PHILOSOPHY - Religion: Pascal's Wager

In this Wireless Philosophy video, Susanna Rinard (Harvard University) explains Pascal's Wager, Blaise Pascal's famous argument for belief in God. Lifting an approach from the gambling hall, Pascal argued that, given the odds and the potential payoff, belief in God is a really good deal. Even if the chance that God exists is low, rationality, he claimed, compels us to wager for God.

Subscribe!

More on Susanna Rinard:

----

Wi-Phi @ YouTube:

Wi-Phi @ Khan Academy:

Twitter:

Instagram:
@wiphiofficial

Facebook:

----

Help us caption & translate this video!

[SevenRiderAirForce]

"The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one. " ~GBS.

[michaelmaher]

The lottery ticket analogy doesn't work for Pascal's wager because the lottery doesn't send me to an infinite lottery hell if I don't buy the ticket lol

[DesGardius-megf]

"But what if we've chosen the wrong god? Then every time we go to church, we're just making the real one madder and madder."


—Homer Simpson

[kibaryuu]

Einstein: God does not play with dice.

Philosopher: What happens if he does?

[oliverpierce]

If you are using a risk management strategy rooted in self-interest to determine the truth, then the actual pursuit of the truth is not important to you. You are just hedging your bets like an after-life long-term investor. There may or may not be an absolute truth, but choosing a belief based on individual payoff just comes off as unenlightened. That being said, Pascal was a genius mathematician.

[dcairol]

Anyone else noticed that the name of the cat was Richard Pawkins? 😂

[joelallen]

I heard a Pascal scholar (Tom Morris at Notre Dame at the time) say many years ago that the wager has to be understood in the broader context of the Pensees in which reason has a very important role in faith. Pascal was not an irrationalist or fideist. He certainly didn't believe faith was simply a useful fiction! He believed in God for reasons. Read the Pensees - it is full of reasons. He was trying to convince his atheist and apathetic friends using arguments (not the traditional arguments of natural theology for which he had little time). The Wager was not an admission that there are no reasons! It was meant as a final push for those who might still remain on the fence even after considering all the other reasons Pascal had been providing. The wager was a response to someone who said something like, "I see all your evidence for God, Pascal, but you're expecting me to commit myself 100% and I don't feel like I have 100% confidence. So I remain undecided." Then and only then, he introduces the wager. Thus, the wager is broadly misunderstood and its real brilliance lost.

[DinoAlberini]

What if God exists and prefers non believers to believers because he happens to hate kissasses?

[yabbadabbindude]

I like Pascal's​ wager as a concept in regards to practical things like what do you to lose by having a spare tire in your car. but using it as some legitimate reasoning for lending credence to the existence of a god presupposes a black and white outcome that are equally legitimate. it's not just yes or no, it's many shades of no vs a singular yes

[jayit]

I think the biggest flaw with Pascal's wager is that one cannot choose what to believe. A claim either makes sense to you or does not. Your mind can change from the presentation of facts and logic, but you can't just simply flip a switch because you want to. No matter how hard I try, I can't genuinely believe that 2+5=9 unless someone was to come along and lay out a very convincing proof.

[Unknown-sgtv]

How to make time travel a good idea
1. Invent time machine.
2. Travel to the 23rd century.
3. Invent a device that can change the odds in the 23rd century.
4. Use probability device to make the odds certain that time travel is a good idea.

[JediHan]

I'm searching for the game Pascal's Wager but now I'm learning what the real meaning of those words lol.

[akshayagarwal]

Richard pawkins lol i was focused on that the whole time

[samuelmontypython]

I always thought I was alone in thinking this way. I’m 30 and I’ve only now heard of Pascal’s wager, but I’ve always thought this since I was a kid

[MicahBuzanANIMATION]

One of the many problems with Pascal's Wager is you can't choose to believe in something you don't believe in. It's completely absurd. It's like asking someone to believe that 2+2=5.

[GAMEDOG]

Pascal's Wager is refutable in one sentence.

For every possible god that will send you to hell for not believing and heaven for believing, there is a possible god with the opposite rules.

[mahanubhavs]

there can be a case in Pascal's wager where

1.A rational God exists who likes athiests because they have chosen rational side of arguements rather than lure of a reward..

2. Or there might be a god who only likes those that have lived a good selfless life. He doesn't care whether you believe on the divine or not..

3. Or Jainism might be true which doesn't even have a god but only a universal law which judges based on adherence to non-violence..


All 3 above have equal prospect of being true as Islam or Christianity.. there can be millions of possibilities in which afterlife exists but a god doesn't.. and in those possibilities there are millions of criteria on which a human will be judged..

Only a narrow minded person will limit Pascal's wager to belief..

[ChristianMetal]

This was a nuanced and informative presentation. Thanks for uploading :)

[WBWhiting]

About the second premise in the second version of the argument, 'Even if no god exists you are better off as a believer', that only works within that scenario if the believing majority oppress people who prefer the reality and truth over illusion. Posing the wager this way is nakedly asking another person to consciously join in hypocrisy and tyranny.

At least Pascal's original version (that says that it is not possible to know if a god even exists) isn't asking another person to join in oppressing the minority and suppressing the truth.

[ChrisLeeW]

Pascal is not REALLY believing, though