The
Rational Argumentator
An Atheist's Response to Pascal's Wager
Pascal’s Wager is one of the more respectable arguments in
favor of religion. As an atheist, I am nonetheless sympathetic to this
argument, because it attempts to use reason
to actually persuade people to
believe in God, rather than circularly using the Bible as a reason to believe
in the truth of the Bible. Of course, as an atheist, I also believe that
Pascal’s Wager is a mistaken argument. But here I will give it the
consideration it deserves.
Pascal’s
Wager is named after Blaise Pascal, a 17th-century mathematician and
philosopher, also known for his invention of one of the first mechanical calculators.
This is the essence of the argument. If one believes in God and ends up being
wrong, one has nothing to lose; one’s ultimate fate is no worse than if one did
not believe in God and ended up being right. On the other hand, if one believes
in God and ends up being right, one has everything to gain – especially an
eternal life full of bliss.
Pascal is
to be commended for examining two possible outcomes and their implications.
However, he fails to grasp the full range of the possibilities. Pascal only
explores the possible outcomes if one
chooses to believe in God. He fails, however, to consider the possible
outcomes if one chooses not to believe in
God.
So let us refine Pascal’s
argument a bit and consider it then. We must consider not one but two different alternatives. One can
either believe in God or not believe in God, and in each case one can either be
right or wrong. So there are in fact four possibilities.
Someone who
believes in God and is right will go to Heaven.
Someone who
believes in God and is wrong will simply cease to exist after death – if it is
indeed the case that death is a cessation of one’s being and individuality.
Someone who
does not believe in God and is wrong will go to Hell – to assume the worst-case
scenario.
Someone who
does not believe in God and is right, if he dies, will cease to exist just like
the believer who is wrong.
Even if we
grant that Heaven is better than Hell, from an atheist’s perspective, Hell is not the worst possible outcome. The
worst possible outcome is the one that the atheist already assumes to be the case after death. In Hell, one may suffer
horribly, but one still retains one’s individuality, sensations, and thoughts.
The sheer nonexistence that an atheist believes to follow death is much more
frightening – so frightening that, unlike Heaven or Hell, it is not even
conceivable for an existing individual.
So, if I do
not believe in God and happen to be
wrong and go to Hell, I will still be
much better off than if I believed in God and were wrong and ceased to exist. No
matter how greatly God may punish me for disbelief, the punishment will pale in
comparison to what I already think is coming.
But it is
still not enough to consider the four alternatives in terms of what happens
after death. It is also important to look at how a choice to believe or not
affects one’s life in terms of time spent
doing particular things – attending church services, uttering prayers, and
partaking in numerous ceremonies – as well as the foregone opportunities that
this time could have been devoted to.
This is not to mention the lost opportunities from various dietary prohibitions,
prohibitions on work, and tradition-based restrictions that seem to have little
to do with abstract theology.
So it is
not the case that someone who believes has nothing
to lose; he has a tremendous amount of time and foregone opportunities to
lose. I like doing work on Sundays, and the time I would spend attending church
would be wasted if I believed in God and were wrong, but would be well spent if
I did not believe in God and were right. This time would even be well spent if
I disbelieved in God and were wrong – because I would still accomplish
something real in this world during it. Believe me, all those Sundays add up.
Furthermore,
if non-existence after death is worse than Hell, then that, and not the possibility of Hell, is the foremost problem that
needs to be addressed. If this were the year 1900, I would not have a chance of
plausibly saying this, but we are on the verge of astonishing medical
breakthroughs that will at the least dramatically expand the human lifespan in this world. If you are interested, I
urge you to look up the work of Aubrey de Grey and Ray Kurzweil – both
distinguished world-class scientists who believe that we can achieve
effectively indefinite longevity within
the next thirty to forty years. I can understand placing one’s bets on
eternal life in Heaven during an era in which eternal life in this world was definitely out of our
reach, but if the possibility of
existing indefinitely in this world – a world we can be sure of – is offered,
it is surely preferable to the mere faith
in existing forever in another world, for whose existence there is no
evidence.
So I hereby
invert the Pascal’s Wager argument and offer my own version – Stolyarov’s Wager
– for why you ought to exert your utmost efforts to extend your life in this world and to assist in any way you
can the technological developments that make this possible.
If you
believe in human life extension and are right, you have everything to win – a
happy, prosperous, indefinite life that you can be sure of in this world.
If you
believe in human life extension and are wrong, you cease to exist.
If you do
not believe in human life extension and are right, you cease to exist.
If you do
not believe in human life extension and are wrong, it may be that the effort
that you did not put in to promoting the idea was just enough for the possibility
not to come to pass. Then you will cease to exist.
Unlike the
fully developed version of Pascal’s Wager, the choice here is clear and
unambiguous. You have everything to gain and nothing to lose by focusing your
attention on this world and on extending your life in it.
This TRA feature has been edited in accordance with TRA’s Statement of Policy.
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Learn about Mr. Stolyarov's novel, Eden against the Colossus, here.Read Mr. Stolyarov's new comprehensive treatise, A Rational Cosmology, explicating such terms as the universe, matter, space, time, sound, light, life, consciousness, and volition, here.