God’s Wager: Pascal’s Existential Gambling Problem

Think philosophy is boring? Wait until you meet the anxiety-ridden French genius who turned religion into a casino game.

In “God’s Wager: Pascal’s Existential Gambling Problem,” Sophia Blackwell delivers a hilarious and irreverent guide to Blaise Pascal, the 17th-century mathematician who invented probability theory, had a religious meltdown, and decided the smartest approach to God was to treat faith like a betting strategy.

With her signature blend of merciless mockery and surprising insight, Blackwell explores how this chronically ill hypochondriac somehow became one of history’s most influential thinkers while:

• Calculating the odds of God’s existence like a degenerate gambler at a theological casino
• Declaring that humans are too terrified to sit alone in a room (centuries before smartphones proved him right)
• Insisting that God is deliberately hiding from us as some sort of cosmic personality test
• Abandoning mathematics for mysticism in history’s most dramatic career pivot

Whether you’re a philosophy student drowning in incomprehensible texts, a religious seeker wondering if faith can be rational, or just someone who enjoys watching brilliant historical figures get roasted for their contradictions, this book delivers laugh-out-loud philosophical entertainment while actually teaching you something useful.

By the end, you’ll understand why Pascal’s ideas about uncertainty, distraction, and existential dread feel shockingly relevant in our anxiety-ridden modern world—and why hedging your bets might be the most rational approach to an irrational universe.