ion up to God. So if you do believe God exists, try to act accordingly, but fail to obtain infinite happiness, you would be left with nothing and was better off not believing in the first place. This set up also makes the motives for believing in God selfish motives. When looking at basing your decisions in terms reward/consequence you will more likely go with what is more rewarding. So assuming for the sake of argument that God does exist, would that god be pleased with a follower whose only purpose for choosing to do so was based on selfish gains? Another, but not as obvious, point against this set up is its consequences and some are stressed more than others. According to the set up to believe that God exists and he does not only results in a small temporal loss meaning that you lived your short life morally, and wasn’t worth much to begin with anyway. But that small temporal loss was actually a wasted, unfulfilled life. Hypothetically speaking there was someone who went their entire lifespan holding fast to a belief, denied themselves countless opportunities to for happiness and enjoyment, but let it all go unfulfilled for a conviction that turned out to be false. You could easily try to make a case the you can never miss what you never had, but that does not fit in here. Although you can’t miss what you never you had, you can regret having denied yourself an opportunity that you would have otherwise taken. To respond to the selfish gain counterpoint, Pascal argues that the more you practice your actions in accordance to your belief, that original selfish motivation starts to go away (Pascal, 79). But to bring up a question posed earlier in this essay, how do you act in a manner that is pleasing to an incomprehensible god? Pascal says look to others who have been through what you’ve been through, and have made the decision that you are about to make and follow those examples (Pascal, 79). This respo...
