I get hit with Pascal’s Wager all the time. What have I got to lose by being a Christian? Even if I didn’t believe in God, wouldn’t my life be better off if I still believed in one?
Blaise Pascal, who postulated this gamble, assumed that it would payoff either way. If you lived as a Christian, and it turned out that there was no god, you’ve lost nothing. However, if you lived your life as a non-theist, and there was a god, then you’ve lost everything.
What he didn’t mention though, and what nobody else does either, is the true cost of embracing any god. To embrace this God, I must lose my soul.
Let’s explore that. The first step to being a Christian is to “surrender my life to Jesus.” In other words, I must cede my values and my dreams to someone else. I’m literally ‘outsourcing’ my ‘morality’ to a book, written by bronze-aged men whose ideas of right and wrong are horrendous.
All I need to do is look at those who have already ceded their souls to illustrate just how horrific my life will look… and Fox “news” is the perfect place to start. From dusk to dawn we get to watch the pundits who have surrendered their souls. We see glaring holes in their logic, a total distain for reality, and ultimately, a complete lack of compassion.