Modified Pascal's Wager

Hello everyone,

As someone who is not a Christian, when I try to think of the best reason for the belief in Christian God, I do not arrive at cosmological arguments, ontological arguments, teleological arguments, etc. (all of which do not provide direct reasons for a belief in a Christian God) - or things such as historical evidence for the resurrection of Jesus (this would provide a direct reason for a Christian God, but in my view, evidence is pretty weak) but rather I arrive at ‘modified Pascal’s wager’.

Let’s take the analogy of betting: Let’s say that we have a tournament containing 4 teams and the specifics of these teams are following:

[Team Name - Likelihood of victory - coefficient]

Team A - 99% - 1.05
Team B - 0.8% - 1,000,000,000
Team C - 0.1% - 1,000,000,000
Team D - 0.1% - 1,000,000,000

Let’s assume that you have $1 to make a bet + you can only bet on 1 team. If a person tries to earn money the most amount of money from betting and we can run this simulation 10000 times, it seems pretty straightforward that a rational person will always bet on team B and that if anyone is betting on teams A,C,D, - they are irrational.

Even though Team A has 99% to win the tournament, it would be irrational to bet on Team A due to the profit/loss ratio.


Now, we can apply the same logic to religions. Let’s say that Atheist A believes the following probabilities:

Atheism - 99.99%
Christianity - 0.004%
Deism - 0.003%
Islam - 0.001%
Other religions/views - 0.002%

  • Let’s make an assumption that Christianity claims that anyone who believes (or tries to believe) & follows the doctrines will get the maximum amount of happiness in heaven for all of eternity, and anyone who does not believe & follow the doctrines will get the maximum amount of punishment in hell (for eternity).

If these are the probabilities + rules of the game, if atheist A is a rational person they would become Christian even though, in their mind, atheism is very likely to be correct. However, if they care about their well-being, one would have to be very irrational not to become a Christian under this scenario, because heaven & hell are places for maximum amount of happiness/sadness for all of eternity.


Now, there are a few fairly obvious ways you can avoid this kind of argument, + of course, you can use this argument for other worldviews. But without going into 100 possible answers to this (because it would take some period of time to answer all potential objectives I can think of, + there are objectives I haven’t thought of yet), I want to hear what are your thoughts about this kind of argument? Let me hear your objections and then I can follow-up on these.

P.S. Let me just mention that one can assign a probability of 0.007% that there is a God who will send all Christians to hell and therefore, this kind of argument would work against Christianity. However, that person would have to argue that this kind of God is more likely than a Christian God.

I agree with William James who characterized Pascal’s Wager (in its presumably less modified state such as it was in the early 1900s) as being a ‘last-ditch’, desperate man’s apologetic fit only as a desperate measure to maybe just give somebody a last pause before they see themselves out of the perceived door of faith.

That said, your modifications are interesting - and perhaps further revealing of some things at least. It still tends to heavily feature an eternally torturing god - though your scenario does not stricly demand that. A billion is not infinity, though for the purposes of human perception it is supposed to be a stand-in for it, I gather.

What I do find intriguing (in a positive way) about your modified scenario is that it at least introduces one important nuance into the crude original wager such as it was. The willingness to go against all odds in order to even just possibly “secure that pearl of great price” as it were. I do think that is a time-honored sentiment, even from within the struggles of the faithful. It may be an echo of Peter’s answer to the Lord who has just asked them all: “Do you all want to leave me too?” Peter replies “to whom else would we go? You have the words of truth.” We probably tend to lionize Peter’s reply here as some great statement of faith. But I think I hear in it at least echoes of a desperation from somebody who has just heard a message that made it clear (think 99%) that following this guy is not going to end well - or at least not like so many of us were hoping for at the moment with all our worldly aspirations. And yet … where else can we go? What else is there on offer? And Peter’s answer is the desperate gambit: “you know - I don’t like where you seem to be going, and yet … something tells me that you’re the one I’d better stick with.” In short, I’m going to put my hopes in what appears to me to be your “1%” long-shot offer that nonetheless might just lead to the most significant thing yet.

Meanwhile, though; one hopes that after one commits to this gambit, they aren’t always crunching numbers along the way as they go. One can imagine how this would go with a husband who was always crunching the cost-benefit analysis of his marriage. I would not envy him (or his wife) the sorts of anniversary dinners they would be obliged to endure - if the relationship endured long enough to reach one. Enduring relationships are not built on such analyses. But who knows what the Spirit might use to crack the door?

