Pascal's Wager Not Debunked (#4): Answering the Top 5 Objections

In this video, I answer what I think are the top 5 objections to Pascal's Wager.
1) You can't force yourself to believe in God
2) Pascal's reasoning leads to absurdities
3) Pascal's Wager is immoral
4) The cost of commitment is just too high
5) Pascal's Wager ignores other gods/religions

Please watch the whole video and comment below if you have another objection to Pascal's Wager that you would like me to address.

Michael Rota covers additional objections in his book "Taking Pascal's Wager" so definitely purchase a copy for more.

[TestifyApologetics]

This series is awesome. I don't know how I've slept on it this long.

[agahpashtollah]

I am glad I came upon this. As an Agnostic Atheist I have been looking forward to defenses of Pascal’s Wager. This is also some of the most theologically unsound statements I have seen. Salvation does not require belief. As per your faith you will be staring at the gates of hell if you just live your life as per your god and not believe in him

[DennisMSulliva]

I don't think you understand Pascal. Check out the Wikipedia article: Pascal's Wager. He recognized that some people can't believe. He thought that the god would be pleased if they went through the motions of piety. I don't think he addressed the other big issue. Which god? There are mutually exclusive versions. There is I am the way, the truth, and the life.. No one comes to the father except through me. Vs the Muslim idea that it is beneath the god for him to have a child with a human woman.

[bradbrown]

As a fellow believer in JC, can someone commit to God without belief? Salvation is Believing loyalty. Rational choice to live a hollow (non believing) “Christian lifestyle” is not a Spiritual birth. It’s like wearing a parachute because the pilot says it will make your flight more comfortable.

[SupremeSkeptic]

Good job. Especially for the many gods objection. I completely agree.

May I ask what software you used to do the slides and animation?

The "selfish" part is confusing to me. Would it not be comparable to saying, "if someone eats food, that's selfish" ? Love your channel, God bless you.

[equaltemp]

What is this so-called "updated" version of Pascal's Wager? Please explain what it is and if it's legitimate.

[bronjo]

keep going bro!! thanks for the content

[MatthewFearnley]

Hmm, so around 4:15 it says the updated version is only intended for someone who thinks there at least a 50% chance of Christianity being true.

But if someone can be convinced there’s a 50% of Christianity being true, at this point couldn’t we rely on common sense rather than having to work through decision theory?

It seems like the updated wager can work in some cases on less than 50% certainty (e.g. you think taking the Wager gives a better outcome in both cases), but shouldn’t the lowest necessary probability (whatever it is) be used when arguing against the absurdities objection?

[prins]

If you think Pascal's Wager is valid and sound, you should worship an evil god because an evil god is more likely to punish you harshly for not believing in him while a good god is more likely to forgive/redeem you.
Thoughts?

[blakegiunta]

Awesome. Consider in the future breaking videos like this up (into one video per objection). They'd be more "crash course" and bite sized. Keep it up!

[someone]

A variant of objection 5 is that if a god or gods exists he/she/it/they may not want us to believe in him/her/it/they, and so may give an infinite punishment to theists, and an infinite reward to atheists.

[SupremeSkeptic]

Michael Rota's Pascal's wager indeed is a stronger version...

[chrisyoung]

I'm going to give you some help . The reason you do not get that the many gods destroys the wager is that you are convinced that the wager is right as it points at Christianity and you think that is right. The wager is aimed at atheists, we do not accept that there is evidence of a deity therefore there is no quality of a deity that we think is correct. We have no reason to think Yahweh more likely than Hanuman.

The "many gods" argument does not just mean adding in Islam and saying well it's the same/similar deity really so all fine.
You have to include ALL deities as Atheists see them as all having the same probability and we are talking about a probability wager hear not your belief. The number of boxes on your chart grow at least to the square of the number of deities (plus atheists and other variations) on the list. Your first two gave 4 boxes three gave 9 boxes. A thousand deities we could name from history would give a million boxes. From the fact that you trim your beard we know that you are not a biblical realist. So you are pragmatic in how you interpret the Bible. Yours is one of the many versions of Christianity. As there are numerous groups of Christians who claim that other groups are not Christian we can probably give many many lines just to Christianity. The boxes would have a huge variety of different contents. After you include the historical gods what about those that Mankind has not named or thought of yet? A Deity worshiped on another planet could have made the universe just for them and we are a byproduct, what does that deity think of Christianity? What do you put in that box. Now as a Christian you might think that is silly but from my view point you claim a deity that sends bears to kill children is loving. We are not arguing about evidence we are looking at the wager as a reason for picking some version of Christianity over any other position.

