Pascal's Wager: Argument Designed to Encourage One to Believe in God

For those who don't know, Pascal's Wager is an argument designed to encourage one to believe in God. It makes no pretensions as a means of proving God exists. It is intended to persuade non-believers who simply are unsure to believe.

The wager is as follows: either God exists, or He does not. If He exists and you choose to believe in Him, you gain a Heavenly reward; if you choose not to believe in Him, you will be damned and you will lose everything. If He does not exist and you believe in Him, you lose nothing, while if you do not believe in Him you will lose nothing. So, the consequences of not believing in Him are either nothing or eternal damnation, and the consequences of believing in Him are either nothing or a Heavenly reward. Hence, it is more advantageous to believe in Him than not.

The normal reply to this by the religious is that God can recognize sincere belief over a belief arrived at by such shrewd calculation. So, the wager will fail, because she who believes in God simply because it has the best probability of a beneficial outcome will be damned anyway. The counter-reply to this is that Pascal's Wager serves as a means of establishing initial belief. Over time, this initial belief will become habitual and eventually will grow into a sincere belief.

For myself, I think I have met an individual to which the counter-reply is applicable. He was once an atheist, became a theist because of Pascal's Wager, and is now a devout Catholic.