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The dubious premise here is that this is anything like a wager where your choice of belief has any impact on the outcome and even that believing for whatever reason is all it takes to get the payoff. The reverse could easily be the case where the atheist doing what is right for its own sake is the greater display of faith showing he has the law of God written on his heart. I think this is more likely to have the approval of God than the person only believing and following some minimal set of rules because he thinks it earns some reward.

In other words the assumption you pin this on is just wrong.

That is not Christianity but Gnosticism and legalism… a gospel of salvation by knowledge and works. It is the kind of religion that people invent in order to use religion as a tool of power – believe and do what I/we tell you and God will reward you otherwise God will punish you. Jesus accuses those doing this to be of the devil and indeed that is the kind of bargain you would expect of the devil – the kind of bargain you get with organized crime.

So you can do the math this way

God exists, you don’t believe, but doing what is right for its own sake gets the highest rewards.
God exists, but you believe because of Pascal’s wager so get the worst results.
God does not exist and you do believe then you live a stressful life fearing a nonexistent threat.
God does not exist and you don’t believe so you have the peace of mind that death is the end and absolutely nothing to worry about.
So I can assign benefit values (rationally scaling everything to a +/-100 scale): +100,-100,-50,+50 Then your calculation of the expected result assuming equal probabilities is: belief -75 (poor expectation), disbelief +75 (good expectation).

It seems pretty straightforward to me that only an extremely gullible person would buy into such claims of probability and rewards… the kind that buys gold mines in Atlantis.

Atheists are demonstrably rational and they clearly do not become Christian and that would be because they not so gullible as to accept the claims about Christianity being more probable than other religions let alone that any of these religions can really deliver on their promises.

Just have to argue that the Christian God will send to hell those making salvation into a wager like this, looking more favorably on those who don’t believe but do the right thing anyway. The kind of God spoken of in Isaiah chapter 1, Romans chapter 10, and Matthew 19.

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For me personally, it’s a fun small mental game but would never actually come into play for teaching the gospel or making a choice about religion.

I am reminded of the promise of 72 virgins in paradise for the Islamic martyr such as a suicide bomber. It seems to be a similar sort of logic as Pascal’s wager. But again, how gullible to do have to be to believe in such a promise? It is a double blank check sort of logic where you can promise anything since you don’t have deliver and you can ask people to do anything if the reward/punishment ratio is high enough.

For me this points to the fundamental rational poverty in any religion of this sort based on threats and promises. This is the signature character of a scam rather than a profound truth. For truth you should be looking for logical consequences like the one which tells you that walking off a 10 story building is going to get you splattered on the ground below. That is what all the lessons of life tells us. This suggests a life imperative to look for the rules of how things work! And if you look sincerely you can actually find those sorts of rules in religion: both reasons why some things will create a hell around you no matter where you go and why other things will make your world a better place.

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If God damns because of His incompetence, I choose atheism. In the resurrection. I don’t need purpose let alone threats to try and be a better human being.

I agree that at the very least, on the first glance, the scenario does not require eternal hell. One can, as you have said, believe that people who will go to hell will be there 1B years and people who go to heaven will be there for eternity - however under this scenario one can construct a God theory which claims that God will send all religious people to hell for all eternity with max. punishment and send to heaven all atheists - and since one would have to assign non-zero probability that there is such a God, it might make more sense to bet on this kind of God.

Requirement for eternal hell & heaven with max. punishment/reward might be avoided with further analysis, math, rational preferences + what probabilities on assign to various God hypotheses.

Correct, and there are plenty of God hypotheses where this is the case.

Isn’t that a Christian God? If you don’t do believe or/and do what “we”(Bible, Christian doctrines) tell you, you will go to hell. Do you think that someone who murders 10 people every day and does not believe or ask for forgiveness will go to heaven? If you think that this person will go to hell, it seems to me that you too believe in a system: " …believe and do what I/we tell you and God will reward you otherwise God will punish you."

Take the analogy of tournament teams, would you agree that a rational person should bet on Team B. If yes, then take the example of atheist A, would you agree that under these circumstances with these rules, atheist A, if they are fully rational, should become a Christian?

