Funny ... reason to believe in god ...

The seventeenth-century French philosopher Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) argued that given that one cannot know for sure if God exists, it is nonetheless rational to believe in God. If one does not believe in God when He indeed exists (false-negative error), one must spend eternity in hell and damnation, whereas if one believes in God when he actually does not exist (false-positive error), one only wastes a minimal amount of time and effort spent on religious services. The cost of committing the false-negative error is much greater than the cost of committing the false-positive error. Hence one should rationally believe in God.