1.11.24 Pascal's Wager

pascal's wager is a philosophical arguement written by (and named after) blaise pascal, a philosopher, physicist, mathmetician and theologian from the 17th century. here is a quick picture i wrote showcasing it..

it's pretty easy to understand, it shows different outcomes that believers or non believers gamble on, depending on if god is real or not. its a bit of a dilemma for both parties (or, well, not much for believers cause i guess theres one good outcome, even if it's less likely.) so it shows that it's rational to believe him because you'll either get it all or nothing, while not believing him will give you nothing or less.. and i wanted to add onto it.

in long, it states that if you are a believer, you gamble between infinite reward/gain (heaven if he exists) or nothing (no god) but if you are a non believer, it's a riskier game because you get either finite gain (nothing but you get the pleasure of being correct in death!) or infinite punishment/damnation (hell if god does exist)

to blaise pascal, it'd make more sense to believe in god (because of reasons stated in the last paragraph) but i believe it's disgenuine to believe in something only for a possible outcome or reward, rather than truly believing it. i am not here to convince you into being christian/catholic/ect. by showing this, i'm actually not much of a believer myself...why would i be? well, why wouldn't i too, but whatever.

and more to religion, i believe if you just believe god or any religion for the possible reward and don't practice the preachings, that's not a ticket to heaven (or any afterlife your religion speaks about) and in christianity and stuff, i don't think someone as loving (said) as him would send people who don't believe in him straight to hell, but instead base it on what kind of person you were while you were living instead of what you believed.