[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"doc-detail-46442-en":3,"doc-seo-46442-105":29,"detail-sidebar-cat-0-en-105":91},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":6},0,"success",{"doc_id":7,"user_id":8,"nickname":9,"user_avatar":10,"doc_module":4,"category_id":11,"category_name":12,"doc_title":13,"doc_description":14,"doc_content":15,"file_id":16,"file_url":17,"file_type":18,"file_size":19,"view_count":20,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":20,"is_downloadable":20,"audit_status":20,"page_count":21,"language":22,"language_code":23,"site_id":24,"html_lang":23,"table_of_contents":25,"faqs":26,"seo_title":13,"seo_description":14,"update_tm":27,"read_time":28},46442,7971461741311,"Ophelia","https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/avatar/74000253aff267980c6?x-image-process=image/resize,m_fixed,w_180,h_180&k=1779345379180704826",9,"Religion & Spirituality","Reversing Pascal: scepticism about religious belief and its value","The article revisits Pascal’s wager by presenting a less ambitious but targeted “Sensible Argument.” It frames the central puzzle as a pronounced gap between many professedly religious believers’ stated beliefs and their actual practices, yielding reasons to doubt the prevalence, strength, and value of such religious life. Religion is argued to increase moral risks, including deception, duplicity, hypocrisy, self-deception, and inauthenticity. If a God cares about individual moral conduct, religious transgressors may face harsher punishment than secular ones.","Religious Studies (2022), 1–14 doi:10.1017/S0034412522000592  \nORIGINAL ARTICLE  \nReversing Pascal: scepticism about religious belief and its value  \nSaul Smilansky   \nDepartment of Philosophy, University of Haifa, Haifa 3498838, Israel  \nEmail: [smilsaul@research.haifa.ac.il](smilsaul@research.haifa.ac.il)  \n(Received 25 May 2022; revised 6 September 2022; accepted 12 September 2022)  \nAbstract  \nPascal famously argued that practical reasoning should lead people to try to form within themselves a commitment to religious practice and obedience, based upon a belief in God. I propose to take a less ambitious argument, which I call the Sensible Argument, and use it to present The Puzzle. I argue that there is a huge puzzle here, about the radical dissonance between the beliefs and practices of many of the purportedly religious. There are, I will argue, good reasons to doubt, concerning many (clearly not all or indeed most) purported religious believers, whether they are indeed believers, or at least whether their beliefs are strong; and religion seems to greatly increase the risks of deception, duplicity, and hypocrisy, as well as self-deception and inauthenticity. By turning towards a religious form of life, one will therefore be adding great morality-related risks. Arguably, if there is a God who deeply cares about individual moral behaviour, he would punish religious moral transgressors more than the secular ones. One is unlikely to be saved from hell (or other severe divine punishment) by becoming religious. If one is going to wager, it seems much more sensible to wageron the secular side.  \nKeywords: Pascal; deception; hypocrisy; moral paradox  \nPascal famously argued that practical reasoning should lead people to try and form within themselves a commitment to religious practice and obedience, based upon a belief in God (Pascal 1670/1995) . The argument roughly goes like this: if God is all powerful and all knowing, and he will reward the righteous with heaven and condemn sinners to eternity in hell, it would be irrational to risk upsetting him. Rationally, one ought to ‘wager on God’. If God does not exist, one’s losses (such as in missing out on the joys of sin, or wasting time on religious ritual) will be relatively meagre, and in any case finite; while eternal torment in an insufferable hell is an infinite risk, which it would be radically foolish to take. There are philosophical difficulties in Pascal’s argument, such as on which God to wager, or the thought that God is unlikely to be pleased by those who follow his commandments as a pragmatic gamble (for a survey see Hajek 2018) . But these need not concern us here.  \nI propose to take a less ambitious argument, which I call the Sensible Argument, focusing on divine moral injunctions – and use it to present The Puzzle. I argue that there is a huge puzzle here, about the radical dissonance between the beliefs and practices of many  \n© The Author(s), 2022 . Published by Cambridge University Press. This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence ([http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution and reproduction, provided the original article is properly cited.  \n[https://doi.org/10.1017/S0034412522000592](https://doi.org/10.1017/S0034412522000592) Published online by Cambridge University Press  \n2 Saul Smilansky  \nof the purportedly religious; so that that we should be highly sceptical of the prevalence, strength, and value of religious life and belief in God.1 There are, I will argue, good reasons to doubt, concerning many (clearly not all or even most) purported religious believers, whether they are indeed believers, or at least whether their beliefs are strong; and religion seems to greatly increase the risks of deception, duplicity, and hypocrisy, as well as self-deception and inauthenticity. In these ways, many religious ","cbCairbJohyj1bBC","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCairbJohyj1bBC","pdf",259695,1,14,"English","en",105,"# Abstract and research problem\n# Pascal’s wager and objections\n# The Sensible Argument\n## Firm religious beliefs and divine moral commands\n## Irrationality of disobedience","[{\"question\":\"What does Pascal argue, and how does this article respond?\",\"answer\":\"Pascal argues that practical reasoning should lead people to “wager on God” by forming commitment to religious practice and obedience. This article proposes a different, less ambitious “Sensible Argument” that reframes the issue around moral injunctions and the resulting practical risks.\"},{\"question\":\"What is “The Puzzle” the author claims to reveal?\",\"answer\":\"The puzzle concerns the radical dissonance between many professedly religious people’s beliefs and their actual practices. The author treats this as evidence supporting scepticism about how often such beliefs are real, how strong they are, and what value religious life provides.\"},{\"question\":\"Why does the author think adopting a religious form of life increases risks?\",\"answer\":\"The author argues that religion greatly increases risks of deception, duplicity, and hypocrisy, as well as self-deception and inauthenticity. As a result, many religious people may end up seriously morally worse than otherwise similar secular people.\"}]",1783518133,35,{"code":4,"msg":30,"data":31},"ok",{"site_id":24,"language":23,"slug":32,"title":13,"keywords":33,"description":14,"schema_data":34,"social_meta":86,"head_meta":88,"extra_data":90,"updated_unix":27},"reversing-pascal-scepticism-about-religious-belief-and-its-value","",{"@graph":35,"@context":85},[36,53,68],{"@type":37,"itemListElement":38},"BreadcrumbList",[39,43,47,50],{"item":40,"name":41,"@type":42,"position":20},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":44,"name":45,"@type":42,"position":46},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/","Document",2,{"item":48,"name":12,"@type":42,"position":49},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/religion-spirituality/",3,{"item":51,"name":13,"@type":42,"position":52},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/reversing-pascal-scepticism-about-religious-belief-and-its-value/46442/",4,{"url":51,"name":13,"@type":54,"author":55,"headline":13,"publisher":57,"fileFormat":60,"inLanguage":23,"description":14,"dateModified":61,"datePublished":62,"encodingFormat":60,"isAccessibleForFree":63,"interactionStatistic":64},"DigitalDocument",{"name":9,"@type":56},"Person",{"url":40,"name":58,"@type":59},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-07-13","2026-07-08",true,{"@type":65,"interactionType":66,"userInteractionCount":20},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":67},"ViewAction",{"@type":69,"mainEntity":70},"FAQPage",[71,77,81],{"name":72,"@type":73,"acceptedAnswer":74},"What does Pascal argue, and how does this article respond?","Question",{"text":75,"@type":76},"Pascal argues that practical reasoning should lead people to “wager on God” by forming commitment to religious practice and obedience. This article proposes a different, less ambitious “Sensible Argument” that reframes the issue around moral injunctions and the resulting practical risks.","Answer",{"name":78,"@type":73,"acceptedAnswer":79},"What is “The Puzzle” the author claims to reveal?",{"text":80,"@type":76},"The puzzle concerns the radical dissonance between many professedly religious people’s beliefs and their actual practices. The author treats this as evidence supporting scepticism about how often such beliefs are real, how strong they are, and what value religious life provides.",{"name":82,"@type":73,"acceptedAnswer":83},"Why does the author think adopting a religious form of life increases risks?",{"text":84,"@type":76},"The author argues that religion greatly increases risks of deception, duplicity, and hypocrisy, as well as self-deception and inauthenticity. 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