If you do not agree with that, why not? Where the logic-flaw in tournament example or atheist A example (without changing any rules)?

No, I think that person is already in hell. It is not about threats and rewards, but about who we are and the kind of world we create around us.

So like I explained in my second post… I do not believe in a system of threats and promises. But yes I believe in logical consequences. Profound truths are not found in any system of threats and promises (that is just human manipulation for power over others), but in logical consequences and the rules for how things work.

Just because an argument is valid doesn’t mean it is sound. The argument is not sound because the premises are false.

Premise A: Christians are all devil worshippers.
Premise B: All devil worshippers go to hell.
Conclusion: All Christians go to hell.

This argument is valid but it is not sound.

One of the many I do not believe in.

I am Christian but I do not believe in the megalomaniac god that would create human being for the purpose to worship him, and this is only one of the peculiar Christian ideas of God that I do not believe in. I call this one the jealous god obsessed with His right to our worship, who created all the heavens and everything on earth in order to glorify Himself. Apparently our purpose is to make Him look good and so not only is worshiping other things is a big no no, but we are really supposed to love and think of Him first and before anything else, all day long everyday.

But I also don’t believe in the purist god who cannot associate with evil of any kind and to him human beings are so completely corrupt that everything we do is evil and worthless in His eyes, and thus every thing that seems beautiful, joyful, or creative to us is completely sinful and prideful, and so in order to be acceptable to God we must crush every thought, laugh, or smile of our own so that we will be humble before the Lord.

I repudiate the hard hearted god who finds it very difficult to forgive us because any offense against Him, even the smallest bad thought, is an infinite crime deserving eternal torment in a place like our worst nightmares called hell, and so we can only be forgiven if a perfect and divine being lays down his life in a blood sacrifice for our sake.

I despise the controlling god who demands our obedience to every idiotic law that He cares to make and who condemned the first human ancestors for daring to seek the knowledge required to distinguish right from wrong. This must be why the God in the Old Testament commanded people to commit genocide or to sacrifice the one child that they loved because He didn’t think we ought to think for ourselves about what is right and wrong.

I denounce the wrathful god to whom we are nothing but clay pots to do with as he pleases, according to which it is not for us to complain if He takes His anger out on us and sends us to Hell. Apparently we deserve whatever we get and so I guess it is His right to destroy and torment whomever He chooses. Perhaps this is to make the rest of us that much more grateful that it wasn’t us.

I don’t accept the manipulative god who sets before you this “choice”: 1) to believe what the Christians tell you to believe and do what the Christians tell you to do so that you will be resurrected to live in eternal happiness, OR 2) to be tortured with unimaginable pain for an eternity. Apparently for those who believe in this god, a cowardly fear of him is the same as righteousness.

I will give no obedience to the sadistic god that will resurrect the suicide from the dead and to add insult to injury will proceed to torture this poor person for an eternity on top of that. He will do the same to anyone with a bad thought but somehow what he does to the suicide seems particularly cruel and unnecessary to me. Why can’t He just leave them alone?

So since I do not believe in any of these common Christian ideas of God, then why is it that I call myself Christian? It is because the God I do believe is a very very uniquely Christian idea of God too. This is the humble God, who is gentle and lowly in heart, who not caring anything about being God, set aside all His power and knowledge to become a helpless human infant, and after growing up perfectly blameless to show how we should live, He was mocked and whipped before being executed on a cross. This He did this in order for us to get past all the lies and misunderstandings, to show how much He loves us and thus to heal our relationship with the infinite God in whom we can find eternal life.

A rational person should deny your God to His face in the resurrection.

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Yes one could postulate such a God … but … why?

Christians (and theists generally) aren’t interested in how big a “logical possibility space” we can conjur up in our own imaginations. We have the chutzpah to be clamoring after something existing independently of ourselves (not just constructed in our own imaginations). I can postulate purple unicorns too, but I have no reason to do so.

