Blaise Pascal was a mostly brilliant French mathematician who lived in the early 1600s. Among his accomplishments was his research in the principles of hydraulic fluids which some think may have led to John Crapper’s invention of the toilet 200 years later. Pascal dealt with what he called “Newtonian fluids” which I think sounds very disgusting.
At one point in his life he had a bizarre mystical experience and hence afterwards decided to abandon scientific subjects such as physics to pursue theology.
One of the fruits of this pursuit was a concept that became known as “Pascal’s Wager.” Pascal’s Wager can be summed up as follows:
If God doesn’t exist and:
If you believe in God:
Not much difference
Else if you don’t:
Not much difference
However, if God exists and:
If you believe in God:
You don’t fry in hell
Else if you don’t:
lather up your body with egg whites and apply breading liberally
Or even more simply it’s all about being wrong:
Tis better to believe and be wrong than to not believe and be wrong.
Pascal’s Flaw (sacreblue)
Poor Pascal. A man who developed some of the first mechanical computing machines over 300 years before the invention of Donky Kong, dropped the ball with his wager.
The problem is that Pascal only considered the possibility of the God of the Bible existing or not existing. What if you are worshipping the wrong god?
You could spend a whole lifetime in Christianity or Judaism only to die and wake up in Islamic hell?
What if the Hindus have it right and because you’ve worshipped the wrong god, you’ve come back as a member of a herd of animals shepherded by a very lonely man?
What if Krishna really exists and you fail to achieve Karma?
What if Taoism is correct and you continue to unknowingly upset the balance of Yin and Yang your whole life?
What if you fail to commit suicide at the right time and miss that all important comet tail ride?
The bottom line is that contrary to what he asserted, there is really no safe bet in Mr. Pascal’s wager.