Theists will frequently inform atheists that "We might as well believe... because if we are wrong we will be tortured for all eternity in Hell." Whether the theist realizes it or not this is basically a form of the Pascal’s Wager argument which has been long refuted.
Named after the French Mathematician Blaise Pascal, the argument goes something like this:
God either exists or he doesn't. We either choose to believe or we don't. If God does exist and we believe in him then we get a big reward i.e. heaven. If God does exist and we do not believe in him, then we get a big punishment i.e. hell. If God does not exist and we do not believe in his existence then there is "no harm, no foul." If God does not exist and we do believe in him then there is "no harm, no fowl." So Pascal wagers that one should just believe because it is the only chance for a positive outcome without the risk of a negative outcome.
Problems with Pascal's Wager:
1. With a choice of many Gods, some of which make it clear that one cannot believe in more then one of them, one must pick which God to follow in order to get the best of rewards and avoid the worst of the punishments.
2. If God can see into people’s hearts, then will such a god be pleased by a believer who merely believes out of fear and greed?
3. Is it really, "no harm, no fowl?" I don’t think it is. Christopher Hitchens wrote a book a few years back called, “God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything.” As the title suggests, Hitchens claims that religion poisons everything. There is some merit to his claim and that is one of the strongest criticisms of Pascal’s Wager. Believing in religion does indeed cause great harm not only to the believer but also to the rest of society. This changes the whole dynamic of the wager.
4. This wager concerns itself with belief, but it doesn’t really address the issue of whether or not God is real, which god is real, or even how many gods are real. We could substitute God for any other imaginary construct and the argument would not be the least convincing to anyone. Let’s say that the issue is about whether or not Elvis is God. One either believes Elvis is God or you don’t. If you believe that Elvis is God (and he is) you get a big reward. If you don’t believe (and he is) you get a big punishment. If Elvis isn’t God then there is no harm in believing he is God so one might as well believe. Do you believe Elvis is God? Of course you don’t. Don’t you want the big reward and want to avoid the big punishment if you are wrong? "You might as well believe... because if we are wrong we will be tortured by Elvis for all eternity."
I have a little wager of my own. In my wager, God either exists or he doesn't and we either choose to believe or we don't. But does the God we choose to believe in have superior morality? First, If God does exist and does have superior morality, then by the logic of superior morality as best as we can understand it, it would be unjust for a just God to punish a just person. Therefore, the only criteria that God could use as grounds for entrance into Heaven would be living a moral and just life as best as we can.
The second possibility is if God exists but does not have superior morality. In this case, God could use any criteria at all as entrance to Heaven. Some possible criteria might be but are not limited too, wearing pink pockadot socks every other Thursday, praying in a certain direction at a certain time, believing that his son is your personal Lord and savior, or maybe it is watching Desperate Housewives. In any case, Socrates once told his student Crito that it was always better to receive an injustice than it was to do an injustice. With that same logic, it would be better to be a good person in hell than be an immoral person in heaven. So once more we are left to the conclusion that we ought to live a moral life to the best of our ability.
Lastly we have the third possibility. God doesn’t exist. If this is the case, Aristotle makes a very good argument that the best way to be happy is to be moral.
In all three cases, the best outcomes come when we live a moral life to the best of our ability. Therefore, as long as we do that, it really doesn’t matter if God exists, which god exists, how many gods exist, or if no gods at all exist. All that really matters is living a moral life with morality grounded in empathy and compassion for others.
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Atheism 101 Articles:
Atheism 101: What is the difference between atheism and agnosticism?
Atheism 101: Why do atheists care about religion?
Atheism 101: Is there moral grounding without God?
Atheism 101: What happens when we die?
Atheism 101: The Purpose of Life
Atheism 101: The Nature of Good and Evil
Atheism 101: The Problem of Evil
Atheism 101: How atheist parenting differ from religious parenting
Atheism 101: Is the Bible the inspired word of God?
Atheism 101: The anti-intellectualism of religion
Atheism 101: Why has Christianity demonized nudity, sex and sexuality?
Atheism 101: How to respond to the lord, liar, lunatic argument?
Atheism 101: Does it take more faith to be an atheist?
Atheism 101: Is atheism a religion?
Atheism 101: What came before the Universe?
Atheism 101: How to respond to the ex-atheist
Atheism 101: The “No True Scotsman” Fallacy
Atheism 101: Refuting Presupposition Theology
Atheism 101: Refuting Dispensational Theology
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Comments
Great Article!
True that. Though once again, you are using logic in an area where no logic exists. The greed for the need of immortality and superiority will always win out against the grace of logic.
Interesting article. With Christianity, it is not necessary to just believe, although some people have reduced it to that. The burden of our salvation is not upon us, because that is a form of works-righteousness. We are not righteous, and we can not hope, believe, work, try to live a moral-enough life, or do anything else to earn our salvation. It is by God's grace we are saved from the punishment for our sins. Those who are saved receive the gift of eternal life. Those who are not saved do not get the gift of eternal life therefore they perish after judgment day. So enjoy your life now, love, forgive, learn, grow, because it may be that this is it for you.
There isn't a God sitting around, so Pascal's Wager doesn't hold water.
