does exist, then we risk an afterlife of eternal misery in hell.

More simply stated, it is illustrated like this:

"Belief in God" + "God Exists" = +1
"Non-Belief in God" + "God Exists" = -1
"Belief or Non-Belief in God" + "God Does Not Exist" = 0

The "logical" conclusion being that it is better to believe in God than to not believe in God.

The Flaw of Infinite Gods

Among the multiple flaws in Pascal's logic is that the wager is not belief in the Judeo-Christian God versus non-belief. It is belief in the Judeo-Christian God, vs. belief in any other possible God (past, present, and future), vs. non-belief. Logically, there is an almost infinitely large pool of possible gods (to include the Flying Spaghetti Monster) from which to choose to believe. Even using only 2 gods, God-A and God-B, we begin to see the real nature of the wager.

"Belief in God-A" + "God-A Exists" = +1
"Belief in God-A" + "God-B Exists" = -1
"Non-Belief in God-A" + "God-A Exists" = -1

"Belief in God-B" + "God-B Exists" = +1
"Belief in God-B" + "God-A Exists" = -1
"Non-Belief in God-B" + "God-B Exists" = -1

"Belief or Non-Belief in Any God" + "No God Exists" = 0

In the face of an almost infinitely large pool of gods to choose from, the selection of the "right" god becomes a far more precarious proposition. And how can anyone state with any degree of authority or certainty that their god is the "real" god, when evidence for all possible gods is equally non-existent for all of them?

Using Gods A and B from above, how can one assert the validity of God-A over God-B when there is no proof of either?

The Flaw of Mandated Belief

One of the most absurd tenets of Pascal's Wager is the idea that we can reduce belief to a statement. Following the logic of Pascal's Wager, the mathematical formula tells us only which is the more advantageous option—belief or non-belief. It offers no proof of the existence of a god. Yet the implied, unstated conclusion is that because it is mathematically more advantageous for us to believe than to not believe, we should therefore believe.

This misses entirely the fact that we can not make ourselves believe anything that the unbidden processes of our intellect do not believe. If I am told repeatedly "step on a crack and you'll break your mother's back," I can come to believe that to be true. However, in watching the world around me, accidentally stepping on cracks, watching other people step on cracks, my brain begins to take in evidence that stepping on a crack will not, in fact, break my mother's back.

It is at this point that my brain, taking in evidence and synthesizing it with all other evidence, concludes that the belief "step on a crack and you'll break your mother's back" is false. I can continue to state that I still believe it over and over, but it won't change the fact that my intellect has concluded otherwise.

The same thing goes for Santa Claus, the tooth fairy, the Easter Bunny, the Great Pumpkin, etc. We can say that we believe in these fictional beings, but stating so does not change the conclusions our intellect has already made unconsciously.

The Flaw of the Right Belief

In the end, Pascal's Wager is merely another way to approach the philosophical question of what is the "right" morality, the "right" ethics, or the "right" belief. It is an attempt to reduce the Socratic dialogues to a simplistic mathematical equation.

The "right" belief is a tenuous thing that shifts wildly from culture to culture, religion to religion, and geography to geography. It also shifts wildly depending on the context and intellectual approach—"right" as defined by social predominance, or "right" as defined by individual intellect?

Who knows the correct belief and manner of a life in dedication to a set of principles? I certainly would not entertain the notion that such a question could be answered here, or by me, or in such a brief space as a blog entry.

Independent of any controlling religious ideology, it should be sufficient to live your life with respect for your fellow man, treat others as you would be treated, and try to encourage the best in each other.

The rest of religious morality is just window dressing designed to make fear overcome logic and reason.