A recent set of conversations with
several people got me thinking about something I once believed in firmly. For
those of you unfamiliar is Pascal’s
Wager or Pascal’s gambit this Wikipedia article sums it up well. Basically
Pascal argues that since there’s a possibility that God does exist and the
economics of the afterlife depend on your belief in God that it is better (in a
economic sense spiritually) to believe in God. In other words a belief in God
may cause some temporal losses in this life, but the potentially infinite losses
in the afterlife of living with an atheistic viewpoint far outweigh and losses
in this life. And if it turns out that God doesn’t exist then the most you have
to lose is some kind of finite loss here in this life.
Having
grown up Christian, Pascal’s wager appealed to me when I grew older and found
contradictions in religion which raised doubts in me. Pascal having contributed
significantly to physics and mathematics was for me a good role model to base
my philosophy of life on. I was in fact very ok with the fact that even though
I might be missing out on some life experiences because of my beliefs (or
possibly persecution or ridicule) it was worth it. And if in fact God didn’t
exist then we’d all die and it wouldn’t matter in the slightest.
This
whole line of thought has really bothered me in recent years, in that
technically there is not justice if there is a God. There is justice perhaps in
a religious sense, but not justice in a truly equal justice sense. If God
exists and the atheists are wrong then all the believers get to mock the
atheists and send them to hell. In fact no matter what religion you are, you
will still get to say “well at least I believed in a God/gods” as they get some
kind of satisfaction in hell for choosing the wrong God. If atheists that don’t
believe in any afterlife are right then they will never get the satisfaction of
saying “ha I was right”. They will simply just die and disappear like the rest
of everyone.
All
humor aside, I have started to look into my initial evaluation of Pascal’s
wager. Recently I have looked into apatheism and almost
convinced myself that I was one. The truth is that I am not. If there was a God
and I knew about it I would change my life. If that/those God or gods was/were
just, merciful, and loving I would change my lifestyle to helping them accomplish
their goals. Those goals would ultimately be the happiness of others. In my
opinion this is accepting people for who they are (after all they would be
their creations and would want them accepted as just that) and helping them
become caring and loving human beings. If this/these God/gods was/were unjust I
would have to rethink my life. I am very strongly inclined to stick to a value
system. If the higher deity was unjust I would have to outweigh my eternal
punishments with compromising my values. I don’t know what I would do in the
situation, but I’m afraid I would choose eternal punishment over worshipping a
cruel heartless deity. So the only reason I’m not an apatheist is because I
fear compromising my values to worship a cruel God to save myself. This fear
gives me uncertainty so I cannot with surety say that if there was a cruel God
it would not change the way I live my life.
So why
do I bring up apatheism in a discussion about Pascal’s wager you ask. Well it’s
because Pascal’s wager is an “argument of assumptions” as the citation on Wikipedia
calls it. He approaches it from a Christian viewpoint which in my opinion is
the first mistake. If one believes and worships Jesus Christ then they are
wrong according to the God of Islam or Judaism. Will I get into heaven as a
Christian if Jesus wasn’t in fact the son of God, but merely a prophet or maybe
just a regular Jew? I don’t know. Will I get into heaven with a Christian God
as a Muslim? I’ve been told by many that I wouldn’t. So here’s my problem with
the whole wager, it’s based on assumptions that have just as much uncertainty
as the existence of a deity. There’s no statistics or numbers to create a valid
economic model.
So I am
an apatheist in that if I found out there was a loving God, I wouldn’t change a
thing in my life. I live by a standard that is to love others and respect and
honor their values. I avoid doing things to others that I know would hurt me. I
try to avoid judging others because they act different or say weird things, or
maybe even believe things that seem absurd to me. I do judge, it’s in our human
nature to, but I know that it’s against my value system to do it. I don’t think
I’m in a position to claim that others are sinning, but can only determine what
a sin is for me. I don’t do things I consider “sins”; in the same respect if
your “sins” are not negatively affecting someone else’s life, then I’m in no position
to call it a “sin”. So I feel that if God is a loving merciful God, he would
see that I am accomplishing his goals even if I didn’t believe in him. And if
he is loving and merciful he can overlook my faults and will understand that he
did not show proof of himself enough for me personally to believe in him. If he
is not loving and merciful than even if I did believe in him I doubt my life
would be worth much to him. So I will take Pascal’s wager from an apatheist
perspective. My losses here in this life are none, since I would live my life
as a loving caring person with or without a God. My losses in the afterlife are
(based on my assumptions) infinite if God is not loving, or none if he is. Either
way I have the same chances in the afterlife according to my assumptions, so it’s
economical to live the life I do.
My
whole argument with all of this is merely that any model of any God or religion
is based on assumptions. Those assumptions could be guided by inspiration, answers
to prayers, a holy book, etc… It’s fine to have a belief system, and it’s
perfectly ok to live your life according to your beliefs. When you start
telling others that their models will end them up in hell is where I have a
problem. They are basing their model of different assumptions, and you have no
right to take that away from them. So I will say this: the house always wins.
Whatever or whomever you bet your lifestyle on it won’t change the house rules.
No one knows for sure what those rules are, so whatever your wager just try to keep your hands on your own spiritual chips.
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