On the Pascal Wager!
In this part, it is clear to me that the professor is trying to push away a dark gloom that comes along every time the idea of death floats up to his mind. He‟s trying to be humorous about it, probably to hide the way he truly feels deep within; but if I were him, I would‟ve been far more humble as I address an issue as big as a potential eternity of doom for my afterlife!
The talk of probability and possibilities is so easy, now that you are still in this world, and still have a chance, isn‟t it? Even though one of those possibilities (or probabilities if you may) is an eternity in Hellfire!
So for a man who claims to be searching for the truth, and admits he still demands evidence to prove what religion is the true religion if any, I cannot believe how lightly he deals with this extremely serious issue! The very same arrogance by which he answered that poor girl when she asked him “what if you‘re wrong?”!
Forget about Pascal professor, and the reason he made this argument of his, take a moment of truth with yourself, take a piece of paper and write down all the possible fates that await you after death, and show some humility if you are really honest in your search for the truth!
You say that on a scale from one to seven, between (total confidence that “God” exists: 1) and (total confidence that he doesn‟t: 7), you are not at (7) yet, rather still at (6)! I wonder, what exactly do you expect would move you to the final level? And do you really expect that something could someday
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happen that could perhaps move you down to level (4) on the middle of the scale? And what could that be? The claim that you are not confident with your position against the existence of (God), professor, is clearly nothing but an apologetic claim to make your position appear reasonable and scientific! Otherwise I cannot imagine how you assess your position at (6) not (5) or perhaps (4)! And I certainly can‟t imagine how different your language and your attitude would be, if indeed you were at level (7)!
I suppose every fair reader can see by the very way you wrote this book, what position you are really speaking from! As for me, I declare it in no uncertain terms that I‟m standing at level one! Absolute confidence that the creator exists! It is a confidence that comes from deep understanding and acquisition of ultimately clear, reasonable and verifiable proof, not from wishful thinking, irrational philosophies under a tag of science, and “comic book” misconceptions against religion! Certainty about the evidently true answers to those major questions is a blessing that atheists can only begin to dream about!
So please do not claim that you‟re still searching! I will not be the first man to call you a militant atheist or a “fundamental” atheist on a call of arms for atheism now, will I?!
And after all, professor, an atheist is the one who should worry the most here; simply because he‟s the only one who believes (and strongly I should say) – and without a single speck of evidence – that there‟s nothing at all to expect after death! And that‟s, in a way, the essence of the Pascal wager! Of course the wager is no argument to prove the existence of God, and that‟s clearly not what it is about! I do not think that Pascal was trying to tell people in doubt that they‟d better keep hanging on to what little faith they have because it‟s better than nothing! And even if indeed that‟s what he was doing, I do not think of it as an argument or evidence or anything as such!
Just think of it as a warning! An alarm! A reminder of the seriousness of this passing question that I‟m sure should concern every atheist far more than a believer in any particular deity and in the afterlife! (Although of course it should admittedly bring every man, theist or atheist to take the question
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seriously, and to examine the validity of the evidence upon which he builds his knowledge about it, before it‟s too late)
Ok, let‟s look at this (wager) from an atheist‟s point of view.
Applying an atheist‟s logic of probability (for the sake of the argument); it is known that almost all religions on Earth other than atheism (and its derivative philosophies of course) believe in some sort of continuity for the consciousness after death! This notion claims a disbeliever in any of these religions to a quite unfortunate fate (to say the least) according to its own doctrine! Thus it is clear that if a man chose to believe in a creator under whose dominion he will be judged after death, and accorded himself with one of those doctrines as the given path by that creator, he may stand some chance of making it right and surviving an unpleasant fate after death (very low probability, but a probability nonetheless)! On the other hand, given the fact that there‟s no argument whatsoever against the continuity of human consciousness after death, someone who believes his soul or consciousness or energy or life force or whatever it may be called will just perish entirely after death, and that there is no God at all to answer to; obviously does not stand a chance for securing himself against whatever fate that may await a blasphemer after death,: Zero probability!
