As Peter Bernstein tells the story in his marvelous book, Against the Gods, Blaise Pascal, the father of probability theory, cast the question of the existence of God as a game of chance: “A coin is tossed. Which way would you bet: on heads (God is) or tails (God is not)?” Paraphrasing Pascal, consider the chances of being on the losing side of the bet. If you bet God is, you will live a holy life and give up a few enjoyable temptations, but that’s all you lose. If you bet God is not and you are wrong, and you give in to all temptations, your evil life will cause you to be forever damned.
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