Examining Pascal's Wager

[Paul of Tarsus]

(My treatment of Pascal's Wager will be a bit technical in this OP, but please bear with me because my examination of Pascal's Wager should be informative.)

According to Wikipedia:

Pascal's wager is an argument in philosophy presented by the seventeenth-century French philosopher, theologian, mathematician and physicist, Blaise Pascal (1623–1662).[1] It posits that humans bet with their lives that God either exists or does not.

Pascal argues that a rational person should live as though God exists and seek to believe in God. If God does not actually exist, such a person will have only a finite loss (some pleasures, luxury, etc.), whereas if God does exist, he stands to receive infinite gains (as represented by eternity in Heaven) and avoid infinite losses (eternity in Hell).

What decision should we make regarding the existence of God, and what are the potential consequences of that decision?

To answer this question, we should start with the "null hypothesis" (so named because of it's negation, "not.")

H0: God does not exist.

Note that this null hypothesis can be true or false, and we can reject it or fail to reject it. A summary of the four combinations of these possibilities are the following:

We reject the null hypothesis (we believe in God) and
A. The null hypothesis is true in saying God does not exist, and we make a "Type I" error.
B. The null hypothesis is false in saying God does not exist, and we make a "Type B correct decision."

We fail to reject the null hypothesis (we don't believe in God) and
C. The null hypothesis is true in saying God does not exist, and we make a "Type A correct decision."
D. The null hypothesis is false in saying God does not exist, and we make a "Type II" error.

So if theists err because God doesn't exist, then they commit a Type I error. If atheists err (God does exist), then they commit a Type II error.

Which of these two errors has more serious consequences? As pascal points out in his wager, the gains of believing in God are infinite while the gains of doubt are finite. So if we doubt God's existence, then we better make darn sure we are right. If we believe in God, on the other hand, then the probability of being wrong need not be so low. So contrary to Pascal, I won't tell anybody that it's better to believe in God or not; it's just best to make sure you are making the correct decision whether you believe in God or not. Atheists appear to need to make sure that the probability of being wrong is lower than the theist's probability of being wrong.

[TRANSPONDER]

So, how do we evaluate the odds? Do we listen to the seller of lottery tickets that tells you they are one in ten? Or someone who tells you they are one in a couple of million? That's aside from (on one hand) having heard of a number of people who actually won and (on the other hand being told you will meet with a very, very unfortunate occurrence if you don't buy the ticket and keep buying them. And of course, there are other lottery -sales going on. Which one is likely to come up with the prize. Yet again, it's back to 'can you credit the the Bible as reliable reporting?' It seems to come back to that, every time.

If I understand your questions, my answer is that knowing the odds of a win or loss can be difficult if you need to rely on what you're told those odds are especially if you don't trust the person telling you what the odds are. As far as I know most lotteries and sweepstakes are honest, or at least the law no doubt mandates that they be honest. If you have access to the means by which the wins and losses are determined (coins, dice, roulette wheels), and you know probability theory, then you can calculate the odds yourself.

Now, if we need to rely on the Bible to let us know if God exists, we should ask ourselves some important questions regarding how likely the Bible is correct. For starters, why would God author a book? People author books because they have limitations in communicating to others, but a perfect God would have no such limitations. It seems improbable, then, that the Bible was authored by God.

Ah. Well, that's a whole other debate - why would God rely on a dodgy old book to tell us that he is real and what he wants from us. But as regarding Pascal's wager and assessing the odds of which religion to bet on it comes down to whether we can rely on the Bible or not. My line is of course that it is quite unreliable as a record of true events. If it does have some historical events in it, they are given more or less liberal amounts of Spin. I may say that, on my previous board, The Quran was pretty well debunked, too. Which is why I propose that betting on atheism is actually the best bet.

[Paul of Tarsus]

Ah. Well, that's a whole other debate - why would God rely on a dodgy old book to tell us that he is real and what he wants from us.

I think you may be missing my point. I'm pointing out that book authorship on the part of a God makes that God less likely to be real. If he's less likely to be real, then we should be less likely to fear the consequences of not believing in that God. Pascal obviously did not consider this fact when he stated his wager.

But as regarding Pascal's wager and assessing the odds of which religion to bet on it comes down to whether we can rely on the Bible or not. My line is of course that it is quite unreliable as a record of true events. If it does have some historical events in it, they are given more or less liberal amounts of Spin. I may say that, on my previous board, The Quran was pretty well debunked, too. Which is why I propose that betting on atheism is actually the best bet.

I agree that "betting on atheism" is the best wager if you're sure that God's existence is low enough to disregard any risks involved with angering him. Getting back to my Yellow-Stone-Park analogy, if I warned you about polar-bear attacks in Yellow Stone, you could disregard my warning realizing that the probability of polar bears there is very low. If I warned you about grizzly-bear attacks, on the other hand, you'd be wise to heed the warning because such attacks are too probable to risk. So for the atheist, it's prudent to determine if God is like a polar bear in Yellow Stone or like a grizzly in Yellow Stone. If he's as improbable as the former, then don't sweat it. If he's as likely as the latter, then get thee to church!