Of course the claim that the truth is blurred and that all religions stand at different levels of probability of being true is false logic; I only used probabilistic reasoning here in keeping with the way atheists deal with all the big questions of life, only for the sake of the argument. What I‟m saying is that if they were true to their claims about evidence, then they should give every religion they never studied or examined, at least an equal chance to Darwinism of being true! But they are not true to themselves, and they know that their estimates of probability are all grounded in nothing but their personal preferences, and they know that they have no rational argument whatsoever against creation and the existence of the creator, not to mention the overwhelming rational superiority of the Islamic belief – in particular - in the creator of heaven and Earth! So actually if I were an atheist, I say I wouldn‟t even sleep at night! And I definitely do not believe him when he pretends it does not worry him!
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Of course it does! It has to!
I am amazed at the professor‟s claim that the Pascal Wager implies by necessity that a man should fake a belief even though he is not true about it or he‟s not convinced deep inside that it is the truth! Beliefs cannot be faked professor! You either believe or you don‟t!
Any holder of a false religion should not blame Pascal for this wager if he was fooled or tempted to say to himself: “Evidence or no evidence, it‟s better to cling to the faith of our fathers anyway than find ourselves doomed in the afterlife if what they believed was indeed the truth!” If this is what Pascal was promoting, then it is certainly unacceptable, and the question would then be: “How do you know your fathers‟ faith is the truth in the first place?”!
Pascal, I presume, was comparing the chances of one who believes – basically in Christianity – to those of one who does not, namely an Atheist, with no particular regard to the question of evidence on either side! Comparing a Christian (who may have no evidence for the validity of Christianity but follows a healthy human reasoning believing in the creator), to an atheist (who has no evidence against the validity of religion in general and in addition he goes against healthy human rationality denying the creator Himself): clearly the odds for the Christian position are higher! This is not to say that if based on this meaning and on this meaning alone, an atheist chose to practice religion and fake his belief, it would be acceptable or would even do him any good on Judgment day! It certainly wouldn‟t! Only true belief would account on that day, and in none but the true religion!
The professor then argues that the truth of whatever is there after death, might turn out to be something different from what all religions on earth believe it to be, and an atheist might as well have a chance of a glorious afterlife nonetheless! Like for instance the atheist dies to find a „god‟ who – in spite of the atheist‟s sheer arrogance in denying everything that proves a creator to exist and to be a god of grace and perfectness – would reward him for being a good scientist or charity giver or a man with a kind heart or so forth! Now is this by any chance a rational possibility? This is nothing but
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wishful thinking! Reward and punishment (by their very definition) only follow the declaration of commandment! And since there‟s obviously not a single stance of divine law on earth that demands people to be good atheists (and there couldn‟t possibly be such a law); no atheist could possibly be justified before the creator, whoever that creator may be! What creator could possibly accept such a grieve insult from his creatures on the day of their judgment? Not a chance!
How arrogant is Bertrand Russell when he says that if he ever comes to meet with “God” after his death he‟d say: “Not enough evidence, God, not enough evidence!”! The mere proposition of it is an outrage against reason and against God! First of all, if He does exist, and He is indeed the creator, then it is only rational that He has created enough signs in the world and tools in the natural logic of man and the way he perceives the universe and everything around and within him, to make him see beyond any reasonable doubt that His existence is a necessity (which is indeed the case)! So your problem with your creator is not “lack of evidence”, Mr. Russell!
Every healthy man is indeed born with the natural logic of admitting a creator and the natural urge to show gratitude to that creator and dependence on Him; so the question of why you – Mr. Russell - chose to spoil this logic and mute this urge in you is not to be answered by the claim that you lacked “evidence”! This is not a meaning that should require “evidence”! You cannot demand evidence for the natural linguistic logic that any “composition” must have been “composed” by a “composer”, that any “perfectly organized system” must have a “perfect organizer”, and every “law” must‟ve been determined by a “law-giver” and “law-keeper”, and that any effect must have had a cause! What evidence does any healthy man seek for the validity of his own natural axiomatic logic and the way the human mind perceives and cognates? And by what reason does he claim this meaning to apply only to small things inside the universe and not to the universe itself, even as he sees that the meaning is the same and its linguistic necessity is equally unobstructed, and has nothing to do with the analogy of ways and methods of different forms of creation? Yes of course an analogy of methods and ways is obviously wrong, but applying a meaning properly
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and correctly where no other meaning could rationally be applied, is not analogy! It is basic human semantics! It‟s – simply – how humans think, speak, and assign the right words to describe what they perceive! There is no better word in human language to describe this perfect universe and its being the way we see it than “creation”! The application of this meaning to this phenomenon is true by virtue of the linguistic meaning itself! It is – in this sense – self-evident! You see something small that is composed of pieces and works as a consistent system, you automatically inquire about its maker and the purpose for which it is made! You see something big that has the same qualities, you also acknowledge it as a created system; you look at the entire universe at large and see how perfectly organized and maintained it is, with all those small things running in perfect balance inside it, you have no choice but to apply the very same meaning! The question of who the creator of this magnificent system is or what the nature of the power beyond this creation is, that‟s another question!
