1. Pascal seems to assume the Christian God as 'the God' in which to believe, and the doctrine to follow presumably, but of course there are other depictions of God and religions to follow. Such that one might be following the 'wrong' God throughout one's life - even as to being in conflict with other religions (history shows such) - given that a belief in God is usually hardly all that comes from accepting such a belief. So, in essence, one might have been opposing the 'true' belief all of one's life but believing the opposite. And of course this doesn't even address any non-monotheistic religious beliefs. Are we to believe all - just to be on the safe side?
2. Being able to 'believe' sincerely in any concept of God is unlikely for many when the evidence just seems to tell them otherwise, so essentially they will be having to present themselves as 'believing' when in fact deep down they might just never do so. It just seems so ludicrous that any God would not recognise such a deception and note this accordingly, and this particular reason is probably why Pascal is far too optimistic over his wager.
3. From this second above, one would also have to live a life of deception, which again might cause more problems than simply living a life based upon what one actually believed. Given that at least those who do not have religious beliefs, where any thinking or feeling might be in conflict with any religious doctrines and/or dogma, will likely be less conflicted because they will have to work out for themselves and assess where from and why their beliefs occur - with this hopefully being from evidence and reasoning - and therefore they will have to reconcile things before they form conclusions as to such beliefs.
4. Apart from wholeheartedly believing any particular religious text (but why choose one?) or intuiting that God has particular properties that we can know (as Pascal does), how are we to know how God would view and assess our beliefs or non-beliefs, and so as to respond to these? After all, humans are hardly infallible, and as such surely God would take this into account.
5. If God gave humans the intelligence to reason, and where it seems the more intelligent tend to be less religiously inclined - often based upon the evidence we observe more and more (as to the universe and our very small role seemingly in such, apart from our greater understanding of all life and of evolution), isn't this too another reason not to be taken in by this wager? Why would God provide us with the evidence and intelligence to question the very existence of this God? And where the evolution of our species is a better explanation for such thinking to arise in the first place - as to Gods and such. Given that I don't think most of those who reason as to there being no God are doing this other than from lack of evidence (no malicious intent), and will have looked into this sufficiently to make such a decision. With textual religious material from the past probably not weighing highly enough as evidence - and such texts simply arising from the peoples of the time and their lack of knowledge then.
6. The agnostic might just say that we don't actually have to wager, given we seem to have as much evidence for no God as there being for one existing, and also given that a belief in God usually means one will choose a certain religious belief, then not doing so is the position most likely not to lead to conflicts with other religions - which often assert their belief being the one and only true belief (and hence often leading to so much of the conflict and/or fighting). So the argument as to causing less conflict and woe in the world might be the better option, given there is enough of this anyway without religions contributing to such.
7. And lastly, one could just take the theistic approach without any attachment to or input from any particular religious belief, so that like the agnostic one might be saved the ramifications of subscribing to a belief that one might not fully endorse. And this is probably the safest approach, given that many can live a life appropriately and also work out the morality to follow without having anyone tell them such. Even if so many do seem to erroneously tie morality to religious belief.
2. Being able to 'believe' sincerely in any concept of God is unlikely for many when the evidence just seems to tell them otherwise, so essentially they will be having to present themselves as 'believing' when in fact deep down they might just never do so. It just seems so ludicrous that any God would not recognise such a deception and note this accordingly, and this particular reason is probably why Pascal is far too optimistic over his wager.
3. From this second above, one would also have to live a life of deception, which again might cause more problems than simply living a life based upon what one actually believed. Given that at least those who do not have religious beliefs, where any thinking or feeling might be in conflict with any religious doctrines and/or dogma, will likely be less conflicted because they will have to work out for themselves and assess where from and why their beliefs occur - with this hopefully being from evidence and reasoning - and therefore they will have to reconcile things before they form conclusions as to such beliefs.
4. Apart from wholeheartedly believing any particular religious text (but why choose one?) or intuiting that God has particular properties that we can know (as Pascal does), how are we to know how God would view and assess our beliefs or non-beliefs, and so as to respond to these? After all, humans are hardly infallible, and as such surely God would take this into account.
5. If God gave humans the intelligence to reason, and where it seems the more intelligent tend to be less religiously inclined - often based upon the evidence we observe more and more (as to the universe and our very small role seemingly in such, apart from our greater understanding of all life and of evolution), isn't this too another reason not to be taken in by this wager? Why would God provide us with the evidence and intelligence to question the very existence of this God? And where the evolution of our species is a better explanation for such thinking to arise in the first place - as to Gods and such. Given that I don't think most of those who reason as to there being no God are doing this other than from lack of evidence (no malicious intent), and will have looked into this sufficiently to make such a decision. With textual religious material from the past probably not weighing highly enough as evidence - and such texts simply arising from the peoples of the time and their lack of knowledge then.
6. The agnostic might just say that we don't actually have to wager, given we seem to have as much evidence for no God as there being for one existing, and also given that a belief in God usually means one will choose a certain religious belief, then not doing so is the position most likely not to lead to conflicts with other religions - which often assert their belief being the one and only true belief (and hence often leading to so much of the conflict and/or fighting). So the argument as to causing less conflict and woe in the world might be the better option, given there is enough of this anyway without religions contributing to such.
7. And lastly, one could just take the theistic approach without any attachment to or input from any particular religious belief, so that like the agnostic one might be saved the ramifications of subscribing to a belief that one might not fully endorse. And this is probably the safest approach, given that many can live a life appropriately and also work out the morality to follow without having anyone tell them such. Even if so many do seem to erroneously tie morality to religious belief.
