Why You Should Believe Everything Always

Blaise Pascal was a Christian philosopher and mathematician who created something called Pascal's wager.  It was basically a way of coming to decisions when you have vague information.

You see, Pascal wanted all people to believe in God, even though he knew that the available information wasn't exactly compelling to all people.  To that end, he argued that even if you know God doesn't exist, you still have more to gain if you believe He does.

You have two options: you either believe in God, or you do not.  Whether or not you believe in Him, God either exists or He doesn't.  If he does and you believe in him, you get heaven. If you don't believe in Him and he does, then you get Hell.

But, if God does not exist, then there is no real punishment or reward for your beliefs, regardless of what you believe.

So, Hell is bad and you want to avoid it.  Heaven is good and you want to get it. The only way to have no possibility of hell and have the possibility of heaven is to believe in God.  So, everyone should believe in God. 

This type of reasoning is used not only to prove that you should believe in God, but also to prove that you should believe in... 

Global Warming

Here's another nifty chart.

If you believe global warming exists and make people behave in a way to prevent it, then you will either save everyone, or just lose a ton of money.  However, if you don't believe it, everyone dies or nothing happens.

So, since losing money is bad, but everything dying is worse, it's probably a good idea to believe in global warming, as it doesn't have the possibility of everything dying forever.

Finally...

Unicorns!

Yup, unicorns.  Let us turn to the chart:

You see, the only way you can have a life of rainbows, joy and magic is if you believe in unicorns.  If you don't believe, then your only options are causing Fluttershy to cry or to have nothing happen.  By the way, if you make Fluttershy cry, legions of 20-40 year old men will rise up and harm you. No, seriously

However, if you believe in unicorns, you will have a dang awesome life or you will have a party-less life.  

The only choice you can make that will give you the possibility of this rainbow-riffic life while also preventing you from having the possibility of getting harmed by rabid fans would be to believe. So, you should believe in unicorns, too.

Conclusion!

So, there you have it: a reason why you should believe in God, global warming, and unicorns.  Remember, this form of arguing is very common and psychologically convincing, so feel free to manipulate others to believing  whatever the heck you want them to believe.  I've already worked out some charts that prove you should believe that zombies exist, chain letters are always true, and murdering your family will cure cancer. 

Remember, as long as it's possible that something awesome will happen, and impossible that a specific bad thing can't happen, the argument seems good.  It doesn't matter how likely it is.  After all, Pascal wanted this argument to be used when you didn't know the probabilities of things, but wanted to act anyway.

See also: Appeal to Consequences