OneMonkey.org
HISTORY
Bunk

Pascal's Wager

Caspar's Wager
Blaise blase
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.
Let's see; a whole bunch of Sundays on my knees, or a fuller life lived as I please. I wager that any god who keeps herself so well hid does not wish to be found.
Pensées, 1670 Thinks, 2000

Of this proposition, I have a wonderful proof!

Oh how simple life seemed when we were young. I vividly remember the answers I confidently gave when aged eight our class were asked by our sociological jurisprudence consellor to give examples of absolute rules we lived by:

  • Never start a major land war in Asia. (I still hold this firm conviction.)
  • Never have sex and livestock in the same sentence. (Happily, I still have no convictions on this count.)
    • and
  • Never bet against a co-discoverer of probability theory.

    • Well, times tells that it would have been a nincompoop who poo-poohed Pierre de Fermat's Last Theorem, but I do choose to take issue with Blaise Pascal's last hefty bet. I disagree completely with his reasoning, I'll wager he's got it completely backwards.

    In fact I'll stake my life on it.

    Every now and again I am reminded, as politely as possible, by my religious 'friends' that unless I repent my godless ways I will be damned to burning hell for all eternity. I tell them it's a price worth paying for my Sunday lie-in. But this irreverence does little to disuade them.

    Smiling ever more broadly, they casually suggest that I join them for their Tuesday evening study group, where their priest/rabbi/sufi/baphomet can tell me some really great things about jesus/yahweh/mohammed/satan. I meet their expectent hopefulness with a slight curl of my lip and explain that I don't let men in dresses tell me what to do. (Well, there was that one time, but I honestly didn't realise he was a man.)

    Alas,I tell them, in good faith, I will never be able to join their happy band.

    But like all purveyors of opiates, they are wheedling, pushy and persistent and won't I just think again? I just say no. Sensing my steely resolve but still possessed of a glimmer of zeal, they change tack and mention Pascal's prescription for people of precisely my persuasion.

    No! And I can prove it.

    CLAIM:

      We ought to act as if God didn't exist.

    PROOF:

      Case 1: Assume God doesn't exist.
        Trivially we have done the right thing.
      Case 2: Assume God exists.
        2b. God is evil!
          No point worshipping her.
        Not 2b. God is good!
          Lemma: There is no evidence of God's existence.
          Therefore, from the lemma we might conclude that it is irrational to waste what little time we appear to have on worship of one particular imagined incarnation of an extremely ellusive deity, we would decide it was better to try and figure things out for ourselves, spend the time as if we didn't have an eternity more of it to use later.
          Of course, if Not 2b then we were wrong, but God being good will understand this. So that's okay then.
      Q.E.D.

    Go about your awful business.

    Ceci, n'est pas un exercice.

    Today we have learnt that it is best to treat this life as if its the only one you get, because, you never know, it just might be! Fired up with this precious knowledge, we should never squander another moment.

    Boredom is a crime against existence!

    Yeah!

  • Let's fill each unforgiving minute with sixty seconds' worth of distance run - though let me remind you that this is metaphorical running for jogging is ridiculous.
  • Let us not bother with small talk, never again sit through some dull film, board-meeting or medical procedure.
  • Let be reckless, remembering that we may be hit by a bus at any moment and that would be it, but take more care crossing roads for the same reason.
  • Let us pray! Not!
  • Let us play!

    • We should live as Godless heathens because God couldn't really expect us to do otherwise. Besides, I have plenty of time left to be one of those who repents too late and is merely destined for purgatory.

    Hmm? - I wonder what's on TV...

    Easter Monday, 16th April 2001
    @onemonkey.org