Talk:Atheist's wager/Archive 1

Survived Deletion
THis article survived a deletion debate. The result is here.--Doc (?) 22:25, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

Source/Credit
We need a source or credit for this. The earliest reference I have found is to the year Jan 15 2000 on a.bsu.religion, but then in quotes. Ben@liddicott.com 20:51, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

In the external link section the first link mentions a Michael Martin as being credited as a source for this debate. Although it does not state if he originated the concept, it does lead the reader to believe that he is an authority on the subject dating back to at least 1990. I agree that this article needs to credit the argument and propose that this particular author be noted somewhere on the page. Boognish26 12:31, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Assumes god rewards actions

 * The wager chooses to ignore the possibility that there is a God or gods who reward(s) faith rather than actions and punish(es) disbelief. This choice is premised on the underlying conviction that such a God is inherently malevolent, and that it is impossible to know which of the millions of faiths would be the correct one to avoid punishment - or if any existing faith comports with the particular demands of such a God.

This doesn't quite work for me. First of all, it should be written with "god", not "God" - we aren't talking about the Christian God in particular. Second, a god who rewards his followers to the exclusion of all others is not "inherently malevolent". Finally, the question here is faith vs. non-faith, not faith in a specific religion vs. faith in another specific religion; so the question of which religion to choose is off-topic. So I cut these parts, and added one on "good" and "evil" we had forgotten.Ritchy 18:12, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
 * A god who rewards faith irrespective of deeds (e.g. who will punish a good person for nothing more than lack of faith) is necessarily malevolent, as the punishment is arbitrary. In any event, it is empirically impossible to prove which faith is the one that avoids punishment - Islam? Presbyterianism? Jainism? An unnamed faith whose revalation passed unnoticed, or has been forgotten? The athiest's wager is as much about the fact that it's impossible to pick the right god as it is about the relative burdens and benefits of picking faith over atheism. BD2412  talk 18:03, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
 * But the punishment is not arbitrary. An arbitrary punishment would be if the god randomly decided who went to heaven and who went to hell, without any rule or logic.  This is not the current case: if a god rewards faith and punishes disbelief, then there is a clear rule behind his judgement.  You may not agree with his logic for deciding who goes to heaven and who doesn't (I certainly wouldn't), but that's very different from saying there is no logic. In any case, figuring out which religion is the "right" one, the one which a god rewarding faith would reward, is outside the atheist's wager, which assumes that god, if he exists, does not value faith above all else.  Ritchy 19:39, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
 * You are talking about arbitrary, but arguing about caprice.  The fact that god allegedly doesn't flip-flop means he's not capricious; but the fact that there's no justification for the rule that he allegedly enforces consistently means that he is still arbitrary.Wiploc 15:50, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
 * But that brings us back to the point that the proper "faith" is unknowable - in other words, you have to either be born into or happen to choose the religion (and maybe particular sect) that God wants you to have faith in. If I'm a Catholic, and I'm the best, most faithful Catholic that I can be, I'm still going to Hell if God wanted me to be a Mormon. I could list all the possible religions on the wall and throw a dart at them, and have as fair a chance of picking the one God wants as I would have by being born into one (and who is to say that anybody has picked the exact set of beliefs that God requires?) In that sense, the fact that God punishes not only lack of faith, but lack of the correct faith makes the punishment arbitrary, because every faith contains rules purportedly set down by God, and the rules themselves are arbitrary - why pray on Sunday, (or Saturday for Jews) - why not Tuesday? Maybe it's really supposed to be Tuesday, but none of us know it, so we're all condemned. Does God require that I eat fish? Require that I don't eat fish? Require that I wear blue? Green? Red? Go naked? Kill my enemies? Spare my enemies, even at the cost of my own life? It's impossible to know (and, more pointedly, God created a world in which it is impossible to know). Therefore, yes, it is an arbitrary punishment for one who lives a "good" life to be condemned for not knowing that they were supposed to give Tuesday to prayer, eat meat only on Thursday, and wear green pants from sunrise to sunset, or the like. BD2412  talk 21:40, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

POV tag
Would the editor who added the POV tag please explain how, exactly, this article is POV? Cheers! bd2412 T 02:43, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Since no response was forthcoming, I have removed the POV tag. Cheers! bd2412  T 01:43, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Assumes good works are needed to go to Heaven
From a Christian perspective, being a "good" person will not get you into heaven, only thru faith in Jesus Christ, without faith in Christ, a "good" person will always go to hell.

