Pascal's Wager does not warrant for a belief in god (Read Description)

KingDebater369, thanks for the interaction on Pascal's wager. It is a privilege to stand in the shadows of giants like Blaise Pascal who was a brilliant mathematician, inventor, and after whom we have named the computer programming language, PASCAL, Pascal's Triangle, and Pascal's wager. It is the latter point that we are debating. Does Pascal's Wager warrant belief in God? My opponent addresses the 2nd argument about insurance coverage and holds that the rebuttal will cover the 1st argument from Pascal. The objections to the 2nd argument miss the force of the argument, I believe. His counterargument is that the insured believes that it's 100% true that the insurance coverage will pay out which is greater than the 95% confidence rate in insured's own ability to drive without accident. There are two problems with this counterargument. One is fairly obvious. There is no 100% rate at which insurance companies will pay out. Many times claims are denied for various reasons, including willful fraud. People know this. Thus, no one (except maybe the very na"ve) would believe that the insurance will kick in 100% of the time for an accident. Two is an even bigger problem for my opponent and the central issue which is not addressed in his counterargument: rational people are still betting against themselves and their abilities, even when they are confident in these abilities! It doesn't matter the level of confidence that they have in their insurer's willingness to pay. That's irrelevant! The point is that they bet against themselves (with their own money!) when they drive with insurance. If people rationally bet against themselves, then they could certainly bet for God, even though they don't know the "ins" and "outs" of theology. People know their own abilities and competencies and are confident yet they rationally go against this fact. Therefore, it is irrational to say, "Well, I just don't know enough about God in order to wager my belief-system on him." Also, going back to the first argument (Pascal's rendition), KingDebater369 has short-changed this argument a bit, I think. In fact, properly understood, it will allay his fears that multiple gods make deciding rationally impossible. In effect, KingDebater is saying, "It's too confusing to choose which God; therefore, it's irrational to choose any god, so I choose no god." But Pascal address this response in his original argument! He is asking you to choose for or against his God because it is his God who offers this choice. Eternal bliss with Him or eternal unhappiness! When reference is made to choosing simply in a random fashion what god to believe in, that ignores that Pascal is asking you to choose whether you would bet on the Christian God or not. What other religion demonstrates the power of life over death through the resurrection? What other religion is so honest that it tells you that your good works will never gain you entrance to heaven (since you could have logically committed some atrocious deed to outweigh your good works)? In what other religion do you find the assurance of salvation that you have within Christianity? Even if you have significant doubts about these questions (and what skeptic wouldn't?), you still have to contend with Pascal's question. Would you bet on his God? His God is, after all, the one who he is proposing. He frames the question in terms of infinite numbers. You can know of their existence without knowing every particular or even whether they are odd or even. Furthermore, the assumption the KingDebater makes about Islam is incorrect. It is not better better to be an absolute disbeliever than to be a Christian or a Jew. In fact, Christians and Jews are called People of the Book in the Qur'an. I find it rather interesting that KingDebater refers to "deficits" and "sacrifices" that he would have to make to believe in the Christian God. Actually, it is the level of giving to charities (much higher among theists and religious believers than among skeptics) that usually motivates atheists and humanists to say, "Hey, we don't need a god to give more, even though we don't actually give more." So, KingDebater turns this whole point on its head and makes it a positive argument for disbelief. He would have to make sacrifices, give more to charity, give more of himself to this new god; therefore, he cannot make the decision. But the sacrifice is a positive thing -- it helps you benefit society by giving to charity and it improves your spiritual and mental health. Kingdebater cannot believe without sufficient grounds. That is a myth. We all espouse beliefs that we do not have sufficient grounds to hold. Whether due to custom or tradition or simply to our cultural prejudices, not one single person has completely rational beliefs or can perfectly articulate why they believe what they believe. They can give reasons but that is not to say that these reasons are not informed by their psychology and sociology and spirituality. My 2nd argument just illustrates this fact. In his opening, Kingdebater talks about the problem of having to make yourself believe. Another myth. Pascal is not asking anyone to make themselves believe. According to Pascal, the real problem is that we find ourselves too busy in life to reflect upon real, metaphysical choices. We are too preoccupied. It's not about making yourself believe anything; it's about reflectively considering your destiny in life. KingDebater asks whether believing in God is like believing in life on other planets. Well, there are similarities and dissimilarities. There is plenty of evidence for the existence of God. Just using the tools that he mentions will lead to a trail leading to God. Regarding the assumption of one God, it is rather simple to explain how this fits into Pascal's wager. In a polytheistic system, it does not make sense to have eternal bliss and punishment as outcomes. For one thing, there can't be any legitimate punishment for serving the wrong god since that god is merely one of many who could be worshiped. Furthermore, you wouldn't be worthy of any eternal happiness since you worshiped only one of many and there are many who could be revered. In a sense, Pascal's wager refutes polytheism since we have an intuitive sense of one God to whom we are accountable morally for our actions and beliefs. In summary, neither of the arguments for Pascal's wager or bet have been fully addressed or accurately rebutted by my opponent. The first argument, patterned after Pascal's original wager, maintains that just as we can know of the existence of something or someone rather vaguely without knowing its intimate qualities, so can we bet that God really exists without knowing his personal nature. My opponent's response to this is to attempt to find a plurality of gods. But Pascal shows that infinite numbers do exist so that we can, correspondingly, know that an infinite being exists. Even granting the trajectory of my opponent's objection does not obviate the need to accept or reject Pascal's wager for the Christian God. The second argument has been misunderstood by my opponent. He appears to believe that the presumed irrationality of betting against oneself, when one knows him or herself to be fully cognizant and rational, is not sufficient grounds for betting upon propositions that one may not be fully, 100% convinced of. As I show, the insured bets against themselves (somewhat irrationally) even if they counter-bet that their insurance pays out 100% (which I have shown to be a rather naive belief). For these reasons, it is rational to bet positively on God's existence and, therefore, Pascal's wager does warrant belief in God.