Daunting Answers

Quite often on sites like YouTube or Facebook you will find Atheists and Theists battling. There is a lot of fire and smoke on both sides and the end result is usually a stalemate, for one reason or another. Rarely, though, is it because of both sides being on equal ground. More often than not it is because one side or the other (or both) does not understand what their opponent is actually saying. The question is understood, but the answer is not. Today we will be focusing on one such situation. This is one of the most asked questions posed to Atheists, and is also quite old.

"What if you're wrong?"

About what? The usual Atheist response is that they have nothing to be wrong about. Agnostic Atheism, a lack of belief in gods, is quite dominant amongst Atheists, and really has nothing to be right or wrong about. On occasion, though, you will come across Gnostic Atheists, and I believe this question is geared more toward them. So, the rest of this will be answered from the perspective of a Gnostic Atheist.

First thing I should point out is where this question comes from. Whether the Theist presenting it realizes this or not, this is not a new question. This question was first posed to the public at large by the french philosopher Blaise Pascal in his notes, published as Pensées (thoughts).

1. "God is, or He is not"
2. A Game is being played... where heads or tails will turn up.
3. According to reason, you can defend neither of the propositions.
4. You must wager. It is not optional.
5. Let us weigh the gain and the loss in wagering that God is. Let us estimate these two chances. If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing.
6. Wager, then, without hesitation that He is. (...) There is here an infinity of an infinitely happy life to gain, a chance of gain against a finite number of chances of loss, and what you stake is finite. And so our proposition is of infinite force, when there is the finite to stake in a game where there are equal risks of gain and of loss, and the infinite to gain.

Basically, what Pascal is saying here is that if you wager that God exists, you have everything to gain and nothing to lose. On the other hand, if you wager that God does not exist you have nothing to gain and everything to lose. So why not believe in God? The main problem with Pascal's Wager is that it incorrectly identifies the possible outcomes as well as the available choices.

Let's look at just his example for a moment.

Table of Payoffs	Believe in God	Don't believe in God
God doesn't exist	0	0
God does exist	+∞ (heaven)	-∞ (hell)

The problem here is that you don't know which god is real, if any. If the Christian god was the only god available, then I could see this wager working. It would be quite logical. However, there are thousands if not millions of gods proposed by Theists around the world. Most of them are not at all like the Christian god. In fact, in the infinite possibilities we find ourselves faced with, it is possible that there is a god that supports Atheism.

So now the chart becomes this:

Table of Payoffs	Believe in God	Don't believe in God
God doesn't exist	0	0
Legalistic religious god exists	+∞ (heaven)	-∞ (hell)
Anti-conventional god exists	-∞ (hell)	+∞ (heaven)

Now there is no gamble. your chances are the same no matter what you believe in.

In response to questions such as Pascal's Wager, Atheists have come up with their own gamble. Basically, the Christian god, as well as most gods, is considered benevolent. There are a few malevolent ones out there as well, but the majority seem to reward good behavior more than actual faith. Essentially, most gods have their system set up where you get your reward by being good despite your loyalties. Those that condemn you despite how benevolent you have been to others would be considered a malevolent deity.

With this in mind, the chart now becomes this:

Table of Payoffs	Good life	Evil life
Benevolent god exists	+∞ (reward)	-∞ (punishment)
No god exists	+Finite	-Finite
Malevolent god exists	-∞ (punishment)	-∞ (punishment)

With this in mind, there is no reason to believe. All you need to do is live a life of good and whatever happens happens. You can believe whatever you want, as long as you don't try to harm anyone and try your best to help others.

So, to answer the original question: "What if you're wrong?" Nothing will happen. Whether we are right or we are wrong, as long as we have lived a good life we should be fine. If we have lived a bad life, whether or not we are right or wrong, we will experience problems. If we are wrong, and the deity is malevolent, whether or not we do good or not we will have severe problems.

Since the consequences either mirror actual life or don't correspond to the situation at all, we live as though this life is all we have. To us, this is it. We don't know if there is anything after this life, so we don't even think about it. We live life for now, not for then. That's all it takes. We live a good life now we are rewarded now. If we get rewarded later, that's good too. Gnostic and Agnostic Atheists both live their lives this way.

If there is a god, and it is benevolent, we will be fine. Who cares if we're wrong?

Plausible Possibilities

Quite often when an Atheist tells a Theist that they have a lack of belief in gods, it tends to lead to the Theist thinking they believe there are no gods. When our position is explained more, their knowledge of it switches to the opposite end, that all gods are possible, so why don't we believe in their god(s) then? Well, it would appear we have a new question on our hands.

"If Atheists believe gods are possible, why don't they believe in any known gods?"

To put it bluntly, we see no reason to. When we look at all of the gods currently "revealed" to man, we can't see a single one that, to us, makes any sense. That's not to say they don't make any sense at all, nor am I saying they are all false gods. All that means is that we see nothing that would suggest they are real while we see things that suggest to us that they are fake.

I'll put it this way. When we see gods depicted in holy books, we usually see ourselves in those gods. When we see decisions made by those gods, we ask ourselves if we would make the same choice given the situation described. Unfortunately, most of the time, we respond with a resounding no.

I can't speak for every Atheist, but I know what I would do if I was a god.

With ultimate power, being able to do anything possible and know everything, I would have two choices ahead of me if I wanted to create man. Do I make myself known to man or not? And what is the final goal of man? Is man meant to be a partner? A legacy? A friend?

If I were to make myself known to man, I would influence them significantly. There would be serious repercussions that I would have to actively counter or compliment. This would require intervening whenever man would go astray. Countering after the fact would be inefficient, so prevention would be the best method. Teach man what is wrong and why. If man continued to do wrong, further teaching would obviously be needed. Knowing everything, though, I would also know exactly how to teach man to never do wrong again without harming anyone.

On the other hand, if I were to not reveal myself to man, I must also be aware of the repercussions of this decision, something I would have no further control over. As such, I would have to make the universe and man in such a way as to bring them, eventually and efficiently, to their goal. Not revealing myself also means never intervening with man's progress. They would have to be by themselves, no one to gain knowledge from, no one to show them what is right and wrong. As I used my power to make a universe set on the right path, they would eventually learn everything they needed to know. However, before that point they would be stumbling through the dark. They would be trying to find any meaning to life they could, creating their own religions and faiths to explain their presence or relying on science to discover it for themselves.

In both cases, man would arrive at the goal set before them. Both would require full use of Omniscience and Omnipotence. Both require gods to exist. And, as I see it, these are the only possibilities for a benevolent god, one with good intentions for man or any other creation. For the first option to be real, I would have to have heard or seen god, regardless how I think. He would be an active, known force. My mind would be changed in an instant, before I harmed anyone with my stray, incorrect thoughts. I would still have the same amount of will I have now, I would simply be taught better.

Since the first option is not occurring, I must default myself to the other option. If any god exists at all, he or she must be taking a backseat to our development. This god would have set the universe in motion to be able to reach the desired conclusion as fast as possible, all on its own. This would mean that all of the gods we know about were all man made, not real gods.

Again, this is all my opinion. This is, however, my reasoning for believing gods can exist, but don't have to, and aren't any that man knows about. My opinion can change, if given a reason to, but that reason has yet to surface. Perhaps it will one day, but until that day comes I will continue to promote Atheism in a positive light.