Why Pascal's "Wager" is outdated! - From an atheist point of view

I have always wondered whether believing in God would make me live a more fulfilling and happier life than as an atheist. This is probably something everyone has asked themselves at some point of their lives. I was actually born into a pretty religious family. My parents do believe in God, but they somehow never imposed their beliefs upon any of their children and that is why I was able to become an atheist from an early age. In moments of doubt though I kept asking myself the question whether it would not be better for me to believe in God because sometimes I definitely felt like believing in something higher than reason and simply something I can look up to.

Having read Pascal’s Wager now I have to admit it was a bit disappointing. I do not think that his views can and should be applied to today’s society. Without a doubt there are still people nowadays that would completely agree with Pascal, but there will also be a lot of people that is to say atheists refuting his opinion. What does Pascal say that should have no place in the 21st century? The main idea is that God either exists or he does not. Pascal says our reason cannot prove any of those two points. Thus we ought to wager and there is no other option. If we weigh the gain and the loss in wagering that God is it is evident that if you gain you gain all and if you lose you lose nothing. So it is in one's own best interest to behave as if God exists, since the possibility of eternal punishment in hell outweighs any advantage of believing otherwise.

Now the first problem with Pascal’s beliefs is that he refers only to Christianity. For him this is the only kind of religion we are supposed to believe in, but nowadays this is just a lot more complex than in his time. There are a lot of different religious groups and everyone of those claims to be the right one to follow. On this matter the Simpsons have made a good point because if we do accept the notion that God exists we still have to take into consideration that we might actually believe in the wrong God. So Homer’s concerns seem pretty legitimate in this picture. 

Pascal tells us that we are better off when we have faith in God, but looking at how religions have divided people, how all of the world’s evil can actually be traced back to the fact that people in the course of time have made things up connected to religion, it is safe to say that religion has saved us from nothing and has never provided us with anything good.

On this subject I found a very interesting video where an atheist is confronted with theists of different religions. They all claim that God has revealed himself to them, but then end up disagreeing which God the real one is or which group of people the chosen ones etc. The atheist then steps in and makes clear to them that typically religion obeys borders, but the truth not. There cannot be one God in India and another one in the U.S. because the truth does not behave that way. In America 2+2 is 4 and in India it is the same. So if God’s message was that important then why would he not have given it to us in a clear and precise way so that we would all be in agreement as evident as a simple math problem in which there is universal agreement rather than trusting his precious message to be spread by corruptable human beings. Why would almighty God allow the continuation of such widespread falsehoods in his name which would be effortless for him to correct.

As I have already mentioned Pascal says if we lose we lose nothing, but I just do not think he thought about how religion has manifested itself in today’s society. If religion means killing other people, being homophobic, sexist and racist even then I do believe that we have a lot to lose. Obviously this is a very generalised point of view and truly religious people will be offended by this because they do not think this represents their religion. But the truth is humans have mostly used religion to spread hatred, division and fear.

Do not get me wrong. I would not try to impose my beliefs on religious people and I do respect their views, but one has to imagine our planet as a place where we never needed any religion to tell us how to behave. As humans we should know what to do and what not to do without someone telling us. We ought to have a sense of morality without justifying it with religion.

Another thing is that usually people think that atheists are sad people who have nothing they can believe in, but this is definitely not the case as I for myself see kindness and being human as my religion. It just seems crazy to me to follow a book that was written nearly 3500 years ago. Times change and we all know that as we see it in the way we learn to adapt to new technologies so why not step back to have a moment and reflect on this to see what form religions have actually taken in our time.