Pascal's Wager

Pascal addresses a gambler rather than a philosopher. If reason can prove neither God's existence nor his absence, you still cannot abstain – by the way you live you are already placing a bet. So weigh the payoffs. Believe and be right, and you gain the infinite; believe and be wrong, and you lose almost nothing. The prudent stake is on God. It is the first argument in history built in the language of probability theory, which Pascal himself invented – and it is a trap, because he knew that convincing the mind is still a long way from believing with the heart.