Introduction
Typically, in discussions of why should one whether or not believe in god, Pascals Wager is offered by the believer as a decisive reason against non-belief. Most of the time, your garden-variety believer is unaware that they are invoking Pascal's Wager when they do. Pascal's Wager does not prove the claim that god exists, rather it posits belief in god is of practical necessity – like the precaution of checking to see the if the road is clear before you cross.

Pascal's Wager has been formally discredited by more systematical approaches of philosophy, but nonetheless it doesn't prohibit the unscrupulous or unaware from using it. Ironically, the believer who is wiling to take the bet, places themselves in as equally as a perilous position – if not more so than the unconvinced unbeliever.

Of course, the following analysis is not meant to be complete.

Background
Pascal's Wager was coined after Blaise Pascal, a 17th century French mathematician, physicist, and religious philosopher of the Enlightenment. He contributed much to Western science, the philosophy of science, and the scientific method with innovations and discoveries in the natural sciences, mathematics, and the invention of projective geometry and probability theory.

It is from probability theory that Pascal's formulates his famous gambit in the Pensées.

"If you erroneously believe in God, you lose nothing (assuming that death is the absolute end), whereas if you correctly believe in God, you gain everything (eternal bliss). But if you correctly disbelieve in God, you gain nothing (death ends all), whereas if you erroneously disbelieve in God, you lose everything (eternal damnation)."

Defined
I'll draft a quick syllogism of the premises.

P1: If you believe in God when you die, you have everything to gain.

P2: If you do not believe in God when you die and you're wrong, you have everything to lose.

P3: If you believe in God and nothing happens when you die - no harm, no shame.

C: Whether or not God exists, belief in God is practical.

Examples
1) If you will believe that Bush and Osama bin Laden are making apple pie together in the White House, I will give you a briefcase full of money, or I will pull this trigger and blow your head off.

The following example lifted directly from the blogs at lcl.

2) "And If I'm wrong, so what. But what if we Christians are right? Sucks to be you. Especially when you die. Take heed my brother."


Problems, Objections, Perils –  A Theological Arms Race
Positive, theistic arguments come in two different orders.

First order arguments are axiomatically epistemological and usually consist of an ontological argument, like design, cosmological, or personal revelation. Quite often, first order arguments make appeals to materialism as reason for belief in non-materialistic supernaturalism.

Second order arguments either posit god axiomatically, or ignore the question altogether. Rather, they turn to belief as a matter of practical necessity. Pascal's Wager is a second order argument.

First and second order arguments are mutually exclusive. 

Example 1 takes the carrot and stick approach to belief. Given the circumstances I propose, could you convince yourself, that Bush and Osama are actually making this All American confection together? I know I couldn't. I don't think you could either. (Although, I am quite sure there are those on the far left that probably do.  :D )

It still remains to be discerned why neurologically people believe what and why they believe. One thing is certain, beliefs are not entirely subject to will alone. In other words, you can not just "will" yourself to believe.

Despite the science, shouldn't I just have the belief (even if I could will it) regardless out of self preservation?

Moralists and philosophers have long debated over the ethics of a system of rewards and punishments as a way to teach virtue. Do we want people to donate to charity because a law requires them to?  While that may be great for society, it says nothing about the inner nature of people doing good by their own volition.

Ideally, it is better for society to have people voluntary act for the betterment of that society, or for themselves.

Example 2 is stated by a Christian with obvious theological underpinnings. You'll notice that example 2 uses the same carrot and stick approach as example 1. Since example 1 is an analogy of example 2, the same criticisms apply. Aditional criticism are relevant because example 2 assumes theism. More assumptions = equal more criticisms = equals greater chance of being wrong.

It goes without saying that the Christian thinks Heaven is the reward, and Hell is the punishment. I doubt that bad breath, hours of Barney the dinosaur, and hangnails is the implication being made.

It's getting late in the day, so I'll offer up only two objections at this time. You can read more here, here, and here. 

A) The Theological Arms Race:  All I have do is imagine a god, imagine a punishment or reward, and assert that such a belief is in your best interest. Christians and Muslims remain unconvinced of each others rewards and punishment over the divinity of Jesus. If I recall correctly, Mormonism gives you a planet for your afterlife in which you become a God to lord over, or whatever.

The point is, reward or punishment fails to convince each other of the necessity to believe in each others religion. True, they believe in god (Yahweh) but the idiosyncrasies in dogmas are highlighted by lavish punishments or rewards remain unconvincing to each other. Muslims will spend eternity in a Christian lake of fire, and vice-a-versa.

Also, it should be noted that the theological arms race only pushes theism into the abyss of agnosticism. It makes all kinds of belief in all kinds of gods a practical necessity from the dead gods of pagan antiquity, to " new" gods that are "hidden" as science strips the places where god hides today.

B) The Atheist's Wager. What if atheists go to heaven? A quick syllogism: P1: God created non-belief. P2: God rewards non-belief, punishes all theistic belief. P3: Atheists go to heaven, theists go to hell C: It is more practical not to believe in god.