It has to be made clear to every atheist that he has no excuse to refrain from applying this natural meaning to the universe at large, on the grounds that before the universe existed, the method by which the universe itself emerged must be different from any method of creation we can observe or imagine! This fact does not render the meaning of creation itself inapplicable to the universe! Rather it proves that the creator of the universe must be un-analogous to anything in the universe, external to it and to its laws, and unquantifiable by any created tool we humans possess! If a certain event does not seem to accord with the laws of nature that we know, this doesn‟t make it rationally impossible! It doesn‟t even make it defiant to those very laws of nature by necessity, since we readily admit that we do not fully understand all there is to understand about nature!
There‟s also no argument against applying the meaning of creation to the universe on the grounds that it causes “infinite regress”! We have clarified that all chains of regress are only characteristic of this universe that we observe as it is, and since we do agree to the fact that the origin of the universe and the first cause must be beyond it and not part of any of the chains running within it, then He has to be the transcendent uncaused cause,
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and the uncreated creator; and we have discussed that it is not at all irrational for Him not to be created, it is actually a necessity, because He is not some “complex system” of a “working composition” that we see around us that we cannot choose any better word to describe Him by but “creation”; He is not another composition (complexity) within the set of all composed things that still needs an external composer, He‟s by necessity not part of this chain that He created; He is beyond it! He is that one, terminal external composer!
I will argue later on in further detail on the linguistic corruption that atheism brings to the human use of language, but the point I‟m making here is that; yes of course there is every reason to believe that the way we create what we create is not analogous to the way we ourselves were created, not to mention the universe; but this does not affect in any way the rational necessity of applying the meaning of creation to the universe itself! It‟s again the same quintessential error of mixing the analogy of an abstract linguistic meaning of an event or an attribute, with that of the physical ways by which this event or attribute takes place! This meaning is supposed to be too obvious to be questioned or to demand “evidence”, regardless of how much we know or how much we think we can imagine about the way it actually took place! And yet, here‟s an eminent philosopher who is so disturbed that if you asked him, he might even fail to prove his very own existence!
Isn‟t this a pity?
So even if by this answer, Russell means to say: I – speaking of himself alone – failed to see evidence that you, God, exist; he is lying because every pulse in his veins and heartbeat in his chest tells him he has a creator; and he certainly has nothing at all to prove otherwise!
And after all, I have to wonder: A man who had read so much, and written so much in attack of religion, how could he possibly be excused on his judgment for not having read enough, or for not having come across the claims that holders of the true religion hold as evidence?
Well, certainly the events that will take place when he faces his creator will be much different from what he anticipated!
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The professor comments, I quote:
―Mightn't God respect Russell for his courageous skepticism (let alone for the courageous pacifism that landed him in prison in the First World War) far more than he would respect Pascal for his cowardly bet-hedging?‖ (Dawkins, p.104)
I say: All those who have seen the truth, heard the call to it and have been subjected to its clear evidence, will have no excuse before the Lord when they reject it (and actually fight it the way Russell did), no matter what they choose to believe in its place!
Forget about Russell‟s answer professor, and prepare your own, for every man will be judged alone! Here are a few questions I‟d make sure not to die before I have prepared my own reasonable answer to, if I were you:
“By what reason or proof did you choose to deny His existence, when you know that reason necessitates it, and everything around you and within you tells you clearly that He must exist?”
“How did you dare take this militant attitude towards all religions and take that for a cause to fight for, with so little and so feeble knowledge you ever gathered about any of those religions?”
