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Pascal's Wager

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Blaise Pascal was a brilliant French mathematician who gave us countless advances in probability calculation, as well as the grade ten mathematical crutch known as Pascal’s triangle. He also formulated Pascal’s Wager, a theorem which argues that logic demands belief in God, as one has nothing to lose in the afterlife if He does not exist.

Pascal’s Wager has been criticized from all sides. Among the frequently raised objections are that God would see through the Wager and send you to hell anyway, that there is no particular reason to believe in Pascal’s God particularly and that the statement that one has nothing to lose by taking up theistic belief is false. The biggest problem – and one somehow frequently overlooked – is that if one believes in God, one cannot get into Atheist Heaven.

Atheist Heaven is way better than Christian Heaven. Among the advantages are:

  • The denizens are not required to praise anybody is they don’t feel like it.
  • Sinning is allowed.
  • Every other wednesday is Nude Wednesday.
  • Special guest appearances by the cool gods from other religions, including Thor, Aphrodite, Buddha, Ganesha and Jesus.
  • No Catholic Saints around to describe in great detail how they were tortured to death.
  • Tickets still available for Björk’s first post-life tour.
  • Well-stocked library, including Douglas Adams’ now complete Salmon of Doubt.
  • Yes! We Have Thomas Jefferson!
  • More booze than every other heaven combined, Including Valhalla!
  • St. Thomas’ every popular “I Never Really Bought the Whole Resurrection Thing” lecture.
  • Coming soon: stand-up comedy by George Carlin and Woody Allen.
  • And much more!


Despite then name, Atheist Heaven is open to all sorts of irreligious persons, including, but not limited to, doctrine agnostics, freethinkers, ignostics, deists, anti-theists, Spinozans, nihilists, non-theists and secular humanists. Non-doctrine agnostics (sometimes referred to as ‘weak’ or ‘soft’ agnostics) are exempt, but the moral among them will be given a guided tour of all the heavens. After ten minutes in each one, everybody turns to them simultaneously and shouts “Just kidding! It isn’t this one either!”.

The only requirements for entrance into Atheist Heaven are that one lead a moral life without the expectation of reward in the afterlife. The irreligious who fail to meet this requirement will be sent to Atheist Hell, with all the overly dogmatic and immoral theists (such as Fred Phelps at Pat Robertson), where they will systematically drive one another bonkers.

In conclusion and in summary, the theistic are welcome to their beliefs, but should be aware that the prizes offered by Pascal’s Roulette Wheel are not so great as the benefits of refusing to play.
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  1. cuppajoe_9's Avatar
    Partly inspired by Richard Carrier's The End of Pascal's Wager and the teachings of The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
  2. mtpspur's Avatar
    With respect may I submit a reply from the King James Bible Ecclesiastes 8:11: Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth; and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thine heart, and in the sight of thine eyes: but know thou, that for all these things God will bring thee into judgment.

    Otherwise I found your 'heaven' quite amusing.
  3. 's Avatar
    Sorry, but if even one god is allowed to visit, everyone in atheist heaven will immediately stop being an atheist and have to leave atheist heaven. All systems are (probably) self-devouring, but this is an obvious loophole that should surely be closed to give a more damning one a chance to reveal itself.
  4. cuppajoe_9's Avatar
    Ah, but the only requirement for entrance is that one be irreligious at the time of death. You're allowed to believe in gods afterwards. Although this of course means that anybody who believes in Atheist Heaven isn't allowed to go there. So maybe I shouldn't have said anything.
  5. 's Avatar
    You people are the intellectual elite. I am a 15 year old >95% atheist <5% agnostic who admits that people who do right to get into heaven are selfish and are therefore sinning. Good luck getting into heaven while sinning your entire life:P I dont want a heaven though. I want it to end, all the suffering
    Here's something you may want to add to Pascal's wager, the part in the conscience. If one has reasoned for there to be no god through axioms and probability simulations then trying to believe in god no matter how successful they are is a violation of their personal integrity and conscience.

    ~I know 10000 words!.... most of which are numbers
  6. 's Avatar
    great ask - but hell - you look old in your photo - you SHOULD know.
  7. andave_ya's Avatar
    though I agree with mtpspur, this had me laughing out loud.