I recently had the pleasure of discussing my own ideas about Pascal’s Wager with my friend, Matt Dillahunty. (Who by the way is an absolute treasure of a person!) I want to give you my initial thoughts on Pascal’s Wager, my wager, and what I learned from Matt.

My understanding of Pascal’s wager was “It is better to believe in Jesus than to be an atheist based on possible eternal outcomes.” It goes like this: If I believe Jesus is God and accept his sacrifice for my sins and I am right I spend eternity in heaven with God. If I am wrong I die and nothing happens. If I am an atheist and I am right when I die nothing happens, but if I am wrong I go to hell forever. So, I should choose to believe in God because it is mathematically a good choice.

First of all I misunderstood Pascal’s wager (PW) because I learned it from Christians in modern society who changed it to try to better fit their needs. (It is fine to try to make an idea better. It never hurts to explore ideas and improve on them.) To simplify, Pascal said it best if you believe in god and if you cannot you should act like you do until you do believe because it is a safer bet. I will let Matt explain it to you if are unfamiliar with the original wager. I will post a link to his youtube video on Pascal’s Wager below.

My first thought on PW (Pascal’s Wager), once I really thought it over, after I put Christianity behind me was it isn’t valid because you only have two options to choose from, but in reality there are thousands. There are thousands of gods. It isn’t just choose Jesus or atheism. Rarely in life are we faced with a true A or B choice. We certainly are not when it comes to god or religion.

Secondly, I came to realize, even if it were a simple A or B choice it would not matter. I cannot believe something I know in my heart is not true. I did not choose atheism. I was forced to accept it if I wanted to be honest with myself and what truly made sense. I could not choose to believe Jesus was God when the evidence clearly supported that Jesus was not god and the religion I gave my life to was wrong. I had to admit the most reasonable explanation of the truth about god and man was that no concept of god I have ever found does not truly exist. I suppose someone could live their life like they believed in god, as in the original PW and hope it was enough to get one into heaven upon death. I could not. I could not be self deceiving enough to think that would work, nor did I have a desire to try.

There are many more reasons why PW is wrong. I reasoned out a few myself and Matt explained even more to me during our conversation. I will not address them all here. I will stick to what is relevant to a wager of my own.

I think my wager is a more reasonable wager than Pascal’s. Remember with the original, if god is any god other than Jesus (or for you – however you picture god in your version of the wager) you gain nothing by believing in him.

Mine is based on a version of the wager I heard once. It proposed that god, if he exists, created us with the ability to think for ourselves. He wants us to use our brains to reject what we can see to have flaws and faults. He rewards those who are intellectually honest, try their best to understand the truth, and accept it for what it is worth. If you believe in any particular god because it is the best you can do then god will be happy with that, but if you are mentally capable of getting past false concepts of god, the gods man has proposed, you will be rewarded more.

Big Mr. E’s answer to PW:

God rewards those who use their brains and logically weigh the evidence. All religions have logical flaws and are all traps made by man. Anyone who falls for such traps is doomed. If you do not believe in any god concept man has proposed god rewards you with heaven when you die. If you believe in any god or follow any religion man has proposed you do not. It is better to disbelieve and be right than to believe and be wrong. Here is the kicker! If you fall for the trap of religion you will go to the “hell” or punishment that your religion subscribes to. See that god is has a sense of humor and irony.

Please share my idea. Also, feel free to propose my wager when discussing PW with people of faith. See if they can show mine to be less valid than Pascal’s.

For a better explanation and more reasonable thoughts on the matter please watch my friend Matt Dillahunty here: