The Dilbert Blog: Pascal’s Wager

June 2008

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In yesterday's post I described an argument that reminded people of something called Pascal's Wager.

In a nutshell, Pascal was a dude who argued you should consider Christianity because if it's true, the downside of not believing is eternal Hell. But if you become a Christian and there's no God, all you've lost is your Sunday mornings. (Here I am simplifying.)

Many of my blog readers left comments alluding to the well-known "flaws" in Pascal's argument. Here’s a handy list of them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal's_Wager#Rebuttals

Chief among the alleged flaws in Pascal’s argument is that you still have to pick the correct religion among many, or else you go to Hell anyway.

Sure. But picking any religion that promises salvation slightly improves your odds over picking an option that doesn’t. You're still probably doomed, given your bad religion-picking skills, but a one-in-a-million chance of reducing the risk of eternal Hell is a move worth taking, mathmatically speaking.

Another noted "flaw" in Pascal's wager is that you can't rule out the possibility that only skeptics are spared from Hell. Perhaps, it is argued, God loves the spunky fact-loving personality of skeptics and saves them alone, or saves them in the greatest percentage.

That argument passes the math test, but does it pass the sniff test? It’s a viewpoint that exists only as a debate tool. While we can't rule it out, surely it is the worst bet if you must pick a theory of God. No rational person on earth, including skeptics, has concluded that God prefers skeptics over believers.

Personally, if I were more rational, and less focused on immediate gratification, I would become a moderate, peace-loving Muslim. My reasoning is that Islam has the best chance of becoming the dominant world religion in the future, and therefore probably has God’s backing, if he exists. The Muslim belief that death is sometimes a good thing is a huge advantage in a future where weapons are improving, and the only thing keeping people from using them is fear of death.

If you believe God exists, the smart money says he’s backing the team with the best strategy and long term viability. Based on what I see today, I’m betting on Islam being the only religion in a thousand years. Once you can build your own nuke from stuff you buy online, don’t be betting on the Buddhists.

I realize it's unscientific to try and compare one absurdity to another. But if you assume our perceptions are often flawed, you have to allow the possibility that some apparent absurdities are due to our limited powers of perception. So, for example, while the notion of a loving God who allows eternal damnation seems absurd, it is less absurd than assuming the world is run by invisible unicorns, or that God discriminates against those who believe in him.

The God theory has built into it the assumption we are not bright enough to understand the mind of an omnipotent being. That sounds reasonable. Hey, if God exists, and he does things different that I would, just maybe the problem is on my end. If you believe in God, the apparent absurdities have a reasonable explanation, even if wrong.

But what’s the reasonable explanation for God preferring skeptics? If God appreciates reasoning skills, he can’t be too impressed by the fact he created the entire Universe and skeptics still can’t find any good clues he exists. God would only be impressed by skeptics if God did NOT exist. You can’t top that for absurdity.

Back to Islam. It also has the most satisfying answer to the multiple prophet issue. If we assume God speaks through prophets, as all God-oriented religions do, then how can you be sure the last prophet finished the job? Islam gives us Mohammed, the "seal of the prophets," and promises that God intends him to be the last one. That’s a tidy package.

All the other religions seem to leave open the possibility that God has a few more prophets up his sleeve. If you bet on one of those other religions, you can't know for sure if you're living by God's first draft or his finished manuscript.

Picking the "right" religion is a long shot no matter how hard you try. But if rational thought has any value at all, it's in narrowing down options and improving our odds of making good choices. Rational thought hasn't led anyone to conclude that there's a God who only saves people who don't believe he exists. We can't rule it out, but can't we rate its likelihood compared to a God who prefers that his lumps of clay hold him in higher esteem than their own eye crud?

I’d prefer to make all of my decisions on the basis of peer reviewed science. But I don’t have that option when considering the great beyond. So I settle for looking at the competing absurdities and picking the one that seems relatively least absurd.

There are other arguments against Pascal’s wager, but none of them looked any stronger than the ones I mentioned here.

Pascal's wager was designed to make people consider the importance of grappling with the question of a Christian God. That's not my argument. I simply borrowed the math part of his argument and followed it to its logical conclusion: The most rational worldview is moderate Islam.

And since I am not a Muslim, I must conclude that I am not rational. I sure hope God likes moist robots.

I wrote this at 3 AM. I won’t even pretend it makes sense.

[Update: Early commenters are noting that someone who only pretends to believe, to get into heaven, won't fool God. But the science strongly supports the notion that going through the motions of believing will, in most normal people, turn them into believers in fact. It's the same principle as why people who join a political party start to believe most of the positions of the party. -- Scott]

Comments

don't waste time in church just trying to buy a ticket to the hereafter.

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(If you believe God exists, the smart money says he’s backing the team with the best strategy and long term viability.) That is quite an assumption, one major hole with that idea is that very different religions are going to appear to be “ahead” in different times a places.

A much better choice would be Catholicism. It promises an eternal afterlife, it is very clear that you will not got this afterlife if you follow any other religion or Christian sect. In addition, you can still be accepted by other more tolerant religions. If god is a Mormon, Protestant and though you’d never guess it with our current political situation even Muslim you have a very good chance of avoiding hell.

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Posted by: Jeotvecurecob | September 14, 2007 at 12:36 PM

Asalamalaykom Scott~

Wishing you peace :)

For years, I have carried around this quote from you, "At age 30, it became clear that doing rational things would never get me there. I made a conscious decision to act irrationally."

That quote helped bring me to Islam.

Now, I hope to help bring YOU to Islam.

You can actually be fun and funny AND be Muslim. You can still be creative and part of modern media. Really! You can still be YOU. The world needs you, Scott.

But, maybe you need Islam.

Follow your own words to "act irrationally" and follow your heart.

I am following my heart and I am following Islam. I invite you to join me and the one billion others who understand.

Posted by: Yosra | September 10, 2007 at 07:28 AM

"So I settle for looking at the competing absurdities and picking the one that seems relatively least absurd."

Ah! This principle is what I would call the Occam's Razor.
The question is then if we should include the hypothesis that there is no god among the choices.

As Carl Sagan, God bless his memory, said: “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof”.

