This is what happens when you use Pascal’s Wager on Santa:
Is there really any difference between doing it with a god or Santa?
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LOL. Timely post in light of the comments on the last thread.
Atheists should win Pascal’s Wager, because if properly constructed, it should be weighted by how much evidence supports or disconfirms each hypothesis; therefore, atheists would do very well.
Also, we must account in the Wager for the effects of belief or non-belief in this life, as well as any after-life.
If I am an atheist, and I spend my life free from religious affairs, and there is no after-life, then I am much better off than a religious person.
Those who say that there is no gain for atheists in Pascal’s Wager have not really evaluated all the angles.
I’ll take the Wager, every time. Why do theists think this is a convincing argument of any kind?
I’ll take the Wager, every time. Why do theists think this is a convincing argument of any kind?
I don’t even understand how someone can say he himself has faith in God because he doesn’t want to go to hell. If fear is your motivation, then I don’t really think you can claim faith. Fear and faith seem somehow mutually exclusive.
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OT but interesting in both a science and a Ripley’s Believe It or Not kinda way.
Now that the Neanderthal genome has been reconstructed, my colleague Nicholas Wade reports, a leading genome researcher at Harvard says that a Neanderthal could be brought to life with present technology for about $30 million.
Though it might be kinda hard to justify the expense in this economy. I wonder if this is just one guy’s opinion and others would disagree on the liklihood of really truly being able to reconstruct a living Neanderthal.
http://tierneylab.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/13/why-not-bring-a-neanderthal-to-life/
@ cello
“Fear and faith seem somehow mutually exclusive.”
As in, “Perfect love casts out fear”, 1 John 4:18?
Yeah, I agree with your point.
“Faith” motivated by fear just doesn’t seem that sincere.
I hereby nominate Pascal’s Wager for the stupidest theistic argument ever.
And to Calvin: if you switch to Judaism, you get eight days of Hannukah gifts.
Of course there’s a difference! Santa Claus is real.
The thing that theists always seem to miss is that pascal’s wager is not a binary choice.
It’s not God/notgod
It’s one of several thousands gods worshiped in millions of ways/not gods.
And only the not gods option has any evidence to support it.
It’s actually a pretty easy wager to decide on, given that.
There’s another difference. Santa is dumb because he doesn’t know that kids believe in him just to get presents.
God, by definition, must be smart so god should know that the believer who is just hedging their bet is unworthy.
All-in-all, a failed argument and failed theology.
I forget who pointed it out, but the Simpsons killed Pascal’s Wager as well. It’s not enough to worship any old god, you have to worship the right one in exactly the right way. So, if you pick wrong (as Homer said) “Every time you go to church you’re making god madder and madder.”
I’ll just stick with atheism and take my chances, thank you very much.
@mikespeir
Of course there’s a difference! Santa Claus is real.
He is! He ate my mince pies and everything.
I once met someone on a forum who believed that Pascal was a reincarnation of Pythagoras. His “evidence” included something about triangles, as I remember.
Brilliant! I’ve used this very same argument – likening god to Santa – as well as what I call the “snow day argument,” to show the lunacy of Pascal’s Wager.
Thanks for making me laugh.
I’ve always thought of Pascal’s wager as a motto for the lottery commission. With so many religions to choose from things get tricky, so as they say at the lottery commission PR meetings: “you can’t win if you don’t play!”
Are neanderthals in hell? :)
Besides the other points raised against I always find a real sticking point is that you can’t make yourself believe in something that fundamentally you think is untrue. Someone could offer me £1,000,000 but I can’t will myself to believe in god any more than I can believe that the colour blue is red.
Teleprompter
Sorry, it’s not weighted by evidence or how much you have to gain. It’s weighted entirely by how much you have to suffer. As a Xian, you suffer nothing at all if you’re wrong. As an atheist, you will suffer for all of eternity if you’re wrong. Doesn’t that just make you love God and trust in him completely?
For one million pounds, I will give it my best effort though, in case anyone is willing to pay.
I’m a whore who knows his price.
@ KRiS
“Sorry, it’s not weighted by evidence or how much you have to gain. It’s weighted entirely by how much you have to suffer. As a Xian, you suffer nothing at all if you’re wrong. As an atheist, you will suffer for all of eternity if you’re wrong. Doesn’t that just make you love God and trust in him completely?”
Well, that doesn’t sound very loving to me, haha.
Except that you waste your life on useless activities such as praying or engaging in pointless debates on blogs. Instead of exploring the wonders of science you spend your time chanting meaningless hymns. Instead of educating and developing yourself, you live with the false hope that everything will get better after your death.
So, what you lose is clear. What you gain, is highly uncertain.
“I don’t even understand how someone can say he himself has faith in God because he doesn’t want to go to hell. If fear is your motivation, then I don’t really think you can claim faith. Fear and faith seem somehow mutually exclusive.”
It’s an example of, “Fake it, till you Make it”.
If you pretend to have faith and just go along with it, eventualy you will have faith. It’s self brain-washing.
@KRiS
Actually, you have missed the point. What if christians are wrong about the norse gods? What if christians are wrong about (insert the religion of your choice)? The point is that “As a christian, you suffer nothing at all if you are wrong” is a complete denial of Pascal’s wager from the perspective of many other religions. You turn to it on one hand and deny it on another. This is not only unconvincing, it is incomprehensible.
Remember, the choice is not atheism or christianity. Pascal’s wager is exactly as effective for christians as it is for muslims or wiccans or any other religion. Now that you know this (assuming you didn’t already) it would be nice if you would say so. Rarely do believers concede points, and one as important as this I would expect a believer to run away forever rather than have to concede publicly.
Exactly. Atheists win the wager because there are some religions that tolerate non-believers, however no (or few) religion really tolerates other religions.
“Is there really any difference between doing it with a god or Santa?”
No.
I recognize that fear is not faith, and if there is a god, there could be an indefinite number of possible hoops to jump through, or possible outcomes. But let’s consider the wager from a more probable perspective. If there were a god what would this god probably expect from us? What are the chances that god would expect us to do our best to take care of each other in this harsh life, and would reward or punish us in proportion to how we did (regardless of what god or no god we believed in)? Is there any chance that this life could be a testing ground for future responsibility and privileges, even in disproportion to the time of the test? Whenever we have the opportunity to do harm to another human and get away with it, is it worth considering the possibility that there could yet be consequences?