Terahertz

Alright, so I feel like writing a post and I needed some brain fodder to get me going. Naturally I look up a mental opposite who is well known, and perhaps respected (among his peers, not mine) and decide to find a writing of Dinesh D’Souza’s.

The latest post on his blog is about Obama and race, not too intriguing for me, but his second latest reeks of failed ignorant arguments. The article is entitled “The Power of Pascal’s Wager.” Here we go (note, this “argument” for belief comes up a lot, so pay attention if you haven’t come across it before).

He launches with an interesting side note about the history of the wager,

Pascal did not invent the wager. It was offered by the Muslim theologian Abu Hamid al-Ghazzali in his medieval work The Alchemy of Happiness. Pascal was familiar with Ghazzali and probably derived the argument from him. But Pascal gave the wager its current classic expression, and in doing so he places an unavoidable choice before all believers and unbelievers.

This isn’t critical to the argument, but it does make D’Souza sound a bit more reputable and like he checks sources and knows what he’s talking about. He continues to dig into the meat of the argument itself, and expresses it fairly eloquently,

Pascal argues that in making our decision about God, we will never understand everything in advance. No amount of rational investigation can produce definitive answers, since what comes after death remains unknown. Therefore we have to examine the options, and we have to make our wager. But what are the alternatives, and how should we weigh the odds? Pascal argues that we have two basic choices, and either way we must consider the risk of being wrong.

Basically, the argument set up is that we all have a choice (belief in God), and we must make it before we die.

If we have faith in God and it turns out that God does not exist, we face a small downside risk: metaphysical error. But if we reject God during our lives, and it turns out God does exist, there is much more serious risk: eternal separation from God. Based on these two possible outcomes, Pascal declares that it is much less risky to have faith in God. In the face of an uncertain outcome, no rational person would refuse to give up something that is finite if there is the possibility of gaining an infinite prize. In fact, under these conditions it is unreasonable not to believe.

It’s pretty simple overall, and it’s a convincing argument for many, so where does it go wrong?

First, D’Souza (and Pascal) is assuming that when he “believes” in God that he has chosen the correct one. D’Souza is openly a Catholic, so I assume his faith is in the god of the New Testament (jesus and the trinity). It would be rather unfortunate for him if the Muslims were right, especially since Allah in some forms is very intolerant to the wrong belief. Following the spirit of the wager, should we not weight all religions (even dead ones) and decide which offers the best reward over punishment for belief for our decision? To me the constant threats from Islam are slightly more terrifying then the threat of being “eternally separated” from God. Pascal’s wager here sets up a one-or-the-other option that doesn’t accurately represent the myriad of possible beliefs (and remember, according to Christians^TM there is only ONE path to God).

Second, this wager is dealing with infinities, a mathematical construct, that people cannot possible comprehend. Therefore, how is it that we’re expected to perform rational judgement on the decision?

Many people argue that Pascal’s wager assumes equal probabilities of being right and wrong, however in D’Souza’s form this is not an issue as the infinite gain/loss should negate that issue. This still comes back to my last point about the problem of infinity. Suppose the probability of God (the Christian one) is infinitely small, should you still believe? Which infinity is larger, the probability of His existence or the reward for belief (trick question, they’re technically equal).

Another key issue with the argument is it assumes that belief is essentially a switch in your brain that you can switch on and start believing. Or, it assumes that if you don’t believe you can get away by feigning it in front of the Almighty. This underlying assumption insults D’Souza’s God by suggesting that faked belief is as worthy as ultimate devotion.

However, my main issue with his argument is that I believe you fundamentally lose something by believing that you potentially have by not believing. If you focus your entire life on the expectation of an afterlife, you have fundamentally devalued the time that you have to be alive. Suppose this argument is used in a strict Islamic context (the Islam references might be coming since I have the book Infidel in front of me), then you are required (if male) to at minimum pray multiple times a day in the appropriate direction (and much worse if you are female). All of this time is essentially wasted if you hedged your bet wrong (I’ll grant some benefit to taking some meditation time, but that’s not equivalent to prayer).

I have one life to live, and based on the evidence available, I’m going to spend it enjoying it as long as it lasts (since after it ends there’s no more Ian).

Pascal’s wager devalues life.

But what was the aim for Pascal’s wager? It seems that the best it does is give a weak reason for agnostics to move to belief, and for believers to feel good about, but not to convert atheists.

But D’Souza doesn’t stop writing once he’s finished about the argument. He states,

With their trademark venom, atheists typically condemn, although they cannot refute, Pascal’s wager. Christopher Hitchens can do no better than to launch an ad hominem attack on Pascal as a “hypocrite” and a “fraud.” Attempting condescension, Richard Dawkins proclaims Pascal’s argument “distinctly odd.” And why? Because “believing is not something you can decide to do as a matter of policy. At least, it is not something I can decide to do as an act of will.” Dawkins is right about this, of course, but the real issue is whether he wants to believe and whether he is open to the call of faith.

This statement is a bold faced lie. Almost every “new atheist” book comes complete with at least as good of a refutation of the argument as I have provided here. Even Wikipedia contains a thorough refutation. Are you telling me that D’Souza didn’t even bother looking at a Wikipedia site before writing his post?

D’Souza started with a common argument that I have heard from enough Christians that I came to expect it, however when his article devolved into bold-faced lies I lost another ounce of respect for the man. I hope by this point we all understand the title for this post.