Pascal's Wager is a failed argument.

Yeah, I can never think of a good wording of the debate topic.

Basically, I am here to refute Pascal's Wager. Your common Christian uses it a lot, and it gets tiring sometimes. And I'm so nice, I'll let my opponent go first (I'm lazy and new quarter is coming up, sue me).

I'm not a Christian and I don't believe in God, but I like Pascal's wager. Consider the following values:
a)The expected decrease in worldly utility of attempting to live a Christian life
b)The probability that Christianity is false
c)The probability that Christianity is true but one can't force oneself to believe in God
d)The probability that Christianity is true and one can force oneself to believe in God, but that God wouldn't accept Pascal's motivation
e)The maximum utilitarian difference, times infinite.

a(b+c+d) is the value of deliberately remaining an atheist. e(1-b-c-d) is the value of attempting to become a Christian. a is a complex set of probabilities (whose sum is 1) of utilitarian differentials, some infinite by virtue of the probability of natural immortality and some finite by virtue of the probability of natural mortality. So, excluding c and d, (each of which are evidently unlikely) the Pascal bettor believes that the difference between the probability of natural immortality and the probability of supernatural immortality, if it even favors natural immortality, is less than the difference between heaven/hell's utilitarian difference and that of piety/non-piety. The utilitarian difference between two mortal lifestyles is of course irrelevant in the presence of infinite terms.

I'll admit...my opponent's argument is confusing. I hate math, and his argument definitely resembles it. Since I have no clue which direction my opponent is arguing, I will simply state every argument against Pascal's Wager and hope that one of these hit his argument. If I fail, then I apologize for not understanding my opponent's argument. But really, things like natural immortality and supernatural immortality? At least define these terms…

=====Counterarguments=====

>>>Can't make yourself believe in something<<<
Pascal's Wager says the safe bet is to just believe in a God. However, I argue that you can't MAKE YOURSELF BELIEVE IN SOMETHING SINCERELY. Sure, you can perhaps TELL other's that you believe in something, but you yourself can't change your beliefs by simple choice. Beliefs are shaped by evidence and compelling reason. You can tell people that you don't believe coffee tables exist, but common sense and evidence will tell your inner voice otherwise. This shows the impracticality of Pascal's Wager.

>>>Infinite amount of other possible god<<<

There could be an INFINITE AMOUNT OF POSSIBLE GODS that praise and desire skeptics, atheists, or people who don't believe in religion. In fact, there could be a "atheist heaven" and a "theist hell". This is equally possible along with every other god. Sure, we know of no religion right now that has that. But so what? If there was a skeptic God, then we would imagine that it would NOT want a religion based on it. Because there are an infinite amount of possible religions (that can be either discovered or not), then Pascal's element of numbers and probabilities is thrown out the window.

=====Conclusion=====

This is all I can say right now, and I hope it hits the target. The only thing I ask of my opponent is that if he's going to use arcane diction, at least define them. Or perhaps I'm dumb. Who knows.

If your counterarguments are exhaustive, clarification of my first argument will be useless and unnecessary.

Counterargument 1: One cannot change one's beliefs by "simple choice", because beliefs are shaped exclusively by "evidence" and "compelling reason". Therefore, Pascal's Wager is "impractical".

But there is neither sufficient evidence nor compelling reason to believe counterargument 1's premise. Added to which, its conclusion does not follow from its premise. On the latter note, the Pascal bettor has more options than simply "simple choice". He has what you might call "complex choice". He can choose to expose himself predominantly to such evidence and lines of reasoning which tend to produce and maintain Christians. He can cancel his subscription to Skeptic magazine, find a church, move to the Bible Belt, etc. Eventually, like the protagonist in 1984, he will have achieved God's requirement of not only telling you the coffee table doesn't exist but also quite believing it. We are a social animal, you see, even when it comes to belief, and even when we fancy ourselves intelligent.

