Can you please explain Pascal's Wager?

Question

Forgive my ignorance, but a lot of people bring this up, and I don't know what it is.
I have dial up and wikipedia takes about 15 minutes to load one page, so if you could tell me?

So when he says is he refering to Christian God, or a Creator in general?

Answer 1

Pascal's Wager, in a nutshell, was this: Suppose that a man who believes in God dies. (Yes, this DOES happen.) If there is no God, then he's just dead, he decomposes, and the worst he gets is painless oblivion. But, if there is a God, and he lived a good, religious life, he'd get the infinite rewards of eternity in Heaven. On the other hand, if an atheist dies (this happens too), and there is a God, he may be condemned to Hell's infinite tortures for not believing; the best he can expect from death is the decomposition and oblivion part. So, therefore, Pascal argued, it's far better for a man to believe in God, because the gamble for infinite pleasure makes better sense than risking infinite pain.

Answer 2

Pascal's Wager is well-known to many atheists. On the internet, it is probably the most common argument heard from Christians, and the regulars of newsgroups such as alt.atheism feel cheated if a week goes by without someone bringing it up (this rarely happens), only to be shot down in flames (this always happens). It is also one of the most common arguments I receive in my email box, so this article was written specifically to deal with it.

Pascal's Wager is quite simple, and superficially appears to be a strong and compelling argument for theism. However, a little close scrutiny soon reveals the flawed logic and reasoning behind it, which actually makes it one of the weakest arguments a theist could come up with.


The Wager
Pascal's Wager can be presented in many different forms, usually something like this:

"If you believe, and God exists, you gain everything. If you disbelieve, and God exists, you lose everything."
Alternatively :


"It makes more sense to believe in God than to not believe. If you believe, and God exists, you will be rewarded in the afterlife. If you do not believe, and He exists, you will be punished for your disbelief. If He does not exist, you have lost nothing either way. "

Answer 3

Pascal's Wager (or Pascal's Gambit) is the application by the French philosopher Blaise Pascal of decision theory to the belief in God. It was set out in the Pensées, a posthumous collection of notes made by Pascal towards his unfinished treatise on Christian apologetics.

The Wager posits that it is a better "bet" to believe that God exists than not to believe, because the expected value of believing (which Pascal assessed as infinite) is always greater than the expected value of not believing. In Pascal's assessment, it is inexcusable not to investigate this issue:

Before entering into the proofs of the Christian religion, I find it necessary to point out the sinfulness of those men who live in indifference to the search for truth in a matter which is so important to them, and which touches them so nearly.[1]

Variations of this argument may be found in other religious philosophies, such as Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism. Pascal's Wager is also similar in structure to the precautionary principle.

Answer 4

Pascal's Wager (or Pascal's Gambit) is the application by the French philosopher Blaise Pascal of decision theory to the belief in God. It was set out in the Pensées, a posthumous collection of notes made by Pascal towards his unfinished treatise on Christian apologetics.

The Wager posits that it is a better "bet" to believe that God exists than not to believe, because the expected value of believing (which Pascal assessed as infinite) is always greater than the expected value of not believing. In Pascal's assessment, it is inexcusable not to investigate this issue:

Before entering into the proofs of the Christian religion, I find it necessary to point out the sinfulness of those men who live in indifference to the search for truth in a matter which is so important to them, and which touches them so nearly.[1]

Variations of this argument may be found in other religious philosophies, such as Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism. Pascal's Wager is also similar in structure to the precautionary principle.

Answer 5

I didn't know what Pascal's Wager was either before I started visiting the Religion & Spirituality Section in Yahoo Answers and was recommended the book "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins...so don't feel bad.

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Pascal's Wager (or Pascal's Gambit) is the application by the French philosopher Blaise Pascal of decision theory to the belief in God. I

The Wager posits that it is a better "bet" to believe that God exists than not to believe, because the expected value of believing (which Pascal assessed as infinite) is always greater than the expected value of not believing.

The possiblities defined by Pascal's Wager can be expanded more fully, though it should be noted that Pascal did not address the last two possibilities explicitly in his account, nor did he mention hell.

-Pascal's Wager is explained simply here:

You live as though God exists.
If God exists, you go to heaven: your gain is infinite.
If God does not exist, you gain nothing & lose nothing.

You live as though God does not exist.
If God exists, you go to hell: your loss is infinite.
If God does not exist, you gain nothing & lose nothing.
With these possibilities, and the principles of statistics, Pascal attempted to demonstrate that the only prudent course of action is to live as if God exists. It is a simple application of game theory (to which Pascal had made important contributions).

-When Pascal refers to 'God', he is refering to the Christian God, which is one of the many fallacies in his argument.

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Atheist's Wager:
You should live your life and try to make the world a better place for your being in it, whether or not you believe in God. If there is no God, you have lost nothing and will be remembered fondly by those you left behind. If there is a benevolent God, he may judge you on your merits coupled with your commitments, and not just on whether or not you believed in him.

Answer 6

Pascal's wager is a joke, because the big question is, WHICH god are you going to believe in? If you take the 4 major religions and randomly divide them, you have a 25% chance of picking the *right one* assuming one were true (and trust me, none of them are). So why would anyone feel covered just by choosing one to believe in?

And what sort of God would reward such idiotic blind faith?

Answer 7

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 8

Basically it goes like this: Christians say that if their god isn't real, then there's no consequence for believing in him or not, but if it is real, then the non-believer will suffer for eternity. They claim that it's better to be on the safe side.

Unfortunately for christians, it works with any other god as well. They should especially hope that Ptah isn't real, otherwise they'll have no clue how to make it to Anubis for judgment, and even if they do somehow make it past Duat, they're going to end up with their hearts being devoured by Amut. Such a terrible price to pay for choosing not to believe in Ptah.

Answer 9

In Pascal's Wager, philosopher Blaise Pascal explain in many words what The Bible teaches us in just few in Psalm 14:1.

Answer 10

Noticed that Dreamstuff Entity didn't have this argument against Pascal's wager:

It also makes presumptions on God's will. It assumes you are rewarded for believing in God when it's equally likely that you won't be rewarded ( ie. you will go to Hell for believing in God.)

Pascal's wager is flawed.