Pascal's Wager

One of the dumbest arguments for the existence of god, yet one of the most popular among believers and it works on people who haven't thought too deep about it too. Hell, it even worked on me for a while. As I previously said, I was raised catholic, barely, but still I had a belief in god and yes, even the jesus character that people seem to like so damn much. Like pretty much all christian cults (they're all cults in my words by the way), I never thought about god more than jesus, I was so confused at whether or not it was the same guy anyway or his father or if they shared a condo somewhere in Florida.

Now, Pascal's Wager is this neat little thing that makes the most sense to a believer. It's about the only thing that kept me believing in jesus even after I had pretty much confirmed that my doubts about the religion were true. Blaise Pascal, a french philosopher from the 17^th century, proposed that believing in god made the most sense since it's a win-win situation. How the hell did he get to that conclusion? I don't know, I never said he was a competent philosopher. Also, he had a near-death experience a few years before writing his "Wager" in which he had a vision from no other than the christian god. (It reminds me I have to explain why near-death experiences are meaningless at some point in the future.)

The win-win situation he's talking about is that if you live your life according to god's principles (which about no one comes close to achieving anyway), you have everything to win and it's not like you're losing something in doing that. On the other hand, not believing in god if he turns out to be true is a pretty poor decision when you think about it with not only nothing to gain, but a hell of a lot to lose. Of course, all of this assumes in Pascal's case that it's the christian god that's real, that the bible tells the truth about him and that burning in hell is an actual possibility for not believing in jesus.

So we live in 2010 now and it should be pretty obvious to anyone that it would be more surprising than anything if the christian turned out to be true (or just about any god actually), but it isn't. Now I'll start by assuming that yes, jesus is real and I obviously don't believe in him, so yeah I'm destined to burn in hell after my death somewhat. All you christians are laughing right now, aren't you? We can't just talk about the "christian belief" anymore though, so are you a true christian? Of course you are! So what are you? Catholic, protestant, mormon, jehovah's witness, moonie? What's a true christian anyway, because you know that not only do you have to believe in jesus, but if you choose the wrong branch, some members do think you go to hell. Even members from the same branch might think you go to hell, ask a fundamentalist and you'll see. Truly everybody thinks they're going to heaven, everybody and their loved ones that is, but that certainty is lost for anyone else in their eyes.

Pascal's Wager is a scary game when you think about it, because each religion and subdivision is most of the time mutually exclusive. Maybe South Park was right when they jokingly said the mormons were right, it means all of you other types of christians would be wrong. Anyway, one thing is certain, no matter who wins, most of the planet is wrong. Now, just for a second, let's say that the god depicted in the qur'an is the right one. I know that to be respectful, christians will sometimes say things such as judeo-christian beliefs, also including Allah when they truly want to look good on tv. Even though it's debatable, yes the god of muslim is supposed to be the same one the jews and christians worship. But unless you're a really nice christian I guess, you think the muslim is wrong for not believing in jesus and he will go to hell. Same thing for the muslims who think that if you don't live your life according to the principles of the qur'an (which you don't if you're not a muslim), you're going to jahannam, their particular version of hell. Now it's an even scarier game, because you could be wrong if you choose the wrong branch of christianity, but also if you choose christianity over islam or vice-versa.

You do know there are even more religions than that and the most popular ones have their own versions of hell. They often have the decency of being nicer though, such as hinduism where you stand trial and are given the appropriate punishment (which is truly horrible, but not eternal), but still being the true believer in each particular religion is supposed to have a reward at the end. Here's a nice one for you, what if god put all these false religions on the planet to see who would be smart enough to avoid them. After all, nobody wants to spend eternity with a blind believer. That would be incredibly annoying for the next 9999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999 years and still counting. Maybe the skeptics and atheists are rewarded while the believers are obliterated of something like that. Of course, I'm not truly enjoying this fantasy, it was just to piss you off believers and to show you how dumb Pascal's Wagers truly is. I don't see why I should enjoy some infinite reward and I don't see why even Hitler should still be burning in hell even in a million years from now for what he did, and we all know it was very wrong. (By the way, not that I like pointing it out, but Hitler was a christian. Of course, I'm not dumb enough to use it as an argument against christians, I don't need that and most of the time they just say he wasn't a true christian. I'm just saying it so that nobody says he was an atheist as they always do.)

So in my scenario, all believers were losers, which is the first step in pointing out how dumb Pascal was when he made his suggestion. But did he say anything true at all? No! As I said, he was suggesting that for the christian god, based on the same validity of proof as any other god, blind faith (a pleonasm). So only if his god is true did he tell the truth. Now let's evaluate this win-win situations. Let's assume for a moment there truly is no god, not even the atheist version I just invented for fun. You die in a natural world where your brain (which contained everything that was your personnality, or just "you") begins to rot until nothing is left. No electricity in your body, you just stopped working. Kinda like you think a rock has no soul, the rotting body left behind is just flesh. Now let's say you were a christian, though it works with any faith.

