Why You Should Believe in God: Pascal's Wager

Matt Fradd opens up a discussion about Pascal's Wager, the argument that lays out why—in the end— believing in God is more beneficial for us than not believing in God. He also wants to know what you think of Pascal's argument. Check out the video and leave your thoughts on the matter in the comments below.

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[michaelsalter]

Before I watched this video, I didn't know what Pascal's Wager was. I really like this argument, and I love the way Matt explained it.

[pinkylim]

Thank you for your cheerfulness. It really brighten my day.

[slnoll]

I’ve always thought that Pascal’s wager was the epitome of a false dilemma: either the one Christian god exists or he doesn’t and that is what you are wagering on. What about the possibility of multiple gods? What about a malevolent god? By the way, I am a practicing catholic, I am just playing devils advocate and trying to parse out the logic for others

[EssenceOfThought]

Formed a video response, linked below.

[Daz]

I don't know if its unique to this video or this channel, but I'm impressed by the general clear thinking and politeness of commentators, both Christian, Athiest and otherwise.

[deQI-vxpv]

The wager pushed me to study religion and now i'm a catholic

[bogdanstancu]

The problem is that belief is not a choice. I cannot believe that something is true only because I want it to be true. Even if I don't like the fact that I'm going to die, I cannot simply start believing that I'm immortal.
Let's say that an atheist is taken prisoner by ISIS; do you think that he will be able to simply choose to start believing that Allah exists and Mohammed was his prophet only because he wants to avoid being decapitated by the terrorists?

[goodoleCrick]

Pascal's Wager is not controversial. There are too many conflicting GODs out there for it to hold any weight.

[saracaselli]

What if you choose the wrong God? What if in the end another religion is the right one? You will have wasted a lifetime and also eternity...

[CHAZER-spcm]

FOR EVERYONE SAYING: Pascal's wager is purely based on fear of godly intervention. Fear should never be the reason for one's beliefs.

You should fear God. It says so in scripture (Psalm 112). Fear can give you imperfect contrition and makes a confession valid. However fear should NOT be the only thing to why you should believe in God, as God offers us so much more. Pascal's wager is good for people who are undecided and are looking into Christianity. This initial reasoning to why they SHOULD believe in God can lead on to more authentic relationship. I hope this helps! :D

[AtamMardes]

Pascal's Wager is actually an insult to God (if there is one) as it implies God is an unjust, unfair, cruel, unkind, irrational, thoughtless, and savage dictator that punishes those who didn't believe based on bad evidence (faith).

[dalesmith]

False dichotomy. The choices aren’t atheism or Christian theism. The choices are atheism or theism. The fact that theism can pertain to any number of gods renders the Wager meaningless.

When one chooses to believe which god should one believe in? Making the wrong theistic choice is no better than choosing non-belief.

It is better to always withhold belief in anything until there is sufficient evidence to support that belief.

[raikiri]

I understand the premise of the wager, but if I were to start "believing" in God on the basis of this wager then my belief would be false. It wouldn't be sincere. I'd only be hoping that God is real, not *believing* he is real.

[vickersonp]

I’m so glad God gave me a “Damascus Road” conversion. I went from being a loud mouthed atheist to a believer in less than a second. I don’t think Pascal’s wager would have worked on me. I don’t think the cerebral route would have worked either.
Instead God looked down from heaven, pointed at me and said, “I’ll have the loudmouth”. Thank you Lord.

[Kenny-rpiq]

But now you have to figure out which God to believe in.

[nathalieloujein]

In a college philosophy course, I did read Pascal's wager in English, a translated excerpt of his treatise. You did explain it well, as far as I can remember, and that was ages ago. I still remember it now, much later in life, because it has influenced my thoughts. There is merit to reading the philosopher's own words, though, as I think the impact is greater.
Why didn't you mention that Pascal (full name, Blaise Pascal) was a mathematician and physicist? The SI (Système International = International System) unit of pressure is the Pascal, abbreviate Pa. Pascal also invented the first mechanical calculator! This would have given a greater impact to your audience, in my opinion, because Pascal was both a scientist and believer!

[wxhxnek]

I think Pascal's wager is useful to reassure believers, but not to convince non-believers. This is because believers tend assume there are just two possibilities of significant likelyhood, that their One True God exists or that no god exists. Then the wager is convincing. Or they believe that their God is more likely to exist than any other one if a god or gods exist, which also makes the wager convincing. However, there could be as many gods as there are possible characteristics of a god, and for each god there could be an opposing god which rewards opposing beliefs or ways of living life. If one thinks there is a lack of evidence that one of these gods is more likely than the rest, the wager is unconvincing. From that point of view: whichever way you believe, or live your life, there is the same likelyhood that that you will be punished or rewarded after death. Choosing to lack belief in god A, is only as likely to get you eternally damned as believing in, and following the guidance of god A, because there is as much of a chance that a god -A exists that will damn you for for doing everything god A would want. This is a very rough explanation, but basically
you have to be convinced that your God is more likely to exist than all the other possible gods (which is a belief) in order for the wager to make sense, otherwise all beliefs, in any number of gods, give you a neutral chance of reward and punishment. Hence you must already have some predisposed belief in the greater likelyhood of your One True God existing for this argument to be convincing. An agnostic atheist has no reason to believe that any other god or anti-god is more likely to exist, so this makes the wager useless in convincing them if they analyze it logically. Hence you must first give a non-believer evidence of your God being a likelier possibility, or the wager justifiably doesn't make logical sense to them.

There are many other convincing arguments against the wager, and better explanations of the one I'm making out there. I recommend the RationalWiki page on Pascal's wager if you want some good criticisms of the wager to address. I'm paraphrasing this one from that page by the way. It gives a more rigorous explanation of it so I recommend you read it there before addressing my point.

[ahubbard]

I ask this question as a Protestant: which God do you bet on??? There are many to “bet” on...tons of different religion...

[southernbella]

Hilarious; I've used this exact same reasoning for believing in the existence of God before, I just didn't realize it was an actual, named argument!

[Zacpack]

So, since the wager is about avoiding punishment rather than seeking truth, I should choose to believe the religion with the greatest negative outcome for non-belief?