HoP 484 You Bet Your Life: Pascal’s Wager

Peter Adamson· Host0:00

[instrumental music] Hi, I'm Peter Adamson, and you're listening to The History of Philosophy Podcast, brought to you with the support of the Philosophy Department at King's College London and the LMU in Munich. Online at historyofphilosophy.net. Today's episode, You Bet Your Life: Pascal's Wager. Imagine that God exists, but not the God of Christianity, Islam, Judaism, or any other religion. This God is perverse. He hates it when people believe in his existence, maybe because he's shy or because he thinks it's ridiculous that people would believe in God without sufficiently good evidence. So when religious believers die, he sends them to hell for an infinity of torment. When atheists die, by contrast, there'll be bad news and good news. The bad news is that they were wrong to be atheists because God does exist. The good news is that atheists, and only atheists, get to go to heaven, where they will experience an infinite and eternal reward. Now, there isn't much, if any, reason to believe that this perverse God exists, but isn't it just possible that he exists? And given this possibility, however slight, wouldn't it be better to be an atheist just in case? After all, it's the only way to have a chance at that infinite reward and to avoid the infinite damnation reserved for