To the Editor:

Re “Campaigns Like These Make It Hard to Find a Reason to Believe,” by Eduardo Porter (Editorial Observer, Dec. 14):

In the 17th century, Blaise Pascal argued that people should believe in God—even if they didn’t!—because if God exists, only believers will go to heaven. He wrote, “If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing.”

Today, our presidential candidates, humbly touting their church’s beliefs, are bending over backward to appeal to religious voters, ignoring, at best, the agnostics and atheists in our country. Religion is suddenly a political hot topic, regardless of the so-called separation of church and state. It shouldn’t be.

“Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction”—a remarkable quote from none other than Blaise Pascal.

William O’Fallon
Brentwood, Tenn., Dec. 14, 2007

Note from KBJ: Two can play this game:

There are only three kinds of people: those who serve God having found him; others who spend their time seeking him who have not found him, and the rest who live without seeking him nor having found him[.] The first are reasonable and happy, the last are lunatic and unhappy, those in the middle are unhappy and reasonable[.]

Blaise Pascal, Pensées and Other Writings, trans. Honor Levi (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), 59.