Why is it that not a single one of the religions of the world can produce a single piece of evidence of what it claims is true? Believers claims that there are a lot of evidences, but they never hold up to scrutiny. Isn’t that strange? Over all these years, not a single piece of evidence? Imagine how easy it would be for a god to produce such evidence. If we could have for instance, a man that could walk on water? If that too much to ask for, I would be happy with a smaller miracle too.

Posted by: Occam | August 13, 2007 at 06:58 AM

"That argument passes the math test, but does it pass the sniff test? It’s a viewpoint that exists only as a debate tool. While we can't rule it out, surely it is the worst bet if you must pick a theory of God. No rational person on earth, including skeptics, has concluded that God prefers skeptics over believers."

Sure, some would argue that a god that values skepticism is far less likely than one that values faith, but what evidence do we have that this is the case? Only the word of theologians (and lemmings who follow the less-sophisticated theologians of antiquity) who have no more evidence than you or I, can't agree on anything else, and would have to go get a real job if people didn't believe. That, Mr. Adams, does not "pass the sniff test".

Of course, it would be stupid to disbelieve in a god that probably doesn't exist simply for the purpose of currying favor with it, but without evidence that faith is more favorable than skepticism, it doesn't make any more sense to believe for the same reason. It may be true that the argument "exists only as a debate tool", but that doesn't make it any less valid than the opposing argument. Such is the nature of Reductio ad Absurdum.

Posted by: whosawhatsis? | August 11, 2007 at 03:42 AM

"That's why I'm an atheist and not an agnostic. I'm against this". Gore Vidal:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epn7QG9GLW0&mode=related&search=Gore%20Vidal

Posted by: Freeman | August 09, 2007 at 09:43 AM

Scott Sez:
Sure. But picking any religion that promises salvation slightly improves your odds over picking an option that doesn’t. You're still probably doomed, given your bad religion-picking skills, but a one-in-a-million chance of reducing the risk of eternal Hell is a move worth taking, mathmatically speaking.

You're cheating here, restricting choice to merely the millions of versions of god already conceptualized by people. What about the INFINITE versions of 'god', along with associated required beliefs that have not been articulated yet. For example - God created the universe in 'n' seconds, and if you don't believe in the correct value of n, you go to hell.

So sorry, Pascal's Lottery is completely rigged. No matter what, if a vengefull god exists, Probability(going to Hell)=1 and Probability(anything else)=0. You lose. Muhahahaha!

Now doesn't that Atheism with the absence of afterlife sound so much better? :-)

Posted by: Stagyar zil Doggo | August 08, 2007 at 02:55 PM

Posted by: Stagyar zil Doggo | August 08, 2007 at 02:48 PM

BTW, check out the vitriol, derision, and insults that pour forth from atheist blogs (see http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2007/08/scott_adams_wanks_again.php) when anyone dares to start a discussion on these things. Admittedly, some of Scott's claims are not logically defendable, perhaps even wrong or superficial. But talk about poking a mad dog! Atheists are angry bastards sometimes. I guess that's true of all ideologues, religious ones especially.

Scott Adams is now officially deranged, brainless, lacking in mental capacity, a producer of absurdities and drivel, a professional troll, and perhaps even a (lapsed) Catholic.

But only about a third to a half of the comments are mocking ad hominems. I did, however, notice some trends among the critics:

1. They seem to worship PZ Miers

2. They fail to understand the difference between Scott's open ponderings and authoritative doctrinal pronouncements of truth (which they seem to think Scott is doing)

3. They fail to recognize or evaluate the differences between faith claims - that is, is something Jesus said more likely or believable than something the Flying Spaghetti Monster said? To them, all faith claims are equally unprovable, and so equally ridiculous. However, I disagree with this superficial and anti-intellectual approach, and discussed the idea of "proof" in this comment: http://www.twoorthree.net/2007/08/atheists-should.html#comment-78703598

4. They fail to recognize that Scott is eminently successful, and could probably care less about the armchair critics who want to call him a loser because he exercises his freedom to lazily explore ideas.

I think his willingness to ask heretical questions (heretical to the materialist atheists) is laudable. Darwinism, evolutionism, and modern scientism need to be taken down a peg due to their hubris, over-reaching, suppression of dissent, and lack of graciousness in discussion.

Posted by: seeker | August 08, 2007 at 11:50 AM

Mike wrote:
"I wager dilbert doesn't exist."

Well, the consequences of being wrong on that item are, well, inconsequential. But as Scott well argued, the consequences of being wrong about hell are infinite. So even if they are infinitesimally possible, the fact that the impact of this slight chance coming to pass is worth serious investigation.

In fact, as a project manager, this is how you quantify risk. You multiply the likelihood of an adverse event by the potential impact - the higher the PRODUCT, the more critical that risk is.

And like every good project manager, you should mitigate those critical risks by either reducing the likelihood or the impact.

In the case of faith and hell, you can only reduce the likelihood of going to hell by believing, or at least, as Pascal would recommend, acting AS IF you believed in the chance that this would lead to actual belief. I am not sure it works like that, but it might.

As it was told to the great John Wesley when he was having doubts before giving a sermon, "If you lack faith, preach faith until you have it."

Posted by: seeker | August 08, 2007 at 09:51 AM

I believe man made God, outta ignorance and fear
If God made man, then why the hell would he put us here?
I thought he's supposed to be the all loving
The same God who let Hitler put the Jews in the oven

Posted by: catsandbeer | August 08, 2007 at 09:50 AM

I wager dilbert doesn't exist.

Posted by: mike | August 07, 2007 at 08:42 PM

Anonymous said:
"if he truly loves us as much as postulated in the bible then we should all be going to heaven regardless of our mistakes."

The problem with this view is that it only acknowledges one half of God's nature - that of love. The other half is truth/justice. This is why the scriptures say "Grace AND truth met in Jesus Christ."

You see, it is not loving to ignore justice for the man who raped and killed your daughter. If God said "look, out of love, I forgive him" you would rightly say "that is unjust!"

Love also demands justice. The Xian message is that God forgives, not by avoiding justice, but by meting out the punishment on his innocent son. This is why we are required to believe - because otherwise, we are affirming that we deserve forgiveness without justice, which is unloving and unrighteous.

