> Given that there is no evidence that the Christian God is more likely to exist than, say, Zeus,
What do you think about a premise that if one of the gods of religion exists, it is more likely to be one that has been fairly successful or at least has not allowed his following to die out, perhaps on the assumption that such a god would be fairly powerless and not much worth following anyway. I suppose you could counter that such a metric of success would depend greatly on the time period you looked at. Still, I think it might be reasonable to assert that a god who let all his followers die out is less likely to exist than a god who has inspired his followers to successfully spread his name to every country on earth for two thousand years running. If so, you might at least restrict Pascal's wager to a few "major" religions and perhaps proceed from there.
It's an interesting thought, and the other side of the coin might be the assumption that all the various gods are just manifestations of the same God/entity/whatever, who has appeared to different people in the form(s) most suitable to their historical and cultural contexts.
Were that the case, however, it seems strange that the same being would demand more sacrifices of some than of others, or place stricter guidelines on one group versus another. (Though perhaps God is a behavioral economist, after all, and he's simply structuring different incentives for different groups, i.e., creating the frameworks the different groups need most? But, to your point, that wouldn't account for why some groups and gods died out altogether).
Continuing this point you need to exclude any major religion with significant exclusive splits like Christianity, or Islam. Leaving Budism and Hinduism.
Good point. I could argue that Christianty's splits are not generally considered exclusive, at least today (excepting minor ones like Mormonism), or that even if they are exclusive, splits like Catholicism and Protestantism might still be large enough to be included alongside Buddhism and Hinduism. But at that point things may be far too subjective to attempt to salvage the cosmic reach of Pascal's wager.
What do you think about a premise that if one of the gods of religion exists, it is more likely to be one that has been fairly successful or at least has not allowed his following to die out, perhaps on the assumption that such a god would be fairly powerless and not much worth following anyway. I suppose you could counter that such a metric of success would depend greatly on the time period you looked at. Still, I think it might be reasonable to assert that a god who let all his followers die out is less likely to exist than a god who has inspired his followers to successfully spread his name to every country on earth for two thousand years running. If so, you might at least restrict Pascal's wager to a few "major" religions and perhaps proceed from there.