Thursday, 10 November 2011

Agnosticism / Atheism: Weekly Poll: Taking Pascal's Wager

Agnosticism / Atheism
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Weekly Poll: Taking Pascal's Wager
Nov 10th 2011, 08:00

Many Christians offer "Pascal's Wager" as a reason to believe in their god. According to this argument, it's safer to "bet" that their god exists than to live as if it didn't exist. There are many problems with this argument, not the least of which is the fact that there are so many different religions to bet on. Christian apologists start out by assuming that Christianity is the only valid religion, so the choice of which to bet on will appear obvious to them.

That assumes the truth of what they are trying to prove, however, which is a logical fallacy. If we instead adopt a neutral position with respect to which religion(s) may or may not be valid, how can we choose? There doesn't appear to be any reason to bet on avoiding the punishments promised by Christianity rather than the punishments promised by Islam. There doesn't appear to be any good reason to bet on avoiding the punishments of such monotheistic religions rather than avoiding the cycle of death and rebirth described in Hinduism and Buddhism. Why not bet on a polytheistic religion which has a wide array of gods to choose from?

Pascal's Wager argument sounds intuitively plausible to people who already believe and thus offers them a rationalization for their current religious ideology. It allows them to feel more rational and reasonable because they can avoid examining the real reasons they have for holding on to their religion, assuming such reasons can even be found. In fact, this is the case with a significant number of arguments offered by apologists -- they appear more directed at comforting believers with rationalizations than convincing nonbelievers with good reasons.

Ignoring all this, though, and pretending that you really did have to choose some religion as a bet, what would you bet on? Do any of them seem to be a better bet than Christianity?

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