Radiohead writes:
"So to sum up, being a good person all your life is not enough to get you into Heaven, you have to ACKNOWLEDGE God!!! Hey, sounds like God has an ego! Was he a rock star in his youth?? What a load of BS!"

The reason being good all your life is not good enough is because God's generous path allows those who CAN'T be good enough to be saved from the judgment they deserve. And in order to disallow braggarts (See Ephesians 2:8-9) and the self-righteous, he says that those who try to earn forgiveness with their good works are (a) rejecting God's loving offer of forgiveness, (b) misunderstanding that they are guilty like everyone else, not better than others (Romans 2:10-12), (c) misunderstand what good really is (by comparing themselves to others instead of God himself) (Luke 18:18-24), and (d) not realizing that, while God does not demand our allegiance, he deserves it because he OWNS us (as our creator), but does not force us to obey like robots.

Additionally, the person who is trying to earn their right standing with God through good works is actually under a terrible burden, esp. as they realize how imperfectly they keep the law. God's offer of forgiveness through the justice meted out on Christ allows us to do good, not out of fear of not doing enough, but out of greatfulness that we don't have to earn anything!

As far as God having an ego, it has oft been said of Jesus that his outrageous claims such as "if you have seen Me, you have seen the Father" and "no one comes to the Father except by Me" meant that he was either a Lunatic (with a huge ego), a Liar, a Legend (people made such sayings up after he was gone to make him look more important than he actually claimed to be), or he was actually LORD, and was telling the truth. So if God really is God, all demands have little to do with ego, and more to do with the truth of the situation. That he is both creator and judge of all, and there is nothing we can do, if we are sane, other than to agree with the truth and reality of the situation.

As it is said, all failure to acknowledge reality is insanity.

Posted by: seeker | August 07, 2007 at 12:07 PM

Question with boldness even the existence of a god; because if there be one he must approve of the homage of reason more than that of blindfolded fear.
-Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Peter Carr, August 10, 1787

Are you saying that Jefferson was not rational, or just not human?

Posted by: Michael | August 07, 2007 at 11:48 AM

Scott, you make yet another mistake by trying to rationalize out what God wants: you make arguments about how God likes this or that. But the reality is that God could want ANYTHING AT ALL. Nothing is "more likely" or "more rational" than any other possibility, because nothing at all constrains God's motives: they could simply be so far beyond your understanding that they could be anything. From the perspective of pure metaphysics, it's exactly as likely that God is a big joker who sends to hell only those that eat cheerios for breakfast as it is that there is no hell at all, or that god operates like Christians believe. The more powerful and obscure you make God, the more infinities and inscrutables you tack on, the less anyone can say about what God's true purposes are.

Posted by: plunge | August 07, 2007 at 10:36 AM

You make a valid point in Islam = Death but you did forget to mention the bombs and virgins.

Posted by: @Rob | August 07, 2007 at 09:55 AM

Who cares, I'm one of your HOT/DUMB fans that is thanking his Super model parents that there is some one like Scott adams to make him laugh... BE MORE FUNNY,FUNNY MAN... LOL
I love it ALL...KEEP IT UP...

Posted by: ARTIE STRAUSS | August 07, 2007 at 09:48 AM

So to sum up, being a good person all your life is not enough to get you into Heaven, you have to ACKNOWLEDGE God!!!

Hey, sounds like God has an ego! Was he a rock star in his youth?? What a load of BS!

Posted by: Radiohe4d | August 06, 2007 at 11:29 PM

...and one of the most absurd notions of all? The fact that, one one hand, you can have someone who believes in God, sins but then confesses, and he is accepted into "Heaven", yet someone who doesn't believe in God but lives a completely moral and selfless life and never breaks a law goes to hell simply for not believing. What a joke! Sounds more like a marketing gimmick to me!!!

Posted by: Radiohe4d | August 06, 2007 at 11:23 PM

well shouldn't it be more along the lines of, if god created us all and loves us all and jesus dies for our sins, then don't we all have a green card into heaven? or does god just like believers so that his ego can be satisfied? if he truly loves us as much as postulated in the bible then we should all be going to heaven regardless of our mistakes.

Posted by: anonymous | August 06, 2007 at 09:45 PM

Scott,

I have posted the first of two commentaries on this post on my site - see
- Scott Adams continues to question atheism http://www.twoorthree.net/2007/08/scott-adams-con.html

The appalling fact that you use one point of reason to pick moderate Islam as the most "reasonable" faith requires a much longer response - but you can get a head start on my thinking with
- What are the main differences between Islam and Christianity? http://www.twoorthree.net/2006/08/what_are_the_ma.html
- There are no moderate Muslims http://www.twoorthree.net/2007/02/there_are_no_mo.html (not what you might think).

Even moderate Islam is a weak intellectual world view, with nary a valid or useful ethical, moral, intellectual, or soteriological framework.

(sorry if this is a duplicate)

Posted by: seeker | August 06, 2007 at 06:29 PM

Posted by: seeker | August 06, 2007 at 06:28 PM

Stomper:

The biggest problem with books like the bible is not that they are materially false, but rather that they endorse harmful actions. There are too many people willing to do evil for the sake of "god".

Posted by: Adrian D. | August 03, 2007 at 04:46 PM

I note that majority of you posters are those that hold with anostic or atheistic beliefs. I hope most readers do not get the opinion that such are the majority. Most likely, those of us who are religious and have a firm belief system know that on anything but the simplest topics you can not convince someone else with a brief resposne.
The truth (not just relgious truth) tends to be complicated a lot more then easy sound bites and spurious remarks. There are quite logical ways to argue FOR God, but they are no so simple and simple minded as talking points againt Him.

Posted by: Robert | August 03, 2007 at 12:07 PM

Dunno about Catholics, but most of the Protestants I know have indeed read large parts of the Bible. Many Christians and Jews are not Biblical literalists. Many of us are content to read the Bible for useful lessons, without insisting that every word be taken as literally true.

At my church, some creationists showed up, and a whole roomful of adults just laughed at them. Not to be cruel -- we just didn't realize they were serious. We thought we were laughing WITH them, until we realized they weren't laughing. We were all embarassed, and we never saw them again.

