Pascal’s Environmental Wager

I’ve been around a lot of churches, mostly in Texas, and a few in Tennessee. From what I can tell, they don’t seem like the type that cares much for the greener side of life. I’m not talking about individual members; I’m talking about the overall attitude of the church and how it doesn’t motivate the group to make changes and develop good habits for the sake of the planet/our health. I suspect that some groups fear they could lose members ($$) over it, but I think they all don’t really see it as a priority.

I don’t worry much about the Earth – what’s to worry about? Regardless of what it’s inhabitants and Mother Nature do to it, the planet will still be around (maybe less green and more brown). My motivation for environmental change has to do with the people on Earth, more specifically with their quality of life.

I’ve been to a few churches in California so far. It’s hard to find a good one when the last place I went was The Village Church. At a church in Menlo Park, I had the privilege of hearing an informal talk by Dr Kyle Van Houtan. I felt an instant connection with him. We both have the same feelings toward God and the environment, except he has advanced degrees to back them up. Without making the group feel guilty, he explained that there are places in the scripture that clearly state that we are responsible for the well being of all creatures on earth. I think it’s typically translated to say that humans are rulers over all the Earth.

My favorite point he made involved Pascal’s wager. Wikipedia defines Pascal’s Wager as:

Even though the existence of God cannot be determined through reason, a person should wager as though God exists, because living life accordingly has everything to gain, and nothing to lose.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_wager

Basically, it boils down to 4 scenarios:
• If you believe in God and you’re wrong, you’ve lost nothing because you’re dead, and that’s it (no afterlife).
• If you don’t believe in God and you’re correct, the celebration for being right is short-lived because you’re dead (again, that’s it)
• If you believe in God and you’re right, you gain everything.
• If you don’t believe in God and you’re wrong, you’ve lost everything.

Logically speaking, the only way you can win is to believe in God.

Now consider a different setting for the same situation. Let’s say we live our lives believing in “being green”, that we should minimize our trash waste, properly dispose of electronics, and reduce our consumption of material products and energy/oil. And what if we later find out that it didn’t make much of an impact – what have we lost? Not much, mostly the convenience of throwing things away without thinking about it (aka the ignorance is bliss mindset).

Now what if we live our lives with no regard for our carbon footprint, thinking that our landfills will never be full, that our electronic waste never gets to our waterways, that our air quality doesn’t really impact our health; we are essentially taking the same side as the person who doesn’t believe in God. If we’re wrong, we have everything to lose – or at least our future generations will lose.

If we make small lifestyle changes, it will cost us little more than time and convenience. We will see a dramatic shift in our collective lifestyle and solve some major problems with our society. You don’t have to believe in global warming to understand that if you breathe what comes out of a car’s exhaust pipe, you die. Having less of it in the air can’t be a bad thing.