So when we try to imagine God’s various attributes, we aren’t starting from scratch and saying, “well … maybe God could be this … but I can also imagine a God being that …”. We are starting with a received narrative based on many past (and written now in scriptures too) testimonies from those who claim to have experienced God’s transforming presence in their own lives. Nothing in any of that suggests that God will just capriciously send all religious people to hell. I know you then represent that by assigning it an exceedingly low probability, but my point is that as rational individuals, we need not trouble ourselves over such things at all. Just because I could imagine the “possibility” that only believers in purple unicorns will get into eternal heaven, while the rest of us ‘unicorn atheists’ languish in eternal hell doesn’t mean it is rational for me to spend any time worrying about that; even when we attempt to keep the option rationally viable by hiking up the “purple unicorn” stakes to virtually infinite levels of consquences for ourselves in order to offset its low probability. If we had ages of testimony and preserved sacred writ about some great purple unicorn in the sky, then this all changes. It wouldn’t prove it true, of course. But then we might finally be obliged to allow it at least some rational consideration.

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That is more than a little important. I’m not sure we can’t say that something to that effect is necessary to even be a Christian, a changed heart and our heart’s desires. It is miraculous, but supported by evidence, though, and not merely a head-trip. There are many who identify as Christians, however, but who may be only ‘believists’ – we were warned by Jesus and the epistles against exactly that, since this is not just a modern problem.

“Isn’t it possible that the actual God is a scientific God who has no patience with people who believe things without evidence?” --Martin Gardner

(Note that Gardner believed in God and the afterlife; he was a fideist.)

I agree with the consensus here that Pascal’s Wager is not a very good apologetic tool. It is a simple argument against the pragmatism of choosing Atheism and in favor of the pragmatism of choosing Theism. But it says next to nothing about the truth of either proposition, and even less about Christianity. Perhaps most importantly, I agree with others here that a decision based only on this analysis is unlikely to generate a “saving faith.”

As for the original Wager, Pascal believed that we had no way of knowing the probability that God exists, so he assumed the probabilities of Atheism and Theism to be the same. For him, value is the only pertinent component. In Pascal’s view, the value offered by Theism is infinite while the value offered by Atheism is finite. Therefore, one ought to choose Theism.

However, I disagree with Pascal on two points: our ability to identify evidence that God exists, and the value offered by Atheism.

I prefer an Updated Wager. The Updated Wager, like your Modified Wager, is concerned with Expected Payout (EP). In addition to Value (V), we consider the Probability that a proposition is true (P):

EP = P * V

Pascal’s argument is that Theism offers infinite value: V_T = ∞; I contend that Atheism offers no value (see: Nietzsche, Dawkins, Hitchens, etc.): V_A = 0. (Of course, some will argue for subjective value. However, because it is subjective, every value is valid for all scenarios. So, the subjective value also would have to be represented as 0.) Thus,

EP_A = P_A * 0 = 0

P_A is irrelevant. The options for the probability of Theism are: P_T = 0 or P_T > 0. If, P_T = 0, then

EP_T = 0 * ∞ = 0

In this scenario, EP_A = EP_T = 0, and the decision is arbitrary. However, if P_T > 0, no matter how small, then

EP_T = x * ∞ = ∞

in which case, the pragmatic decision is Theism. So, at best, the atheist can show the decision to be arbitrary by proving P_T = 0. But Atheism never is the pragmatic choice.

No one has ever been able to prove P_T = 0. And the other arguments you mention (cosmological, ontological, teleological, and moral) demonstrate that P_T > 0. What is more, these arguments are strong, rational arguments that Theism is more plausible than Atheism (P_T > P_A), regardless of the values or expected payouts. If you haven’t already, I encourage you to check out some of William Lane Craig’s or Alvin Plantinga’s work on these arguments (Craig has a great website: ReasonableFaith.org).

The equation for EP_A is the same in the Modified Wager, and the lack of pragmatism in choosing Atheism still is evident.

But, in all three forms, the Wager breaks down when pressed to affirm a specific form of Theism. Simply put, Pascal’s Wager is not positive proof of Christianity, only of Theism (much like the cosmological, ontological, teleological, and moral arguments). Once convinced of Theism, the logical next step is to investigate the nature and character of God. You’ll have to find other arguments or evidence to help you decide between forms of Theism. I find that the best positive proof of Christianity is the historicity of the Resurrection of Jesus, since this is the linchpin of the faith. You mention that you find the evidence weak – I wonder if you really have studied it. I recommend NT Wright’s work on this topic. Gary Habermas is a good option, too.

