I just ask, why this only applies to the Christian God and not to every other god ever.

It is a seriously stupid wager. You can't just believe because you say you do. If these people's god existed, he would surely know that people who go for Pascal's wager are just being dishonest. I think if there were a god he would prefer honest atheists to dishonest theists.

I feel the same way about garden gnomes. We should believe in them just in case and maybe they'll also help weed my gardens.

This is my reply and my personal life motto on religion.

Often I invert it

What if all of Christianity is a Test like that of Job? What if God is testing the population of the planet to see who is so despicable that they would paint themselves in his own son's innocent blood to escape Justice?
What if, at the final Judgement, those covered in the innocent blood of the Lamb are condemned for lack of morals and ethics because they scapegoated his innocent child rather than accept personal responsibility as his child tried to teach?
What if you have it backwards Christian?
How could you ever know with the perfect God conducting the test?

I like to live dangerously.

Fuck Off!! Normally Works.

About the best Pascal's Wager deserves is a little chuckle.

So we lowly humans should claim a false belief to save our souls from a wrathful overlord because we are afraid of eternal hellfire. I am not afraid.

I suppose I'm kind of proud that I came to the same conclusion as Pascal before I had even heard of him. But at the time, I didn't realize the flaws of the question like I do now. I see that all of my points have already been covered, so I list them for emphasis.

Sincere Belief

I found that people who pull Pascal's Wager (including myself) already believe. Since they believe themselves, they figure it's easy for anybody to believe. They aren't cognizant of the fact that you can't just force yourself to believe. I could hope for God's existence, but I can't believe it. Just like I can't simply believe in an invisible bridge when I'm driving toward a chasm. I'm always going to slam on the brakes.
And besides, do they think that God is easily fooled? How would God feel about such an empty belief? That you believe in God only because of a risk assessment and not out of sincere love?

What Are the Odds?

Then there's the fact that the wager only works for one god. It's a better bet for me to believe in Jehovah. It's also a better bet for me to believe in Allah. But I cannot do both. I have a low chance of receiving my reward and a high chance of being punished.

Missed Opportunities

While there are many believers whose faith coincides with their own lives, a lot of believers will give up parts of their lives to conform to the religion: They may fight against their homosexuality, they may be complicit with apathy through prayer, or they may prioritize the church for the expenditure of time and money rather than their families. So to say that you'd lose nothing by believing is not necessarily true. What you lose may be miniscule in comparison to the reward you get, but considering how unlikely that reward is, I could achieve the same effect by putting my family in the poor house in order to scratch off that winning lottery ticket.

So I wish I realized these things when I "invented" Pascal's Wager, but I learned from my flaws. We all have them.

Pascal's wager is fallacious logic in the form argumentum ad baculum. That is it appeals to fear. This is the main tenet of religeon. Fear of death.

My response (long winded as it might be) has always been "If there is a God or Heaven I should get in based on my merits and not because I massaged the ego of an egotistical God".

If that's their reason for believing, then it sounds to me like what they really believe in is self-interest, not God, or any other spiritual or enlightened notion. I would call theirs Unenlightened self-interest.

First you need to know what deity you're taking a bet on. Choose the Abrahamic god only to find out the Norse gods were true could be embarrassing and awkward.

Any god worth their salt, being all omnipotent and all knowing would see through such a cynical scam and surely know you're hedging your bets rather a genuine belief/worship.

Pascal's Wager doesn't hold up to scrutiny. It's a feeble attempt at an insurance policy which is invalid by design.

If I'm wrong I will go to hell, but I'll have plenty of company.

Generally speaking, if it can be assumed that an almighty being exists and desires the worship, I would imagine said being would view this argument as bordering on blasphemous hedging of one's bets spiritually speaking and would probably take offense to the absence of actual devotion to the worship. A sentient creator would resent being followed as a supernatural insurance policy.

There are thousands of gods and thousands of religions. If there is a god/gods the chances that you picked the right one/s are pretty slim. If there isn't a god you wasted your whole life devoted to a fairy tale.

If there are things like heaven and hell- and there is a god who created a place like hell, I would rather go there than spend eternity in heaven with such a monster.

In their Bible it says even being luke warm about your belief in Jesus is not enough to get you to heaven. Only full true belief. So, believing for the sake of belief isn’t a true belief. Your hell bound unless you truly believe. That’s the problem Pascal’s Wager has. That’s my rebuttal anyway.

Why would I only consider your god?

That’s not true because if you live your life by rules that don’t matter that you don’t want to live by and if you spend time in a community you don’t want to be a part of going to services you don’t want to be in....you’ve wasted all of that time in your one life just to “hedge a bet”.

I think that the best answer is that there are so many different religions you can't wager on all of them simultaneously.

The multitude of religions, the fact that a deity should be able to see through false faith, the unwillingness to worship a god that would be so petty, and the fact that a god that is omnipotent and allows the suffering we see in the world is evil or nonexistent seem to be enough. If there is a god, I would hope that reasonable doubt would be rewarded. I would also have some questions.

I tell them that even if I did believe I couldn't possibly worship. Looking around this planet I don't see anywhere god is good if it were real.