Hello, everyone! Cosmological here.
Today
I'm going to be doing something slightly different.
Instead of responding to a
video, I'm going to teach you about how to use what is inarguably the best
argument for religion: Pascal's Wager.
So, let's go.
*Break is Over by Krix, AKA my awesome intro/outro music plays*
If you're unfamiliar with
Pascal's Wager, allow me to introduce it. to you.
The argument was devised by
Blaise Pascal, a 17th century French
mathematician and physicist who also
dabbled in philosophy for some reason.
It goes something like this:
If you believe in God and you're right, you go to heaven.
If you don't believe in God and you're
right, then you just die.
If you believe in God and you're wrong, then you just die.
But if you don't believe in God and you're wrong, oh boy. Things are not looking good for you.
So by now you can clearly see that this argument is brilliant, flawless, and airtight.
Some people think it has problems, but they are wrong.
I'll leave a playlist of videos that try and show some of these supposed issues with Pascal's wager in the description,
but there's no need to watch them, since, I assure you, Pascal's Wager is perfect and irrefutable.
Well, okay, there is one very, very, very small minute issue with it, but I'll address that later.
So, now that we've established what Pascal's Wager is and that it's such a great argument, here's the important part:
How you use it.
Let's say you're having a friendly debate with an atheist and you intend to prove your position to them.
You see, you can't just use Pascal's Wager right at the very beginning.
That would be like if the first level of game had all the hardest enemies. You have to give your opponent a fighting chance.
Besides they always say to save the best
for last!
Let's say you're up against a particularly good debater. This atheist is tearing apart your arguments left and right.
He's pointing out your arguments from personal incredulity, quote mining, god of the gaps, all sorts of fallacies!
It is at this point that you get out your secret weapon.
Now, to the untrained eye, resorting to a pragmatic argument for believing in God, like Pascal's Wager,
after your previous at least somewhat evidentially based arguments have all been debunked,
may seem like a desperate ploy to reassure yourself in the face of your quickly-crumbling beliefs being torn apart.
However, this is simply not the case. In fact, using Pascal's Wager is your secret
weapon!
It reminds the atheist that no matter how much more honest, realistic, and scientifically accurate their beliefs are than yours,
you still totally win the who-gets-the-better-afterlife game if you're right, and if they're right, then it's just a tie.
Now, at this point you may or may not have noticed the one teeny tiny flaw in Pascal's Wager.
This is the one little thing I was talking about earlier.
You see, technically, Pascal's Wager could be used by any religion that rewards and punishes you based on belief and/or practice of said religion or lack thereof.
And sure, that does mean you have to ignore any other religion that could use the same argument in the same way whenever you use it.
And yes, okay, you also have to ignore possibilities outside of the dichotomy of a god that sends you to either a good or a bad afterlife versus no God and no afterlife at all.
But, not to worry! I have a solution, and trust me, it fixes everything.
You see, these perceived failures of Pascal's Wager actually stem from its greatest strength!
It's not an evidential argument. It doesn't even try to prove God exists. It's a pragmatic argument for why you should believe in God.
But nobody has ever actually taken full advantage of Pascal's Wager.
Ever since it was first proposed, people have been using it to defend their pre-existing religious beliefs.
Since this is such a great argument, it works well, of course, but Pascal's wager is not being used to its full potential.
That changes now!
I'd like to introduce to you a brand new religion built entirely around Pascal's Wager.
I call it: Pascalianism!
Here's how it works:
If you believe in Pascalianism and you're right, you will go to the best possible afterlife; better than any afterlife offered by any other religion.
For convenience, we'll call this realm Oz, because I really like those books.
If you don't believe in Pascalianism and you're wrong, you will go to the worst possible afterlife; much worse than any bad afterlife that's used to punish you for not believing in and/or practicing any other religion.
We'll call this place Hevenn, because it's confusing and fun!
If you believe in Pascalianism and you're wrong, maybe nothing will happen, or maybe you'll go to some other bad afterlife, but nothing nearly as bad as you would've risked by not believing in Pascalianism and chancing ending up in Hevenn!
If you don't believe in Pascalianism, then sure, maybe nothing will happen, and I guess you won't have to end up in Hevenn, but you could still end up in some other bad afterlife, and any good afterlife you might land yourself in won't be nearly as good as Oz would have been.
See, that's the best way to use Pascal's Wager: construct an unsupported religion *around it* rather than using it to defend a pre-existing unsupported religion.
Anyway, that's all I have for now. If you disagree with me, make sure to leave a dislike and an angry comment, and subscribe to become a Pascalianismist! (Yes, that is what a follower of Pascalisnism is called.)
*Break is Over by Krix, AKA my awesome intro/outro theme plays again*
Thanks for watching with subtitles! Did you know that I always make sure to write these captions before I publish my videos?
