A group of atheists have been paying for ads on buses telling people that there might not be a God so stop worrying. Well, believing there is a God who cares for me is the very thing that keeps me from worrying. If I was them I’d worry about the possibility I might be wrong. After all, if they are right then I’ve lost nothing and they gained nothing. But if they are wrong then I’ve gained everything and they may have lost everything. It reminds me of how, on his death bed, Philip Brookes, who wrote the carol O Little Town of Bethlehem, asked his friend Robert Ingersoll – a noted unbeliever – to visit him. When Ingersoll asked the old bishop why he’d only invited him, Brookes replied: ‘You are the only one of my friends I won’t get to see again.’
When you gamble for big stakes it’s smart to keep your options open.