Atheists Are Wrong About This Argument for God

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OUR ANALYSES:

Pascal's Wager is usually presented online as an argument for God's existence - and it's just as quickly debunked.

But these debunkings often happen because people aren't informed about the context surrounding the wager. Blaise Pascal himself never intended the wager to be a proof of anything. He believed God could not be understood rationally and therefore that an argument that hinges upon reason (such as the wager) can never lead to true faith.

So when people say "if you only believe in God for a heavenly reward, that's not real faith" they are correct. But Pascal never claimed that it would anyway.

The other common counter argument is that there are thousands of possible religions. So the odds of the wager don't work out in your favor. Pascal forgot that other religions exist! Except he didn't - a considerable part of the Pensées (the book in which the wager appears) is dedicated to Pascal discussing why he thinks Christianity is the one true faith. You can disagree with his reasons for thinking so, but to claim that the wager itself doesn't work because of it, purposefully ignores the wider context of the book and presents Pascal as a naive shallow thinker who somehow overlooked the existence of other religions in a book about faith.

Ultimately, the wager is a pensée, a thought. A thought experiment meant to get you started on your religious journey. At least that's what Pascal intended. He laments that people don't think about the fate of their immortal soul at all, they just numbly go through life. But what is at stake in the afterlife, by necessity pales everything and anything that could ever happen in your earthly, finite, life.

Pascal's message is: start thinking about it. And the wager is meant to be a wake-up call for that.

[WeltgeistYT]

A more laid-back video, and a departure from the usual Schopenhauer/Nietzsche content. Do you like it?
Please subscribe if you like the video, apparently only 16% of our viewers are actually subscribed!

[qqqalo]

My biggest issue with Pascal's wager is how easily it can be applied to other scenarios.
For example, if I were to say "looking at a black cat will cause bad luck", would you look at that cat?
In this scenario, Pascal's wager too applies. If it is true, then looking at it will cause you harm. Otherwise, nothing will happen. Therefore, under the logic of Pascal's wager, it is logical to never look at the cat, reguardless of how absurd the original superstitious statement is.

This expands to any statement, and ultimately just leads to conformity with whatever others say. You simply continue in comfort, never seeking any more than what is given.

[alexmir]

Your video is educational, but it sounds like you're completely missing the point: as you said, the wager is meant to shock us into religious exploration, but you're not addressing the mechanism of this "shock", which is to induce a fear of hell. That's how pascal used it and that's how it's used today, regardless of any specific formulation of the wager. The atheist rebuttals, regardless of the specific wording they use that you might not approve of, try to point this out -- that this wager is empty. It pretends to employ reason (which is the entire reason it survived), while the real argument is purely emotional. By showing that the wager is "wrong", i.e. not meaning what it claims to mean, it is nullified. That's one of the main uses of reason: dispelling superstition, which is nothing more than customs which we follow for no other reason but the fear of imaginary consequences.

[davidddd]

Thank you for this video, the context is really helpful. I hope to see you explore other philosophers in the future!

[kendrickjahn]

I guess I've never been shocked into thinking that not only do I have a soul, but that it's at stake in regards to an afterlife. Those automatic assumptions have always been strange to me.

[poorknight]

I find it tiresome when atheists are criticised for not taking into account all the context and nuances of an argument like pascal’s wager and yet christians (most of whom probably havent read the rest of the book either) also cherry pick this wager in isolation (how many times do christians ask that tired question “what if you are wrong”) and think this is some slam dunk argument. Doubtless Pascal was a smart guy, but you can only refute the argument that is actually being applied.

[MacSmithVideo]

in other words, they are in fact good arguments, and Pascal just agrees with them that his wager is dumb. This video is a defense of Pascal, not his wager.

[RowanEmporer]

If pascal’s wager is meant to be a “wake up call”, then how is its purpose not an argument for theism?

[BitterDawn]

+1 on bringing in other philosophers into the discussion as this is one of my favourite channels.

[DavidPereiraLima]

If God exists I see no reason to believe the wager itself, because He certainly doesn't need petty blackmail.

[merchantman]

Atheistic text wall warning.

When people think of nothingness, many think that it is inherently bad. This is common and understandable, but this is not the only view. Some including myself, see nothingness as rewarding in itself. In doing so I only make one assumption, that being that burden is bad, which I think to be obvious. Which one could and should forward to for three reasons. No other state of being requires no burden. Burden is seemingly not truly fungible with reward. There is no existence, even if non-physical, that one could think of that would be free from this burden. Considering these three reasons the assumption of non-existence is the most positive regardless of reward thus showing that Pascal's Wager can be taken and non-existence in the after-life selected.

Existence inherently involves burden, even if non-physical. Consider a task, this can be any task. Any task that you considered by its nature, required burden. Whether it was a thought or twitch of a muscle, it was required. If you thought of the heavens or eternal life, then I ask how could such a thing be thinkable? I argue that there is no existence that is thinkable and does not require a burden.

