What if you're wrong?

When all the discussion and argumentation is over and the smoke has cleared – what if you're wrong? For me too, once I had left all the remnants of what used to be my faith, I walked away with that one lingering, unshakeable thought... What if you're wrong?

What if, despite the lack of evidence, it turns out there is a god and you choose to turn your back on him. What do you think will happen to your eternal soul when you die? The risk of non-belief is just too high a price to pay!

The reason this concept is so hard to shake, so overwhelmingly real is that it is one of the first, core concepts to be used as indoctrination into the little ones – even before they are old enough to understand, they are taught the price of disbelief. It is the stick part of 'the carrot and the stick' approach to maintaining order and disciplining children.

This is known as Pascal's Wager.

"Let us weigh the gain and the loss in wagering that God is. Let us estimate these two chances. If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation that He is. There is here an infinity of an infinitely happy life to gain, a chance of gain against a finite number of chances of loss, and what you stake is finite. And so our proposition is of infinite force when there is the finite to stake in a game where there are equal risks of gain and of loss, and the infinite to gain."

Pascal’s Wager is an argument put forward by seventeenth century French philosopher, mathematician and physicist Blaise Pascal. He proposed that people bet with their lives that god either exists or does not. He argues that a rational person should live as though god exists and seek to believe in god. The wager presents one of four possible outcomes:

If god does not actually exist, and a person believes in god – there is no harm done.
If god does not actually exist, and a person does not believe in god – there too is no harm done – that non-belief doesn’t make any difference.
But,
If god does actually exist and a person believes in god – that person will receive an infinite reward of an eternity in heaven.
If god does actually exist and a person does not believe in god – that person loses the wager and will be punished with an eternity in hell.

So, according to Monsieur Pascal it is safer to wager on the existence of god.

On the face of it this argument seems perfectly reasonable. Rather believe in a god than risk the consequences if you’re wrong. There are a couple of problems with this though. We would first need to define the god; which god are we talking about? Over the many centuries man has worshipped thousands of gods. Many have disappeared into the mists of time while several others are still being worshipped today. To the Christians it would be clear – Yahweh obviously. To the Muslims it would be clear – Allah obviously. To the Zoroastrians it would be clear – Ahuru Mazda obviously.

As Sam Harris puts it, think how much sleep you haven't lost worrying about the hells of other religions.
If you're a Christian:
What if you're wrong and the Muslims are right and Allah is the true god. You've placed your wager on a losing outcome and you're going to the Muslim hell.
What if you're wrong and Odin is the true god. You too have placed your wager on a losing outcome and don't get to spend an eternity in Valhalla but are sent to their version of hell.

There is no reason to place your bet on belief in Yahweh any more than there is to place your bet on the belief in Zeus, Thor, Baiame, Huitzilopochtli, Wakan Tanka, Brahma or any of the other thousands of gods. This wager is important, so choose wisely!

The second issue has to do with choosing what you believe. You cannot choose your beliefs, you become convinced. Can you, for example, suddenly choose to believe you have the ability to fly? You may fool yourself into believing you can, but it will take something like jumping off a building and frantically flapping your arms up and down to discover your belief was not justified. It is possible to come to a belief for good reasons as well as bad reasons.

The other issue regarding belief as far as the wager is concerned, according to Pascal, is even if you don't believe, pretend you do, live your life as if you do. Essentially fake it till you make it!

I find it hard to comprehend that any omnipotent god wouldn't see through all the fakery in a moment. I wouldn't like someone to pretend they believe in me – that seems like the demand of an awfully shallow and insecure supreme being. How could a logical god expect belief on insufficient evidence, deliberately withheld, for his existence?