Fallacies: Pascal's Wager and Special Pleading

"Their infants shall be dashed in pieces, and their women with child shall be ripped up."
-Hosea 13:16

This entire fallacy can be summed up in the question, "What if you're wrong?" The argument is then made as follows. If there is no god, you've lost nothing. If there is a God, then the believers get and infinite payoff and the nonbelievers get and infinite punishment or negative payoff, as shown in the following table:

Table of Payoffs	Believe in God	Don't believe in God
God doesn't exist	0	0
God exists	+∞ (Heaven)	−∞ (Hell)

Theists claim that, even if the probability of God existing is unknown, believing has an infinitely better outcome than not believing, therefore you should believe in God just in case he exists, because it is a safe bet. There are innumerable things wrong with this wager. This will be a long post.

Begging the Question

This wager commits the fallacy of begging the question by assuming the conclusion in the premise. What if the god that exists is not the Judeo-Christian god, but is instead a god who rewards only those who have demonstrated logical prowess and skeptical thinking? Then only those who do not believe in god would go to heaven. The probabilities for either god's existence is unknown, making the expected outcomes for belief and non-belief undefined. This situation can be demonstrated as follows:

Table of Payoffs	Believe in God	Don't believe in God
God doesn't exist	0	0
Conventional god exists	+∞ (Heaven)	−∞ (Hell)
Anti-conventional god exists	−∞ (Hell)	+∞ (Heaven)

Special Pleading

Special pleading is when you claim that a particular chain of logic applies to all things except whatever fits your argument. By making this argument, you invoke special pleading by ignoring the fact that this argument could be used by anyone from any religion. It is equally valid to suppose that you believe in your god for your entire life, then when you die, it turns out you were wrong, and the real god is one of a different religion. Now you're in the same boat I am. There are obscenely many different religions in the world, most of which claiming that you must believe to be rewarded in the afterlife. Every single one of those religions could make this claim, and, if you accept Pascal's Wager, you would be forced to accept all of these claims. What if I told you that you have to give me ten dollars every Saturday for the rest of your life. If you do, then when you die you get to live in a palace and experience pure pleasure forever. If you don't give me this money, then after you die 36 dogs will pee on you forever in the afterlife. You can't be sure, but compared to an eternity, its worth paying me right? This demonstrates just how flawed Pascal's Wager is.

More Than Nothing to Lose

Pascal's wager tends to assert that by believing in a god, you lose nothing. For one thing, you go through life believing a lie, which is a bad thing in itself. Most believers spend time in a church or synagogue or mosque and contribute a lot of money as well. Those massive churches and cathedrals you see around town are funded by those donations, and all of that is a waste if the god does not exist. Religious organizations are tax exempt, so all of that money could instead be going to schools and healthcare. Additionally, when you accept the mindset where you can just answer a question with 'God did it' you have little incentive to continue exploring the question. This limits us in both scientific inquiry, science education, and morality. Rather than actually thinking about what you do, you accept an arbitrary code of conduct, which may be fundamentally flawed. For anyone who says there is no downside to people believing, I encourage them to read up on the details of the story of Andrea Yates. She had five children, and their ages were approaching the teens. She was worried they would stop believing in God and did not want them to go to Hell. She murdered her five children because she reasoned that she would endure the fires of Hell if it meant that her children could be saved. Religion is not benign.

IV. Apostasy as the One Unforgivable Sin

According to this argument, the only way to go to Heaven is to believe, and if you do not then you go to Hell. This implies that if I spend my entire life doing only good deeds, and then I die because I jumped in front of a bus to save an orphan, I am sent to Hell where I will suffer an eternity of torture. On the other side, I can be a serial rapist who has killed 35 women, but as I'm getting shot down by the police, in the last three seconds of my life, if I say and mean, "Oh my god, I realized I was wrong, I believe now," then I go to an eternity of bliss. This is fundamentally flawed and immoral.

Hopefully this post has demonstrated just how flawed Pascal's Wager is. You admit not to know God's will, you have no idea which god, if any, exists, you do have something to lose by spending your life believing in a god, and your claim posits a completely immoral system of solifidarianism or salvation by faith alone. The argument is in many ways flawed.

cectic.com

Atheism, Agnosticism, and the Burden of Proof

"The women should keep silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be in submission, as the Law also says."
-1 Corinthians 14:34

Starting with this post, all posts will be preceded be a Bible, Torah, Book of Mormon, or Quran quote. I will have mostly Bible quotes (including those from books which are also included in the Torah) because I have not yet read through the Quran fully.