[brunumb]

So for the atheist, it's prudent to determine if God is like a polar bear in Yellow Stone or like a grizzly in Yellow Stone. If he's as improbable as the former, then don't sweat it. If he's as likely as the latter, then get thee to church!

The atheist is surely not going to make determinations about a God they don't believe in. That horse has bolted. If one is an atheist then they have already come down on the side of a polar bear in Yellowstone wouldn't you say?

[Paul of Tarsus]

So for the atheist, it's prudent to determine if God is like a polar bear in Yellow Stone or like a grizzly in Yellow Stone. If he's as improbable as the former, then don't sweat it. If he's as likely as the latter, then get thee to church!

The atheist is surely not going to make determinations about a God they don't believe in. That horse has bolted. If one is an atheist then they have already come down on the side of a polar bear in Yellowstone wouldn't you say?

I see that you speak for all atheists informing us of the indisputable fact that they cannot make "determinations" about God. Are you the atheist pope?

Anyway, I lack your powers to know the facts about what atheists think or how they think, but if I were to hazard a guess, I'd say that most atheists think God is even less likely than a polar bear in Yellowstone. There are always exceptions to that rule, of course. As CS Lewis said:

When I was an atheist I had moods in which Christianity looked terribly probable.

[brunumb]

I take any claims from C. S. Lewis with a grain of salt.

[JoeyKnothead]

From Post 262:

...
So for the atheist, it's prudent to determine if God is like a polar bear in Yellow Stone or like a grizzly in Yellow Stone. If he's as improbable as the former, then don't sweat it. If he's as likely as the latter, then get thee to church!

Now we're left to scrambling around, trying to find us a church of the grizzly bear.

"Our Grizzly, who is up in Yellowstone
Hallowed be thy name
Thy salmon comes
Please save us some
Give us this day our daily dread
that you won't come and make us dead
As we forgive those who thought you was a polar bear
and how bout that right there
And lead us not into them acid springs
but deliver us from the polar bears
For thine is the salmon, and them berries over there, and really, whatever it is you want cause I ain't bout to run ya offa none of it
Forever and ever."

That's the kinda "what iffing" we gotta do to consider Pascal's wager...

"What if God was there, and a polar bear came along, only it wasn't, it was a grizzly bear, and how come you ain't wagering you on one or you the other one of you one of em?"


All that to say, how come we can't wager on if God is him more like a puppy? Who don't love puppies?

[Paul of Tarsus]

I take any claims from C. S. Lewis with a grain of salt.

If he says something that falsifies your belief, then just say he lied. Christians take the same approach to naysayers.

[Purple Knight]

Which of these two errors has more serious consequences?

It's not a contest between those two. I can invent a [quasi]religion this moment that says that God exists, but he prefers atheists. Only atheists go to Heaven. It's not an entirely silly claim. I may very well be right.



So now we have a Type I error where the rewards of being an atheist are infinite and a Type II error where if you picked wrong and decided to be religious you suffer disproportionately.

Basically, "all options might be correct so I should prefer the option with the least serious consequences if I'm wrong" leads to doing horribly silly things like playing the lottery with every number combo, because for each set of numbers, the consequences of losing out on a couple million dollars are worse than the consequences of losing a single dollar. It's a form of mathematical fallacy.

There, I've said it. Pascal's Wager suffers from the mathematical fallacy. (It's just not immediately obvious.)

[Paul of Tarsus]

So now we have a Type I error where the rewards of being an atheist are infinite and a Type II error where if you picked wrong and decided to be religious you suffer disproportionately.

What is your null hypothesis? A type I error is to decide that the null hypothesis is false when it's true, and a type II error is to decide the null hypothesis is true when it's false.

Basically, "all options might be correct so I should prefer the option with the least serious consequences if I'm wrong" leads to doing horribly silly things like playing the lottery with every number combo, because for each set of numbers, the consequences of losing out on a couple million dollars are worse than the consequences of losing a single dollar. It's a form of mathematical fallacy.

There, I've said it. Pascal's Wager suffers from the mathematical fallacy. (It's just not immediately obvious.)

There's really no mathematical mistakes in Pascal's wager. Pascal was a brilliant mathematician. He just didn't consider the probability of God's existence and how that probability affects the wisdom of being an atheist.

It's not a contest between those two. I can invent a [quasi]religion this moment that says that God exists, but he prefers atheists. Only atheists go to Heaven. It's not an entirely silly claim. I may very well be right.

You sure can invent such a religion. What's the probability of its God's existence? If that probability is low, then theists can wisely disregard your religion.

[JoeyKnothead]

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