And on top of that someone can be a "evil" person, and if they have faith in Christ they will go to heaven, so therefore faith in Christ is a win/win situation doesn't matter what 'kind' of person you are..

Should we add this perspective to it? Any thoughts on this?

--Alen Basic 12:58, 18 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Perhaps, if you specify which denomination of Christianity you're referring to (or better yet, provide a source to back up the claims that "being a 'good' person will not get you into heaven" and "someone can be a 'evil' person, and if they have faith in Christ they will go to heaven". In any case, an atheist would respond to your perspective by saying that your God contradicts the term of the Wager, because a truly "benevolent God" wouldn't damn people for Hell just for not believing in a certain person, as long as they did good deeds and had a good heart, etc. In other words, the place your version of God falls into on the chart of Atheist's Wager is an "Evil or Amoral God", for caring more about your ideology or beliefs than about how good of a person you are. -Silence 14:28, 18 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Atheist's Wager refers to the belief of a god, not necessarily only Christianity which is just one monotheistic religion. Wolfdog 21:35, 8 November 2006 (UTC)


 * It is a criticism that could/would come from a Reformed Christian theologian. This is not a valid reason not to include the idea in the article.  64.140.248.31 (talk) 13:47, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

I think the point is more that being a truly "good" person is impossible without divine intervention, which goes along with belief in Christ. In that sense, "evil" people cannot go to heaven. I believe that most (if not all) Calvinist denominations would hold to this line of thinking (does my Pastor count as a source? his sermons are publicly available... (-: ) To put it another way, the class "good people who do not believe in God" is, according to Calvinist theology, empty.  As this is a potential criticism, it should probably be included in the criticism section.  64.140.248.31 (talk) 13:47, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

What does this have to do with belief?
In each of the possible cases, the outcome equals that of the corrispondent case but with the belief in God reversed. So, all what this seem to show is that it is better to be good than to be evil, regardless of wheter one believes in God. I can't see how this is supposed to show that believing that God exist is worse. --Army1987 14:54, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
 * The reasoning is that if there is a benevolent God, it doesn't matter whether you believe in him or not; if you're a good person and he exists, you'll still go to heaven. If you're a bad person and he exists, you'll still go to hell regardless of your belief.  It doesn't show that believing in God is worse, it just shows that it doesn't matter (IF there's a benevolent God).
 * On the other hand, the reasoning goes, if there's a malevolent God who rewards/punishes people only on the basis of their belief, then he's not a God worth worshipping. And besides that, there is no way to know which God you're supposed to believe in, because there are many different religions which say that you'll go to hell if you don't belong to their sect.
 * But seriously, read it yourself. I think it's spelled out clearly enough in this article. Esn 18:14, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
 * No, it isn't. The possibility of malevolent gods is only mentioned in the Criticism section. The explaination says "regardless of belief in a god", but the intro in italics says "It is better to live your life as if there are no gods". --Army1987 14:31, 28 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree with this. The argument does not prove anything except that good > evil. Proof:

