minister turns atheist dot org

llow me to cover some old ground in this chapter. I say this because the material we are going to briefly cover has been covered a great many times by different authors over the course of many years. I would rather not waste time on it, but it appears some worn out pieces of lingo will always remain with us, much like that annoying phrase, “knock on wood.” So it is with Pascal’s material.

Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) was a 17th century French mathematician and theologian, and in his own right, quite an honest one as I see it. He did what too many modern Christian theologians refuse to do—admit when an argument cannot prove something. Said Pascal, “The heart has its reasons, which reason does not know.” [Pensees, 277 (1670) translated by W.F. Trotter]. This quote sounds almost unlike theologians of my time who think they can prove everything. I find such an admission refreshing. Pascal was famous for a number of accomplishments in different fields, but most relevant to us now is what he is most famous for, the “wager” wearing his name…

“Yes; but you must wager. It is not optional. You are embarked. Which will you choose then? Let us see. Since you must choose, let us see which interests you least. You have two things to lose, the true and the good; and two things to stake, your reason and your will…Let us weigh the gain and the loss in wagering that God is. Let us estimate these two chances. If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation that He is.” [Pensees, 233]

So, says Pascal, the unbeliever has everything to lose and nothing to gain. The believer has nothing to lose and everything to gain; if God does not exist and I believe in him, I lose nothing. But if God does exist, and I don't believe in him, I lose everything.

The First Problem

From the outset, let me emphasize that no one who understands what it means to doubt the existence of God or Christianity would make this argument. It is always offered from the standpoint of a believer. An atheist who became a theist would see its powerlessness and avoid using it to convince anyone else. Among those few occasions where an atheist manages to reclaim faith in the divine, this argument would never have a part in that conversion.

If one does not believe in the God of the Bible, then one does not believe in the God of the Bible. We have a word for someone who insists to themselves that they believe something contrary to the way they truly feel—denial. A person is in denial who refuses to admit how they really feel and what they really believe, yet this is what proponents of Pascal’s Wager are inadvertently asking the doubter to do—to tell one’s self that they still believe in a particular belief system. It is the equivalent of asking doubters to choose to believe, hope to believe, strive to believe, to exercise those “faith muscles,” fighting back whatever doubts he or she has. If this notion is not fallacious and futile, it is difficult to conceive of what would be. The contention is insulting to doubters and thinkers alike who value honesty in reasoning.

The Greek word for hypocrite, found throughout the gospels, and particularly in Matthew 7, is a word that means literally, “actor,” like play actors, not dissimilar to today’s Hollywood stars. Actors are pretenders, people playing a role not connected to their actual selves. The sort of actors Jesus has in mind are religious actors, those who follow the rituals and observe the teachings, but have no inward faith, no inner convictions to accompany their outward actions. How much more applicable could this be to this sort of “faith substitute” that advocates of Pascal’s Wager expect us to have? The Bible makes it clear that “without faith it is impossible to please God.” (Hebrews 11:6). This is expressly clear and in direct opposition to this have-faith-without-really-having-faith idea, as are other passages, “let him ask in faith, nothing wavering.” (James 1:6)

Before my resignation from the ministry, I was "undercover" as an atheist for the last two years before finally defecting. I was pretending then. I was merely going through the motions. I haven't met a believer yet who heard my story and would have the gall to tell me I was saved in that unbelieving, pretentious state. I faked faith, but faith never came. I could keep faking faith, but faith would not develop. This is true for doubters of all religions.

The believers’ groping hopes and prayers for unbelievers to develop faith are naïve at best. They somehow think that a thought-out, enlightened atheist might one day decide to forget about all the major biblical and doctrinal issues that caused the unbelief in the first place, and just mysteriously become "faithful" again. This doesn't happen to atheists who reject the Bible for valid, logical reasons. It should be apparent to anyone who is familiar with the Bible that pretentious service to a god would not even be as good as no service at all. In this case, outright atheism would be more preferable to God than fake theism…

No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon. (Matthew 6:24)

15. I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. 16. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth. (Rev 3:15-16)

With that in mind, it seems that instead of God aiding doubters back to faith, he is pushing us away from the fold because of our “sin” of unbelief.

So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief. (Hebrews 3:19)

Unbelievers are not very comforted by this, even when believers show us passages that appear to sympathize with doubt…

Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief. (Luke 9:24)

Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed. (John 20:29)

Jesus removing from a man’s son an unclean spirit and granting doubting Thomas an opportunity to believe by examining his wounds still doesn’t help us. The truth is, there are a lot more doubting Thomas’ today, people who realize a story is just a story until it is backed up with proof. This is all cold comfort for the unbeliever.

The Second Problem

The second problem with Pascal's wager is that it is completely selfish in its application when used by believers. For instance, a Christian will ask an atheist, "Is it worth risking going to Hell because of unbelief in Jesus?", but they fail to apply the argument from the standpoint of other faiths. In Why I Became an Atheist: a former preacher rejects Christianity, John Loftus has the following to say…

Muslims claim that you will go to Hell if you don’t convert to Islam too, but you cannot be a Muslim and also a Christian. Both religions offer some evidence to believe, but Christians think their faith has more evidence on its behalf than Islam, and one billion Muslims think otherwise. But according to both religions the other group is going to Hell. So choose wisely. The risk is the same because a lot is at stake. Both are calling in a proverbial bomb threat. On the one hand, one claims if you stay in one building you will die, whereas a different one claims that if you leave and go into another building you will die. How Pascal’s wager helps us with this quandary is itself a quandary. (p. 56)

So a dominant religion replaces the thrust of this argument from Christianity to any religion a religious teacher chooses to get his hearers to “wager” on. “Is it worth wagering against the existence of Allah when you have nothing to lose by believing?” We can apply this to any religion that is judged acceptable and tenable to a people. In all cases, the application is the same; the Christian wants the atheist to wager on the acceptance of a deity, the Christian God, but forgets that this applies to any and all gods since they are all equally drenched in the unknown. When all the back-and-forth of religious competition for truth is put aside, the wager is made by the individual based on whatever religious preference they happen to have!

