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.

[JoeyKnothead]

In point of fact however, I'm arguing a more subtle point, namely that Christianity's status as the world largest religion supports a sufficiently high prior probability so as to be taken seriously when performing the type of (pragmatic) worldview cost/benefit analysis the Wager seeks to perform.

You're still arguing that since Christianity is popular it has a higher probability of being true. This quite clearly isn't valid.


Tcg

If we all thought the moon wasn't there, would it fall from the sky?

What kinda math can we do, to think on walking on the water, the hopping up from the dead, and a god being involved in any of it?


Reality and facts ain't made from the forces of opinion.

[JoeyKnothead]

From Post 276

...
Nevertheless, I feel we do need some method for filtering out overly contrived worldviews from our list of candidates
...
For my part, I believe Christianity’s status as the world’s largest religion, coupled with the (often under-appreciated) peculiarity of its rise to prominence, is sufficient (at the very least) to secure a prior probability which warrants a place on our list of top worldview candidates.

What ain't contrived about a god making the universe, creating humans, serpents talking, global floods, animals two by two on one wooden ship, walking on water, dead folks rising, and that whole lake of fire deal?

Naw, we shouldn't fret the contrived, we should fret the facts.

[The Nice Centurion]

.


So which god is it that I should seek to believe in?

And why that one and not another?


.

That basically sums up why Pascal's Wager is useless.

We can invent all sorts of beings that will do either good or bad things to us if we do/don't believe. Pascal's Wager suggests we should believe all of them to avoid all the bad things. Clearly that is both ridiculous and impossible (since we would spend our entire lives searching for all the bogey men who might do bad things to us so we can believe in them).

Still it would be a finite loss!
(Your entire live.)

[The Nice Centurion]

From Post 276

...
Nevertheless, I feel we do need some method for filtering out overly contrived worldviews from our list of candidates
...
For my part, I believe Christianity’s status as the world’s largest religion, coupled with the (often under-appreciated) peculiarity of its rise to prominence, is sufficient (at the very least) to secure a prior probability which warrants a place on our list of top worldview candidates.

What ain't contrived about a god making the universe, creating humans, serpents talking, global floods, animals two by two on one wooden ship, walking on water, dead folks rising, and that whole lake of fire deal?

Naw, we shouldn't fret the contrived, we should fret the facts.

Further he uses Special Pleading and Argument from Quantity to keep Pascals Wager going.