The Logic of Religion--Belief in an After-life

In reference to the original question that you sought to debate, the argument about how Pascal's Wager (or your wager to believe in an afterlife) is logically inconsistent as a proposition answers it directly. Because you cannot prove that there is an afterlife or that it is a good afterlife (one that is desirable to enter), you cannot offer it as a weighing mechanism in terms of how we ought to live our lives in the present. However, lets go down the other arguments; I'd argue that there is a distinct alternative to using Pascal's Wager (the Atheist's Wager) which secures the same benefits as believing in an afterlife, and none of the harms (inconveniences to secular order). Assuming that religious edicts are usually restrictive, accepting your logic still promotes some degree of inconvenience, whereas by rejecting religious edicts and living a pure life would still lead you into the afterlife (a good Samaritan is always welcome, I suppose), and worst case scenario - you'll be remembered and revered for your altruistic contribution to the world. Thus, preferring the Atheist's Wager over belief in an afterlife or Pascal's Wager outweights in terms of benefits, as it reduces inconveniences. This covers the utilitarianist argument, because rejecting your model is comparatively better on a utilitarian scale than accepting it. Furthermore, the desirability of an afterlife comes into play here as well - there is no way to ensure that those sacrifices in the secular world are worth it at all! In other words, your current model assumes the chances of 50/50 (there either is an afterlife or is not), but it's more like 45%-55% once you factor in the probability of an undesirable afterlife. From a mathematical perspective, the probability of success is marginalized and the risk ought to be avoided. But even if we decide to gamble with these marginally acceptable chances, I'd argue that a deity would scorn us for gambling on his existence. After all, finding a faith is supposed to be one of the most sacred of all rites of passage that an individual goes through during his stay on Earth - trivializing that is callous and disgraceful. Onto the "so what" response, I'd say that a utilitarianist framework would say that the model under which you're operating (the Wager) is abusive because it decreases utils (measures of happiness) without a reason. Insofar as there is no marginal gain in the sacrifices, the sacrifices ought to be abolished - it is sadistic to enforce policies that harm individual liberties without a reason (from almost any moral framework: deontological, consequentialist, utilitarian, transcendentalist, etc). Onto "altruism", I say that the rebuttal is nonresponsive; my argument was that gambling on the existence of a god was wrong, not that altruism ought not be punished because of the alternative motive it represents. The arguments on coercion in an empirical setting (the American Indian and African examples) illustrate the harms of saying that "you ought to believe" as a utilitarian maxim, by saying that the harms such as ethnocentrism and cultural repression. These provide reasons why, aside from a logical perspective, why the Wager should be rejected. In comparison to the Atheist's Wager - Pascal's Wager and your analysis ought to be rejected because the Atheist's Wager provides a more utilitarian alternative.