So like the whole pull yourself up by the bootstraps started as an example of doing something impossible but got twisted into just trying really hard.

The counter-argument still applies, though. Once you invoke some kind of all-encompassing metaphysical truth, you’re responsible for all of the ramifications, even if your argument was “don’t gamble.”

Pascal was a good enough mathematician that even at the time he could have made a mathematical argument against gambling. He could have pointed out the fallacies associated with gambling (eg that downside risk means creating an imbalance in the expected value function). The position would be irrefutable. If you, for instance, wager $10k on a 50/50 chance to win $25k, that seems like a good deal. But if the $10k is all you have, then you have to include the downside risks associated with losing all of your money on top of the risk of losing $10k. By making it an argument about a petty and divisive omni-everything god, he made a far weaker argument against “sin”’than if he just made the kinds of mathematical observations he was eminently capable of.

In any case, even if it were true that he meant his argument for currently believing Christians not to gamble, it’s still used today as a common argument against atheism. I honestly don’t know enough about Pascal’s motivation for the original proposal and can take you at your word for the sake of argument, but authors like CS Lewis used the Wager to argue against atheism, and that application can be directly disproven by the standard set of anti-Pascal arguments, and they do not have a valid reply.

My standard anti-Pascal argument is that it demonstrates that people should worship the most horrible, cruel, and evil god-concept they can identify. What Pascal basically offers is the equation where P (the probability of a given god-concept as actually existing) * T (the degree of torture that god-concept promises to inflict on non-believers). This is opposed by P * H (the hedonistic or other reward component you get for following the teachings of the god-concept).

So there’s somewhere around 45,000 sects of Christianity alone, ranging from the Unitarian Universalists who believe in a single monotheistic and compassionate god who would never send someone to Hell, to the angry and abusive god who most resembles a drunk stepfather with anger management issues, to the predestination god who decided in the infinity of time before you were born that you and everyone in your family line is going to hell no matter what you do, and you have no ability to change that. The fun part is that all of them base their arguments on the same sets of books and first principles, and so can never win an argument with each other. Then figure in the tens of thousands of god-concepts that have been worshipped throughout history, and the infinitude of one’s no one has even thought up yet (eg, procedurally generated deities), and the Wager collapses under its own weight.

You can be a good game theorist minimax the problem - try to find the worst possible god-concept who could possibly be appeased (eg Cthulhu, who will reward his followers by killing them first when he arises from R’lyeh). You can follow the UU god who simply recognizes that a bad job badly done doesn’t deserve to suffer for the mistakes they had little to no control over.

Or you can say that none of it makes a lick of sense and shouldn’t be argued about by adults outside the confines of a game of D&D.

Good point on providing the definition. Added to the post.