So I agree the Bible is not literally true, I generally believe that Evolution is a useful theory (and probably mostly right, even though incomplete). I don't see science and faith as being at odds, and disproving the literal truth of the Bible doesn't affect my faith (or the faith of the substantial minority like me).

So again, please don't stereotype us. The fundamentalists are louder and may get more press, but that doesn't mean they speak for all of us. There are many different, nuanced approaches to faith. As soon as you make a generalization about what the faithful believe, you are wrong.

--Stomper

Posted by: Stomper | August 03, 2007 at 11:27 AM

Nothing makes you give up Christianity faster than reading the bible. I grew up a Catholic, and I'm convinced that 99% of Christians don't read the bible. They're just skeptics doing it as an insurance policy.
There is a major problem for using bible as a moral guide:
- It's OK to sell your daughters to slavery.
- We should stone disobedient children to death.
- Natural birth control. (i.e. Starvation)
They aren't exactly as printed because I read the Chinese version. There are many more of these, I feel embarrassed for people who try to prove the stories are true. Look! Fossils!
Here's the catch: You *might* go to heaven for killing your devil-possessed talk-back children, but you're definitely going on death row.
I don't usually argue. Just like you wouldn't tell people that you can't see their imaginary friend.

Posted by: adora | August 03, 2007 at 07:22 AM

Pascal's Wager is flawed by its assumption that the only (or at least primary) function of faith is to avoid Hell and gain entry to Heaven. Then, Scott and numerous posters extend that flaw by addressing the quasi straw-man argument that you can only win that wager by picking the single, precisely correct approach to faith.

A just God won't reward or punish people based on whether they guessed right or wrong. If there was a specific set of rules God wanted us to follow, then a just God certainly could have been much clearer about which set of rules applies -- i.e., by striking down false prophets, by correcting transcription and translation errors, and by clarifying apparent ambiguities.

The fact that none of this has happened tells me very clearly that God is not concerned about which version of faith we adopt. Rather, I believe (no, I can't prove it -- that's why it is called "faith") that we are invited to appreciate the mystery of a life in which some things can never be proven, and then we are judged by how we respond to that invitation.

I call it a "quasi" straw-man argument, because there are actually many believer of all faiths who DO believe that theirs is the only "true" way (as though the empirical and logical concept of "truth" can even be applied to faith). However, that majority does not justify non-believers in stereotyping all of us who have faith.

Are we "required" to "waste" our our time by (i) praying 5 times a day, (ii) spending Saturday or Sunday mornings going to church, or (iii) otherwise engaging in formal worship? No, but here's a news flash: some of us find these activities rewarding, whether spiritually, intellectually, musically, or otherwise. We engage in formal worship because we want to, not because we are compelled to. For us, worship is no more a waste of time than a workout at the gym. Formal worship helps us stay spiritually healthy, but there are other ways to maintain spiritual health.

So there are several silly arguments implied by Scott's post, and/or appearing in the comments (in fact, these arguments appear many times). It would be nice if people would expressly recognize their assumptions, and then acknowledge that those assumptions are based on generalizations. I'm not holding my breath, though.

Posted by: Stomper | August 03, 2007 at 07:14 AM

All you've done is assert that the odds of a non-believer going to hell if a god exists are greater than the odds of you picking the wrong way of worshipping god. Without any analysis of the mathematics. You've also skipped carelessly over the negative aspect of choosing belief in the event that there is /no/ god. In actual fact it is trivial to stick in numbers that show that one is /far/ better off betting on there being no god, because the odds of choosing the right way to worship god are so vanishingly small that the /guaranteed/ benefits of non-belief become significant in comparison.

Plus a major problem with Pascal's wager is that it completely avoids any analysis of the odds of gods existing. The actual odds of there being a god that throws non-believers in hell, when one notes that the universe is clearly completely indifferent to mankind's existence, is infinitessimal. Add that to the tiny odds of choosing the right way to worship god and non-belief wins hands down.

Posted by: extabgrad | August 02, 2007 at 09:09 PM

I haven't read all the comments so forgive me if this has already been mentioned.
I'd like to playing devil's advocate (har har har) on the subject of skeptics being rewarded. I'm a pretty strong believer in the argument that as flawed finite beings we can't perceive the mind of an omnipotent, infinite one, almost to the point where applying any rationality is useless. A mouse has a much better chance figuring out why a scientist is experimenting on him than we do when pondering why God might reward or punish skeptics since both mice and people are have finite knowledge and ability.

That being said and even though my attempt at reason is fruitless consider the situation between a white lab mouse in the maze and the experimenting scientist. To the mouse the scientist looks like a God. He's omnipresent, reaching anywhere in the maze around the walls. He gives the mouse food, water and shelter. Now the mouse in the maze runs around looking for the cheese at the end. If the mouse by some chance develops the false belief that some random activity (sitting still, walking repeatedly down dead ends, praying every day facing Mecca, etc) will be rewarded by this god-scientist, the mouse is going to starve since it's never going to get to the cheese. Now if the mouse attacks the maze with a systematic, scientific approach, with the attitude that it's not going to be rewarded unless it works out the maze by itself, then it's bound to find the cheese sooner or later.

We've all been raised in the presence of the idea of a Judeo-christian-muslim god as some loving god that cares for his creation so naturally a scientific god who tests and rewards skepticism and logic seems strange. There are a number of reasons for this behavior. Maybe the god (or whatever being set things up, not necessarily omnipotent or omnipresent, just far enough beyond us to seem so) is simply running a behavioral experiment that we have as much hope of understanding as the average lab rat does. Maybe a god that loves order (having created the cosmos and all it's intricate components out of chaos) prizes intelligence and logic above blind faith as more orderly systems. Whatever its reason (although I think any infinite being would have a much better system on which to make decisions than reason, which is simply a tool human beings evolved over the millennia to help us survive), I think the idea that a god rewards skeptics is at least as plausible as one that rewards blind faith. Even if it isn't plausible, as I mentioned before why should we think that our reason has the ability to make any headway in the analysis of the behavior of a being so far beyond our abilities.

