Regarding Pascal’s Wager

Pascal asks: if doubter’s options are:

• A) profess to believe in God, or
• B) chance damnation by continuing to doubt

Why would the doubter ever continue to doubt? That is, if the doubter stuck with A, and God doesn’t exist, the doubter doesn’t chance losing anything, because God doesn’t exist, and so God can’t damn the doubter to hell. Moreover, if God does exist, the doubter still doesn’t lose anything—in fact, he gains everything, because he has remained faithful to the unproven proposition that God exists, and God does in fact exist, so he cannot be damned by God for ever having doubted.Let’s forget, first of all, that Pascal’s Wager is really just a Fallacy of the Excluded Middle. There are many more options than A or B, and so we’re not really committing to an irrational decision by choosing B.

But let’s pretend we’re not aware of that. Let’s answer the question on its own terms. Last time I checked, wasn’t God omnipotent? Surely an omnipotent being has telepathy, at the very least. Wouldn’t he know if the doubter really doesn’t believe? I don’t think God would be very amused if the doubter could simply click his heels together and sing “I love God, God’s my favoritest omnipotent being in the whole cosmos” every night, or put on a triangular thinking-cap and squint really hard in the hope that God isn’t going to realize that the doubter doesn’t believe a goddamned thing he’s saying. Perhaps we should ask first if a doubter, who presumably was given the gift of Reason by God if God indeed exists, would be damned to hell for reasoning his way to a conclusion that asserts, “The proposition that God exists is not sound, because I lack the necessary evidence to prove that it is.” Should such a doubter be held in contempt of the celestial court? Suppose two such doubters exist, but the second, coming to the same conclusion as the first, decides that even though he cannot substantiate God’s existence, he will accept on faith alone that God exists, and be content with the decision. Has he not abandoned all reason? Why is this second doubter, whose behavior is by definition irrational, looked upon by God more kindly than the first?

The kind of faith that is defined as belief in God out of fear of consequences, not only cheapens the whole concept of salvation, but cheapens the concept of God himself.