Does God Exist? A Mathematical Answer
Absent evidence, Blaise Pascal, a seventeenth-century French mathematician, set about deducing whether or not one should believe in a god purely from a probabilistic perspective.
He reasoned as follows.
- If you believe in god and he/she does exist — all is well; you are saved and rewarded. Virgins are waiting for you in heaven.
- If you believe in god and he/she does not exist — no harm done. You wasted some time doing some unnecessary things and sacrificed some sinful pleasures, but hey, shit happens.
- If you don’t believe in god and he/she does exist — you are eternally damned with no recourse. This is a horrific outcome.
Pascal reasoned that given the horrific scenario #3, the harm far outweighs any benefit, hence, one is better off believing in God.
Interestingly, the majority arrive at this intuitively, though not as logically as Pascal did.
Nine out of ten Americans believe in god — though they dare not say so — for the same reason as Pascal’s deduction.
So far, good? Not so fast.
Pascal’s reasoning missed out on a critical aspect, which, to his defense, may not have been common knowledge of his day — the world does not have ONE god. If he had that knowledge and knew that…