Posted by: Charlie Wood | August 02, 2007 at 08:40 PM

It seems that if there is (a) a God (proper noun) and (b) no conclusive evidence either way as to God's existence, then the logical place to find out would not be from conclusive evidence at all, but to ask God.

There are, of course, obstacles to asking God if he exists. #1 is the problem of ordinary social pressure. It feels silly. #2 is the problem of address; if you have already made up your mind that God does not exist, then you wouldn't really try to ask. Saying "God, do you exist?" in a sarcastic tone wouldn't really draw an answer. If you were subconsciously scared, etc, that could ruin the meaning of your question. Only if you genuinely wanted to know would you find out.

This kind of evidence, which would be spiritual and personal, would of course be unable to convince anyone else if obtained. It could only draw others to ask the same question. That's what scriptures are really for. That's why the Bible contains testaments. If they believed it, it might be true. If it is true, you can ask. If you can, do.

Posted by: jesse | August 02, 2007 at 03:23 PM

Hi Egg - I'm back - it's all true...

Posted by: Mark Robinson, Eindhoven | August 02, 2007 at 10:22 AM

I don't know if anyone else said this yet, but....

Pascal's Wager is, at face value, pretty much bunk. To say "You should be a Christian because the risk/benefit arrangement is better than atheism" is a false dichotomy.

But Pascal's Wager is excellent if taken differently - instead of being used as an argument to BECOME a Christian, or a Muslim, or a Buddhist, it should be used as an argument to EXPLORE Christianity, Islam, or Buddhism. Actually, not Buddhism; they see conscious existence as a curse. But that's beside the point.

In other words, since the risk/benefit of this particular traditional religion is a heckuvalot better than traditional atheism when the two are compared, maybe you better see how likely that traditional religion is to be true.

Which is what Scott does quite often....

Posted by: David MacMillan III | August 02, 2007 at 04:42 AM

Had a though. Maybe I am god. Odds are low, but greater than zero (as in infinite universe nothing is 0% or 100%, we are usually rational and assume close to 0 can be taken as actual zero for convenience, but this is discussion on religion so what has being rational got to do with it.) So there is a non zero chance I am god. If I am god then in the afterlife I will sentence all who don't believe in me to an eternity of hell (seems to be what gods do, I wouldn't want to let the side down.) So if you do not believe I am god the risk you are taking is a finite non zero chance multiplied by infinite penalty of eternity in hell. Finite number greater than zero times infinity gives infinity.

So that is infinite risk if you don't worship me. Get on your knees and praise me now!.

Posted by: Kthulu | August 01, 2007 at 04:55 PM

i think the logical conclusion of pascal's wager is to cover as many bases as possible. right now i'm good for buddhism, hinduism, relativism, mormonism, most moderate islam, most judaism, and last but not least, Christianity. most religions would put me somewhere in second or third tier paradise, or purgatory like Dante's Virgil. nice post though, it seemed reasonable to me.

Posted by: sam gates | August 01, 2007 at 09:55 AM

"My reasoning is that Islam has the best chance of becoming the dominant world religion in the future, and therefore probably has God’s backing, if he exists. "

Not even close. Christianity is already the numerically dominant religion and is still gaining adherents in Africa and Asia. Islam is not gaining adherents anywhere (except, marginally, among disaffected Westerners such as in the prison system); they are only growing through immigration, driven by those fleeing the poverty which stems from Islam's generally repressive practice.

This is not a recipe for success.

You have to realize, Islam has generally been spread by the sword, not proselytization. That's why it's called "Submission" while Christianity is the "good news" that God so loves us that he sent His only son to die for our sins. I'm a Deist and not sure if I buy all that, but the meme is both uplifting and infectious. I have met recent converts in Asia and this idea of a God that loves them so much makes them very very happy.

Islam peaked around the Second Siege of Vienna, the last time military expansion of their religion was viable, and has been losing ground ever since. Much of their early success in expansion was driven by Christianity's essential pacificism, which so enervated the military power of Rome that by the time Muslim invaders came, the former Imperial provinces were only fielding a tenth of the troops they had several hundred years earlier.

Here's a video of the spread of the major religions.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1032421163698055013&q=spread+of+religion+video&total=1027&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=1

Posted by: TallDave | August 01, 2007 at 09:22 AM

God prefers skeptics. He is a jealous God and takes it personally when his creation claims to know His devine truths. The religious people are damned...and the rest of us standing here scratching our heads will be rewarded for our humility. But I don't actually KNOW this....it's just a theory. Honest, I'm not claiming to know anything.

Posted by: Ivy | August 01, 2007 at 04:39 AM

We get that Scott's post was funny Maggie - that's probably why most of us started to read his blog in the first place. But it's quite possible [if not entirely common] to be both funny and thought-provoking at the same time - a particular skill which is what, personally, keeps me coming back here. And Scott, in his funny and thought-provoking way, even coined a term for this: philosotainment.

Posted by: ipsissimus_clay | August 01, 2007 at 03:15 AM

"How can you even consider being a Muslim as the most likely religion? They do not even have a football team."

Yes they bloody well do, the Iraqui national side just won the Asian Cup, or didn't American TV report all the (non-violent and this time not anti-American)jubilation in the streets? Iraq should also do well in the World Cup proper and might give the top European and South American national sides a few shocks, whch is all for the good!

Posted by: Paul C | August 01, 2007 at 02:14 AM

Basically what you're saying is that the "religion" that comes up with the worst outcome of not believing in it, wins. Similarly, the "religion" that comes up with the best outcome of believing in it, wins. Since it's possible for two different "religions" to come up with one of the outcomes above, and both can't win, one needs to decide which is better: avoiding the worst outcome, or going for the best outcome. That's a little like choosing to have the most wonderful sex everyday of your life (if you enjoy sex) and dying a miserable death at the age of 90; or not every having sex ever but never feeling pain.

Of course, my main point is that if you choose a "religion" based on the downside of not believing, or upside of believing, you will always run into problems. Someone can always come up with a new "religion" that promises worse outcomes of not believing, or better ones of believing. You would be caught in eternal religious band-wagoning.

You would also be susceptible to being taken advantage of by those looking to profit from your belief. Take the Heaven's Gate people for instance. Granted, that's an extreme case, but if you would be tortured forever in hell if you didn't kill yourself, it would be better to kill yourself. Most religions take less extreme trade offs: believe in the lord (and pay me some money) and you'll be saved; much easier trade.

