Article ‘Dilbert’ creator Scott Adams is taking Pascal’s bet

[C C]

Oren Hanslet: "If last minute opportunism really worked, in order to enjoy a lifetime of sin and escape countless preacher sermons, then everybody would be doing it."
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‘Dilbert’ creator Scott Adams is taking Pascal’s bet. Many Christians are celebrating
https://www.deseret.com/faith/2026/01/07...lebrating/

EXCERPTS: “Dilbert” creator Scott Adams is dying of cancer and sharing his difficult journey on social media, including his recent decision to convert to Christianity. Adams did not give specifics of what that conversion would entail, saying it’s “between me and Jesus.”

[...] The idea, famously articulated by the French mathematician and Christian apologist Blaise Pascal, is that it’s smarter to believe in God than not.

[...] That’s the essence of what Adams conceded in his livestream, saying, “I’ve not been a believer, but ... I’m now convinced that the risk-reward is completely smart. If it turns out that there’s nothing there, I’ve lost nothing, but I’ve respected your wishes, and I like doing that. If it turns out there is something there, and the Christian model is the closest to it, I win.”

[...] From what Adams has said publicly, it seems that he’s not choosing Christianity because he believes it’s a way of looking at the world that works better than others, but because so many of his friends have been urging him to do so. And the pressure to convert in specific ways is now coming fast and furious from strangers on social media... (MORE - details)

[stryder]

I guess it might be fine for some. Personally I'd find it very difficult to become a "believer" even if I attempted faking it.

The main reason for that though is knowing that there is a high likelihood that most western religions were actually the product of Confucius spread by the Silk road.

In the West having such powers as the Roman Empire at that time, it would of made sense to introduce various superstitions and beliefs to make the populous more malleable should there be any future conquest. This meant sharing philosophy like "Mandate of Heaven" as it would give the interpretation that any power could be challenged if there was enough people willing to do so (Such as The Huns) or with enough superstitious reasoning, ruling could be forged.

So if anything, Western religions are a byproduct of an ancient Psy-ops program.

[Magical Realist]

The fallacy of Pascal's wager is believing that God gives a damn either way whether you believe in him or not, especially given his overwhelming absence thruout the universe. If you believe in a damning God, you are already on the wrong track. And getting an afterlife as a reward is a very petty and materialistic motive for belief too. Just live your life as you choose and die and find out like everybody else. And maybe not existing isn't so bad after all.

[Syne]

Confucianism began in ancient China with the teachings of the philosopher Confucius (Kong Fuzi), who lived from approximately 551–479 BCE during the Spring and Autumn period, a time of significant societal turmoil.
...
Judaism began over 3,500 years ago in the Middle East, traditionally starting with God's covenant with Abraham, the first patriarch, around 2000-1500 BCE.
- Google AI

God is not absent. God's body is the universe and it's hands are the people.

[Magical Realist]

God is not absent. God's body is the universe and it's hands are the people.

God is not conceived of as a physical being with a body. He is supposed to have existed before the universe remember? He is conveniently defined as an undetectable entity and yet somehow also everywhere at once. IOW nowhere at all. Only until recently was he conceived as the mover of the stars and planets, but then Newton came along and well...Now he's pretty much an obselete ghost lurking on the outposts of the far universe.

[Syne]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panentheism

[Magical Realist]

God, like Magic, cannot be a belief. That is the whole mistake of religion. That it can be put in this box among other boxes we have in our heads and taken out now and then. It is either an experience, or it is nothing.

[Syne]

Who said God was a belief? Do you mean "belief in God"?
You can have belief in anything. Real, imagined, wholly or barely comprehensible.

[Magical Realist]

Who? What? Where? Who's on first? lol

You have no concept of the distinction between believing and experiencing do you? Go study Jung and Joseph Campbell in a library for like 3 years like I did and then come talk about spirituality.

[Syne]

Yeah, yeah. I read The Essential Unity of All Religions in my 20s... along with studying developmental psychology. That's why I'm a syncretic panentheist.

And you, like Jung, can conflate words like "believe" and "know," but I use them in ways I can justify to others objectively. If I can, I know, and if I can't, I believe.

Shouldn't have taken you 3 years, and doesn't seem you learned much.