{"id":26950,"date":"2021-02-09T13:59:59","date_gmt":"2021-02-09T17:59:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=26950"},"modified":"2021-02-14T21:14:41","modified_gmt":"2021-02-15T01:14:41","slug":"pascals-theory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/pascals-theory\/","title":{"rendered":"Pascal&#8217;s Theory: You Might As Well Bet on God"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>What is Pascal&#8217;s theory? Is it a convincing argument for a belief in God?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Pascal&#8217;s theory, or Pascal&#8217;s wager, says that not believing in God has high stakes. Therefore, the only logical thing to do is to believe in God. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Read more about Pascal&#8217;s theory below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Pascal\u2019s Theory<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Lastly, Pascal\u2019s wager, proposed by the French philosopher Blaise Pascal in the 17th century, isn\u2019t an argument that seeks to prove God\u2019s existence, but it does try to make the case that an individual ought to <em>believe <\/em>in God. The argument goes:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>If you believe in God and he <em>does <\/em>exist, you are rewarded with an eternity in heaven (according to Christianity at least).&nbsp;<\/li><li>If you believe in God and he <em>doesn\u2019t <\/em>exist, you gain nothing but also suffer no penalty.&nbsp;<\/li><li>Likewise, if you don\u2019t believe in God and he <em>doesn\u2019t <\/em>exist, you gain nothing but suffer no penalty.<\/li><li>However, if you don\u2019t believe in God and he <em>does <\/em>exist, you will suffer eternal torment and damnation.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>According to Pascal\u2019s theory, there is no cosmic upside to being an atheist; but there is potentially an enormous downside. <\/strong>Therefore, the only logical thing to do is to believe in God.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>However, this <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/philosophical-thought-experiments\/\">thought experiment<\/a> fails to make an airtight case for belief in God. You can\u2019t be <em>forced <\/em>to believe something; you either believe it or you don\u2019t. The only thing Pascal\u2019s wager could compel is <em>false <\/em>belief, pretending to accept the existence of an omnipotent, omniscient God. But wouldn\u2019t this all-seeing, all-knowing deity see through your ruse? Might he then be inclined to punish you further for your attempts to deceive him?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What\u2019s more, <strong>how do you know if the God you happen to believe in is the one that really exists? <\/strong>By picking the \u201cwrong\u201d God, you might have damned yourself just as much as by believing in no God at all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What is Pascal&#8217;s theory? Is it a convincing argument for a belief in God? Pascal&#8217;s theory, or Pascal&#8217;s wager, says that not believing in God has high stakes. Therefore, the only logical thing to do is to believe in God. Read more about Pascal&#8217;s theory below.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":22841,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,21,6],"tags":[210],"class_list":["post-26950","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-history","category-philosophy","category-spiritual","tag-the-god-delusion","","tg-column-two"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v24.3 (Yoast SEO v24.3) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Pascal&#039;s Theory: You Might As Well Bet on God - Shortform Books<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Pascal&#039;s theory, or Pascal&#039;s wager, states that there are high cosmological stakes for not believing in God\u2014so you should just believe.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/pascals-theory\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Pascal&#039;s Theory: You Might As Well Bet on God\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Pascal&#039;s theory, or Pascal&#039;s wager, states that there are high cosmological stakes for not believing in God\u2014so you should just believe.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/pascals-theory\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Shortform Books\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2021-02-09T17:59:59+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2021-02-15T01:14:41+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/wordpress.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/emotion-prayer-thinking.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1220\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"650\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Carrie Cabral\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Carrie Cabral\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/pascals-theory\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/pascals-theory\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Carrie Cabral\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/2ababb7c63a94ff5d2190f71dc417d56\"},\"headline\":\"Pascal&#8217;s Theory: You Might As Well Bet on God\",\"datePublished\":\"2021-02-09T17:59:59+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2021-02-15T01:14:41+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/pascals-theory\/\"},\"wordCount\":342,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/pascals-theory\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/emotion-prayer-thinking.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"The God Delusion\"],\"articleSection\":[\"History\",\"Philosophy\",\"Spiritual\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/pascals-theory\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/pascals-theory\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/pascals-theory\/\",\"name\":\"Pascal's Theory: You Might As Well Bet on God - 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