Ah Monsieur Pascal, uhm, comme c'est gentil à toi de visiter.

Pardon?

Uh, I said, how nice it is to have you come by and see me.

Oh.

Entré, entré.††Come in, come in

I believe it would be best if we just took our communication in English.

Despite your outrageous French accent? Wink, wink. Oh, nevermind, you're a continental philosopher. Can I offer you something to drink, I may have a bottle of bordeaux?

No thank you. I've heard about your generosity with Plato, and I think that it would be best if I kept my faculties for tonight's dialetical excursions. However, don't let me damper your nightly slovenliness.

Well then, allow me to jump right with tonight's discussion. I have a few questions regarding your wager.

Ah, you don't understand the math. Don't worry, I can explain it.

The math is not where lies my questions, for I do understand that, but first, let me summarize your idea to make sure we don't have a problem with definitions.

Your wager can be reduced to a standard quadrant that today's pseudo-psychologists love to use… like this chess board. On one side is "God", and on the opposite side is "No God". To God's right, is a Believer, and to the left is a Non-Believer. In each corner is a "pain / payoff" value based on how the two sides meet.

Let's start on the "No-God / Non-Believer" corner. Pain is low, since the person doesn't need to exert any effort, but without God, there is no reward in an afterlife, so the "payoff" is 0.

On the "No-God / Believer" corner, pain is indeed higher as the person worked to get into a Heaven, however, in this corner there is no Heaven, so the "payoff" is also 0.

Now let's visit the God side. The "God / Non-Believer" has the same "low pain" value, but the reward is maybe 0 (or even negative if God does turn out to be the vengeful, capricious character from the first part of the Bible instead of the caring "Father" from the last part).

But the "God / Believer" corner is where your gamble comes in, for the "pain" value is high, but the "payoff" is infinite. So high, in fact, that a betting man, would take a risk and bet on that corner just to get a chance at the reward.

Does that sound about right?

Well, it isn't very rigorous, and I'm not fond of your term "pain", but yes, that is the essence of my idea.

Belief is a wise wager. Granted that faith cannot be proved, what harm will come to you if you gamble on its truth and it proves false? If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation, that He exists.

Great. So allow me to ask a couple of questions concerning this. First, which God does your wager apply?

Well, the one true God that all cultures have believed and testified and worshipped.

Up until a couple thousand years ago, most people believed in a slew of interesting characters they affixed that label.

Fine. Humans have grown in their understanding as they've come in contact with the Bible. So, the God of the Bible.

So, is the one from the first part or the second? For God seems to grow up as the book progresses.

Well, I don't think I would use that term, so let's just say the "people of book" have also grown in their understanding.

But is this the God of the Jews, the Muslims or the Christians? For they sure seem to believe different things about what constitutes this belief, and call each other infidels.

Ah, ras le bol-- clearly, the Christian God is the most benevolent, and he is the one that should be worshipped.

Fine then, so is this the Catholic God, the Orthodox God or the Protestant God and if any of those, which of the variations due to the sects is one expected to believe in?

Contradiction is not a sign of falsity, for faith embraces many truths which seem to contradict each other.

But if I am to bet on your wager, I want to know exactly what the stakes are. You say that the payoff is infinite-- beyond my imagination, which sounds quite exciting for I have quite the over-active imagination. But I also want a clear understanding of what is required-- you know, the "pain" of my ratio.

It would be a shame if I believed in the Holy Trinity only to find out that Islam was correct, and loose it all because of that. Or believe in Catholicism when God is upset with that religion and actually thinks the Quakers are right.

The details are not important, as long as you believe.

Ah, so the murderers and war-mongers who believe are due to this big cash bonus at the end of the year, right?

Of course not, men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction. However, if you just believed, you would act according to that belief, and therefore, would act without fault.

It is such a shame that we have so few examples of this. But how can someone truly believe if their motivation for such belief is nothing more than the reward of Heaven? That is, nothing more than taking you up on your wager…

Well, my wager is just to get the sinner back on the path, and with time, the belief will become true belief. For men despise religion. They hate it but are afraid it may be true, so my wager is an attempt to get them beyond that.

It still seems strange that with all of this "belief" that is so important, that all of the people who truly believe in this only God, would believe and behave the same.

Oui, if life were but long enough, we would all come to this knowledge.

So is this why the only common thread among all of these "believers" is a motivation principale that all other people believe the same as they do?

Ah…

Wouldn't it be better if each person followed the dictates of their own heart and not attempt to coerce others to think the same?

Sûr…

And it seems to me that God would reward such a person for not attempting to coerce others… especially with force, but this would extend to all other forms of proselytizing, for each "believer" should be so humble as to realize that he or she may actually be wrong, and shouldn't risk leading someone else from the actual path. Besides, wasn't it you who said, "People are usually more convinced by reasons they discovered themselves than by those found by others"?

So allow me to rework your wager. Let's suppose that one actually tried to make the world a better place by loving his world-wide neighbors and work to improve the condition of every person. If there is a God, I'm sure he or she would approve of such behavior, and if there is no afterlife, then you'll at least be rewarded with a good memory in those of us who are left behind.

The heart has reasons that reason cannot know, but I dare say this seems a way to meld the two.