People Who Really Should be Hoping there is No God

by Clifford C. Nichols

For some, one of the more notable attributes associated with the idea of there being a God is the binary choice He is said to have offered mankind: be His friend and you’ll be blessed by Him for eternity; but, choose otherwise, and you’ll be left with an eternity that, at best, will be damned regrettable … to say the least.

Through the ages, many have wrestled with the rightness or wrongness of this concept, including the scientist and mathematician Blaise Pascal. It was he who put the real issue on the table with what has come to be known as the Pascal Wager: If you were to choose, would you bet that God exists or that He doesn’t?

Pascal concluded that betting on the former is an indication of one’s wisdom: if you’re correct, the benefits are immeasurable and eternal; and, if you’re wrong, the worst case scenario is that you become worm food.    

Conversely, Pascal said that to bet otherwise would be foolish: If you bet there is no God and are correct, your brightest hope after death is to become worm food but, if you lose the bet, you run the risk of being really wrong -- if, indeed, there exists an eternal hell.   

The pure genius of Pascal’s Wager is it provides a litmus test by which those who believe in God can evaluate the wisdom -- or lack thereof -- of others simply by observing whether how they choose to conduct their lives reflects their belief in a God … or not. And always remembering that the bet we may make today is not immutable … and, so long as we are alive, can be changed at will.

For example, consider those who openly champion the thought that somehow it is their “right” to murder, mutilate, sell, have sex with or market the body parts of our children. For the purposes of Pascal’s Wager, it matters not why they think they may have such rights -- whether it be for them to make a profit, for their convenience or to meet some distorted emotional need. It only matters that, by their claim to such a right, they are obviously overlooking the possibility that there really may exist a God who not only created the children at issue, but a God who, if He exists, will most certainly will be offended by their systemic abuse of His most vulnerable creations. When viewed through the lens of Pascal’s Wager, the bet made by these people most certainly lacks wisdom, and indeed, is foolish in the extreme. In time, will they change their “bet?” One can only hope.