I myself am agnostic since anything is possible, but most things are unlikely.

Posted by: ronbus | July 31, 2007 at 10:26 PM

My last comment on subject, which is actually Scott's, when I think about it (BTW Scott, what happened to my first comment, not the reply to Nathaniel, the one recommending we pray or give thanks to the sun, the earth and ourselves?)
Everyone download and read (or reread) God's Debris, Scott's lovely little thought experiment. It's on the Dilbert website.

Posted by: Kevin Kunreuther | July 31, 2007 at 09:37 PM

Another consideration is the size of the reward/penalty. I think most religions have a fairly equal probability of being true (or at least true enough). So, why not choose the religion with the best reward. That is Mormonism - not many other religions offer you the chance to become a god. I figure a .0001% chance of omnipotence is better than the .0001% chance of being Allah's eternal servant.

Posted by: Air Phloo | July 31, 2007 at 08:47 PM

I am going to start a Primitive Greek Mythologist movement. The odds suck of anything good coming of it. My buddies love when I come over for poker night.

Posted by: Kevin Barnes | July 31, 2007 at 08:40 PM

Two things I have against this refutation of the refutation of Pascal's Wager:

1) As they say, a bird in hand is worth two in the bush. If I go to church every sunday, that's a certain inconvenience, which I'm trading for the mere chance of reward. In other words, the negative value of a Christian-in-a-Godless universe's life is certain even if trivial, while the negative value of an atheist-in-a-godfull-universe's, or even the negative value of a christian-in-a-different-godful-universe's are uncertain and of minuscule probability.

2)How about non-eternal punishments/rewards. What if in the afterlife you get to have sex one more time, then you're gone for good? Would that be worth a lifetime of devotion and cost? Would that be worth killing yourself at the age of 20? Rationally, non-eternal afterlife is far less absurd than any sort of eternal afterlife. How cant he human mind possibly stay intact for eternity? I guarantee you'd go insane by a billion years, and that's 0% of eternity. No eternity, even one of bliss, would be happy or even not destroy your mind. It's completely absurd, I would even say impossible for eternal afterlives to exist.

Therefore, the probability of Pascal's wager being statistically worth taking drops infinitely.

And btw, when it comes to religions that claim to have non-eternal afterlives, your choices are very limited, meaning your true best bet is to make one up, or believe in something with a completely different type of post-death experience.

Posted by: Joey | July 31, 2007 at 07:40 PM

"If we arose here through random events that we're planned by nobody and that are being watched by nobody,,, and if when we die we simply cease to exist,,, then human life has zero true value"

Why exactly is the psychological belief in a controlling, observing god offering non-physical life after death the ONLY THING IN THE ENTIRE WORLD that gives human life any value to you?

If you sit and think for two seconds, you can probably come up with some better, more realistic reasons to assign value to human life.

Posted by: Hank | July 31, 2007 at 05:50 PM

Religion is to civilization as gravity is to earth, a basic construct to keep things orderly and predictable. However, man designed religion and used crude tools such as fear and hate so we should not be surprised that it fails in its mission so completely. Read the essays of Bertrand Russell for a well reasoned viewpoint on god and religion

Posted by: mick | July 31, 2007 at 05:41 PM

Eternity comes down to this. What are you going to do with God's love for you? Accept it or reject it?
Posted by: wernman | July 31, 2007 at 03:19 AM

Why have Jesus go to hell for everyone to save everyone?

If God loves us, why not just love us, accept us and allow everyone in to heaven? After all, isn't the premise that God created everything so he created each of us just as we are?

Since God knows every thing that was, is or shall be, wouldn't he know how we are going to end up? Wouldn't he know every decision or move we would make throughout our entire earthly existence?

Why bother? What would be the point from God's perspective?

Posted by: Dee | July 31, 2007 at 04:56 PM

The problem with this post is the inherant assumption that Hell is a bad place. I don't know of any authoritative accounts of the place, at least no eyewitness accounts appear to be available to help make a decision.

Countries often issue a travel warning regarding other countries they don't think citizens should travel to. Should for example the Vatican issue a travel warning about Hell?

Posted by: tord | July 31, 2007 at 04:27 PM

"The thing that cracks me up the most is that most of the folks who are commenting on here are ACTUALLY having a REAL dialogue about religion!! If you can't realize that Scott's entry is FUNNY (IE: Not Meant To Be Taken Seriously), then God help all of ya ... "

Just because the originator of a thread meant it as a joke does not mean that there is not a serious topic. Note that most people are not trying to persuade Scoot, who will only use it for "I made you say that."

Posted by: Adrian D. | July 31, 2007 at 04:23 PM

The thing that cracks me up the most is that most of the folks who are commenting on here are ACTUALLY having a REAL dialogue about religion!! If you can't realize that Scott's entry is FUNNY (IE: Not Meant To Be Taken Seriously), then God help all of ya ...

Posted by: Maggie | July 31, 2007 at 01:49 PM

unless the real god has decided that all people who believe in christianity, Islam, or Judaism (You know the only religions that seem to lead to millions of deaths) will go to hell

Posted by: admiral krunch | July 31, 2007 at 01:20 PM

I am heartened by the fact that so much thinking by so many intelligent people is posted here. I am appalled at the torturous abuse of the English language, poor grammar, and plentiful misspellings.
tsk! tsk!

Posted by: Peri Young | July 31, 2007 at 01:09 PM

Oooh... sorry... one more... just saw Agnostic's comment riiiiiiight at the bottom and just had to say...

As someone who was raised by a strange combination of Wiccan and Jewish parents, I feel I need to point out that a number of Christian festivals [including Easter, Christmas and Hallowe'en] fall when they do because they overwrote the Pagan festivals that was seen as the number one enemy at the time [such as Yule on 22 Dec and Samhein at the end of October - this is also when all those completely absurd blood-drinking, animal-killing, baby-raping devil-worshipping rumours started and unfortunately stuck]. So it's not always the case that religious holidays fall on different days!

Okay, okay, I'll shut up now. Sorry.