“How could you judge a religion by the claims and writings of its enemies, without even caring to consult its own established scholars on how its texts are properly understood and on what evidence they rely in that understanding they hold?”
“By what reason could you take the clear contradictions and corruptions in Christian texts to be evidence for the corruption of all texts on earth that are also ascribed to Him as scripture?”
“By what reason did you choose to neglect the perfect attributes and the consistent and coherent faith in the Lord that is described in the message of Muhammad, based on empty accusations from haters and people who don‟t know what they‟re talking about?”
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“On what basis did you choose to judge certain rulings in certain religions as unfair or unjust, when the very moral code you apply and upon which your society stands is only a mix of the remains of scattered religious moralities in addition to some secular theoretical propositions that only came from the minds of limited humans like yourself? And if you wanted to judge by instinctual (natural) moralities; whose instincts would you label “perfectly correct” and on what evidence? By what right then do you allow yourself to judge what is moral and what is not, on the basis of some manmade social standards you chose to accept and live by, the origin of many of which you may not even know? Kant, Bentham, Nietzsche, Marx, Sartre and others, are all but limited humans like yourself who had their guesses on what morality means, so by what right did you take their theories for a standard to judge what is argued to be the Lord‟s own laws, moral codes and commandments?”
I thereby call unto every stubborn atheist to let go of his arrogance before it‟s too late, and to desist from making false judgments as though he knows all there is to know when in fact he doesn‟t; listen and learn and be true to yourself as you do, and by all means be worried about dying on those choices you have made! And if the whole issue is no big deal to you, and you‟re willing to go to your grave with those beliefs and a cold smile on your face; then by all means do not try to get other people infected by your senselessness!
The professor then makes a final comment on the wager, attempting an anti-wager; he says:
―Suppose we grant that there is indeed some small chance that God exists. Nevertheless, it could be said that you will lead a better, fuller life if you bet on his not existing, than if you bet on his existing and therefore squander your precious time on worshipping him, sacrificing to him, fighting and dying for him, etc.‖ (Dawkins, p. 105)
“Suppose we grant that there is indeed some small chance that God exists”? Interesting! I thought you already accepted that there is some little probability that He exists! How come then you ask me now, for the sake of the argument, to „suppose‟ that there is that small chance? Level (6) or level (7) now, professor?
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I do urge my respectable reader to pinpoint this clear inconsistency in the professor‟s position!
Listen to him when he says: “It could be said that you will lead a better, fuller life if you bet on his not existing…” Well, no it couldn‟t! Not in all religions anyway! This certainly depends on the kind of religion we‟re talking about! If indeed it is the evidently true religion that we‟re talking about, the will of the true creator, the one who made man and knows best what he can and cannot do, what gives him happiness, fullness and self-satisfaction and what doesn‟t, then it certainly could not be said that life without this religion is better! Now regardless of what religion I‟m arguing for: this is simple reason I‟m applying here, not blind faith!
If indeed you‟re following the true will of your creator, then you‟re on the right path; by all means a winner, both in this life and in the next one! If not, then no matter what you do, it‟s bitter waste of a limited lifetime in a limited mortal world, one that proceeds steadily to an inevitable end, after which is an eternity that you will have wasted altogether, no matter how much “fun” you‟ve had in this dark house of mortality! So what “waste” are you talking about?
Well, that‟s what atheism is really all about now, isn‟t it? Atheists are people who simply do not wish to „waste their precious time‟ submitting to their maker, worshipping and abiding by His will whatever it may be! And it will become clearer as we proceed with this literature, that it‟s not a question of reason or evidence at all! It‟s a philosophy of denial, brilliantly forged for the sole purpose of alleviating cognitive dissonance, by justifying the personal denial of the undeniable, fueled by a deep desire to live free from any form of commitment to a supreme unquestionable lawgiver that would judge every man for every little decision that he makes in his life! It‟s nothing but a psychological defense strategy against the meaning of submission that the very concept of such a being forces down upon humans! Liberalism, thus, is the core principle of atheism; the engine of motivation that blocks out all rational argumentation for the truth in their hearts, no matter how A-priori or self-evident those arguments may be! They just have to deny… it‟s the only way!
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