Believing in a Religion...Can be Explained by Economics!?

Full disclosure: I am a total nerd that loves the liberal arts. Prepare yourself.

The other day, I was thinking about whether or not being religious is rational, and I thought of Pascal's Wager. Pascal's Wager is an argument for why believing in God is rational. Consider this: we don't actually know if there is a God out there, but we will find out when we die. When we die, and there is not a God, we would only bear a finite benefit or cost, depending on whether we spent our lives believing in God. On the other hand, if there is a God, the costs and benefits are much higher. If there is a God, and we believed that it was so, we have infinite benefit (Heaven); if we didn't believe in God, we have an infinite cost (Hell). The decision, then, to believe or not to believe in God, can be modeled by this decision matrix (adapted from Wikipedia):

	God Exists	God does not Exist
Belief	∞ benefit	finite cost
Disbelief	∞ cost	finite benefit

Pascal's Wager is similar to our discussion of the minimax regret voter theory. Here, instead of the choice of whether or not to vote, we have the choice of whether or not to believe. The biggest regret on this table is the infinite cost associated with disbelief when God exists. However, we have no idea whether or not God exists. Therefore, since disbelief can lead to the highest cost on this table, we should avoid it, Pascal argues, by instead believing. The similarities to the minimax regret voting theory are uncanny: we make choices with the purpose of avoiding the biggest regret instead of pursuing the highest benefit. In this case, making the decision to believe may also bestow the biggest benefit on this table, but since we don't know, it is best to avoid the biggest cost (or, regret). One major difference between believing in God and voting in this model is the probability associated with decision-making. The probability of casting a decisive vote is minimal (we used the number 1 in 10,000,000 in class), whereas here the probability of the existence of God 50%. The possibility of incurring the infinite cost is therefore much more likely than casting a decisive vote. Thus, it makes sense why people act to avoid this infinite cost. The minimax regret theory of voting can be extended to religion, and it can explain why some people practice religion. 

Disclaimer: This model is extremely simplified. It has many criticisms and makes some bold claims. I am not telling you to believe or not to believe in a certain religion. It is a thought experiment that I found very interesting and that is related to our course of study in Public Choice.