Posted by: ipsissimus_clay | July 31, 2007 at 12:34 PM

I love this stuff. Reasoned, thoughtful debate with people of different backgrounds, biases and abilities [I mean all of that in a good way]. Oh, and the occasional crazy, laughable or just plain disturbing knee-jerk reaction thrown in for kicks. I wanna say a few things to a few people on here:

Dianne - one of the main problems I've always had with every religion is the fact that their texts are by their nature mutable; translated thousands of times, rich in metaphors that are easy to misunderstand, and inevitably coloured by whoever is giving them the once-over at the time. As an extension of this I have difficulty understanding followers that resolutely believe their chosen texts are the direct word of their deity, and it's really good to hear a believer taking these things into consideration and looking at the material a little deeper.

Covert7 and especially mnuez - I think you're looking at this all wrong. I don't believe god as such [note I refuse to capitalise the word], and it's not heaven and hell that motivate me. What does stop me thinking 'sod it all I'm just gonna rot anyway', is that there are other people in the world. Making the world a better place [or in my lazy way at least trying to avoid making it worse] is something I consider important and worthwhile because there will be millions of people coming after me that will benefit if I succeed. I strongly believe that we should be motivated by people, not religion, and the suggestion that atheists may be amoral [that is, without moral motivation rather than actively evil] is still rather insulting. Religion doesn’t have the monopoly in morals, you know; you can have morals without religion and indeed religion without morals. [IceSword2 said that "If there is no God, and death is really the end, then life is the most precious commodity imaginable" and I heartily agree - grab it by the nips and swing, but don't mess it up for others whilst you do it].

Sondra - I haven't read the Koran [spelt that way on the cover] or any other permutation of - but I would urge you to remember that a large number of religious texts threaten violence [either by motivating their followers to harm others or by making it clear god will do you a mischief] and also that there are a staggering number of variations of each religious text; my main experiences with religion is Christianity in its various forms and as a gay man I've met Christians that accept me on a 'love the sinner but hate the sin' basis, Christians that don’t care either way, Christians that want to save me, Christians that want to tie me up and burn Satan out of me with pokers, and Christians that just plain want [and have tried] to kill me - and each of them are confident they can point to their Bibles and show me the justification for their viewpoint. It's just not as simple as quoting page numbers.

And finally Will Von Wizzlepig - I agree completely that every religious concept of god, and every religion itself, is a construction of man. The core notion of 'god' is something that humans can't hope to understand, a form of life or superlife that is on such a completely different level and trying to define it - which every religion does, telling us what their god wants and doesn’t want from you, what you must and must not do to please it and so on - is just trying to make something awesome fit into our relatively narrow frame of reference. I've heard there's a chemical in the brain that prevents us from dwelling on the prospect of death, because it is so unknowable [note: belief is not knowledge, so don’t go there] that it would actually hurt us to try and process it. Scientists, mathematicians and philosophers have gone insane pondering what infinity really means, what it would really mean to carry on for all of time [because even our understanding of time is finite, we measure it in neat quantities that begin and end]. Similarly, the inability to realistically conceive of what a god-like being is actually, er, like results in a tattered mess of contradictory patterns known colloquially as 'religion' and immediately suggests two things to me: 1] if there is such a force equivalent to god, no religion could ever hope to capture it even though every religion could be looking at aspects of exactly the same thing in wildly different ways and 2] god is a meaningless concept generated to cover all that big thinking that would pull our synapses apart, and while what we're all looking for might exist, we're all searching in the wrong place. I'm fond of this two-point argument as you can use it to explain why you don’t believe in god, and why you do.

Posted by: ipsissimus_clay | July 31, 2007 at 12:28 PM

I can't prove that world exists, outside my perception/contiousness.
In that case, it's likely that whatever I believe, is true.

By bet is on infinite-booze-and-hookers religion ;)

Posted by: kl | July 31, 2007 at 11:50 AM

I just want to point out that ironically, Muslims believe that when the apocalypse arrives, there will be very few Muslims in the world.

Posted by: Shan | July 31, 2007 at 11:19 AM

Enjoyed both of these posts greatly, not least because I spent an interesting ride home from work trying to come up with a counterargument that didn't involve waving my hand and saying "Bah, that's just silly."

Best I could come up with is inspired by counter to the ontological argument that becomes a cunning disproof of God. It goes like this:

If there is no God, no aferlife, nothing beyond what's here then the fraction of time that you're alive in is infitessimal. This, by my incredibly shoddy grasp of economics and slightly better grasp of mathematics, potentially gives every instant of an atheist-in-a-godless-world's life infinite value. Of course, value's also in the eye of the beholder, so the only way to see the true value of your life if there was no God would be to accept that there that truth. If you didn't, you'd be undervaluing your own life (and of course everyone else around you) by an infinity.

Quite an expensive Sunday mornings work really.

Posted by: Mark | July 31, 2007 at 10:43 AM

Posted by: Mark | July 31, 2007 at 10:41 AM

The idea in which "God rewards skeptics" that seems implausible to you is less implausible in a setting in which God is not an anthropomorphic entity, or doesn't exist but there is an afterlife. If, for example, the afterlife were to be a reflection of your own life, or just going through it over and over again, or living a random one of the lives that is affected by yours, then being a 'good person' or living life for your own amusement would be better than living miserably to please a God that turns out not to exist. Infinitely better, in fact, if it's an eternity of any of those three options. So that's three cases in which a happy skeptic wins infinitely by betting against Pascal, versus Pascal's one case (there is the Christian god (er, the specific one you chose, Catholic or whatever, quite possibly)) where you'd win by betting with him.

Posted by: RavenBlack | July 31, 2007 at 10:19 AM

The most reasonable absurdity to me is to diversify the risk of eternal damnation.

My strategy is learning about all the religions (as my God-given mental capacity or moist-robot processing ability will allow) and picking what I believe is the best of each.

The purpose is convince the reasoning part of my brain that I am living a good life, and that I might just convince God, if it exists, that I am putting in some kind of effort.

This strategy allows me to enjoy my current life by not being so stressed out about the whole faith/damnation issue all the time; I think it gives me pretty good odds in the afterlife too.

