What is Pascals Wager?
It’s a well-known logical argument why you should believe in God, even if there’s a strong chance that it might not be true. Simply put, the argument is that you should believe in God just because there’s a chance that you might go to heaven and avoid hell. Blaise Pascal, a philosopher and mathematician in the 17th century, first formally put the argument forth. He is considered the founder of probability and he made other significant contributions. There’s also a programming language named after him. Pascal’s wager, in a nutshell, is this. No one knows for certain whether God exists. Maybe he does, maybe he doesn’t. It’s a gamble whether you believe in him or not. So let’s treat it like a gamble, says Pascal, and look at the odds. He described the payoff of this gamble like so. If you choose to believe in God, and you happen to be right, then the reward is infinity: eternal bliss in heaven. However, if you are wrong, then you lose nothing at all. On the other hand, if you choose not t
