I get hit with Pascal’s Wager all the time. What have I got to lose by being a Christian? Even if I didn’t believe in God, wouldn’t my life be better off if I still believed in one?
Blaise Pascal, who postulated this gamble, assumed that it would payoff either way. If you lived as a Christian, and it turned out that there was no god, you’ve lost nothing. However, if you lived your life as a non-theist, and there was a god, then you’ve lost everything.
What he didn’t mention though, and what nobody else does either, is the true cost of embracing any god. To embrace this God, I must lose my soul.
Let’s explore that. The first step to being a Christian is to “surrender my life to Jesus.” In other words, I must cede my values and my dreams to someone else. I’m literally ‘outsourcing’ my ‘morality’ to a book, written by bronze-aged men whose ideas of right and wrong are horrendous.
All I need to do is look at those who have already ceded their souls to illustrate just how horrific my life will look… and Fox “news” is the perfect place to start. From dusk to dawn we get to watch the pundits who have surrendered their souls. We see glaring holes in their logic, a total distain for reality, and ultimately, a complete lack of compassion.
So let’s say that after surrendering my soul, my daughter is raped. And let’s just assume that it was a “legitimate rape." Having ceded my soul, I am “morally” obligated to ferret out whether or not it was an “enjoyable rape,” or an “easy rape”—in which case, she is only getting what she deserved.
Let’s say that even after I took her to the emergency room for her shot of estrogen (emergency rape), she still ended up pregnant. Well, then, this is a “Gift from God rape.” The fact that she would even consider an abortion shows that she has still not ceded her soul to God, since this is what God intended. After all, that fetus is probably masturbating her womb at this very moment.
Even if, after all those sage comments, she chooses to have an abortion, then I must abandon her.
As someone who kept my soul instead, I have much better options. I can comfort my daughter. I can listen as she shares her anger, her fear, her frustration, and her confusion. I can be a safe place for her to grieve and heal. If she gets pregnant, I can support her choice—whatever that choice may be. Together the two of us can look for ways to handle this crisis in a way that supports us as human beings, and father and daughter, and as fellow human beings; regardless of what the moralists tell me I need to do.
Let’s say my son comes out to me as gay. Having ceded my soul, I am no “morally” obliged to confront him: I must demand that he, too, surrender his soul or suffer the wrath of a God who loved him so much that he murdered his own son since my son would never be good enough for him.
I must remind my son that if he continues to live in his wickedness, according to Leviticus, he must be stoned to death. If I were like Pastor Dennis Leatherman, I would know that homosexuality is so wrong that I would regularly struggle with killing my son myself. If I were Curtis Knapp, of New Hope Baptist Church in Kansas, I could insinuate that the Constitution guarantees a more perfect union by “killing the gay away.” If I were Sean Harris, Berean Baptist Church in Fayetteville, NC, I could just punch my son in the mouth. Or if I were Charles Worley, Providence Baptist Church, Maiden, NC, I could just suggest we “Build a great, big, large fence, 150 or 100 mile long. Put all the lesbians in there. Fly over and drop some food. Do the same thing with the queers and the homosexuals, and have that fence electrified till they can't get out. Feed 'em. And you know what? In a few years they'll die out. You know why? They can't reproduce.”
But since I’ve refused to surrender my soul, I can take the human approach. I can love my son, embrace him, support him, and let him teach me about his life—and what being a gay man entails in a soulless world so opposed to him. I can teach him how to love the best I know how, and that love, and loving, are things we do not only to make ourselves feel better, but also to bring humanity together. I can support his search for happiness, his right to be happy, and experience joy. I can also do my best to keep him safe from a legal perspective.
Having ceded my soul, when I stare out into the universe, I must deny the wonder and splendor because I’m not allowed to entertain the possibilities of a universe free to build upon itself. I am not allowed to see an active and creative universe, but, instead, a passive universe simply doing what it's told. I must surrender wonder and awe for dogma. If observation and awareness challenge my dogma, I must deny that observation and make up my own “truth,” (can you say... "Conservapedia"?) and then do all that I can to squelch further inquisition.
Having maintained my soul, I am free to bask in the wonders of an amazingly creative universe. I can embrace the majesty, the wonder, and… dare-I-say... the mystery. When observation challenges belief (dogma), I am free to leave that belief behind in favor of the new discovery.
Having ceded my soul, I must never challenge my belief, so I must approach all education cautiously and with terror. With my soul, I am free to choose education, regardless of topic.
Having kept my soul, I am free to choose compassion, humanity, kindness, and understanding. I am free. Free to be human, to love unconditionally, and free to accept and embrace all humanity, even those aspects I'm uncomfortable with. I am free to choose the direction my life goes, and free to love others—whoever I want—and let them choose the direction their life goes, even if I'm uncomfortable with it. I am free to do everything in my power to make life on this planet… in this place… in this moment... better.
Life is hard and comes with only one guarantee. But because I chose not to take Pascal’s wager, I am free to embrace it… or not!