Nothing to Lose by Believing?

There is a common retort offered by believers when debating the existence of God with nonbelievers: “What if you’re wrong?” The question carries an implicit assumption: Of course, one party is right and the other party is wrong, but since neither party can come up with proof sufficient to clearly settle the debate, both sides are on an equal footing. It’s a fifty-fifty proposition. However, there is nothing in this line of reasoning that splits the probabilities of God’s existence and his nonexistence in any particular way, much less down the middle. In addition to implying that the nonbeliever has an equal chance of being wrong, the believer is asking the nonbeliever if she or he understands the consequences of actually being wrong. Of course, the consequences are assumed to be ominous.

     Similar to the “What if you’re wrong?” question is the proposition known as Pascal’s Wager. Originated by Blaise Pascal, a 17th century French philosopher and mathematician, it considers the consequences of wagering against God’s existence. Being a Christian, Pascal assumed that the consequences were potentially too ominous to risk being wrong. He concluded that the question of God’s existence couldn’t be answered through reason. The best option was to play it safe and go with the answer that, if true, would yield the better consequences. The rationale for Pascal’s Wager goes like this:

• God’s existence can’t be proved.
• If God does exist and you believe in him, you go to heaven.
• If God does exist and you don’t believe in him, you go to hell.
• If God does not exist and you believe he does, you have lost nothing.
• If God does not exist and you believe he doesn’t, you have gained nothing.
• Therefore, there is nothing to lose by believing in God and possibly everything to gain.

     Although it’s often treated as such by believers, Pascal’s Wager is not an argument for the existence of God; it’s just an argument for belief, whether he exists or not. The wager has several problems. For starters there’s the question of which god to believe in. The consequences of believing in an actual god depend on his nature. What if I’m a Jew and believe only in the God of the Hebrew Bible and don’t accept Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior and I end up in the Trinitarian God’s hell? What if I’m a Christian and the one true God is the God of the Hebrew Bible and not the God of the New Testament, and I end up in hell for worshiping a false prophet—a mortal Jesus. What if I’m a believing Christian and Allah sends me to the seventh level of Islamic hell? What if the one true God gets angry when humans squander the greatest asset he has ever bestowed on the animal kingdom—human intelligence—and relegates the squanderers to hell and assigns to heaven those who were thankful for their divine gift and used it properly?

     Heaven and hell might be human inventions, and the real God might have only given us life here on Earth, which he expects us to cherish for what it is. Or the real God might have just started the ball rolling with the big bang and left the universe to evolve on its own, and even though he exists, it makes no difference if we believe in him or not.

     Another problem with the wager is the fact that belief isn’t something you can switch on by will. You can’t truly believe in God simply because you think that is the less risky option. You must believe or not for other reasons. A God who is intent on rewarding or punishing us for what we believe about him will not be fooled by feigned belief or by someone who just goes through the motions. Nor will he be swayed by someone who decides to “accept” his existence because of a fear of the consequences of not accepting it. If you sincerely believe, Pascal’s wager is irrelevant; if not, it is of no help.

     I think the most misunderstood aspect of Pascal’s Wager and similar propositions is that there is nothing to lose by believing in a nonexistent God. You stand to lose a lot. However, the potential for loss varies from person to person. How much one loses is substantially related to how aware one eventually becomes of having made the wrong choice. If I am an incurious person who is convinced of the truth of my religion and who has established buffers to prevent dissonant information from rocking my boat, then, in the case of God actually not existing, I could remain unaware and happy. I could remain ignorant of information pointing to his non-existence, and I could remain content in my perception of reality and unaware that I have wasted time, energy and money. Nevertheless, time, energy and money would have been wasted. In ethical monotheism there are also fears and guilt that are commonly associated with trying to do right by an all-everything God, whether he exists or not. So, it’s debatable just how much would be lost if such a person is mistaken and never recognizes it, but it would be far from nothing.

     When a person has an insatiable desire to learn and keeps up with the latest in science, biblical scholarship, psychology, sociology, history, etc., the potential for loss is extensive. Pascal can be forgiven for living in a time before science had begun to erode the credibility of religion, and biblical scholarship was yet to get beyond conservative Judeo-Christian influence. If current trends continue in science and biblical scholarship (there is no reason to think they won’t), it will become increasingly difficult for anyone with an insatiable desire to learn to continue believing in a god that doesn’t exist, especially if it’s the one allegedly revealed in the Bible or the Qur’an. These two holy books contain too much information for their own good, information that can be cross-checked against the modern accumulation of knowledge about actual reality.

     Pascal had no idea that scientists would discover that humans and chimpanzees evolved from a common great ape ancestor that itself evolved from simpler life forms, or that the universe either started with or transitioned through a quantum event called the big bang—two of the greatest intellectual achievements in human history. They negate many of the important theological principles that are inextricably linked to the special creation detailed in Genesis. Nor would Pascal have anticipated that Bible scholars would come to widely agree that some of the Gospel accounts of the resurrected Jesus are forgeries. Nor would Pascal have known that every possible reason for the apocalyptic rhetoric by Jesus in the Gospels is irreconcilable with Christianity.

     Unless God puts in an unmistakable appearance or amazingly he is finally discovered in a gap in human knowledge, cognitive dissonance about his existence will continue to grow. The discovery of extraterrestrial life would be dissonant to one’s Abrahamic religion cognitions. The creation of life in a laboratory undoubtedly would. So would the indisputable discovery that consciousness is inseparable from the brain, as is already the consensus in science, which would mean that the “immortal soul” had essentially run out of places to hide and would just be a figure of speech. So would more archeological discoveries that contradict biblical stories or that point to additional biblical anachronism. So would advancement in the hypothesis that the big bang was a completely natural event. So would a theory of everything, or even substantial progress toward such, that points to nature being entirely self-sufficient. So would discoveries in neuroscience that continue to explain religious experiences as just the natural workings of the brain.

     For the intellectually curious person who tries to maintain her or his belief in a God that rewards and punishes humans for their beliefs, there may very well come a time when the dam breaks and belief can no longer be sustained. Also, if current trends continue in the U.S. and in much of the developed world in the growth of nonbelief, religious support groups and consensus bias won’t quite be what they used to be, which would make it harder to maintain belief. Now the losses become apparent and substantial. The time and energy wasted become apparent. Also apparent is the money that could have been put to better use, such as providing financial support directly to worthy causes, without an intermediary (ministry/church) skimming off a generous portion. There is the misguided support at the ballot box for anti-intellectual politicians who actively worked against real progress in education, social reform and other issues important to the well-being of the country and the planet. There is the presumed meaningful life that turned out to be less meaningful and less authentic than it could have been. There is the misguided influence one might have applied to others (spouse, children, friends) that pushed them toward less authentic and less truly meaningful lives. Yeah, there really is a lot to lose if God doesn’t exist and one believes he does until her or his intellectual curiosity erodes the belief beyond recovery. The psychological losses would be especially heavy for an elderly person with an insatiable desire to learn, who becomes enlightened beyond their breaking point, but too late to salvage much of an authentic life.