Pascal’s Derivative Market

Most of you would have heard of Pascal’s Wager, a flawed ‘pragmatic’ argument for belief in God and his son Jesus. I have developed an improved model of the Wager, which rids it of its morally questionable basis (the ‘laying a bet as a basis for faith’ problem) and which also deals with the problem that there are many mutually exclusive gods who you’ll need to ‘bet’ on (eg a bet on Allah would be no good if Yahweh is the One; conversely, a bet on Jesus would be no good if Ahura-Mazda offers eternal reward).

I call it, ‘Pascal’s Derivative Market’^TM. Rather than making a bet on one god, who might turn out to be a foul demon and thereby cause you eternal wrath, why not hedge your bets? Of course, I say ‘hedge your bets’ in a metaphorical way. As everybody knows, the Free Market is not a bet in which some people win and some people lose, but the mechanism by which the Invisible Hand allocates resources fairly to all, so that everyone’s a winner. The Free Market in fact transcends morality and ethical considerations.

I will soon be setting up a Pascal’s Derivative Market^TM for Spiritual Investors^TM. For payment of a small joining fee*, Spiritual Investors^TM can buy a put option and sell a call option for each deity offering eternal rewards. In effect, you are selling short the whole pantheon of eternal-reward-offering deities. The beauty of the deal is that the terms of the options include the right, on death, to abandon all faiths which turn out not to be offering eternal salvation, retaining sole shareholding in the One True Faith^TM, whatever that turns out to be. The superiority of Pascal’s Derivative Market^TM to Pascal’s Wager should be obvious.

The N. T. Wrong Blog will be publishing a Prospectus for Pascal’s Derivative Market^TM in the near future. Invest wisely — your eternal salvation is at stake.

* US$100,000

n.b. For those of you interested in investment in Pascal’s Derivative Market^TM, but unable to afford the joining fee, you will be pleased to know that we are also beginning a finance company, Sub-Prime Mover Mortgages^TM, to assist with securing your eternal salvation. Here at Pascal’s Derivative Market^TM, we believe that salvation should be available for everyone!