posted 04-01-2008 03:58 PM            

The French philosopher Pascal of “decision theory” fame created “Pascal's Wager”. Pascal's idea was that it is better to take the chance of believing in a God that might not exist rather than to risk losing infinite happiness in the afterlife by disbelieving in a God that does exist.

Pascal’s wager begins with the premise that the existence or non-existence of God is not provable by human reason, and since the essence of what God is can’t be comprehended and since reason cannot decide the question, then a person must "wager" or bet, either by guessing or making a leap of faith.

Pascal considers that there is "equal risk of loss and gain", in other words a coin toss, since human reason is powerless to address the question of God's existence. He contends the smart and wise decision is to wager that God does exist, since "If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing", meaning by living right and godly one can gain eternal life if God does exist, but if he doesn’t, one will be no worse off in death than if one had not believed.