what are the critical flaws in Pascal's Wager?

Answer 1

Pascal suggested that it is better to take the chance of believing in a god that might not exist rather than to risk losing infinite happiness by disbelieving in a god that does. This assumes that there is nothing to lose by accepting the Christian hypothesis.

If Christian assumptions are incorrect, one loses at least the incentive to pursue and discover truth. What if the truth is that Vishnu is God? What is the cost of that mistake?

Also, what if the reality is that a creator or creators expect you to search with on open mind and a good heart? What if a creator prefers a skeptic who seeks the truth and doing good to someone who merely hedges his bet so he can receive a divine gift cheaply. If it were my universe, I'd be indisposed toward rewarding somebody for accepting Pascal's wager.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal's_Wager#Criticisms

Pascal suggested that it is better to take the chance of believing in a god that might not exist rather than to risk losing infinite happiness by disbelieving in a god that does

Criticisms

I. Assumes God rewards belief - does not account for the possibility that there is a god that rewards skepticism and punishes blind faith, or rewards honest reasoning and punishes feigned faith.

Suppose there is a God who is watching us and choosing which souls of the deceased to bring to heaven, and this god really does want only the morally good to populate heaven. He will probably select from only those who made a significant and responsible effort to discover the truth. For all others are untrustworthy, being cognitively or morally inferior, or both. They will also be less likely ever to discover and commit to true beliefs about right and wrong. That is, if they have a significant and trustworthy concern for doing right and avoiding wrong, it follows necessarily that they must have a significant and trustworthy concern for knowing right and wrong. Since this knowledge requires knowledge about many fundamental facts of the universe (such as whether there is a god), it follows necessarily that such people must have a significant and trustworthy concern for always seeking out, testing, and confirming that their beliefs about such things are probably correct. Therefore, only such people can be sufficiently moral and trustworthy to deserve a place in heaven — unless god wishes to fill heaven with the morally lazy, irresponsible, or untrustworthy.

II. Atheist's Wager - suggests that 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. The atheist's wager asserts that in the absence of clear knowledge of what, if anything, will benefit the gambler's hereafter, it is better to concentrate on improving conditions in the present.

III. Assumes belief has no cost.

IV. Does not constitute a true belief. Another common argument against the wager is that if a person is uncertain whether a particular religion is true and the god of that religion is real, but that person still "believes" in them because of the expectation of a reward and the fear of punishment, then that belief is not a true valid belief or a true faith in that religion and its god.

V. Assumes that the correct god is worshipped. Since there are many religions, especially throughout history, and therefore many alleged gods, it is impossible to determine which to believe in based on the wager. Hence there is a high probability of believing in the wrong god, which could lead to severe punishment if a different god exists and is jealous and vengeful.

[One can conclude from this that it may be best to believe in no god and hope that the afterlife, if it exists, is not run by a creator or creators that punish guessing wrong from among thousands of choices, than it is to have guessed and guessed wrong, then find out that the universe is controlled by somebody who prefers sincere agnosticism to guessing and closing the beautiful mind he gave you.]

[Since Pascal's a wagering man, he can see that one should bet against the existence of a creator or creators hiding but demanding discovery and praise anyway in order to have a reason not to punish you, since if that's the metaphysical reality, you’re kind of screwed anyway, and you don't really have much chance of guessing successfully anyway from the tens of thousands of candidate religions and gods, most of which you've never heard of.]

[So, since you must choose to act or not, choosing not to choose one is by far the better option that give you the best chances. You give up so little, statistically speaking. Or contrariwise, to pick one of the deities from random, or from circumstance of time and place of birth, you must give up so much more possibility for acceptance to have this super long shot at it by choosing one.]

[And even if you agree to choose just one, why Pascal's guess? If there's a lot at stake guessing right, why be so hasty or random? A very flawed argument]

Answer 2

FIrst of all, it's a wager, a take it or leave it, to start with. When you say 'critical flaw' you can only mean 'I leave it'. IF there is a God, maybe there is another way of setting up the alternatives, but frankly if you take a wager and have heaven on one side and the avoidance of damnation on the other, I'd say, Go for it.
Now, don't let anybody equate the wager with Christianity though. Pascal doesn't and surely Jesus wouldn't allow such a trivialization. I think the real appeal of the wager is to the agnostic who just can't get up the steam to consider investigating further -- as of course he should -- but whose conscience warns him of a possible bad end to his life. This reminds me of people who ask questions so as to find out morally just how far they can go without risking hell. The attitude is already (shall we say) leaning seriously towards evil to begin with.

Answer 3

Below are three short lines of quote from his Wager.

The first line states that God is infinitely incomprehensible. Having said that Pascal goes on to tell us, to define what he believes about God. Doing so he creates a logical paradox.

How does he know that God has neither parts nor limits -- if God is incomprehensible.
How does Pascal know that God has no affinity for us? Isn't God a God of love?

Again he defines God by pulling these things out of a hat, a faulty hat. Where does he get the comprehensible stuff, erroneous stuff from? when God is incomprehensible!

Quote:
"He is infinitely incomprehensible
having neither parts nor limits,
He has no affinity to us"

I am sure I have just scratched the surface of the problems in his Wager part of them being that his logic is incomprehensible.

Answer 4

There are a great deal. To assume one can believe for the sake of it for a start. To assume one can abandon intellectual integrity for another.

Richard Dawkins latest books sums the many flaws much more eloquently than I. (God Delusion)

Answer 5

None. It's just been misinterpreted so that it could be refuted.

EDIT:
Pascal never intended to implant a faith using his wager. He was trying to illustrate the reasonableness of faith. In everyday life, we seek that which we hope to find. We have to accept, i.e. believe, that what we hope to find truly exists or we wouldn't seek it. To actually seek what we believe to exist is to act on faith. So Pascal illustrates the roles of hope, belief and faith.

Christians seek their Creator because we have this hope inside to find His love; others reject their Creator because they have this hope inside to be free of His authority over them.

Answer 6

It's simply a false or faulty dilemma. Some people who believe that God exists will go to hell (this is the third option)...according to the Christian faith.

Answer 7

Here you are! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal's_Wager#Criticisms