Question As I see it, there is not a single person on the planet who can prove or disprove the existence of God. If there is no provable God and/or afterlife then there can be no better hope for anything beyond the grave than what religion espouses. If there is a God however, then the rewards for correct behavior are well defined. Why then would the rational man NOT believe in some sort of supreme divine being if there is no proof either way?

Accepted:
April 4, 2008

Comments

It sounds as though you're giving a version of Pascal's Wager. One version of that argument runs along the following lines (whether or not this is exactly what Pascal had in mind): If God exist and I believe, I'll get infinite bliss. If he exists and I don't believe, I'm damned. But if God doesn't exist and I believe, I lose little, if anything and if he doesn't exist and I don't believe, I don't gain that much. Since belief potentially gains me much and loses me little, but since disbelief potentially gains me little and loses me much, I should believe.

One problem, of course, is whether skeptical people can actually get themselves to believe. Pascal thought they could by going to mass, taking holy water and the like. Let's suppose he's right. What's the downside?

One famous difficulty is the "many gods" objection. Which version of God do we believe in? What sorts of actions should we perform? Should we be Christians? What if there's a God who sees that as an unacceptable form of thinly-disguised polytheism? Should we reject Christianity? Millions of Christians see that as a sure path to damnation. And on it goes.

If the argument is that we should back the right horse in order to get a shot at paradise and avoid the fiery pit, then the problem is that we don't know which horse to pick. If we bring in general theological/philosophical considerations to decide which religious hypotheses are most plausible (or least implausible), then we may well end up deciding that a God who wouldnm't damn people for their honest opinions is at least as plausible as some wrath-ridden sort with inscrutable views. But in that case, the Wager loses its force.

This isn't to say that what some people call "pragmatic reasons" for religous belief have no force. William James's "The Will to Believe" makes a better case, though what James is arguing is often misunderstood. Suffice it to say, however, that it would be very difficult to show that a rational person couldn't be a non-believer; pragmatic arguments simply aren't up to that task.

To ask a question our illustrious leader, Alexander George, has several times asked here: What's meant by "prove"? If what's meant is what's ordinarily meant by "prove", then it's not clear that a single person on this planet can prove human beings evolved from apes. Nor can anyone prove that the Loch Ness monster does not exist. But that simply doesn't mean that there can't be good reasons to believe that human beings evolved from apes or that the Loch Ness monster does not exist. There can be, and there are.

Now what exactly that has to do with the rest of the question is not yet clear. But have a look here http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pascal-wager/ for some thoughts (not mine).