Wednesday, 2 March 2011
On Pascal's Wager
Two problems here. One is that the famous wager invites each of us to make a bet with monopoly money that, once made, entails us with immediate real-money (as it were) debts in the world, and in our day-to-day lives. But the other is precisely the currency (hah!) of the metaphor, once we unpack it, of a 'wager'. One wagers wealth; but Christianity is the religion of the poor. There's a mismatch there which is more than just rhetorical.