A final comment: from your post and follow-up comments, it seems that you have a negative view of the Christian God, developed – no doubt – from your observations of the Church and Christians (or people who call themselves Christians). Collectively, we have done a pretty terrible job of representing Christ, and for that I am sorry. I encourage you to decide for yourself who the Bible teaches the Christian God is. Read the New Testament, focusing on the nature and character of God. Check out some of the works of Tim Keller, John Piper, JP Moreland, etc. Find an orthodox Christian church and go hang out with some of them. We all are flawed, but we also are trying. I think you will find that the Christian God is all-loving, is merciful and just, is awe-inspiring, is full of truth and grace, and the list goes on.

No. It is not possible.

It is not possible to believe ANYTHING without faith.

There is no use for logic without first accepting premises on faith.

There is no science without first accepting the premises of science itself on faith.

There is nothing which holds itself up by its own bootstraps.

So no…

A much better suggestion is that God has no patience with people who believe things contrary to the evidence.

But I think the answer is still no. God has a lot of patience for this.

As for things which God has lost patience for I would cite three examples from the Bible: Genesis 6, Isaiah 1, Jeremiah. In Genesis 6, God loses patience with a civilization where nearly everyone is only thinking evil continually. In Isaiah 1 God loses patience with religiosity without effort to do good, seeking justice, resisting oppression, and helping those in need. In Jeremiah God loses patience with an attitude of entitlement to God’s protection.

But already more examples are coming to me so I suspect there are many more situations where God’s patience wears thin.

What’s saving faith? Whose is it?

This Crash Course Philosophy (#14) video: “Anti-vaxxers, Conspiracy Theorists, and Epistemic Responsibility”, made in 2016, seems presciently relevant now. And while I don’t think Hank Green would be known for any sympathetic affinity toward religion, he seems to me to give a fairly balanced appraisal of things here. I think the case to be made for epistemic responsibility is much more important than many Christians have allowed for in recent decades.

And the reason I plopped that into this thread is that his next one explores Pascal’s wager just a bit. His teaser at the ending of that seems weak to me, - because after all there is no teapotist or serious spaghetti monster religion out there and one might be obliged to ask why. Nonetheless, lots of stuff is nicely summarized here, as usual with the crash course stuff.

PART 1

To explore all possible options (or as many options as we reasonably can) and then see a) which one is the most likely to be correct and b) which option is the most rational option to ‘believe in or follow’.

Yes, but this kind of argument (if it works) should not compell a rational person to believe in purple unicorns. The reason for that is because purple unicorns by themselves do not (and cannot) give you (max.) punishment/reward and therefore you are only left with the low probability of their existence.

Only God or god-like things can give you max. punishment/reward.

I don’t think that this is a correct way to do that. Let’s say that we have static evidence which indicates that Christianity is correct with 75% of probability. And now let’s imagine we go 100,000 years in the future and we find out that literally no one in the galaxy is a Christian, and that the last believer in Christianity has died 99,000 years ago. Under that way of thinking, no one should explore Christianity since, in essence, Christianity wouldn’t be a major religion - even if, the likelihood of Christianity being correct was 75%.

If we would be only exploring previously conceived ideas or options, we would never get any new theories about the world, including Christianity or monotheism.

We should explore as many possibilities as we reasonably can, of course, we cannot explore every single possibility but I also don’t think that it is fair only to explore known or major religions. It’s not the case that the only possibilities are: Abrahamic God or no God.

There are of course 1B God theories that one can construct, from God who will send all religious people to hell to God who will send all non-religious people to hell or a God who will send all people who do not believe in purple unicorns in hell. The point of that argument is to assign probabilities to God theories and then see what is the most rational thing to believe.

Let’s take the example of a God who will send all people who do not believe in PU [purple unicorns] to hell with max. punishment and all people who do believe in PU in heaven with max. reward. And let’s assume that we invent a super-computer that is able to assign objective and rational probabilities to various God theories and the computer puts out the following numbers:

  1. No God - 99.95%
  2. Christian God - 0.01%
  3. “PU” God* - 0.03%
  4. All other options: 0.01%

*In this context, PU God will punish all believe who do not believe in purple unicorns with max. punishment in hell and reward all people who do believe with max. reward in heaven

If these were the numbers, would you agree that a rational person should believe in purple unicorns, and if someone wouldn’t believe (or try to believe) in purple unicorns, they would be irrational?

