Pascal's Wager...last resort of theists

I'm sure I'm not alone in this...having a friendly debate with a Christian...arguments going back and forth...finally, when it seems that we are at an impasse, they say "well what if you're wrong? What if there is a god?"

Of course, we know what this is...it's Pascal's Wager. It may not always be framed or worded the same, but the reasoning is always basically the same...set aside all arguments for or against god and consider the risks vs rewards. 

In case anyone isn't familiar with it, it goes something like this:

If there is a god and you believe in him, you get an infinitely good reward.

If there is no god, but you believe anyway, at the very least you have lived a good life and haven't lost anything.

If there is no god and you don't believe, you neither gain nor lose anything.

If there is a god, but you don't believe, you suffer infinite pain and torment as a punishment.

With all in mind, the choice is easy, right?  Best case scenario, you get infinite reward.  Worst case, you get infinite suffering.  If you choose to believe, you still get a good life, at the very least.  As presented, there is literally no downside to choosing to believe.  

Of course, looking at it with an even remotely critical eye presents a completely different picture.  Let's break down each part of it and see how it really stands up.

First, and most importantly, we have the idea that we can simply choose to either believe or not.  In my opinion, the whole argument breaks down right here.  Nobody chooses their beliefs.  You either believe or you don't.  You can wish and hope that something is true or not.  You could have a preference in whether something is true or not.  You can even behave, through force, coercion, or conscious effort,  in a manner consistent with something being true or not, regardless of what you actually believe.  You can even choose to remain willfully ignorant of something, for whatever reason may motivate you.  But you can't choose to truly believe something if you don't think a good reason is there.  

On a side note, this also reveals a big flaw in how Christians think about the idea of free will.  But that's not the point of this post, so we can save that till later.

So that flaw reveals one of the biggest weaknesses of this little Wager.  In fact, if a theist insists on presenting it in this form, we are kinda back at the original impasse...I reject the idea that I could choose to believe when I really don't.  Without the ability to choose belief, the Wager falls apart.

To get around this, some who present the Wager will pick one of above options...if you choose to behave as if there's a god (Yahweh, Allah, Zeus, or whichever god they're pushing), then you're still good.  Go to church, say the right words, sing the songs, hate the right Other Group and you'll get your ticket into Heaven or whatever other reward you are due.

The obvious counter to this is that, dang, your god is either really stupid, not really omniscient, or conceited to the point that even fake adulation is sufficient to stroke his (or her) ego.  The 

Secondly, ignoring the problems with choosing to believe something...let's assume we have been able to choose in a god...wait...which one?  Well, if we go back Blaise Pascal, it's natural to assume the (Catholic) Christian god.  And, to be fair, every time I've encountered this argument in the wild, that's been the assumption.  It has, however, come up in other religious traditions, as well, such as with some Islamic philosophers and even going back to the ancient Greeks and Romans.  So already we have a couple dozen gods to consider.  When we throw open the doors to every god that human being have been inspired to dream up, we're easily in the several hundreds or thousands.  And that's not even considering that it's entirely possible that there is a god of some sort that no one has any ideas about.  So really, the chances of picking the right one to follow are pretty small.  Is it even worth playing the game when you only have a 1 in 1,000,000 chance of choosing correctly?  I suppose people still play the lottery...although I'm not sure they're quite as certain that they're going to win as someone who chooses a god to worship...

Third, the people proposing this Wager confidently assume that they actually know what their chosen god wants.  Some gods just want you to be a decent human being, do good works, etc.  Others simply demand loyalty and every other bit of bad behavior is forgivable.  There are even some gods that might prefer us to be mischievous or outright evil to one another; the divine will may be directly at odds with what human beings might consider to be a good life.  Others may not care at all what happens to us in this life or may not want to be bothered by us in the least. 

How do we know that the instructions we have received are accurate?  Is it not possible that they've become garbled?  Or purposely corrupted?  Isn't it possible that a god, or one of his underlings, is playing a cosmic joke on us and instructed us to do absolutely ridiculous things for their amusement?  And if it turns out that the "true" god is one that humanity has either forgotten or never knew about, isn't it also possible that we have absolutely no idea what they want of us?  Again, with unlimited options available, the likelihood of choosing correctly is pretty small.

Fourth, let's assume we are good on all the above concerns...we know we have the right god and we know what (s)he wants of us...how do we know we have the potential rewards right?  For example, what is the reward for Muslim martyrs?  Well, it's 72 virgins in Paradise, right?  Well...that is open to debate.  How disappointed were the 9/11 terrorists when they woke up in Paradise with a bowl of white grapes?

Let's face it...the Wager is useless as a practical tool.  There are far too many problems.  More problems than I've been able to discuss here.  It's been dissected and debunked over and over.  That won't stop theists from using it, of course.  But hopefully I've given you a little insight regarding some responses you can use to counter it when it inevitably comes up