The Existence of God IV: Pascal's Wager

Any discussion of the existence of God would be deficient without mentioning Pascal's Wager. After all, isn't the expected value from religion infinitely higher than without religion?

I'm not sure if the argument works so well, though. Consider the following: I tell you that I have experienced a revelation from sea people, who say that they will do you incredible good if you act a certain way, but they will do you incredible harm if you act a different way. In my story, I just so happen to craft the manner in which the sea people will execute their will as to make it nonfalsifiable (as the idea of Olam Haba is). Would any of you believe me? No, you say, you have written a post on Pascal's Wager, so your story clearly relates to your position on this principle. So I slightly change the situation. A random person in the street tells you this. He appears to be completely sane, and completely serious. He reacts in a very disappointed manner if you doubt him. Would you still believe him?

It seems to me that most people would not. They would at least need some stronger evidence to establish the truth of what he said. After all, he may very well be delusional, may have misinterpreted a situation, or seen something that can be explained through alternative phenomena. So, we would ignore his story because it is very unlikely.

Now, one could respond that one could equally apply this to bizarre scientific phenomena. After all, it would run contrary to all experience, and can cause great good or harm. A prime example of this is nuclear power. No one had any conception of the power contained in atomic nuclei before the 20th Century. Or, more recently, one could apply this to subatomic particles. This ignores, though, the falsifiability criteria. One would be more likely to credit a scientific statement, as one believes that since the scientist has no reason to lie, and his method for deducing his statements on natural phenomena are repeatable, so one could catch him if he did lie, it is exceedingly likely that the scientist is telling the truth.

Two sources I would like to mention at this point - Noam Chomsky's quote on science vs. postmodernism, and David Hume's On Miracles.

I now go further. It is important to note that all religions could make this claim. Thus, Pascal's Wager equally leads to Judaism, Islam, Christianity, Classical Paganism, etc. The only way out of this is to use empirical evidence to weigh one over the other- which, as we have said before, negates the whole value of Pascal's Wager! Pascal's Wager depends on being true without any evidence to support religion, yet one must recourse to evidence to establish which religion is correct.

Also, Pascal's Wager treats God's judgment as if it were some sort of blind event. Pascal's Wager might work for, say, the approach of a tornado; but for judgment? There is a universal principle in justice called the burden of proof. Since God wants us to do something, and on the basis of our consequent actions we will be brought to justice, is not the burden of proof on him to establish that we must do these actions? After all, as the Talmud says, Hamotzi mechaveiro alav hara'aiah.

Considering all this, I would think that at best, Pascal's Wager can work as a tiebreaker, where there is already enough evidence to make the case plausible, but not 100% certain. It does not work independently of any other basis for religion.