Pascal’s T-Shirt
PZ Meyeyers provides the most succinct refutation of Pascal’s Wager that I’ve seen:
Suppose I had a million dollars. Then I would be rich! Therefore, I have a million dollars.
I suppose a better parallel would run something like:
If I think I’m rich, and I really am rich, then I get lots of good stuff.
If I think I’m rich, but I’m really not, I can’t spend my money anyway, so I haven’t really lost anything.
If I don’t think I’m rich, but I really am, then the IRS will demand a lot more money from me than I think I have, which will make me sad.
If I don’t think I’m rich, and I’m really not, I haven’t gained or lost anything.
However, PZ’s version fits on a T-shirt or bumper sticker, and is a lot snappier.
This isn’t T-shirt material, but gets the point across: http://www.jhuger.com/pascal.php
Nice. There is quite deep historical information, documentation, references etc at Paul Tobin’s excellent site: Rejection of Pascal’s Wager.