Even the premise of counterargument 1 has been shown to be false by evolutionary biology, to say nothing of the assumptions of religion. For example, deception (which can be useful) is often impossible without self-deception (See the work of Robin Trivers). Hence, we have evolved the ability to actually believe what it would be useful to believe, even in the total absence of evidence, even where the only "compelling reason" was an initial utility forecast. In the perhaps unlikely event that God is real, the self-deception will have not been deception at all, but simply ignorance of a possible lack of evidence, evidence that was ultimately false. The idea that God will not save those who willfully ignore lack of evidence is absurd, as a commenter explained well: "Blessed are those who have not seen yet believe." And the idea that God would reject fear-of-hell or desire-for-heaven as underlying motivation, is belied by the Scripture's repeated forewarnings of the two realms. Added to which, Pascal's Wager need not be selfish at all. As belief is useful to convincing, we serve others' salvation through our own. Pascal's Wager might even be from a consideration of merit: though God's likelihood of existence is, by a small margin, less than my current master's; the former deserves service more than the latter, and by a great margin. I can't speak for God, but if I were he, I would be more flattered by that reasoning than reasoning based on the presumed certainty of my existence.

Counter-argument two rests on the misconception that the sum of one infinite set is equal to the sum of all others. Is the sum of the set of even integers equal to the sum of the set of integers divisible by three? Both are infinite sets, but the sum of the former is clearly greater than the sum of the latter, and clearly by an infinite margin. Likewise, the infinite possible atheist-rewarding heavens suffer from being individually and collectively improbable. Not helping their case is that not even atheists believe in them.

=====Counterarguments=====

>>>Can't make oneself believe<<<

At most, this point was to show the impracticality of Pascal's Wager, my second argument was intended to be the refutation.

>>>Infinite possibilities<<<

"Is the sum of the set of even integers equal to the sum of the set of integers divisible by three?"
----> And by what basis do you make this comparison? I argue that the amount of "God's who praise atheism" are infinitley many as "God's who have a specific religion". In fact, we don't know. There could be more religious ones, or more atheistic ones. Or perhaps the religious ones are specific and non-compatible with each other, while the atheistic God's can co-exist. There are so many unknown variables that come into account that Pascal's Wager is made null.

"Likewise, the infinite possible atheist-rewarding heavens suffer from being individually and collectively improbable."
----> In comparison to what, the religious-rewarding heavens? And by what merit do you make this claim?

"Not helping their case is that not even atheists believe in them."
----> This, in fact, can very well be one of the REQUIREMENTS to be seen in a good light by these atheistic Gods.

=====Conclusion=====

I deeply apologize for my short answers, I would really love to develop on this debate. Unfortunately, school is cutting into my time (I had to wake up at 4 to reply to this debate). As such, I won't be debating so much for awhile, and if my opponent wishes to start this debate again then I'll accept when I can.

My opponent's refutation of my argument of infinite possibilites makes the erroneous presumption that there are the infinite set of religious gods is more than the infinite set of atheistic gods. He has no grounds to make this claim, and if variables such as these, among many others, are not satistfied than Pascal's Wager should be thrown out the window.

"And by what basis do you make this comparison?"

The probability of "atheist heaven" and "theist hell" is less than the probability of the reverse. Separating our two opposite possibilities into their respective infinite variations, we arrive at exactly the same conclusion. To simplify the numeric analogy, you could split "2" into the infinite set "1 + � + � + …" and its sum would still be less than the elementary set "3".

That "we don't know" evidently does not cause you to believe God is as likely to exist as he is to not exist. So why would it cause you to believe that this God you've invented for the sake of argument is as likely to exist as one whose existence billions attest to? There being "so many unknown variables" is a normal problem, making nothing "null". "Wager" implies imperfect knowledge.

I would love to continue the debate, except I think you've proven your point. I realize now, I can't adequately argue the relative improbability of atheist heaven. For peace of mind, I think I'll believe in it, as well. Nice job.