Kali is a deity she is evil what does she think of Christians?. Satan is a deity for some people maybe not you but is for others. It could be that the Satan -Christian box had the content Satan will judge others buy their deeds but all Christians are punished forever. Now if Satan turns out to be the correct guess it is better to have been an Atheist than a Christian. It does not matter if you think you can get rid of Satan on some ground there are many many other gods known and unknown that could be fitted into this and similar combinations that say Atheist is better in that instance than Christianity. The wager fails as there are just too many permutations to consider.
You can not even try worshiping all of them as "ONLY ME" is a common thread with the monotheists.
So with all those possible outcomes why would anybody guess at one branch of Christianity and pretend to believe it? It come back to evidence as always if you want me to believe in Christianity then prove it is correct.

[i_am_anxious]

Objection 1’s response;
Case and point, I feel like this argument is less about agnostic people and more about defacto and pure atheists. Sure, atheists can pray and ask for god to reveal himself, and sure, they can do several things that would be within their own capabilities, but this doesn’t mean they’ll actually believe, and if they don’t believe, even when they tried to, they still go to hell.

This can be applied to more people, such as ignostics (people who think the terms such as “god” are meaningless) and apathiests (people who don’t care if god exists or what comes after). And since many agnostics are apathiests, this response is valid to people who are up in the air about the issue, but not to people that are grounded in a different belief, don’t care or don’t think the terms are meaningful.

Essentially, yes, it’s about someone who believes at least there’s an at least 50% chance Christianity is true, but there are many people who fall outside this barrier, and thus this updated wager isn’t convincing to many people.

As an agnostic apathiest who isn’t going to assign probabilities to anything, this argument doesn’t make a difference to me.

The second response to an objection is somewhat valid. Since the updated wager has Christianity at at least 50%, I see the logic.

Objection 3’s response;

I agree. I never thought that the wager was immoral. However, this doesn’t validate or invalidate the wager itself, especially when you think there is a less than 50% chance that Christianity is true.

However, I disagree with version three’s objection, but since this is due to my personal experience I do not have actual evidence so I’ll let it stand :)

Objection 4’s response;

I feel like when you evaluate consequences, you may disagree with deeply religious people that are in your own circumstances and say they’re ignorant for facing consequences or not want to make that jump yourself. And what about the people in major and catastrophic circumstances? This objection still applies.

But what about when there’s major and not catastrophic consequences and you apply the reasoning to wager? Well, I’d say that, and this is just my opinion, forcing people to give up a lot of what they have just so they can believe in god is immoral. That no moral god would actually do this. I just don’t see it. If god was really all loving he wouldn’t require people to face major consequences.

This is also circumstantial. Maybe your friend wouldn’t want you to burden yourself, or maybe the person you’re asking is too scared to make that commitment.

Also, this is an analogy. It’s imperfect. I get where you’re coming from though.

It also depends on the person’s preexisting moral philosophy.

Catastrophic consequences? The same reasoning applies to previously; god wouldn’t force people to make that choice and would give them a pass, but let’s entertain this situation.

Say if I believe, I die. Fear of death is the root of all fear. Quite literally, it’s why humans have fears and all fears are connected to it in some way. If you’re afraid of public speaking, that can be tied to rejection. If you’re afraid of rejection, that can be tied to isolation. Isolation is one of our 8 innate fears, all of which connect to death.

In other words, if death, isolation, and pain are at stake, you can’t force someone to make an entirely logical choice. People will tend to fear death more than damnation.

Why? Because damnation is tied to pain. Pain is tied to death. The fear of hell is tied directly to death. Therefor, while some might fear severe consequences less than hell or denial of a relationship with god, others won’t due to how the brain works. Asking people to suppress their basic brain functions to make a choice won’t work a lot of the time.

Objection 5?

Well, the main argument I can value is that this part of Pascal’s wager relies on other things that are subjective. Some will determine Islam. Some will determine not Christianity.

Case and point, other people know a good amount of evidence based on god and are still atheists, or aren’t Christians to begin with.

Anyways, I think objections 1, 4 and 5 are the weakest.

[thescapegoatmechanism]

Nice video! You could use more from Pascal than Rota though. I feel like Pascal doesn’t ever get the attention he deserves.

Anyway, it’s good to see a pro-wager vid. Not many of them out there. Thomas Morris’ Making Sense of It All is another good read for a Pascal enthusiast.

[TheRealisticNihilist]

Do you have a discord account? I'd like to discuss objections with you.

[dogsdomain]

Why didnt you bring up Roko's Basalisk?

[EricBurke-uulw]

You said many words. I completely lost you. Let me put a wager forward, when you have to do cartwheels to prove your point. Is it really a good point?

[TheRealisticNihilist]

Wait, so if you think there's a 50% chance you'll get your money back and then some, it's rational to hand your money to the mugger?