There are many good critiques of the details of Pascal’s wager. For example:
He assumed that reason couldn’t help you figure out if God existed, so presumably it was just a leap of faith. [1]
He assumed God wouldn’t mind someone brainwashing themselves into a religion they disagree with, out of pure self interest.
He gives little to no reason to follow one religion over another, since almost all of them claim there the afterlife can be very postive or painful
but I have looked and not found any good reason to dismiss what I think is the heart of the argument: that we should take the possiblity of going to Hell or Heaven super seriously, more than any Earthly matter.
Pascal’s wager offers little insight on what to do with this information, but I think a good next step is trying to find out for sure if Heaven and Hell are fiction or not or if any/which religion proclaiming them is plausible.
P.S. Please correct me if I’m wrong about anything here or if I missed anything important.
“Pascal maintains that we are incapable of knowing whether God exists or not, yet we must ‘wager’ one way or the other. Reason cannot settle which way we should incline”
P.S.S.S. Thanks for sharing this really interesting, and I think neglected, question.
There are many good critiques of the details of Pascal’s wager. For example:
He assumed that reason couldn’t help you figure out if God existed, so presumably it was just a leap of faith. [1]
He assumed God wouldn’t mind someone brainwashing themselves into a religion they disagree with, out of pure self interest.
He gives little to no reason to follow one religion over another, since almost all of them claim there the afterlife can be very postive or painful
but I have looked and not found any good reason to dismiss what I think is the heart of the argument: that we should take the possiblity of going to Hell or Heaven super seriously, more than any Earthly matter.
Pascal’s wager offers little insight on what to do with this information, but I think a good next step is trying to find out for sure if Heaven and Hell are fiction or not or if any/which religion proclaiming them is plausible.
P.S. Please correct me if I’m wrong about anything here or if I missed anything important.
P.S.S. My main sources here are https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pascal-wager/#Prem1DeciMatr & https://www.iep.utm.edu/pasc-wag/ both accessed April 2020. For example the former says about [1]:
“Pascal maintains that we are incapable of knowing whether God exists or not, yet we must ‘wager’ one way or the other. Reason cannot settle which way we should incline”
P.S.S.S. Thanks for sharing this really interesting, and I think neglected, question.