Posted by Tal on May 02, 1999 at 19:02:33:
In Reply to: Re: In the abstract posted by Matches on May 02, 1999 at 00:23:56:
> One other thing, Tal. (Or anyone else) Are you familiar with the idea of Pascal's Wager?
Yes, and I think Pascal's wager is far less than ideal a notion to base one's reason for believing on.
In the first place, let's consider what brings a person to consider such a concept. A person who believes unconditionally does not ask himself whether he needs to believe. Nor does an atheist without doubts need to ask himself the same question. The only person who asks himself whether he should believe or not is one with doubts. Now, there's nothing wrong with doubts in themselves. Nor is it terrible for an atheist who desires proof of God's existence to question his belief via such a notion of probability. But if you're a believer, you're not supposed to hedge your belief on whether it's more 'probable' there's a God or what it gains you if there is versus if there isn't. To do so is to not believe truly for the sake of belief, but to believe out of a blatant desire for the best available option, which is no real form of genuine belief at all. It's interesting that Pascal coined this notion; who else but a mathematical genius would suffer the conflict between his rational and emotional side to an extent needed in order to come up with such a way to reconcile both sides with each other?
Setting aside the fact that it's poison for a believer to consider Pascal's wager, there is another huge flaw in his concept; namely, that belief in God and atheism are not the only two available options. It is true that Pascal says "you must choose," and as a hypothetical question this is all very well, but in reality a person does not have to make a choice. It is entirely possible to live a healthy, happy agnostic life without deciding one way or the other whether there is a God or not. Taken by itself, from a logical standpoint, this in itself is enough to invalidate the wager.
But let's not be anal and consider just this overt form of logic. Even if we disregard this incongruity in the system, we have a still larger problem, because the term 'God', as Pascal conceived it, is far from the only conceivable form of higher being. Pascal was not really offering a choice between God and no God--he was offering a choice between a Christian God and atheism.
Under the Christian conception of God, if you do not believe in God, you fry in hell, whereas if you do and you abide by certain restrictions, you go to a nice place called heaven. That's great. And if the only possible form of God were this, one would have to consider the wager more thoroughly. But there are many religious belief systems which do not place implicit restrictions on humanity's beliefs. An example of this is Buddhism. Buddhists belief in reincarnation and the development of the soul. But they do not think that everyone needs to be a Buddhist in order for this process to continue along its path. It is enough for a person to live a good life, and they are making advances. In such a conception of God, there is nothing to be gained by believing in God, since if you live a good, happy, secular life, you're just as likely to be rewarded for it.
Speaking personally, such belief systems which view God as more detached and religion as more tolerant seem far more rational and realistic to me. But even if they are not, one must admit that God can take many forms (and I speak now only of those which we can conceive), and there is nothing to suggest that one has to believe in God in order to be abiding by his intentions and meeting whatever goal exists in life. Far from it.
On this basis alone, you can see that choosing Pascal's conception of God over complete disbelief is, in his terms, only one notch up the ladder of probability, because if the nature of God is any different from the nature of God the believer conceives, it is all for nought in any case, just as it is with the atheist.
Still, one can argue that whatever advantage the believer has over the atheist is in itself better. Not so, since the question of dogma now emerges. Religious belief, *especially the way Pascal conceived it* is full of certain restrictions and commandments, most of which are irrational. We have already gone in great length in a previous thread about the problems of dogma, so I'm not going to touch on that again. Suffice it to say that all form of religious dogma, since it places value on behaving in certain irrational ways in this life in the hopes that God will smile on you in the next, necessarily reduces the chance of people to be happy in *this* lifetime.
Thus, if Pascal had been more objective, what would have emerged is a picture that goes as follows:
"God exists or God does not. If you believe in a certain form of God, then you stand to reap the rewards if that is indeed God's nature [although, again, this is not necessarily true since God might not care if people believe in him or not]. If God does not exist, or if you believe in a certain form of God, and God's nature is different, you stand to possibly suffer. And in return for forming certain beliefs, you forfeit a certain measure of happiness in this life. On the other hand, if you are an atheist or an agnostic, you risk there being a God who will be displeased with you, but by virtue of your secular grounding, you stand a better chance to find happiness in this life."
Thus the real choice is not at all what it seems; it is a choice between whether one thinks that happiness in this life is worth more than the slight possibility that one will be rewarded in the next life for living a certain way or not.
It's possible to go into further great detail as to why it's highly unlikely that a God who wants to limit people's happiness exists, but that would make the post far longer than it already is.