My portfolio of course is mostly in the Big Five: Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism (judichrishindslambud or JCIHB for short); these are the biggest movers, so there’s bound to be some smart money in there, I don’t fret with minor denominations of each.

I’ve also got some agnosticism and atheism mixed in there just to hedge against any “I told you so” comments from smug atheists in the afterlife, I’d hate that. Some paganism and other earth-oriented faiths are also included, because sometimes I’d like to think that I can get some kind of results from talking to a rock or by dancing around a bonfire chanting, if not at least its fun.

I keep up on the news to see how each is doing; Scott made a good point with the moderate Islam today, so I’ll be shifting some shares this morning. I also keep a book of each faith handy, for reference and for any spur-of-the-moment exorcisms, and now the theories of Spinoza and Pascal. I’ve left a window open to reincarnation so maybe I should start working on a portfolio for that life too.

"Jesus, Allah, Buddha; I love you all!"

Posted by: Berimbau_one | July 31, 2007 at 09:37 AM

Pascal's Wager makes no claim whatsoever with regards to helping you sort fact from fiction.

Its important to keep that in mind.

Now for the mathematical analysis:

Pascal's Wager simply tells you that for any threat of infinite magnitude, no matter how infintesmal the likelihood, it is well worth taking *ANY CONCEIVABLE FINITE AMOUNT* of action to avoid the threatened outcome.

Consider the implications.

If you subscribe to this logic, and fail to assign a probability of zero to the threat, then you will be convinced that its worth doing ANYTHING to obviate the infinite threat. You would be willing to do ANYTHING to YOURSELF or to ANYBODY ELSE. And you'd try (IN ANY WAY POSSIBLE) to make others do the same.

Drink this camel piss. Wow, is that all? Kill your family, then yourself. No Problem. Become a martyr. Yes, Sir.

You become the terrified and helpless puppet, controlled by the threatener.

On a lighter note - it might have been amusing to have known Pascal in person.

You could tell him he has a choice, (to exercise his free-will of course) - Either he allows you to kick him in the balls, or he risks having you send him to hell in the afterlife. How can he be sure that you couldn't arrange it? You might be a really close friend of God, and have a little influence in these matters.

See if he practices what he preached.. I wonder exactly how many kicks he'd stand for.

Funny, I've always heard that it's FAITH that gets you to heaven, but Pascal's Wager seems to operate entirely on DOUBT.

Lastly, Pascal's Wager leans on the claim that beliefs can be produced by an act of will.

In that case, if I ever found myself in Hell, I'd simply choose to believe that it's a wonderful place. Lovely. Absolutely.

Or you could convince yourself that it's your last day there and you'll be in Paradise very, very shortly. You'd be continually wetting your pants with the pleasure of anticipation. Delicious. They say the pleasure of anticipation can exceed the pleasure of actual experience, no? And no amount of evidence to the contrary will make any difference if you have 'True Faith'(tm). As you'll certainly appreciate the billionth time your hopes are dashed - There'll always be tomorrow in Paradise to look forward to.

By the way, technically speaking, Pascal's Wager doesn't even need the threat of hell, does it? Simply having an itchy pimple on your butt-cheek for all eternity could be considered infinite suffering, according to the mathematics.

I think multiplying by eternity/infinity seems to cause a logical overflow error, similar to division by zero.

Have you ever wondered what it's like? Eternity? Well guess what? Aren't we already in it? There may be a lot of it, but it only happens a day at a time. By the way, if you believe in God and his punitive nature, and if you've got a pimple on your butt, then just maybe you've already started serving your sentence...

Anyway, time can be much more about your perception of it, than the ticking of a clock.

In everyday life, at low levels of concious awareness, time just seems to pass you by. (Think about sleeping, or going under general anaesthetic - That really makes time disappear!)

Imagine what it would be like to be annihalated, and perhaps reformed again by pure chance. A perfect duplicate at the quantum level, after a number of cycles of big-bangs and big-crunches that approaches infinity. Given an eternity, you might even consider it to be inevitable. Maybe there is a multi-verse which is time-division-multiplexed, rather than dimensionally multiplexed.

I like to think that I might personally experience an intervening state of annihilation as less than the blink of an eye.

I love the fact that, given an eternity, anything could happen, or perhaps even nothing will, who knows?
And I've often felt that I should catch up on sleep..

Posted by: Kent | July 31, 2007 at 09:09 AM

There's always the option of choosing none of the absurdities. That's the only rational decision.

Posted by: Eric | July 31, 2007 at 08:58 AM

Ok, there's a shitton of comments, so I haven't read them all, so forgive me if these things have been said already:

A) Wouldn't (assuming your trying to pick the correct christian religion) the best bet be to read the bible (or at least some manner of cliff notes) and see who's actually trying to live up to it? I mean, if that's what they all claim to be holy writ or whatever, than wouldn't the people who do the best at meeting that standard be the guy who save your ass?

And B) If god is omnipotent, won't he understand the reasons behind your skeptisicm, and favor you because you actually thought about it, as opposed to the millions of people who go to church because they're just afraid of hell?

Posted by: d34n | July 31, 2007 at 08:58 AM

Why would God create such a vast Universe without populating it entirely with life or giving any means of populating it with more human beings?

Posted by: redblue | July 31, 2007 at 08:46 AM

I don't consider myself an "Atheist" due to my being far too rational. I can't argue that there isn't a god simply because that would imply there's a potential for there to be a god in the common sense of the term.

This is the major flaw in Pascal's Wager. While you can come to many rational conclusions, they are all based upon whether or not there is a god that exists. Santa has many of the same arguments, yet at some point, because we are rational human beings, we come to the realization that Santa does not exist - and then Christmas is just a great holiday for getting together and spending some time with family and friends and getting presents.

And how great would life be if everyone else realised that there wasn't a god, this was just "life", and we should just try to live and do the best we can.

Posted by: Oddity | July 31, 2007 at 08:41 AM

Fawn knows what's what.

Posted by: Bilious Prudence | July 31, 2007 at 08:40 AM

Mark Robinson, Eindhoven - please go euthanize yourself immediately. When you have checked out your notions in the only reliable way (you being dead) please report back to me with your observations...quickly now people are waiting.

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Pascal’s Wager

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