Pascal Wager, what is it?

Question

Sorry, but I keep reading about this and duh, don't know what it is....please tell me.

Answer 1

Two possible beliefs:
1) God exists.
2) He doesn't

Two possible realities:
A) God exists.
B) He doesn't.

Four possible combinations:
1A: Great. You go to heaven.
1B: No harm done. Same fate for you as everyone else.
2A: You're screwed. You're going to Hell.
2B: No harm done. Same fate as everyone else.

Pascal's Argument:
It's better to believe.

One Counter-Argument:
What if there is a God but not the Christian one? You're still screwed!

Answer 2

Pascal's Wager is a philosophical arguement for the existance of god. It was developed (hence the name) by the famed French mathematician Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) who has a few mathematical terms named after him. Apart from being a mathematician, Pascal was a religious philosopher, a physicist, and an excessive gambler. Outside of mathematics, he is most known today for Pascal's Wager.

Pascal's wager asks two questions and compares the risk and reward for each possible outcome of both answers together.

The questions are:

Is there a God?
Do I believe in God?

The first question is a question of fact while the second is a question of choice. Pascal worked out the possible answers as follows.

1. If I do NOT believe in god, and:
- God exists, then I go to hell, an infinite loss.
- God doesn't exist, nothing happens, with negligible loss or gain

2. If I DO believe in God, and:
- God exists, then I go to heaven, an infinite gain.
- God doesn't exist, nothing happens with finite negligible losses for my wasted time.

He then looked at the possible outcomes.....

If he doesn't believe in god.. either he goes to hell (very bad) or there is no effect.

If he does believe in god.. either he goes to heaven (very good) or there is little effect.

Pascal concluded that the best bet (remember, he was a gambler) was to believe in god since the risk was small and the possible reward was great.

There are many criticisms of Pascal's Wager, even from religious communities. It assumes that God rewards belief alone without actions, which few preachers of any faith would agree with.

Pascal's Wager is not a PROOF OF the existance of God. Even Pascal himself did not make such a claim. It is simply a REASON TO BELIEVE in God.

People also often mistakenly assume that the chances of either outcome are 50-50. They erroneously take Pascal's Wager to mean they have a 50% chance of going to heaven if they believe in God, and a 50% chance of going to hell if they don't believe. Considering the mathematical probability of God actually existing is quite lower than 50%, in the most probable outcome you would acheive a limited loss if you believed in god. The reward for going to heaven is, however, described as being infinite, so no matter what the actual probability is, an infinite reward is always a good bet, mathematically speaking. (Wouldn't you buy a $1 lottery ticket for a chance to win a gadgekazillion dollars, no matter how slim the odds?)

Pascal's Wager runs into a number of other problems as well. For example, what happens when you consider other gods in the mix offering infinite reward and infinite punishment?

The premise of Pascal's Wager can also be reworded to show the benefit of believing in pretty much anything from the Flying Spaghetti Monster to the non-existance of God.

In short, Pascal's Wager is fun and interesting to think about. If you happen to believe in God, it might strengthen your faith, but I wouldn't base your faith on it.

Answer 3

Elda more or less nailed it, except s/he left out one important part:

Pascal's Wager assumes that the God in question is the Christian God. However if the more than 10,000 (or so) known Gods are given an equal chance at being the "right" God, then the "believers" have a 10,000 to 1 chance of being wrong, while an athiest has a 10,000 to 1 chance of being wrong, rather than the 50/50 chance that Pascal posits.

Answer 4

Pascal's wager:

"If god exists, it's infinitely better to believe, since you get heaven instead of hell for eternity. If he doesn't, it doesn't matter since you're dead anyway. So overall it's better to believe"

This is, of course, false.

Some of the problems with the argument:

* The implied assumption that god may exist (with a 50% probability, no less!)

* The assumption that there is an afterlife with a heaven and hell

* The assumption that the god cares about belief in him/her above all else

* The assumption that if you believe in a god, it will definitely be the same god that actually exists.

* The assumption that you lose nothing if it's false. You have lost a great deal, from time praying to a nonexistent entity (some people pray several hours a day!!!) to morality (your god may ask you to hurt other people) and much more besides.

* The assumption that people can believe in something simply because it benefits them. Would you believe goblins exist for twenty bucks? Why not?

* The assumption that any god won't see through the "believing just to get into heaven" ploy.

For more:
http://www.abarnett.demon.co.uk/atheism/wager.html
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pascal-wager/
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/theism/wager.html

Answer 5

Blaise Pascal, of Pascal's Triangle and other mathematical feats, proposed late in his life that he preferred to be a theist, as even of the probability of the correctness of such a belief was arbitrarily small, to believe would be to score a trip to paradise. This thesis has been properly criticized on a number of grounds; one such: if I were god, I would reward with paradise those who were smart enough to question My existence, but those who did not use the brains that I gave them to doubt My existence would get consigned to the fire. This notion is just as plausible as Pascal's.

Answer 6

Pascal's wager = Betting twenty bucks on every horse running to cover all your chances of losing.

Answer 7

You got couple good answers here. We all "waste" our life on something, why not Jesus. I gladly "waste" my life on hope producing activities. When I place my life trusting Jesus, I really do not lose anything. Worshiping Him is a great pleasure for me. Following God is a life style that I enjoy.I want to be with God in eternity, I really do. If I am wrong, I would lose a lot because after all I am not going to be in heaven but I would never even know that I was wrong. But Atheists being wrong, they have had a good life here and a very bad part starts after they die. And they have lost the pleasure to have a personal relationship with God here and after. : )

Answer 8

It's basically something that states that if Christians are wrong about God, then they don't lose anything, but if atheists are wrong, they'll wind up in hell.

Answer 9

A weak theory used by theists to justify wasting their entire life on earth because there might be a hell after death .

Answer 10

it is the arguement for the christian religion which basically says.

if i am wrong and i believe in god, i lose nothing and just die.

if you are wrong you lose everything and burn in hell.