Ask a Catholic

[Jenny A]

Oh.

I think you may have a misunderstanding of Pascal's Wager. The goal of that is to give the person who is wavering between belief and unbelief a reason to move forward with belief by acting in ways that a believer would act such as going to church, reading the bible, praying, and posting in a good Catholic forum instead of in an atheist forum. Pascal's reasoning is that by doing the things that believers do, we become stronger in that self-identification.

That's not what Pascal said.  Pascal said the wager is not optional.  According to Pascal not believing is to place your bet against god.   Which is true in the sense that everyone either believes or does not.  Were the odds 50/50 or even 1 in 1000, I might consider it a rational choice to place my bet for god.



But he make a few errors in calculating the odds:

1. First he presumes that the probability is about equal equal for and against god;
2. Second is asserts that the choices are between the Christian god hypothesis and no god rather than considering all the other possibilities.
3. Third, he ignores the real cost of belief.

The funny part is that if you don't believe in god for rational reasons (like lack of evidence) then you know that chances of there being a god are remote, and wagering on a particular god, or any god at all, doesn't look like a very good bet.  Nor does non belief look like much of a risk.  

For example, if I am not a hockey fan, but I think that there are advantages to being a hockey fan, then I might begin to go to hockey games, watch hockey games with my friends at a sports bar, etc. The more I invest of myself into hockey, the more I actually begin to enjoy hockey.

I don't see any real advantages to becoming a god fan, unless god is real and I see little evidence he is real.

Pascal "wagers" that the one who begins to invest herself into the life of a believer will find that she IS a believer at some point.

Have you actual read Pascal?  He doesn't wager that one might make oneself a believer by behaving like a believer.  He suggests that having decided that to wager on a belief in god is the rational choice given the odds,  one can make oneself a believer in the following way:

Endeavor then to convince yourself, not by increase of proofs of God, but by the abatement of your passions. You would like to attain faith, and do not know the way; you would like to cure yourself of unbelief, and ask the remedy for it. Learn of those who have been bound like you, and who now stake all their possessions. These are people who know the way which you would follow, and who are cured of an ill of which you would be cured. Follow the way by which they began; by acting as if they believed, taking the holy water, having masses said, etc. Even this will naturally make you believe, and deaden your acuteness.

But I don't want to believe in god unless there is a god. I wouldn't follow the advice of anyone who suggested I "deaden my acuteness" unless my acuteness was already on life support, nor would I blindly follow anyone who suggested I not ask for proofs.  Nor do I find attempting to believe the rational choice given the miniscule odds that there is a god of any description, let alone one who cares whether I believe or not.