What if I'm Wrong?
My suffering makes them joyful.
What’s up nonbelievers, doubters, and skeptics?
Welcome to The Ex-Christian Observer: a weekly newsletter from a former Christian unpacking the madness that is evangelical Christian America.
Christians really think that they can drop the mic after spouting Pascal's Wager, don't they?
If you don't know the term Pascal’s Wager, you're probably at least familiar with the method.
It's one of the Christians go-to arguments, and it sounds a little bit like this:
If I live my whole life as a Christian and it turns out that I'm wrong, then I lose nothing. I just die, and I'm buried. If you live your life as an atheist, and you're wrong, then you spend eternity in hell.
The problem with this is that there are so many easy counter arguments.
The first of which comes to mind to me is: what if you have the wrong god?
What if you spend your whole life serving Jesus, and it turns out that Vishnu is the actual real God, or it turns out that Zeus is the real God—then what? They always leave that part out. It's not a black and white. It’s not “either this God or no God at all.”
There are thousands of other gods throughout history. What if one of those is the real God?
If you spend your whole life believing in God, and it turns out that you're wrong, one could argue that you wasted your whole life.
Sure. There might be some parts that are fulfilling, and maybe you feel like you lived your life for a purpose, but, ultimately, if you live your entire life, worshipping a God that doesn't exist, I'd say that there are some problems with that.
You probably lost relationships throughout your life that you would have kept if you didn't believe in God. I know that i've lost some because of differences on religion—both when I was a christian and now that I'm not a christian.
I've lost relationships on both sides of that.
So it's not like if you believe in god, and it turns out that he's not real, then it was “no harm, no foul.”
You were probably pretty shitty to a lot of people while you were here.
You were probably extra judgmental to those that you didn't side with.
If you thought people were living a life of sin, you avoided their friendship because you didn’t even want to open that door.
Is it really a fulfilling life?
I remember the first time that I heard Pascal's Wager.
I was probably 18 years old or so, and I was in the truck with this guy that I went to church with. We were probably going to witness to people at the outlet mall because that's what we did.
And he was just baffled that some people just didn’t believe.
We sat there in his truck and he said “It's really quite easy, man. If you believe in God, and you're wrong…nothing happens, but if you don't believe, and it turns out that God's real…you're going to burn in hell forever.
And I didn't really piece together the logical absurdity of it all. I just kinda went along with it. “Yeah, you're right. If we die, then we've lost nothing.”
It's one of the most common arguments that I ever hear or see from Christians, and it's very shallow. It's one of the worst possible argument for God that one could make.
It goes back to being indoctrinated. It's pretty easy to see that anyone who believes in any gods could make the same exact argument.
Christians look at life as being short term when, in reality, this is the only life we know we have. They have eternity as their goal, so life here doesn't matter quite as much to them.
I know that a lot of Christians enjoy their life, and they try to just do what's right by their God.
And maybe there wouldn’t be a whole lot of differences if they didn't believe, but for those who are really, really religious, and they spend their whole life serving God, worshipping God, going to church nonstop, basing every decision—every thought on there being eternal consequences for them…
Things like: God can convict them of thought crimes.
It's right there in the gospels. Lusting after a woman is the same thing as adultery to them. And that's crazy dangerous.
They think that if you lust after a woman and you don't repent, then there's a chance that you might not make it into the kingdom of God.
That's just scare tactics, and it's living a life the way you normally wouldn't live if you weren't a religious person.
Also, eternity is a concept that we really can't grasp. We can't wrap our head around it. If you believe in God, and you die and go to heaven, you are praising God for eternity.
Just think about it. That's thousands and thousands of years… and that’s just the start of it.
It still keeps going thousands of more years, thousands of more years, thousands of more years that you're worshiping God in heaven. That's pretty narcissistic.
Pastor Greg Locke made a video where he said:
If I am absolutely, positively wrong about my faith in the gospel of Jesus Christ, and if you are correct that there is no heaven or hell, that there is no God with whom we have to be responsible and accountable to one day, then at the end of the day when I die, I haven't lost one single thing. I've just believed something that helped me, through life, have hope and joy.
But if you're wrong, and I'm right, then And there is a heaven, there is a hell, there is the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, there is the truth of redemption and salvation, then when you die, you've lost everything.
They love using that as a scare tactic. “If you're wrong you lose everything.”
Yeah, and if unicorns are real, and you die and don't believe in unicorns, then you get a horn shoved up your ass for eternity, and you're gonna have a bleeding asshole for the rest of time.
Comments From Christians
Although I don’t engage with nearly as many of the negative comments anymore, I still like to post some of the insanity here!
Wow, Craig. Tell me how you really feel.
It will make you joyful to see people suffering in the lake of fire?
Here’s Craig’s bio:
A victim of conversion therapy living in denial.
No one believes that humans evolved from species that still roam the Earth.
You don’t have to point out how flawed their logic is when they point it out themselves.
Fart noises are funnier and better than the Bible.
They always think that I owe them my time. Yeah, I definitely want to spend it going back and forth with theo bros in my Instagram comments lol
Once again!
Bruh, my page isn’t for you. That’s what they don’t understand.
And add a sprinkle of misogyny on top!
Thanks for being here.
You may have seen that I started a private community called Skeptic Circle recently. Please consider joining! The best way to support the work I do.
If you’ve already joined, thank you!
Once we get 50 members in, we’ll do a virtual watch party! I’m thinking The Invention of Lying or Dogma.
Anyone who joins in 2024 will get in for $6.66/month and lock in that rate for as long as they’re a member!
I hope to see you inside.
And remember: You don’t need a god to be good.
Kevin
Join Skeptic Circle—a community for nonbelievers: https://www.skepticcircle.com
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What is not touched on is what “belief” even is. I guess maybe there’s stuff that I choose to believe, like I guess I choose to believe that there is more good than evil in the world or that people who are not me are also humans and not my imagination. But those things also make sense to me and they match how I experience the world. When people bring up Pascal’s wager they’re essentially making a “you can’t win the lottery if you don’t buy a ticket” argument. But that’s not belief or faith, it’s just a technicality. If I don’t believe in a god or an afterlife, it’s because I CANT. Nothing in my life supports the idea.
If I do believe, it’s because “god” has revealed him/her/itself to me in some way, whether supernaturally or in that “still, small voice” that one of the prophets spoke about. That has nothing to do with going to church or joining “the club” (though going to church etc might be how you give form to that faith and how you reconnect with it, and that’s great).
Faith isnt a bargain or an insurance policy. And if god is as omnipotent as they say then surely he/she/they/it would know when you’re just going through the motions as a contingency plan. I’d think any god worth worshipping would prefer an honest, self reflective atheist than a regular churchgoer who cynically performs faith “just in case it’s not all bullshit”. And I’d think any hell that exists would have a special place for someone who tried to fool god.
Pascal’s wager may have been how Pascal navigated his own journey of faith rather than an argument for why other people should believe. But when used as a (not very effective) tool for conversion it’s a political tool, not a spiritual one. It’s a tool of intimidation and threat, not a message of love. It’s about pushing an earthly agenda, not concern for one’s soul.
“If you lust after a woman and you don't repent, then there's a chance that you might not make it into the kingdom of God”. Really? Well, that finishes me off. I spend somewhere around 93.2 per cent of my life lusting after women of various races, nationalities, and appearances.