Taking this yet another step, we must ask, “Is it worth risking burning in Hell because belief in the wrong god might offend the right one?” The problem now becomes pissing off the true god by mistakenly wagering on the wrong one! This begs the question of which deity is the right one, and this filters down into the disconcerting feeling that we are again having to make a “leap of faith” into the dark, uncharted waters of uncertainty.

The world of could bes is infinite; any form or thing or conception could be called a god. The thought of accidentally offending a “true God” becomes too much. I am being asked to gamble when the stakes are unknown. I might be gaining eternal life or eternal damnation. In the volatile and unpredictably scary world of the gods, anything can happen. The God of the Bible once killed a man for touching the ark of the covenant with the best of intentions—to keep it from falling of a cart (2 Samuel 6:6-7). You don’t wager based on how you feel such harsh and temperamental beings might react! But the Christian God is not alone in this. All gods were and are more or less the same way—vengeful, vicious, and easily angered at the slightest things. I am frightened at the nightmarish possibility that any sort of being even remotely like this could be real! I don’t want to risk pissing off an angry, jealous being with the temperament of a bipolar seventh-grader fit for alternative school.

I am not about to wager on one unknown above another just because my culture and my parent's religion happened to land right in my lap. By the Christians' own logic therefore, I shouldn't wager on the Christian God because that God is only one, whereas any one or all of the many hundreds of thousands of gods adored by mankind since antiquity might well be real. The odds are now too great that I might be wrong. Doesn't it make perfect sense then to stay neutral on the issue? Wagering on unknowns at the casino is bad enough—just ask anyone who lost their money gambling!

The Third Problem

The third problem with Pascal's Wager is that the Christian God may indeed be real every bit like the Bible describes him, in which case, me and every other atheist, pagan, heathen, deist, and anti-Christian religious or irreligious person who ever lived will roast in a hot, fiery furnace for a ceaseless eternity, screaming in bloodcurdling agony every second of every minute of every hour of every day of every year of every century of every millennia, forever. If Joe Holman stands before an angry God on the day of judgment, and if it is true that all unbelievers must burn in Hell regardless of their sincerity or honesty in their search for the facts, and if it is true that one cannot repent on that final day, then I will stand speechless before my monstrous creator and accept my sentence—remember, I won't have a choice in the matter! The problem with this horrible scenario is that it displays all too well the terror and brutish nature of the God of the New Testament who punishes with not the slightest hint of mercy, those who disagree with him.

Pascal's Wager brings to light every intolerant and hateful attribute of this bully in the sky called Jehovah. This God is like a mob boss who kills those who oppose him in the most hideous ways imaginable. In my case, I thought too much and asked too many questions, so God resolved to have me silenced, "knocked off.” Pascal's Wager makes a man think about the eternal anger, the divine and supreme level of unimaginable cruelty, unleashed from a being who could simply blot out the existence of those who wrong him, but instead, chooses to watch them suffer forever in a chasm of painful separation from him.

But perhaps I can wager on a god without wagering on one? If I am going to wager on anything, is it not much easier and more desirable to wager against the existence of an infinitely evil entity like the God of holy writ, heartless and vindictive of a monster as he is, and instead, throw off that hypocritical shroud of faith, and in its place, wager on compassion and human dignity? Does it not make vastly more sense to wager on a god who would understand the honest motives of a person who must follow the mind in the pursuit of truth, even if that pursuit happens to lead him away from the notion of a transcendent deity?

If I, as an atheist, can understand that there are people who legitimately doubt the existence of any god, is it so surprising for a supreme being to understand that as well? If the transcendent, all-knowing source of power and glory the Christians call “God” exists, does it make sense to believe that he would damn me to Hell, even though I did my best to preserve my walk with him? According to his holy book, he will. But even assuming such a scary being exists, I know that he would know what I know—that there are many who simply cannot believe in him. Such knowledge means that a God with any amount of compassion would know that the idea of damnation for disbelief is a hideous idea, a holdover from the dark ages, an idea that is mentally oppressive and best left forgotten. So while I am not going to believe in such a being, it would be up to him (in a manner of speaking) to believe in me!

Apologist Josh McDowell once said, "The heart cannot accept what the mind rejects." I agree. So I am going to wager that if a supreme being could and does exist, then it is a compassionate and smart enough being to know what we enlightened atheists know—that people are made the way they are by their genetics, their experiences, their cultures, their upbringings, that it is a combination of many factors which make a person who and what they are, thus, eliminating the idea that man is an "evil," "sinful," or "depraved" creature who deserves an eternity of torture. Should such a god of compassion be up there hiding, he knows I have tons of questions for him, and I hope he will someday answer them. However, I presently do not believe a god can exist, and I am wholly convinced that the god idea is so highly contradictory and ridiculous on every level of thought that I can safely throw off my belief in him. Like any and everyone, though, I could be wrong about the God question, but I have not the slightest reason to alter my belief system or life to make some "wager" in the nebulous world of intangibles, where spooks walk and goblins dwell. I leave that miserable world of ghouls, gods, and goddesses alone. I want no part of it. Reason, common sense, and wholesome humanistic values demand that the ignorance of the past remain in the past where it belongs.

(JH)