Recall, since Pascal's Wager does not argue for the existence of god and does not try prove that such an entity exists, the atheist if free to ignore the question of gods existence. (He would anyway, the burden of proof is on the believer.) Pascal's Wager is a second order argument that is mutually exclusive to first order arguments.

Look at this way. If god doesn't exist, the atheist will have saved 10% of his income and had many more Sunday's to sleep in. The Christian, loses all of that. Muslim societies so much more. In fact, the atheist according to Pascal's Wager has much more to gain. Once your dead, your dead. No going back and recovering all that money and time spent in church.

Anyway, it seems pretty clear to me that the theist is in even greater jeopardy than the atheist.

Incidentally, let me express a little rancor of at example 2. Perhaps due to my many, many, years of religious education, how dare you threaten me in such a sneering way? It's really petty that instead of attempting to give me your best first order argument, you go ahead and extort my non-existent afterlife.

In Conclusion
Pascal's Wager falls under the weight of it's logical incoherence. Not only is it impossible for one to just will themselves into belief, nor does a system of rewards and punishment make the wager ethical, it also requires the believer to hold belief in countless numbers of god despite religions mutual exclusivity, or to reject belief all together.

The safest bet, according to Pascal's Wager, is to reject theism and embrace atheism. 

One accusation made against liberals (and by extension democrats) is that liberals are more emotional and therefore the decisions they make are irrational. Unlike conservatives (and by extension republicans) who are not as emotional and therefore make better decisions because they are more rational. If we follow the reasoning, the conclusion is therefore conservatives are reliable, and liberals are not.

However, the accusation is categorically false.

Both partisans are equally motivated by emotion, rather than reason according to a 2006 study. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to monitor the sectors of the brain of faithful partisans during political judgments. Researcher Drew Westin notes that "What we saw instead was a network of emotion circuits lighting up, including circuits hypothesized to be involved in regulating emotion, and circuits known to be involved in resolving conflicts."

Some of the conclusions of the study were that both Democrats and Republicans:

• alike are adept at making decisions without letting the facts get in the way
• none of the circuits involved in conscious reasoning were particularly engaged
• there is a reward factor within the brain to eliminate negative feelings
  

"The result is that partisan beliefs are calcified, and the person can learn very little from new data" Westen said. (Source 1)

Commenting on the study, Dr. Michal Shermer states that this "surety is called the confirmation bias, whereby we seek and find confirmatory evidence in support of already existing beliefs and ignore or reinterpret disconfirmatory evidence." Confirmation bias is a fallacy in reasoning whereby we count the "hits" and dismiss the "misses" which could refute our ideologically committed preconceptions. (Source 2)

This should help us understand the last observation of the study. When we find evidence, or data, which correspondences to a particular belief, we are more likely to agree with it because our brain's chemistry is hardwired to reward us with positive stimuli.  (We feel good.) If we find evidence to the contrary, no positive stimulus is issued. (We do not feel as good) (Or we feel bad.) This is why it is essential that we guard ourselves against confirmation bias in our reasoning.

But that's difficult. A necessary presupposition of life is to believe and then to assign a value to those beliefs. Philosopher John Dill observes that "...assigning value to our choices and actions, as well as the potential benefits or harm brought about by those choices and actions, necessitates the prioritization of humanities endeavors on the basis of preservation and quality of life." Dill calls these types of beliefs, Category 1 Presuppositions. It is in the sphere we find politics very much an inhabitant of.

Also, there is an evolutionary factor at work here. Failure to recognize a predator got you killed. Recognizing a predator kept you alive. False positives do not get you killed. (The shadow of the tree looks like a lion.) We are the descendants of people who were effective at drawing conclusions from patterns. Sometimes we draw false conclusions from recognizing the wrong pattern.

So it seems that we must fight against our biology where the reliability of our respective beliefs are concerned.

I'm absolutely curious as to what people Lake Country Area think and believe, so I want to ask a little, informal, non-scientific survey. So this is your chance to tell me straight out, without having to justify why you believe what you believe.

Feel free to contact me here via email or leave your answers below. Indicate, if you feel like it where you sit politically and if you are religious.

I'll tally and release the results next month.

01. True or False: Iraq was one of the countries that attacked us on 9/11.

02. True or False: God speaks to me and he tells me what to do.

03. True or False: Intelligent design is a valid scientific theory.

04. True or False: Extraterrestrials have visited us.

05. True or False: Vaccines are the cause of autism.

06. True or False: America was founded on Christianity.

07. True or False: When Gays are allowed to marry one other, all marriages in America will dissolve.

08. True or False: Liberals are destroying America.

09. True or False: The preponderance of evidence disproves evolution.

10. True or False: Liberals are no better than terrorists like Tim McVeigh.

11. True or False: We are living in the final days. Revelation is at hand.

12. True or False: In order to protect itself, the United States, without support of its allies, should bomb Iran over its suspected nuclear program. Our use of nuclear weapons would be justified in doing so.

13. True or False: Some especially adapt people have psychic ability.

14. True or False: Psychics can read the thoughts and emotion of pets and other animals.

15. True or False: Demons are responsible for some mental illness. In that case, a Priest should be consulted, not doctors.