{| align="left" Giving reward a positive value, good remembrance a positive value, and punishment a negative value, we see clearly that belief in God is the dominant strategy. Therefore, the assertion that "It is better to live your life as if there are no gods" is false, under the premises of the atheist's wager. --N Shar 23:48, 29 January 2007 (UTC) You make a good point, except for one problem. Your argument assumes that a god would reward based on actions AND faith. However, a god who rewards based on faith is by definition a malevolent god, for such a distinction is arbitrary. How can a person know which god to worship? Choosing a faith, or lack thereof, then becomes a high-stakes game of chance. Look at, for instance, "The Fate of the Unlearned". Suppose that a person has heard of religion, but has not heard of the argument god uses to convince people of his existence, whatever it may be. Will such a person go to Heaven or Hell? Regardless of your answer to the first question, one can clearly see that the distinction that would be made by such a god is completely arbitrary. One final example: suppose that a person does not have the mental faculties to understand arguments for god. Will they burn in hell for their mental issues? Condemning the unintelligent for their lack of intelligence is clearly the work of a malevolent god. Let us then return to the original example. For the case you listed, in which god rewards you for good works, and punishes you for disbelief, worshipping a malevolent god is equivalent to worship of the devil. I don't think there are any religious denominations that advocate that.Anhydrobiosis 04:35, 23 May 2011 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Anhydrobiosis (talk • contribs)  Small Devil's Advocate (ha) comment (that may or may not be logically sound for a variety of reason) referring to the Christian God's punishment of those without the ability to understand arguments for his existence. In Dante's Inferno, the first circle of Hell is populated by the unbaptized and also virtuous pagans who existed before the life of Jesus Christ. Simply food for thought; I'm not qualified or interested in the subject at the moment to comment further. I hope things resolve smoothly here! 66.220.138.32 (talk) 04:45, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

What does the Martin ref actually say
The only notable ref give for this article is a couple of pages in Martin's book. But the "atheists wager" doesn't appear in the index of this book, and it seems just to be a part of the discussion of Pascal's Wager. Does anyone have this book and can they substantiate the claim that the atheists wager is in it?NBeale 04:54, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Delete or Merge to Pascal's Wager
This whole article is barely notable and v poorly refed. It should either be deleted or merged to Pascal's Wager methinks.NBeale 07:32, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

agree. split and merge the bits that are closely referenced, which at present amounts to zero bytes. dab (𒁳) 09:32, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
 * There's one exact page reference at the bottom. Has anybody actually looked at what it says, or is it irrelevant?  (I haven't seen it myself, just asking) Esn 11:07, 6 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I've reverted your recent merge because this policy states that merge proposals must be up for a couple of weeks to make sure that there are no serious objections. Especially in cases where almost nobody replied to your original message.  Now, I'm not the original writer of the article; I only did some minor edits once or twice (if that).  Perhaps contacting the major contributors and seeing what they think might be a better idea. Esn 08:42, 9 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Oops sorry - you are quite right. I thought that since no-one had objected it was non-controversial, but I agree we need to wait until the 19th. Thanks NBeale 08:49, 9 February 2007 (UTC)


 * The merge doesn't seem complete... The page is still in the "Arguments for and against the existence of God" cat, the merge proposal is still on the Pascal's wager page, and there's still a link in that page back to here. If there's no objections I'll tidy up the merge in a couple of days. Loxlie 18:58, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

This atheist wager was a terribly bad article, and I'm not very attached to it; but for symmetry and balance, I think it should be a separate article. We have for many pro/against arguments split as separate articles, e.g. argument from poor design, and theodicy (ok, theodicy is so notable and the problem of evil is of course so much more important). But my argument is more based on form, this is a notable refutation of Pascal's wager, so I'm going to revert this redirect. We should start an AfD for this. --Merzul 09:59, 31 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Anyway, the extreme lack of sources on this topic has made me agree with the merger. I wonder only if for procedural reasons an AfD would be a good idea. The previous AfD was explicitly against merging. --Merzul 10:19, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Need References
While I can see the value of this article, it is sorely needing in actual references. As it stands, it has all of one, which is referenced all of twice in the article. As such, it seems very much in the category of Original Research, with the Criticism section particularly standing out in this regard. 74.248.147.225 (talk) 00:36, 24 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Further to this, the link is now dead. If the dead link is not resolved soon then it should be deleted and then the article will be left without any references. JHobbs103 (talk) 23:10, 29 March 2010 (UTC)