That was an interesting article. I always find it amusing when theists bring up Pascal's wager (whether they know it as such or not). The best part is that Pascal's Christianity isn't very comforting to religion. Disregarding how Pascal's Jansenism would be appalled at the free-market boosting form of Christianity we see in American evangelicals the fact that Pascal was what we would now call a fideist doesn't help the theistic situation much. As the wager implies and as fideism believes, there is no rational grounds for belief in God. This is an extreme form of scepticism. For Pascal true belief is a gift only of God's grace and can not be proven rationally. This position adapted with great effect in the later seventeenth century by Pierre Bayle when he establishes a complete metaphysical parity between atheism and fideism and by implication makes the fideist an atheist because neither can concede to orthodoxy. It's a devastating use of scepticism. I confess, I love Pascal.
First off, "No harm, no Fowl" doesn't pertain to pheasants.
Secondly, the wager appears to me to be an illustration of any decision up to and including the existence of god.
Next, as to the consequencees, imagine the Elvis scenerio except it's an institutionalezed mental patient under your care. They belive Elvis is god and that means they can't function in society (consequence), but they are out of society all ready. Therefore is it hurting them to let the delusional be deluded? It may well be, but there are priorities. Also, the definition of god? The Supreme Being? Is that it? Because Supreme is first out of all, and even if the choices are one human and one jellyfish, then someone comes out on top, which means the human is god. Regardless of his shortcomings, his morality is the defacto rightousness.
But most importantly I thinnk, is that The Nothingness IS the insuferable suffereing. but so far nature has been seen to abhore all vacuums. A vengeful god is just boogeyman.
OKay, so far but then there's the question what is moral? Doesn't religious belief weigh heavily in the scales when determining mores? So, back to God(s), or belief in God(s)we go. So I guess I'll just hold with "do unto others.." unless of course you're a sadist or a masochist?
It's also important to note that not every religion, not even all Christians, believe in a hell or that you're going to be punished for not believing in God. Is it the norm? Sadly, it is.
That last paragraph is the key to it all, really. I'm a Christian, and I hold the priesthood. I believe that God loves all of his children, even the ones that don't believe in him, even the ones that screw up horribly in life. We weren't born to be perfect or to be herded into following a single path through life; we're here to learn and to grow, to make decisions for ourselves, both good and bad, and to do what we believe to be right in our pursuit of happiness.
The greatest gift God gave to mankind was our ability to choose, and to use that gift however we saw fit. That includes the choice of whether or not to believe in a God, to believe in him or in another, or in none at all.
What you do in life is far more important than whether or not you believed in God while living it.
Having no email to discretely contact the author about his "fowl" foul, I comment here. Since it's already been pointed out, I can't help but wonder if the author isn't reading the comments, and has ignored his repeated "fowl" up? Also, polka-dot.
Other than nitpicking, I think @jason's comment summed up the best:
What you do in life is far more important than whether or not you believed in God while living it.
Actually, I fixed the "fowl/foul" error about five minutes after posting the article, but for some reason the change only seems to show up half of the time. I don't know why this is and it appears to be an Examiner problem. When you are writing a story quickly, sometimes you make mistakes. No body is perfect. E-mail (btw) is in the sidebar --->
It is easy to refute the "wager" if you change it's conditions. However the original wager stands despite such attempts, if taken in it's original context. The issue regarding the a-theism / agnosticism's attempts to defeat the wager out of context only demonstrates it's strength. It's basic weakness is that it can not cause men to believe- which is true of any apologetic, Christian or otherwise. When a person dies... the wager is over.
I do not believe I have taken the wager out of context or changed its conditions. Could you please point this out or are you just making stuff up? Thanks,
-Staks
Well, the Catholic Church teaches that God will in fact accept folks into Heaven even if they only do good out of fear of Him. It's called imperfect contrition: it's better to do good regardless of the incentive than to not do good at all. And how do we know what is moral? Because other human beings equal to me say so? Why should I listen to them? Because they say I should? It's all circular and selfish.
Again, I addressed the morality issue in another article. But I do applaud you for your ridiculous view that all people must have equal knowledge about all things and that claiming otherwise is some how circular and selfish. I really can't take you seriously Charles.
You miss my point. If there is no objective law from a source independent of humanity upon which to base right and wrong then all we have is whatever folks happen to agree upon. Morality by consensus, to wit, secular morality, which is all that would be left, is a poor guide. It can only lead to might makes right morals.
Is it possible at all for you to serious discuss anything without hubris?
Again, I have already discussed the topic of Moral Grounding in the Atheism 101 article.
As Staks Rosch said he covered this in another topic however the issue you rise is the same problem others theists who try to use God as there objective source of morality run into.
I invite you (and everyone else) to read euthyphro's dilemma from Plato’s written work euthyphro, morality is no less subjective if you invoke God as your source because essentially it would be nothing more then God’s subjective opinion on the matter based on how God believes things should be, going any farther then this leads to nothing more then as you said might makes right style morals.
The question is why or why not is a moral ideal good and if you can answer that then it become clear that any Gods (and every one else) are just a middle men and irrelevant to the issuse of ethics and morality.
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