Can you choose what you believe?
Recently my sister Heather was having a discussion about religion with some friends. They were surprised to learn that she is an atheist. They were completely unable to grasp how you could think there is no God. My sister explained that she did not believe that there was any reason or evidence to believe, and the bible with it’s myriad of errors, internal and historical, gave her ample reason to believe it all poppycock. Her friends replied “How can you say there is no god? What if you’re wrong?”. ”Well if I’m wrong I guess I’m fucked aren’t I” was Heather’s reply.
Now when Heather told me about this conversation I was immediately reminded of Pascal’s Wager. Now I’m sure most of you know about Pascal’s Wager already but I’ll explain it for those who might not.
If you believe in God and God IS real then you go to heaven. If you believe in God and God is NOT real then nothing happens.
If you don’t believe in God and God is NOT real then again nothing happens. But if you don’t believe in God and God IS real then you go to Hell.
Essentially you should believe in God just in case. If you do believe in God the worst that can happen is nothing, whereas if you don’t believe the worst that can happen is eternal torment. So as you can see the stakes are as high as they can get and in a game like this it only make sense to play where the odds are in your favour right? Wrong, and I’ll tell you why.
God is supposedly omnipotent and omniscient. That is all powerful and all knowing. If God does exist isn’t it likely that he knows you don’t really believe? That you only ‘believe’ because you feel it’s in your best interest. If God exists doesn’t he have the power to know that you only ‘chose’ to believe for selfish reasons. Let’s be honest you can’t choose what you believe. You either believe it or you don’t. I believe that the sky is up and the ground is down; I didn’t read about it, doubt it but choose to believe it anyway just to be safe. I simply believe it.
Realising this is what allowed me to let go of the last clinging bits of religion and embrace atheism. Growing up I was given a very fire and brimstone view of God and as I slowly stopped believing I was understandably scared. What if I was wrong? It was when I realized that if God were real he would know deep down that I didn’t really believe and was only paying lip service out of fear. I felt that it would be an insult to both of us and I would be better off living my life truthfully.
So next time someone asks you “what if you’re wrong?” when discussing your atheism simply tell them “You can’t choose what you believe is true deep down. You believe it or you don’t and I don’t”.
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{Unrelated atheism quote from my sister Heather after watching a documentary about prehistoric animals}
“Holy fuck! Elephant birds existed! Elephant birds existed and Jesus Christ did not.”
As many have pointed out, there’s another side of Pascal’s Wager. What if there is a God, but his test to enter heaven is in whether you honestly tried to understand the Universe He has given you through the incredible gift of Reason that He gave you? In other words, what if God, in hiding Himself, is testing us to see if we’ll come to the rational conclusion that he does not exist. Those are the one’s that he will reward. So we should all be atheists “just in case.”
Or perhaps Allah is the correct God. Or Zeus. Or one of the ten thousand others. Perhaps your sister’s friends should worship them all “just in case.” You wouldn’t want to take a 10,000-to-1 long shot on picking just Yahweh and hoping he was the right one. Ironically, this would bring them back to a very historical view of religion: you try to discover all the powerful creatures out there and make sure to worship them all in the ways the want to be worships. That way they don’t send floods or drought. I’d hoped we could be beyond that by now.
A few weeks ago I wrote a lot more about the wrongness of worship based on fear of punishment. Your post made me think of that again. Thanks for reminding me I’m not alone.
Very good, clear explanation. I never understood how people could throw Pascal’s Wager out there like it was a logical, viable solution.
I completely agree with your reasoning about god knowing in our hearts if we believe or not and that you just can’t make yourself believe.
I tried all my life to believe the nonsense I was learning in Catholic school. But deep down I knew I couldn’t believe it, it just didn’t make any logical sense. When I finally gave up trying I was a much happier person.