No reward can fully offset the inherent burden of existence, even if non-physical. This is because no bad can be made up with any amount of good. This is seen in day-to-day life. No matter the task, no matter the enjoyment, there is a burden, even if it is enjoyed. By the end of the day, while one may find it worth the effort one can not say their burden is undone. This makes it by its nature, not exchangeable and thus non-fungible.

If all existence was burdensome, then we should look to the inverse. This is non-existence. As non-existence requires that one does not exist, it stands to reason that no task can be done. As no task can be done, then logically, there is no burden. This means that of all states of existence, only non-existence offers actual freedom.

In conclusion, if one claims that a lack burden is the greatest reward then it must be that non-existence is the most preferable

[edwardlawrence]

Billy Joel sang a song in which he said something like “Never argue with a crazy person. Don’t you know by now.” The wager is Pascal’s attempt to argue with crazy people. In an ideal world Pascal might be right, not this world.

[TwoDudesPhilosophy]

"Fire. God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob -- not of the philosophers and scholars." - Pascal

[cowlinator]

If, for Pascal's wager to work, I first have to be convinced that Christianity is the one true faith, then... it's pretty useless

[CarlChristensen-qj]

I'm not sure I agree with your counterargument for Pascal's Wager being applied to other religions. I get that Pascal knew they existed, and I understand that from his perspective Christianity was the one true religion, but how does that change the fact that your odds of selecting the correct option just changed from 50/50 to 1/1, 000+. Not to dismiss your point about people needing to pay more attention to our "immortal souls", but I think that is kind of the entire point of argument #2, that if you can't even reasonably convince someone that they have an immortal soul then why should they dedicate their life to preserving it? Especially when Christians aren't the only ones claiming to know what is best for their soul.

[KnightofEkron]

Pascal's wager is genuinely one of the dumbest things I've ever seen, and I say that as a theist. Pascal's wager only works if you make ALOT of arbitrary assumptions.

[frederipochard]

Pascal is utterly failing in his thoughts about god and religion because he is unable to question his own belief system to begin with.
You say he is concerned with the fate of each person's immortal soul int the afterlife? Yes and the problem there is that he is not proving that there are such an immortal soul and such two possible afterlives to begin with. It's a given in his "philosophy". Just like the existence of his god is a given.
You want me to be concerned with the fate of my immortal soul? Ok, first prove I have one. Then prove there is a god who is also concerned with it and who is both very good and very loving AND who is threatening this soul with eternal damnation and suffering if I'm not obeing very weird commands concerning very trivial things or things I have no control over.
So Pascal is trying to get out of this corner he is putting himself in by saying 'I can't prove any of this but you'd still better believe in all these things I said because there is more to gain if you do than if you don't". And that's just simply not a compelling argument at all because to be compelling... it would still require for Pascal to first prove the god and the religion he believed in were indeed "existing and therefore the only choice".
In these matters, Pascal's thoughts are just that, thoughts which basically means "opinions". He has no ground to stand on except his christian believes. It's just a very standard "begging the question" fallacious argument with absolutely no inherent value.
Despite what you're saying his "matrix" is all wrong and it's not rational at all. Why? Because the outcomes are rigged. Once again, Pascal is asserting that "Eternal happiness" and "Eternal Damnation" are actual possible outcomes but... he has no proof, not even a rationale demonstration of that. He is just asserting these two possibilities do exist. There is no rationality here, just an unsubstanciated belief. I could do the very same by hacking his matrix and say "God may exist or not, if you don't believe in him you end up with some eternal felicity because you escaped the Samsara to reach Nirvana where no god has control over the fate of your immortal soul". I would be implicitly asserting the existence of this immortal soul just like he did; only to differ on the possible fates of this soul in the afterlife. And I would have no more proof of my assertions and outcome proposals than he did... but no less proof either. Pure and idle speculation based on nothing but irrational believes. You are failing at rationality just as Pascal did. Sorry pal.
Pascal's wager is just a desperate attempt to wrap up religion in some seemingly rational argument. But as you said Pascal himself was very aware of that. And in the end he has to admit that in order to have faith you must... have faith. A tautological belief you cannot support with any level of rationality... except if you're an hypocrit and a fraud trying to hijack and twist rationality to support your unsubstanciated opinions and claims.
As for the arguments Pascal used to try anbd demonstrate his religion is the only real one. Most if not all of them are just "pro domo" arguments where only the claims of his religion are considered serious. Once again a bunch of "begging the question" fallacies where he was taking for granted what he was supposed to demonstrate. Utterly pathetic.

[ngoooderick]

Very amazing video❤ I have not realized those things before

[not_enough_space]

So, we're supposed to take it as rhetoric that merely looks like reasoning? And we shouldn't criticize the reasoning it appears to have, in virtue of it just being rhetoric? And people's poor reaction to it isn't considered evidence against its effectiveness as rhetoric?

[bongomcgurk]

Belief in a personal god cannot be reached through reason which is why faith is required to compensate for its lack of rational foundation.