	Another question that will then come up is why then is there any reason to be good if there is no God policing our every move, but as Albert Einstein puts it, "If people are good only because they fear punishment and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed." People seem to believe that everyone would soon turn evil and callous if God turned out to be false. If God's love for you can motivate you to be good, then your love for the universe can be a form of self-motivation. Maybe H. L. Mencken was right when he observed that, "People say we need religion when what they really mean is we need police." If through theism we know that everyone is equal, then why did the bible ignore slavery? If you are only being good for God's approval and to avoid his disapproval, that is more being afraid of God's consequences than being morally good. You should promote goodness, because it is the right thing to do, instead of out of fear. 
	Something that gives our life meaning also should not be negatively affecting society. David Hume argues that theism degrades individual morality, thereby devalues human existence. He says that superstitious terrors involved with theism force people to believe that virtues such as mortification, humility, and passive suffering are the only qualities which are acceptable in society. Hume also believes that not only does theism harm individual morality, but public morality, in that he thinks theism leads to intolerance and persecution. Sigmund Freud holds a similar argument by saying that religious belief perpetuations psychological immaturity among individuals, and cultural immaturity on the social level. Freud thinks that religious belief is an illusion, that was beneficial at an earlier time, but it no longer is. Freud says that the religious illusion inhibits scientific progress and causes psychological neuroses.
	Religious absolutism is already present in some nations, and it has shown to be detrimental. It discourages questioning in its very nature. Unquestioned faith is a virtue in religions such as Christianity and Islam. Voltaire was ahead of his time when he said, "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities." Suicide bombers believe that what they are doing is right, because religious scholars taught them that. They believe that they were here to serve God and nothing else. In Afghanistan under the Taliban, the crime of homosexuality was punishable by death. Homosexuality was even a criminal offense in Britain up until 1967, while Saudi Arabian women are still fighting for their right to drive. Religion makes these people in power think they are doing the right thing for society.
	Pascal's Wager is not an argument for God's existence, but an argument for belief, based on a threat. It is not even certain what a God would even want out of you. Maybe God valued kindness and generosity over just believing in him. Maybe it respects that atheists had the courage to not believe in him and refused to conform, and will decide to reimburse them instead. A God that values that is just as likely as a God that punishes you for not believing in it. The salvation that God supposedly is offering might not even be infinite. However, humans can only finitely appreciate an infinite reward. Pascal was using the Christian religion as the example for his wager, but with the number of religions and potential gods there are now, the odds are even longer. The Islamic Allah might not want the same out of us as the Christian God wants. You would have to give each possible God an extremely small probability with no favorite specific God. An atheist might say that through rationality, you could give God a probability of zero, which stops the wager from even happening, even though Pascal assumes that God has a probability of one-half. Some say that pragmatic arguments such as Pascal's Wager are pointless since beliefs are essentially psychological states that aim for the truth, and if you believe in something with an undefined probability, you are engaging in self-deception. Engaging in self-deception is problematic in that it results in the worsening of one's epistemic situation. 
