I’ve never had someone use Pascal’s Wager to prove god’s existence and then proceed to comment on god’s itinerary through the universe. An all-powerful god has restrictions regarding travel speed??? He created us in his image but decided to start his itinerary at the other side of the universe?? He created the entire universe but is restricted by its own laws???

These are the types of hasty generalizations that characterize most arguments for god’s existence, which people think prove something they clearly do not.

Us having not seen god is more consistent, and takes less for granted, with the fact of his non-existence than with the fact that he can only travel to so many stars at one time. And even if I were to accept his existence, the argument would tell me nothing about him, and so I haven't really explained anything at all.

You’re changing the terms of your argument on the fly. You originally said, “Whether God exists or not is a boolean question. With no evidence either way, its correct to assign a 50%/50% outcome.”

So, by your own logic, you cannot adjust the rate up or down without evidence, which keeps you stuck at agnosticism.

But then, in your latest response, you state that there is evidence for god’s existence after all but no evidence for his non-existence, a convenient position to hold if you tend toward theism.

I would ask, what evidence is there that fairies do not exist? If anything, it’s the fact that fairies have never been seen or reliably documented, which is the SAME evidence against the existence of god.

The Big Bang is not evidence for god any more than it is evidence for fairies. The Big Bang simply describes the first state of the universe that we can reasonably talk about, but doesn’t suggest anything beyond that. Also, the prime mover argument has so many flaws that it hardly counts as evidence for god’s existence, either. I wrote about the first cause argument here:
https://escapingplatoscave.com/2018/10/01/objections-to-the-first-cause-argument-for-the-existence-of-god/

If I wanted to prove the existence of fairies, I would need to do more than point out that you don’t have evidence that they don’t exist. Of course there is no evidence for the nonexistence of something that doesn’t exist. How could there be?

Likewise, if you want to prove that god exists, you have to do better than to point out that no one can prove his nonexistence. The burden of proof is entirely on you.

Let me end by asking you a question: what would change your mind? If you think this is a matter of probability, where Pascal’s Wager is relevant, then what piece(s) of evidence would ever get you to adjust the probability in favor of god’s nonexistence?

Unless you can answer that, then the answer is nothing, in which case you’re not really abiding by the apparent logic of the wager as much as using the wager as justification for a conclusion you favor.

You seem to be saying this:

If there is no evidence for or against the existence of X, then there is a 50 percent chance that X exists.

You can replace the “X” with anything other than God to reveal the fallacy. Would you also say:

There is no evidence for or against the existence of fairies, therefore there is a 50 percent chance that fairies exist.

The burden of proof lies with the person making the claim. If someone claims that God exists, they can’t escape the responsibility of providing evidence by claiming that, because they can imagine God to exist, that this automatically makes it 50 percent likely to be true.

As Christopher Hitchens once pointed out, it’s somewhat bizarre to believe that you could trick an omniscient God as to the sincerity of your belief. You cannot force yourself to believe something that your rational mind refuses to accept.

Additionally, if God is supposedly all-loving and forgiving, who would He consider to be more honest, courageous, and sincere? The person who simply could not make himself believe in a God and remained honest to himself, or the person who spent their life making fawning professions of faith because Pascal told them it was a good bet to achieve personal gain?

A psychopath, in not accepting this notion of rationality, is behaving immorally. Each individual is free to reject moral behavior, and that choice is the very basis by which we can claim that an act is moral at all. The lion that rips apart a zebra is not immoral because lions are biologically determined and there is no expectation of rational calculation. Humans can engage in rational calculation and that calculation is what we're judging. We can't expect everyone to behave morally, but morality can only be defended by using reason.

Morality is not describing how people actually act; morality proposes rules for which acts can be considered in relation to their effects on others. My contention is that, in an open society where moral progress is not blocked, psychopaths will be marginalized by the power of rationality and the four factors of moral progress that I've previously mentioned. Psychopaths cannot defend their behavior rationally or on moral grounds, and the only means of influencing moral behavior is through the use of force, which democracy, ideally, is established to block. As Karl Popper taught, democracy is less about electing qualified leaders as it is about removing dangerous ones.

Where is modern morality? One place to begin looking is how the typical religious person behaves compared to how they behaved at any point in the past. My contention is that rational processes have made even the most ardently religious back off most of the biblical claims that could not be supported by the rational process informed by science. The burning of heretics, the stoning of virgins, and much else that was at one point practiced is now considered immoral even by the people devoted to books that tell them these practices are acceptable.

How did we arrive at this position if not through science and rational calculation? What is it that makes even the religious and conservatives more liberal and tolerant than at any previous point in history?

“Are you proposing that humanity should throw away 7000 years of cross-cultural experience and formulate a new morality based on rational public discourse simply to divest ourselves of any connection to religion? If so, how is this artificial consensus attained?”

No, modern-day morality incorporates 7,000 years of cross-cultural thought and experience but has refined the concepts through a dialectical process. By what other means, other than through reason, can we, for example, ignore or reject the barbaric parts of scripture and retain the good? The basis of our selection of verses to follow from scripture cannot come from scripture itself; it must come from outside of the text, from a moral philosophy grounded in reason.

Consensus is obtained through open discussion and debate, informed but not determined by science, and not reliant on rigid rules and unwavering dogmas of the past but consistent with the reduction of human suffering and the promotion of human flourishing. An independent rational actor occupying the original position is forced to conclude that all human life is equal because they face the possibility of occupying any future social position. From this perspective, effective and just moral rules can be established.

Of course you can choose to be immoral, and psychopaths will always exist. But remember that moral claims are not a claims about how people actually act or are compelled to act; moral claims are claims about how people ought to act. And if the immoral route is taken, the person must be prepared to face the legal, social, and psychological ramifications of those actions.