Pascal's Wager

Pascal's Wager is a suggestion posed by French philosopher Blaise Pascal. It goes something like this:

"It makes more sense to believe in God than to not believe. If you believe, and God exists, you will be rewarded in the afterlife. If you do not believe, and He exists, you will be punished for your disbelief. If He does not exist, you have lost nothing either way."

Of course, this has its flaws. One flaw is that God's not stupid. He'll know that you are perhaps superficially believing in His existence just so you can get into Heaven.

But maybe we shouldn't be too harsh on Pascal for coming up with a defective proposition. His notes were scattered in his room after his death, whereupon companions of his collected the notes and published them in a book called Pensées in 1670. It's pretty clear that he would have elaborated on his ideas had he edited them himself.