Hacking Economics

Every economics textbook starts with an explanation of opportunity cost – the cost of something measured in terms of the next best alternative given up (Great, I’m starting to sound like a mugger again). There’s an opportunity cost involved in every choice we make. If I choose to go to university, it means I give up the income I could earn from flipping burgers at McDonald’s. That opportunity cost is added to the actual monetary cost of my university fees to give me the real cost of going to university.

You know, this concept got me thinking – about God. What’s the opportunity cost of believing in God? The time spent performing devotions to God, which could have been put to better use (assuming God does not exist)? The time and energy spent worrying about going to hell, which again could have been put to better use? The money spent buying religious items and giving donations, which might have been used to buy other things? The way I see it, the opportunity cost of believing in a God that requires regular devotion (read: an actual religion) is basically the time and money spent on religious duties.

What about the opportunity cost of not believing in God? If you don’t believe in God, and if God really does exist – then you’re almost certain to go to hell, or Purgatory, or whatever (This is assuming God actually punishes non-believers. We shall not enter into a debate on whether a just God would actually do that). Simply put, if you choose not to believe in God, you’re giving up the option of going to Heaven if God really does exist.

Faced with these two choices and their opportunity costs, it’s no wonder some people choose to believe in God ‘just to be on the safe side’. This argument is neatly summed up in ‘Pascal’s Wager’, which was invented by the great mathematician Blaise Pascal.

I think there are many believers out there who have come to this conclusion themselves. I suspect many people choose to follow a religion because the incentive to do so is very strong – no one wants to go to hell! It’s a straightforward case of economic behaviour among humans, and is (to me), a clear example of another economic principle stated in Krugman’s textbook: People will exploit opportunities for their own gain. Is not religious belief a ticket to Heaven? Again, I am making many, many assumptions here – most importantly I’m assuming that God will reward blind faith, and the believer in question is lucky enough to choose the right religion to believe in, because many religions make the claim that God will punish nonbelievers – so only believers of a particular religion will be rewarded. Another thing in favour of religious belief is that the rewards from religious belief are similar to public goods – they are non-exclusive (meaning any believer, whether rich or poor, can go to Heaven) and non-exhaustible (Heaven will not run out of space for believers – but there are religions that state only a certain number of people will go to Heaven). Yes, I am comparing Heaven to a traffic light. I really hope I don’t get struck down by lightning tomorrow. But Heaven is not exactly like a traffic light, because something is required to go to Heaven – belief. And it is strange that, given the incentive to believe in God, there are many, many people who choose to risk it all and not believe in God.

Curious, isn’t it, the way the human mind works? What is the cost of those few hours spent in church on Sunday or the mosque on Friday, compared to burning in hell for all eternity? Given these options, the solution seems obvious – get thyself to church at once! But, of course, humans who are already dead set against believing in God (for whatever personal reason) will rationalize their choice, to reduce the opportunity cost of believing in God, or to eliminate it altogether.

The first argument against Pascal’s Wager is the argument that God does not reward blind belief. I made this assumption a few paragraphs ago – and the whole wager collapses if it turns out to be false. Assuming God is all-knowing, He should know exactly who among his believers is truly sincere and who is just believing in Him ‘to be on the safe side’. Insincere believers may end up in Hell anyway. But, this is assuming that God makes Heaven and Hell judgments based on sincere religious belief. What if He makes decisions based on one’s individual merits? In this case, religious believers may still have an advantage of non-believers, if fear of going to Hell has made religious people more likely to follow the tenets of their religion, which are usually morally upright ones. But this means atheists of morally upright character will also go to Heaven..in which case the atheists win, because they managed to go to Heaven without spending time on religious rituals and whatnot.

There are other arguments against Pascal’s Wager out there, which you can read on Wikipedia. The point I wish to make in this long convoluted post is that humans are capable of rationalizing seemingly irrational decisions. Choosing not to believe in God, after weighing up the two opportunity costs, is irrational. Even if you’re a nonbeliever, feigning a belief in God will work in your favour if God makes Heaven and Hell decisions based on blind belief. If that’s not the case, well, you’re done for. If you picked the wrong religion, oops. If God doesn’t exist, well whoop-dee-do. But why not cover as many bases as you can, just in case? Why bother rationalizing? If nothing can make you truly believe in God, then for goodness’ sake just pretend, to save your skin in case!

But humans are not rational beings. We rationalize irrational decisions.

I am human too.