Wagering with Evidence

As I have alluded to in earlier posts, Pascal’s (in)famous Wager is not an argument for God’s existence but an argument for rationality of believing in God’s existence. While it seems to the casual observer to be a dreadfully pragmatic argument, one cannot deny the rationality in attempting to maximize one’s utility.

There are other arguments against the Wager that do not appeal to our low esteem of pragmatism: Why can’t I substitute X for God and use the same wager. For instance if X = The Flying Spaghetti Monster, does the rationality of Pascal’s Wager change? I don’t think it does in its most bare bones form. A similar scenario occurs in the situation where Pascal’s Wager is brought to someone who has never heard of God (or at least the Christian God). In Pascal’s Bare Bones Wager there is no reference to evidence or prior experience with God belief.

I think Pascal’s Bare Bones Wager is something like:
1. If one believes in God AND God exists = huge rewards
2. If one believes in God AND God does not exist = not much reward if any
3. If one does not believe in God AND God exists = not much reward or maybe some real bad news
4. If one does not believe in God AND God does not exist = not much reward but at least no guilt if you decide to live like a hedonist
———————–
option 1 is the obvious choice if one desires to maximize their benefits.
But this reasoning works just as well with The Flying Spaghetti Monster or anything else. This wager does not help us determine which “God” to believe in. And presumably believing in the wrong God is serious trouble with the right God. I think this might be or similar to the Many Gods Objection to Pascal’s Wager.

But there’s at least one important piece of information being left out of the Bare Bones Wager: we have not assigned probabilities God existing; I think this is akin to saying that we have not addressed the evidence for or against all possible Gods and their existence. We can make the wager above for all possible Gods and assign probabilities to options 1-4. By doing this, we can eliminate all the silly options like the Flying Spaghetti Monster, Larry’s bar counter, and the ironing board from being Gods worthy of belief. Why do I immediately eliminate these contenders? I don’t think there’s any evidence of them having Godlike status. For instance it is well known that the Flying Spaghetti Monster was a wholly satirical creation made to lampoon some believers. The progenitor of the FSM would likely admit that he does not believe in its existence. Likewise my ironing board has never been hailed as Lord and I see no reason that it should be. No one has ascribed miraculous cures to the Larry’s bar counter that I know of.

On the other hand, there is arguably some evidence for the Gods of the established religions of the world. For one they possess many sincere believers willing to die for their Gods (I doubt the FSM believers are as sincere). Also many of their followers sincerely believe their God as interacted with humankind through miracles. Some claim to have spoken to their God. Ancient texts describe the deeds and commandments of these Gods. True, much of the evidence is often disputed etc. but it can still be said to be evidence of some worth. More than my ironing board can garner.

With this in mind the playing field has been cut down considerably.
But still, even after eliminating the noncontenders, there are still an awful lot of contenders in the mix. But just as we wade through competing arguments daily in politics and morality, we must wade through the evidence for the remaining God entities. And of course what we end up deciding on may also be the result of non-evidential factors (as I have blogged about earlier).

So what I hope to have laid out here is that evidence is still an important part of the Pascalian Wager. Otherwise we will find ourselves constantly wagering Pascalianly for every decision. For instance: Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW). Taking drastic measures is frequently mentioned in a Pascalian way: if we don’t change our ways quickly, the world is screwed; even if we’re wrong about AGW, it’s still best to change our ways quickly because there is much more to lose if AGW is true. Similar arguments were made for invading Iraq. However these arguments only become convincing if there is ample evidence for the propositions. For instance with AGW, it is not clear whether the cancer or the cure is more costly or even if the cancer is there.

I think a lot of people think Pascal promotes utter and absolute blind faith in God; in other words evidence plays no part in belief. I don’t think that is true of Pascal. I leave you with this quote of his:

Men despise religion. They hate it and are afraid it may be true. The cure for this is first to show that religion is not contrary to reason, but worthy of reverence and respect. Next make it attractive, make good men wish it were true, and then show that it is…

Tags: belief, Flying Spaghetti Monster, global warming, God, logic, Pascal, philosophy, religion