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Here are some excerpts from Blaise Pascal's Pensees. (Literall "thouhgts" in French. It is a collection of random scraps of writing found in Pascals office, after he died. "If there is a God, He is infinitely incomprehensible, since. having neither parts nor limits, He has no affinity to us. We are then incapable of knowing either what He is or if He is......"
"God is, or He is not." But to which side shall we ncline? Reason can decide nothing here. There is an infinite chaos which separated us. A game is being played at the extremity of this infinite distance where heads or tails will turn up. What will you wager? According to reason, you can do neither the one thing nor the other; according to reason, you can defend neither of the propositions. Do no, then, reprove for error those who have made a choice; for you know nothing about it. "No, but I blame them for having made, not this choice, but a choice, for again both he who chooses heads and he who chooses tails are equally at fault, they are both in the wrong. The true course is not to wager at all."; Yes: but you must wager. It is not optional. You are embarked. Which will you choose then? Let us see. Since you must choose, let us see which interests you least. You have two things to lose, the true and the good; and two things to stake, your reason and your will, your knowledge and your happiness; and your nature has two things to shun, error and misery. Your reason is no more shocked in choosing one rather than the other, since you must of necessity choose. This is one point settled. But your happiness? Let us weigh the gain and the loss in wagering what God is. Let us estimate these two chances. If you gain, you gain all; if you loose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation what He is. "That is very fine. Yes, I must wager; but I may perhaps wager too much." Let us see. Since there is an equal risk of gain and of loss, if you had only two lives, instead of one, you might still wager. But if there three lives to gain, you would have to play (since you are under the necessity of playing), and you would be imprudent, when you are forced to play, not to chance your life to gain three at a game where there is an equal risk of loss and gain. But there is is eternity of life and happiness. And this being so, if there were an infinity of chances, of which one only would be for you, you would still be right in wagering one to win two, and you would act stupidly, being obliged to play, by refusing to stake one lif against three at a game in which out of an infinity of chances there is one for you, if there were an infinity of infinitely happy life to gain. But there is here an infinity of a infinitely happy life to gain, and chance against a finite number of chanes of loss, and what you stake is finite."; If you have a hard time understanding this like everyone else, then you are everyone else. LOL. A quick summary of this idea, NOT EACH OF HIS PREMISES, is this: If you were to die and God were NOT REAL, what would you lose? Well, whether you are a believer or not, you would lose nothing and everything. Think about it. Once you die, spirit or no spirit, you would cease to think, and exist...There would be no saying: "Dang, this sucks, I don't even go to Hell! NOPE, nothing...You would have not one thought, not even a thought about a thought, which is a thought. You would neither lose God, or whatever not God is. Nothing and everything; Here is one possible summary of this argument:
If God exists, then beliefe in God has an infinite benefit.
If God does not exist, then belief in God has a small detriment.
If belief in God has either infinite benefit or small detriment, then it doesn't a large detriment.
Either God exists or he doesn't exist.
Thus belief in God is a safe bet. ...If you died and God DOES exist, then you lose an eternity with him...Which means you lose all good things and gain the 2nd death. You might say: "Oh this is just religious BS." Well, here is the point...Either way, God existing or not is assumed. When God exists on one side, you must weigh what the gain/punishment for this thing to be true, whether you like it or not (because you assumed the premise that God exists). When you assume the premise that God does not exist, you have to weigh the gain/punishment of that assumption as well. THE END THOUGHT IS THAT IT IS MORE LOGICAL AND LIKELY TO ASSUME GOD'S EXISTENCE THAN NOT, PARTLY BECAUSE OF THE GAIN/LOSS RATIO OF EACH ASSUMPTION.