If you were a strong believer in christianity your whole life. You might have a profound hate for homosexuals, which means you're just an evil moron on that point if there's no god. You also might think that sex itself is a sin if you're enjoying it, some people struggle with that especially during their adolescence. There are always those who practice self-mutilation to punish themselves for their sins, but I won't count those because they're quite rare. I think the most damage is done emotionnally and psychologically. Some branches of christianity are also against condoms, causing higher teen pregnancy. If all that shit about god is not real, what do you look like right now? You're not winning anything, you're just not enjoying your life as it is to the fullest.

To close this, here is a brilliant comment apparently made by Marcus Aurelius (I'm not certain): "Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but...will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones."

Atheism: Weak or Strong, Negative or Positive

There's nothing weak or strong, neither negative nor positive about atheism. It's not a religion either (you can say it is if it amuses you, I'll say "so what?"), because there's no set of beliefs or any particular code, it's more of a position than anything else, and that's where weak, strong, negative or positive take their meaning.

So how do you know if you're an atheist, the single thing that unites all of them? Well, do you believe in a God? If you're not able to immediately say yes, you're either an atheist or really slow. If you claim you're an agnostic, just wait a minute.

So now, let's talk about the different types of atheists. I already said they don't share a set of beliefs (we have to think for ourselves), so it's nothing like comparing a catholic to a protestant or a mormon who share some common grounds, but have different practices. Now read the next bit carefully, because the difference is both subtle and important. A weak atheist does not believe in god, in any god that is, all the claims he's heard so far didn't do it for him or something like that. A strong atheist goes one step beyond and has a belief if you will, but not in some force, it's actually a negative belief (though it's called positive atheism and the other one is called negative atheism). The belief is that no god exists.

I am one of those atheists and I got to admit that often, the other type of atheists don't like people like me. They say we're just the same as fundamentalists, because we claim to know something that is unknowable, which is whether or not a god does exist. Now I'm going to explain the validity of my position and also, let me say that the form of atheism I'm going to defend most of the time is weak atheism, because that's the only necessary step I want all people to take eventually (got to reach it on your own, I wouldn't make a law to force it upon you).

So, why is strong atheism valid? Very simple, I'm rejecting claims of absolute certainty; I'm speaking in everyday talk. For instance, I know that the sun will come up tomorrow morning. I don't know for sure, with 100% certainty, but the probability is so high that we feel comfortable to say it. I believe that the various god claims are pure utter bullshit. And just think about that, I wouldn't have doubts about Zeus' existence, same thing about unicorns and goblins. Furthermore, when people start making various claims about their own god, things that have been proven false by science, I'd say it's safe to say it was an invention made by men who didn't know any better or wanted some power.

Let's take care of agnostics to end this post. People who say they're agnostics, to my experience, are often moderate believers or people who just believe in an undefined force. I've never seen a strong atheist wrongfully claim he was an agnostic, but I've seen lots of weak atheists claim they're agnostics, thinking they're in an elite position by taking the most rational point of not claiming to know the unknowable. I was an agnostic like that for a short period, but I realized: "Hey, I do not currently believe in any god. Basically, I'm just saying I'm agnostic to save myself from criticism. Really, I don't know, but as for believing, I don't. I'm not a theist, I'm an atheist." Later, just recently, I became a strong atheist. Also a militant atheist. I could be qualified right now as an antitheist who doesn't want to impose any laws on you, but who wants to give you information to make you realize that you hold unfounded beliefs.

Last minute note, more or less weak atheism=negative atheism=agnostic atheism=implicit atheism. Strong atheism=positive atheism=gnostic atheism=explicit atheism. There are even more terms than that and explicit atheism, for instance, does not necessarily equals what I said, but we would be entering far too many technicalities. Search on your own if you want to know more about that, it really doesn't matter; just label yourself anything you want, as long as you explain what you believe carefully. I don't find any of these terms perfect for various reasons of my own, so I'll just say atheism from now on. After all, these are just labels we decide to put on ourselves. I'm going to restate my position. I actively believe no god exists while rejecting claims of absolute certainty. If a god was proven to exist scientifically or if he undeniably showed himself to me (after all, he's supposed to know what it takes to convince me) I would believe in him. Now, that's separate from whether or not I respect or worship him... Take the god of the bible, I wouldn't respect him if he's even close to what's written, even if he had created everything.