Pascal's Wager is a Sound Argument to Believe in God

( http://plato.stanford.edu... ) All of your points of contention have been answered for in the above article however I will address them individually. 1. "Indeed, it might not matter whether we can choose to have the beliefs we have. If Tables I or II be right then the fact would remain that it is pragmatically better to believe in God than not, insofar as theists, taken across all possible worlds, are on average better off than atheists. It does not matter whether theism results from personal will-power, God"s grace, or cosmic luck " regardless, being better off is being better off. Thus, Pascal"s wager need not succeed as a tool of persuasion for it to serve as a tool of assessment (Mougin & Sober 1994).", this is a part of (http://www.iep.utm.edu...) your article. I assert that Pascal's Wager is not a question of the value of belief choice but instead the value of pragmatism. "The Odds" if you will. So the latter paragraph is sufficient in your section you quoted to validate this. 2. As with the above the question of "Which deity" exceeds the values of the point. "Finally, Bartha (2012) models one's probability assignments to various theistic hypotheses as evolving over time according to a "deliberational dynamics" somewhat analogous to the dynamics of evolution by natural selection. So understood, Pascal's Wager is not a single decision, but rather a sequence of decisions in which one's probabilities update sequentially in proportion to how choiceworthy each God appeared to be in the previous round. (This relies on a sophisticated handling of infinite utilities in terms of utility ratios given in his (2007); see below.) He argues that a given probability assignment is choiceworthy only if it is an equilibrium of this deliberational dynamics. He shows that certain assignments are choiceworthy by this criterion, thus providing a kind of vindication of Pascal against the many Gods objection." (http://plato.stanford.edu..., Objections, point #5) In essence the question asked is "Do I believe in a deity"? The question of "Which deity" lies beyond the original question however so it is not the same question. The previous question only has two answers: "Yes" and "No". 50/50. "Did I choose the right deity?" is a different matter. To illustrate take a simple cup game. There are two decisions in any given version of this game: A. "Do I play?" B. "What cup do I pick?" Question B does not effect question A, so the matrix for A is 2x2 where you measure the Opportunity Cost. 3a. That's exactly why it works. Since reason cannot be applied the question falls less on the nature of the game and more on the actual Opportunity Cost to the player. The proposition is simply "I am choosing whether or not to believe in X.", this naturally incorporates all belief claims that come with it, tenets as well, which means that there is no absurdity in the decision. Let's go back to the cup game; there are two cups, you just have to pick one, and if you find the ball beneath it you win, it costs $1 to play. If the ball is green you also win $10,000 a year for life. If the ball is any other color you win your money back rate. There are four opportunity costs, A. You play, and win, and the ball is green, you profit "eternally". B. You play, and win, but the ball is not blue, you profit from the opportunity cost alone. C. You play, and lose, you still profit from the opportunity cost alone. D. You don't play, you simply lose the opportunity cost. D is the worst option because it is the only one where the odds of winning are 0%. So the actual nature of the belief claim does not matter as it inherently is just a question of whether to ascribe in the first place thus again exiting the scope of the wager. 3b. This undermines itself because as you quoted: "If there is a God, He is infinitely incomprehensible...reason can decide nothing here." - Blaise Pascal There is no self-contradiction unless you presume a specific entity (which you are) which does not effect the wager anyway. For instance if you decided to believe in a Taoist deity the odds in the wager do not change (because it's just a question of whether to take that step in the first place) no matter what the nature of the deity is. Since this focuses on a very specific definition of a deity there's really no value to it. You can't (according to Pascal) reason for it; this question is actually a question beneath a question in a string of questions: A. Do I believe? B. Which deity? ... F(?). Is this theological construct sensible? This is not a theological question.