If the answer to this is yes, it seems to me that this argument is valid. If the answer is no, I would like to know why a rational person under this closed scenario should not believe in purple unicorns.

If this is correct, argument like this - if it works - would count against Christianity since you cannot “bet” on a Christian God, while you can bet on many other Gods.

  1. Atheism 98%
  2. Christianity 1.5%
  3. Islam 0.49%
  4. Other God theories 0.01%

If betting on Christianity does not generate any rewards or punishments, under this scenario, rational person should bet on Islam.

*In this scenario it is assumed that Islamic God will send all Christians to hell with max. punishment and that Christian God will send all Muslims to hell with max. punishment.

What if there is a God who will send all religious people/theists to hell to a maximum punishment and reward all atheists with maximum happiness in heaven? Let’s say we assign 1% probability to this kind of God, 0.99% to all other possible God theories and 98.01% to atheism.

Under this scenario, atheism seems to be the most rational choice.

I don’t want to debate evidence for God or for specific religions in this specific thread - but let me just mention that I am familiar with the names that you have mention, and although I have not read all of their books/articles or watched all their lectures, the one that I have watched, I generally don’t find super convincing - and if you have any specific argument you’d like me to address, feel free to send me a DM containing that argument.

The thing that “bothers” me the most about Christianity is the lack of evidence for it, and not the behaviour of some Christians or the Church.

The New Testament repeatedly teaches that salvation comes through faith (e.g. Ephesians 2:8).

In my original comment, I was referring to the unlikelihood that an unbeliever who decides to bet on Christianity based only on Pascal’s Wager actually has obtained a faith which saves.

So who has it, who doesn’t? Whatever it’s in.

PART 2

Let’s say 50000 years from now we can mathemathically prove that the following probabilities are available:

  1. Atheism - 95%
  2. God A who will punish everyone with max. punishment in hell who does not drink 2 liters of water a day and reward everyone who drinks that amount per day with max. reward in heaven - 4%
  3. God B who will do the exact opposite of God A - 1%

Would you agree that under this closed scenario, every rational person should try their best to drink 2L of water per day, and that anyone who would not do this, would be irrational?

If the answer is yes, then I guess that we are on the same page in terms of this argument and “the only thing that remains” is to assign probabilities to various God theories.

I have now watched this video and I don’t think that it is a good criticism of this kind of argument. Let me address 2 points that the video makes:

  1. point - Hank says:

Pragmatism is based on the theory that finding true beliefs is less important than finding beliefs that work, practically, in the living of your life. In this view, it doesn’t really matter whether spinach actually helps muscle growth;if eating spinach will improve your life, and believing that it’ll make you strong convinces you to eat it – then it’s a useful belief, which is all that matters. [Pragmatists] have an ideological ancestor in 17th century mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal.

But what is weird is that Pascal’s argument for God’s existence had very little to do with whether God was actually real. Instead, it had everything to do with with whether belief in his existence was practical.

Let me now specifically focus on the wager discussed in this thread. Take the example of the tournament. Any rational person should bet on Team B not because it makes them feel good, but because it is the most rational decision to do.

In the same way, in the first post, atheist A should bet on Christianity not because it is practical in the sense that it makes them feel good, but because it is the most rational thing to do under that scenario. Even if it makes them feel terrible, they should still bet on it.

And if someone disagrees that any rational person should bet on Team B, I’d like to hear reasons why (there are possible reasons, but I personally don’t think that they work if the argument for team B is structured properly)

  1. point video makes:

Our old friend Bertrand Russell once posited the existence of a china teapot,orbiting the sun somewhere between Earth and Mars.Let’s say that back on Earth there were a bunch of Teapot-ists, people who argued that,since we can’t disprove the teapot’s existence, they were justified in believing in it…After all, if we can leap to God, we can also leap to Russell’s teapot, or to the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Let’s say that the probability of Russell’s teapot is 0.00001% - we are not rational into believing that this teapot exists because teapots do not have any ability to provide reward/punishment if we believe/ don’t believe in them.

Only God or god-like things could provide maximum punishment/reward for anything. You can construct a God theory that says anyone who does not believe in this teapot will go to hell forever - but unless you provide at least some argument for it you can also construct a God theory that says anyone who does believe in this teapot will go to hell forever - and since they cancel each other out - the only thing that you are left with is 0.00001% probobility that this teapot exists.