Pascal's Wager Gives a Sound Argument That One Should Believe in God

Pascal's Wager is as follows: "Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) offers a pragmatic reason for believing in God: even under the assumption that God"s existence is unlikely, the potential benefits of believing are so vast as to make betting on theism rational." [1] However, this argument is flawed. Contention One: Genuineness The standard by which this argument assumes God is that God, if he exists, rewards those who believe in him. However, this is an ultimately unfounded assumption because nothing in the definition of God (a maximally great [entity] that would be omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient, and all good [2]) suggests this. However, even if we accept this idea, we are then faced with the problem that basing a belief on a mercenary bet does not actually result in genuine belief. To quote: "According to doxastic voluntarism, believing and disbelieving are choices that are up to us to make. Intellectualists deny this; they say it is impossible to adopt a belief simply because we decide to. If I offered to pay you $1000 for believing the sky is green, for instance, could you sincerely adopt this belief simply by wishing to? Evidently not. Therefore, some say, Pascal"s wager does not give legitimate grounds for believing in God. But although we cannot adopt a belief simply by deciding to, the same is true for other actions. For instance, we cannot go to school simply by deciding to; rather, we have to wake up by a certain time (which may mean first developing a certain kind of habit), we must get dressed, we must put one foot in front of another, and so forth. Then if we are lucky we will end up at our destination, though this is far from guaranteed. So it goes for any other endeavor in life: one chooses to become a doctor, or to marry by age 30, or to live in the tropics " the attainment of such goals can be facilitated, though not purely willed, by appropriate micro-steps that are more nearly under voluntary control. Indeed, even twitching your little finger is not entirely a matter of volition, as its success depends on a functioning neural system running from your brain, through your spine, and down your arm. Your minutest action is a joint product of internal volition and external contingencies. The same applies to theistic belief: although you cannot simply decide to be a theist, you can choose to read one-sided literature, you can choose to join a highly religious community, you can try to induce mystical experiences by ingesting psychedelic drugs like LSD, and you can choose to chant and pray. No mere exercise of will can guarantee that you will end up believing in God..." [3] Contention Two: False Dichotomy When presented with Pascal's Wager, we are given a false dichotomy: believe in God, or do not believe in God. While this first appears to be sound via disjunction introduction, the first option is in reality merely a compartmentalization of many more options, believing in Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Animism, Paganism, Daoism, etc. At first this may seem to be splitting hairs, as Universalists insist that belief in any God is adequate. However, this idea breaks down when we see religions condemning each other. "You shall have no other gods before me." - Exodus 20:3 [4] Therefore, the simplistic idea held to previously that it is only necessary to believe in a God for infinite reward has now been shattered, as many religions supply that other believers are doomed. Even denominations condemn other denominations, sunnis condemning shias, catholics condemning protestants, hasidic jews condemning reform jews. Given the veritable thousands of options one has to choose from, the probability of infinite reward for choosing the right God has been shrunk to infinitesimally small proportions. And since every religion is unavailable to those who came before it, we have no way of knowing if the "true" God belongs to a religion that hasn't even been invented yet. We simply must accept the we have no way of knowing whether the "true" God is Yahweh, Allah, or even Cthulhu. Contention Three: Probability One might claim that no matter how unlikely one is to choose the correct God, all that matters is that the probability exists. To quote: "It"s unlikely that the probability of God"s existing is exactly one-half, but this does not matter. Due to the infinite value[...], if God"s existence has any finite probability then the expectation for believing in God will be infinite." [5] At first this appears to be a sound reasoning, but this falls under two main objections. Subpoint A: Unknowability When dealing with the nature of a God, assuming tenets about this nature is absurd. Pascal himself admits this. "If there is a God, He is infinitely incomprehensible...reason can decide nothing here." - Blaise Pascal. When dealing with a deity that we can admittedly know nothing for certain about beyond its definition, to assume that this deity rewards believers is absurd. In fact, since the tenets of this deity are unknowable, any behavior we make is just as likely to be rewarded by that deity as it is to be punished. Therefore, an atheist is exactly is as likely to receive an infinite reward for their beliefs as an infinite punishment, as is a theist of any religion. This idea may seem strange or alien, but when dealing with a deity about which nothing can be known, any possibility is as likely as any other. Since the likelihood for any outcome is as likely to be positive infinity as it is to be negative, the expected values cancel out, leaving the payoffs for any belief, atheistic or theistic, at exactly zero. Subpoint B: Self-Contradiction Even if we ignore the above, we still need to understand that although the infinite reward and punishment do provide a dominant strategy for any probability of choosing the correct God, this only applies if that probability is greater than zero. However, given our definition of God (a maximally great [entity] that would be omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient, and all good) there are some contradictions in the basic nature of this entity that reduce the probability of His existence to zero. The paradox of the stone (If God can do anything, can God create a rock so heavy he cannot lift it?), the problem of evil (If God is all-powerful, all-good, and all-knowing, how can bad things exist?), the prediction paradox (If God is all-knowing he knows what He will do, but if He is all-powerful, He can change it to falsify his knowledge), and the list goes on. In essence, when infinite sets are combined with self-referentiality (essentially the definition of God), the result is always a paradox. And a paradox cannot exist in reality. Over to you, Pro. [1] http://www.iep.utm.edu...... [2] http://plato.stanford.edu...... [3] http://www.iep.utm.edu...... [4] http://biblehub.com...... [5] http://www.iep.utm.edu......