You refer to "Pascal's Wager"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_Wager
You might not know this, but there is much debate on whether or not Pascal was a "true believer". Some suggest that he deliberately wrote in a church complimentary fashion, so as to get away with publishing things that were forbidden to others. If so, it worked like a charm. He was the first to get anything about probability published en'mass, though several had written before him.
This was almost certainly the case with his work on the vacuum, which had actually been done by Torricelli (Student of Galileo) earlier and not published for fear of church reprisal. See my book page: 26-The subheading "This Just In--Some Things Can Just Happen".
~FK
--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, "jaywilly240" <wha724@...> wrote:
>
> Blaise Pascal, famous big time French math wizard (and inventor of the calculator)insisted that religion is basically the ultimate advantage play. Pascal theorized that because no one knows for sure if there's a God, or an afterlife, we humans are getting far better odds by living as if he/she does exist and will eventually judge us. When we cash in for the final time, if there is no God, no harm no foul --- we've eased the lives of those around us and decreased the world's asshole population significantly. If there is a God, living by his rules keeps us out of hell. Sacre bleu!
