The proposition known as Pascal\u2019s Wager is perhaps one of the most common arguments offered by theists against atheism. First formulated by the seventeenth-century mathematician Blaise Pascal, the Wager lays out the following options: If I believe in God and he does not exist, I have lost nothing. If I believe in God and he does<\/i> exist, I will gain the infinite reward of Heaven. On the other hand, if I do not believe in God and he does not exist, I have neither lost nor gained anything; but if I do not believe in God and he does exist, I have earned the infinite punishment of Hell. Since I have everything to gain and nothing to lose by believing in God, then logically I should believe in him. Or more concisely, as some theists present it: \u201cWhat if you\u2019re wrong?\u201d (As if atheists had never considered such a possibility.)<\/p>\n
Since I hear this with depressing regularity from some theists who apparently think it\u2019s a dazzling argument for their case, I will deal with it in this article.<\/p>\n
The first and most serious objection to the Wager should be immediately obvious to anyone who sees it. It argues for belief in a god, but it doesn\u2019t offer any advice on which<\/i> god. There are hundreds, if not thousands \u2013 how can I tell which one is the right one? (\u201cThe Cosmic Shell Game<\/a>\u201d covers this topic in more detail.) Blaise Pascal was a Catholic and used the argument he concocted in favor of Catholicism, but today the Wager is most commonly used by evangelical Protestants. However, it can just as well be employed by members of other religions. Muslims can tell Christians that by worshipping Allah they may gain entry to a Paradise where they will be waited on for eternity by seventy-two dark-eyed virgins, whereas by rejecting him they run the risk of winding up in the Islamic Hell. Zoroastrianists might retort that Ahura Mazda is actually the one true deity, and those who believe in him<\/i> and not Allah will get their heavenly reward, but those who reject him will be sent to a fiery damnation. The Hindus might interrupt and argue that the rewards for believing in Krishna are great and the dangers of rejecting him equally great. A Buddhist<\/a> might gently correct all of them and point out that we can gain the bliss of Nirvana by following the Eightfold Path<\/a> and practicing Zazen meditation, so why not try it \u2013 considering that the alternative is to be reborn as an animal, a hungry ghost or a damned soul? At this point the ancient Greeks might jump in, warning of the dire punishments waiting in Tartarus for those who reject the authority of Zeus. Meanwhile, while all this bickering goes on, the Nez Perce Indians sit off to the side smiling secretively, content in the knowledge that this world will end on the morning of the third day and we are living in the dreams of the second night, and that by believing this they stand to gain rewards none of the others could even imagine.<\/p>\n How do we pick the right god out of this multiplicity of deities? How can we find the right Heaven and avoid the right Hell when there are countless different ones to choose from? The Wager offers no help in making this choice; by its logic we should believe in any supernatural being claimed to have the power to reward or punish us. Do the theists who use Pascal\u2019s Wager believe in Santa Claus? If not, they\u2019re being inconsistent. By their own logic they should believe in him, because if he exists they\u2019ll be rewarded with marvelous presents, and if he doesn\u2019t, what do they lose? (For more on this topic, see Pascal\u2019s Wager: Your Fortune Awaits<\/a>.) <\/p>\n At first glance, belief in every<\/i> god and every religion might seem the most obvious solution to this dilemma, but in reality this is impractical \u2013 the tithes would be staggering, the sheer number of devotions impossible to remember, and the amount of time each day that would have to be spent on ritual and prayer would total far more than 24 hours. And besides, most religions have already eliminated this option anyway by making claims to exclusivity, each one claiming that people who believe in any other are damned.<\/p>\n The fact of the matter is that atheism is a single, unified position, but theism is not. There is no such thing as \u201cgeneric theism\u201d; one cannot choose to \u201cjust believe something<\/i>\u201c. And the choice is not, as some evangelical Christians seem to think it is, between evangelical Christianity and nothing. There are hundreds of religions, and no a priori reason to choose one of them over any of the others. And the theist who chooses the wrong religion is in just as much trouble as the atheist who chooses none of them. Therefore, the first pillar of the Wager falls: one cannot assume that a person who believes in God and is wrong stands to lose nothing. <\/p>\n Of course, all this is assuming that God will punish nonbelief or wrong belief with Hell, and here lies the second objection to Pascal\u2019s Wager: it takes as granted something that cannot be taken as granted, namely the nature of God. How can anyone know for sure that believers will be rewarded and nonbelievers punished? It is easy to conceive of different varieties of deities under which alternative scenarios would hold. For example, what if the universalists are right and God does not condemn anyone, but forgives everyone and lets them into Heaven anyway? In that case, atheists have nothing to lose. Conversely, some theists believe in a god so cruel and sadistic that he will condemn the vast majority of all people who have ever lived to endless, eternal torture. It\u2019s not that great a leap beyond this to imagine a god who just condemns everyone<\/i>, and again the theist is no better off than the atheist in this case. We could even imagine a god who doesn\u2019t want<\/i> us to believe in him, who has deliberately set up the world to make his existence appear unlikely, and who will actually punish those who disregarded the evidence in the name of faith and reward those who fearlessly followed where reason led them. (Richard Carrier\u2019s brilliant The End of Pascal\u2019s Wager<\/a> describes such a scenario.) In this case, Pascal\u2019s Wager is reversed and the scales swing the other way; now atheism is the position that stands to gain the most.<\/p>\n The third objection to Pascal\u2019s Wager is as follows. Suppose an atheist hears the Wager, is impressed and converts. Then he dies. What will he say if he ends up facing God at the Pearly Gates? \u201cWell, I didn\u2019t really believe in you, but I played the odds.\u201d Is that person going to get into Heaven? <\/p>\n If God is really all-knowing, then he isn\u2019t naive. He\u2019ll be able to tell the difference between genuine faith and a mere profession of faith made out of a cynical desire to be rewarded or a fear of being punished. Pascal\u2019s Wager produces the latter. It is not an argument for God\u2019s existence; it does not offer any considerations to make God\u2019s existence more likely; in short, it is not a reason why theism is true<\/i>. It is nothing more than an appeal to greed coupled with a threat of force. \u201cWhether this is true or not,\u201d it says, \u201cshouldn\u2019t you believe in it anyway, on the off-chance you might be rewarded?\u201d<\/p>\n