Pascal's Wager is a Good Argument for Belief in God

1a. True, he has other "proofs," yet I find none of them convincing. You give an excellent example of why this is so: the dominance of Christianity throughout the world. I repeat once more, this is a classic argumentum ad populum fallacy. In the 1800s, the vast majority of the population believed that blood letting was an effective treatment for most diseases. That, however, does not make it true. Many of his other arguments, such as the argument that Jesus was foretold, rely on the assumption that the Bible is a reliable source. This is yet another fallacy: by assuming that the Bible is accurate, he is begging the question! Furthermore, none of these prove that the Catholic interpretation is the correct one. I would certainly call the validity of the Bible into question when it cannot even get the age of the earth correct, or when it claims that there was a world-wide flood 4,000 years ago. (Somebody should have told the ancient Egyptians about it... the Pyramids at Giza were constructed quite a while before the date of the flood that you can work out from the Bible.) However, this is a whole other debate, and it ultimately isn't that important because: 1b. We'll assume, for a brief moment, that his proofs ARE valid. Well then, Pascal's Wager is irrelevant, as it relies upon the uncertainty of God's existence. If one side is provable true, then the Wager is irrelevant because it relies on a degree of uncertainty. 1c. Yes, he wrote in a dominantly Christian Culture, but that's not relevant. Implicit in your admission and in your assertion that he proves the validity of the Catholic faith is that the Wager is only works if you assume that Christianity (and Catholicism in particular) is true. This also contradicts your earlier assertion that "the point here with the Wager is that the person finds himself in a position in which he cannot believe." 2. None of this presents any *rational* reason why we should remove Hinduism (or any other religion, for that matter) from consideration when considering the validity of the Wager. Because the wager relies on uncertainty, we must take into account every situation. None can be discarded unless they are demonstrably impossible. I repeat, the only way to remove any belief (and its consequences for believers and unbelievers) is to logically demonstrate that said belief cannot be true. 3. Well, we could go into a long discussion on the nature of faith versus that of evidence, but it isn't really all that important for my refutation. There still could be a deity that dislikes religious faith, for whatever unfathomable reason. 4. But this still rests on the assumption that it is passion, that it is emotion, that leads us away from belief. At least in my case, it isn't. It's the lack of evidence. I will not believe anything that does not have evidence for it. 5-7. That's just it. The wager says "if you choose belief, you cannot lose." You may posit a just God (I'll get back to this in a minute), but that doesn't mean that such a God is the only possible one. Remember, the Wager's central premise is the following: The worst that can happen to the believer is that he will rot in his grave and have no afterlife, good or bad, and that the best that can happen is eternal reward; the atheist, on the other hand, can, at best, only rot in his grave with no afterlife, and at worst suffer eternal punishment. The entire Wager rests upon this assumption. If this assumption is false, then the Wager falls apart. The existence of even one scenario in which it is preferable to be an atheist refutes the wager, because the underlying premise is no longer valid. I have proposed one such situation that you cannot disprove, and it is, if you go purely by the evidence, equally likely as Christianity. However, it doesn't NEED to be equally likely; it just needs to be plausible. Now, back to the "just God" argument. If the hypothetical God I posited is unjust for not yet revealing himself, then so was your God for the several thousand years in which is was known only to one tribe on the eastern side of the Mediterranean. The only difference is a matter of time: your God revealed himself earlier than my hypothetical God would have, but he still did not reveal himself or his wishes to the majority of the world until (relatively) recently in history. The typical Christian explanation for this is that he had to prepare the world for Christ to come. I could simply say the same for my hypothetical deity. He has to prepare the world for his revelation. It's a part of His plan, trust Him. Furthermore, I would contend that a God who punishes people if they come to a conclusion-- based on available evidence-- that he probably does not exist would be VERY unjust, especially since he punishes them with unimaginable torment for all eternity. But I digress. I also would ask you to consider one more thing. I assert that the best way to form a belief is by looking at the evidence and drawing rational conclusions. By reading (or, in my worthy opponent's case, participating in) debate, you indicate that you probably agree with this, on some level. Does Pascal's Wager present any evidence for God's existence? No! Therefore, it is not a good reason to believe, even if it is a temporary justification. That is not to say that there may not *be* good reasons to believe, as that would be a separate debate and off-topic here. It is merely to say that the Wager itself is not among those good reasons, as it presents no evidence for God's existence. ======== In conclusion, Pascal's Wager relies on multiple logical fallacies for its validity. In its purest form, it's a false dichotomy, and my opponent has attempted to defend it with an argumentum ad populum and by begging the question. He has not presented any logical reason for why we should not include Hinduism or Buddhism or any other religion, be it known or unknown, in our consideration of the Wager's validity. Furthermore, the mere fact that the Wager presents no evidence for God's existence indicates that it is not a good reason to believe, even if other good reasons do exist. I would like to thank Nohself for the debate. I see from your profile that this is your first debate here. Welcome to the community, and good luck with all your future debates!