What if you are wrong?
By Gene X. Christian
Image Credit: Midjourney
Before we get started today, let’s take a look at one of more well-known examples of this questioning: Pascal’s Wager.
Pascal’s Wager
Blaise Pascal was a French scientist, mathematician, and philosopher who lived from 1623 to 1662. His “wager” is argued like this: it is better to bet on the existence of God because the potential payoff of eternal life is better than the potential loss (such as being damned to hell for eternity).
It’s a common theme for believers: “I would rather live my life believing even if God isn’t real, rather than not believe and find out after death that God actually is real.”
This argument fails because … If you pick the wrong God to worship, then you still lose. It’s a fun thought experiment, but not one I give much weight. For a humorous take on this, check out this clip from South Park.
I only mention Pascal’s Wager because inevitably, someone will bring it up as a good reason to believe in God. I disagree.
What if you are wrong?
Now that you know what you believe, and you’ve done a deep dive into why do you believe it, it’s time for the final of my big three: What if you are wrong?
From my personal experience with faith, as well as plenty of interactions with people of different religions, there is one common theme: everyone is sure their way is the “right way.”
You can test this on your own: ask anyone devout in their faith “What percentage do you think you are correct?” I have asked this to Jews, Christians, and Muslims, and the answer has always been “100 percent.” It’s even worse in Christian denominations who are generally divided by minute differences in dogma. The Protestants don’t think Catholics are Christians. Protestants also are very divided. The Baptists don’t believe the same as the Methodists, who don’t believe the same as the Lutherans, who don’t believe the same as …
You get my point.
Not everyone can be correct. The question stands: “What if you are wrong?”
To be willing to entertain this question requires intellectual honesty.
For me, I had spent most of my life as a believer in the Christian God. Jesus was my savior. He died and rose from death as a payment for my sins. I became less “in your face” about my faith as I got older, but I never backed away from telling someone about my faith when an opportunity was appropriate.
At present, I am still writing out my “extimony” (the opposite of a typical Christian “testimony”). I will publish it eventually, but for the sake of brevity: I reached a point in my deconstruction journey where I asked myself, “What if I am wrong? What if God doesn’t actually exist?”
The answer to that question for me was “You will live the rest of your life believing in a lie.”
I set out on a quest, with Pilate’s words in my head: “What is truth?” - John 18:38
Published on 2024-12-26