Most people think of atheists as people who say "There is no god. I accept the theory of evolution, and I am pro-choice." This is a misguided view of atheism. Most people think of agnosticism as a religion, when it is really more of a school of thought. In this post I hope to clear up some misconceptions and misunderstandings on what atheism and agnosticism are, and what they entail.

First, what is atheism? Atheism is a rejection of claims for the existence of one or more gods. That's it. We, as atheists, do not necessarily claim that there are definitively no gods (I will get more into this later), rather we make the assertion that there is not adequate evidence present for us to believe that there is a god as defined by modern religions. Note that just because someone is atheist, that does not require that they accept evolution, nor does it mandate that they take any particular stance on the issues of abortion, same-sex marriage, etc. Atheism is not a religion, and therefore does not carry the obligatory opinions that religions do, rather it is a nonacceptance of the god claims that various religions make. Atheism is, and only is, the lack of a belief in a god.

What is agnosticism? Contrary to the understanding of many, it is not a stance between theism and atheism, in any way. When asked, "Do you believe in a god?" the answer is either 'yes' (which is theism) or 'no' (which is atheism). That is all theism and atheism are; answers to that question. It is a yes or no question, and there are no in betweens. Either you do or don't believe in a god. Everyone is either a theist or an atheist. When asked the question, "Are you entirely certain of your previous answer?" then you may respond yes or no. Responding 'yes' makes you gnostic. This could mean gnostic theist, someone who claims to know there is a god, as religions such as Christianity and Islam demand. This could also mean gnostic atheist, someone who claims to know there is no god. In either case, a claim to knowledge should and must be justified, via either logic, reasoning, evidence, etc. If you responded 'no' then you are agnostic. This could mean an agnostic theist, someone who believes there is a god but is not sure, however they are more inclined to believe there is a god. It could also mean agnostic atheist, which is someone who does not believe a god exists, but they do not claim to know for certain. Everyone, including you, is one of the following:

-gnostic theist
-agnostic theist
-gnostic atheist
-agnostic atheist

Another way to view this is the following. If I ask you the question, "Are you genetically a man?" the answer is either yes or no. If I ask you, "Are you at least six feet tall?" the answer is either yes or no. Everyone is one of the following; there are no other options (we will call people above six feet 'tall'):

-tall man
-short man
-tall woman
-short woman

When in a court trial, you do not at first know whether or not they are innocent or guilty, but you believe one way or the other. Either you believe they are innocent or you believe they are guilty; you are agnostic at this point in the trial with respect to the innocence of the defendant. If evidence for the contrary is presented, it is your obligation to admit you were in the wrong and accept the evidence. Once you have full evidence to know the verdict for sure, then you are gnostic with respect to that verdict.

I am an agnostic atheist, and so is the majority of the atheist community. This point of view entails that I do not believe in a god because there has not yet been sufficient evidence presented to give me a reason to do so. If proper, valid evidence of logic was provided which showed that such a god does exist, then I would obviously accept it. As an agnostic, i do not claim that the existence of a god is impossible. There is an important distinction to be made between the following two statements, my stance being that of the former:

"I do not believe there is a god."

and

"I believe there are no gods."

I am not making a claim. Rather, I am stating that there is not sufficient evidence to demonstrate that a god does exist, and therefore I do not believe it. Theism makes a claim, a claim that a god exists. Atheism says this claim is not adequately supported. This brings me to the burden of proof. The burden of proof lies upon whatever party is making a positive claim. This party must provide proof that their claim is true, or else it is most sensible to assume it false. A person can claim that he has a pet dragon that does not interact with the world in any way, only he can see the dragon, and it makes cat noises in his ear. He cannot prove that this dragon exists. Now, I do not have to disprove the existence of that dragon in order to reasonably state that that dragon does not exist. I don't have to prove that the dragon doesn't exist because he is the one making the claim. The burden of proof lies on him.

Hopefully this post will clear up some confusion and misconceptions about atheism, agnosticism, and the burden of proof. Atheism is the lack of belief in a god. Atheism in and of itself does not have any other viewpoints in any other subject matters. Agnosticism versus gnosticism is merely whether or not one is claiming to have knowledge of the truth of their claim. The burden of proof lies on the person making a claim. If someone claims that a god exists, it is their job to prove it. Likewise, if someone makes the claim that no gods exist, they are also making a positive claim, and therefore they would have to provide proof as well.

irreligion.org